FarmerN

No mention of thermal bridging in this discussion of blocks Is it important , especially through foundations? Should different blocks be used in foundations? Our build was all masonry construction , and due to ground conditions ended up with a beam and block construction. This meant all masonry walls were thermal bridges, more so than on ordinary foundations. I keep meaning to get a thermal imaging camera to see just how bad it is, and compare internal to external walls.

On our new build we contacted Openreach or might have been BT, and they provided Grey Ducting 50 mm , an external manhole and cable etc FOC I think. We did all the work and dug it in back to pole. Left a rope in when we pulled cable through in case Fiber came past. This is all about 3-4 years ago. My memory may not be correct or things may have change

Surely depends on what you want to do with the land after, parking, patio, flower borders or what. Does it need drainage under before you fill, does the surface water get away OK after fill ? Recycled aggregate of some sort, from crushed brick , to sand?

If position of SVP near velux is an issue , is chimney also an issue?

We are in a bungalow so not comparable. I would recommend electric towel rails on a timer . Ours are on 3 hours a day, at cheap rate, hour and a half morning and night. Towels always dry. Our towel rails have timer built in to element , but wish we had put the timer in the wiring circuit, probably back in plant room. We have wet UFH which is on 9 months of the year but we have 90mm screed and tiles, with a different, warmer surface, might not need it. The floor and stone effect shower tray do dry quickly after a shower. Not had any heat on in bedrooms through the two winters we have been here. We put a high level wire connection to take an infrared heater or similar if required but not needed it yet, but its there for when I am 90 if needed. Both our neighbours in new builds, both with heat pumps and MVHR, talk about over heating far more than heating, but both have a lot of glass. Overheating not been an issue for us but we have a lot less glass, and high level Velux windows we can leave open at night when warm.

If you have a suitable outlet pipe or ditch put a land drain or two in before any fill, to take as much water away as possible during and after build. We were lucky having a suitable ditch along side site to drain into. We put two land drains in just beneath surface, covered with membrane then permeable stone ( screened crushed concrete) If lorries are running on this go for as deep as possible, and if possible constantly fill any soft spots where traffic causes ruts. At the end of the build the surface of this was loosened, stone recovered from around site, as much as possible, while leaving land drains in place, and all used to create a permeable drive way and rear patio area. Again we were lucky in being able to build site up a bit whilst having good fall for final surface drainage, and sufficient depth for services to go above land drains.

Our builder used a Pre mixed mortar delivered in large tubs , inhibiter in it so it was workable for 5-7 days depending on weather. A range of colours was provided in 20 Liter sample buckets , which were used to build small Sample sections of wall of about 20 bricks each. It was revealing how much difference colour and type of pointing made to the appearance of the bricks. I was very sceptical of long life pre mixed mortar before use but 3 years on seems fine. Biggest problem is when a very small quantity is needed at the later stages of build to tidy up a bit of brick work as I think it was a minimum delivery of 1 Cu M. I think builder used a couple of sample bucket for final tidy up. Colour of deliveries was very consistent, but hard to match with hand mixing on site.

All the smarter Pubs and restaurants seem to have wood flooring and seem to stand the spills they get. I guess it depends if you want the immaculate look, or rustic used look?

Just make sure you have an internal pipe insert for the compresion fitting.

Looks like black alkathene pipe ( MDPE),to me, but dont recognise the fitting. If it is, any blue MDPE pipe fitting with addapter to black should work.

More or less retired , hence the new build. Yes , I am aware. Particularly important for potatoes where ridge and furrow is in place for a season. Most , but not all, ploughed fields are worked down soon after ploughing to create a seed bed , so then not an issue. Re 5% runoff, all land I have had anything to do with, has land drains in, many going back 100 years or more so there will always have been drainage of rainfall, attenuated by the water holding ability of soil. Drainage pretty fast once soil has reach field capacity in winter. Once at full capacity, rain will run off , it has nowhere else to go. Most historic drains are 11 yards apart in my part of the world, so once you have found one you can normal find more. The problem in many areas appears to be there is only one drainage system, so clean and foul get mixed. I can’t believe any one putting a treatment plant in would put roof water into it, so why put clean water into sewers on any new build?

Does that not just increase the load on the sewage system , that can’t even cope with current load, especially in very wet weather? I never had to face these questions ,being in a rural area with plenty of land to soakaway too. I suppose I’m lucky and so have a different perspective. We were however required to have a permeable drive way , which we did, with a good sub base of clean stone to allow water to soak through to the sub soil. Again lucky in having plenty of space to loose soil we had to dig out, rather that pay to have it taken away.

I feel for you. By “Q planning for 2 two bedroom semi’s” I presume this means Class Q permitted development and that you have an existing structure you have to work within, or have I misunderstood. If Class Q ,is it still true that you have a fixed time scale of 3 years from approval to work with? Take note of the CIL warnings already given. Good luck.

Concrete tiles far worse than clay tiles for moss in my experiece.

We bought Rationel windows from John Knight Glass on the Wirral , they supplied and fitted. I think they did a really good job, we did specify fitting to Passive standards when ordering. Windows and Patio door been in two years now and still pleased.