FarmerN

We put an ACO drain channel in along wall in a similar situation, seems ok so far.

+1 Harder to get the window reveals right with wet paster. We did wet plaster and I am happy with it,it was on top of dence blocks not thermalite. The plasterer was incredibly slow and some of the reveals were hard to get right as too thick a layer of plaster was required.

Thanks for reminder, just sent mine off.

Can you lift a stained block out to experiment on? Try different things. Brick acid, very strong hypochlorite /washing up liquid mix, different solvents ? Apply and leave to soak rather than scrub. Care needed ! Don’t mix chemicals! Good Luck.

Are you suggesting no inlet ducts to the bedrooms or have I misunderstood?

I can’t help on fitting Panels on old roof , but we had a 1890 roof retiled a few years back, no felt etc . It was bone dry in the attic and very well ventilated ! Roof only lasted 120 years! Timbers all very sound, the bit that was failing were the batten nails. You could see the odd bit where whole battens were sliding. This would be my worry with putting panels on an old roof. Just built a new house, the bit that annoyed me about the new roof was the battens were nailed on with a nail gun, OK they were galvanized nails , but the nails were so thin and the coating very thin compared to hammer driven roofing nails. I think they will slip a lot sooner than the roof, on the old house. They used Copper nails for the slate but that seemed almost pointless as it will be the batten nails that fail.

I cannot get my head around Discharge of Planning Conditions. Do all Conditions Require formal Discharge by the council? We have had written approval now for Pre commencement conditions and others requiring the councils written approval. ( Four conditions) What about the remaining nine conditions, do I need to do anything, submit an application to Discharge or not? The only reason to worry is in case we need to sell. We have no intention of selling but at 73 you never know what the future holds. The conditions of the PP I’m not clear about are briefly- Commence within three years. Build in total accordance with plans. Use materials specified in plans. No work in summer without a nesting bird survey. Provision of bat roost and boxes. Provision of EV charge point. Provision of protective fencing during construction. Notification of any contamination found. Testing of any imported soil. We have now fully completed the build and been living here for a full year, though the builder still has to complete paper work to sign off with building control and complete hand over to us. I’m satisfied that we have fulfilled all the conditions, but do we need a formal Discharge from the Council, or is it just assumed as done. Full wording of conditions not discharged - 1. The development hereby approved shall commence within three years of the date of this permission 2. The development hereby approved shall be carried out in total accordance with the approved plans; 3. The materials to be used shall be in strict accordance with those specified in the application unless different materials are first agreed in writing with the Local Planning Authority. Development shall be carried out in accordance with the approved details 4. No removal of any vegetation or the demolition or conversion of buildings shall take place between 1st March and 31st August in any year, unless a detailed survey has been carried out to check for nesting birds. Where nests are found in any building, hedgerow, tree or scrub or other habitat to be removed (or converted or demolished in the case of buildings), a 4m exclusion zone shall be left around the nest until breeding is complete. Completion of nesting shall be confirmed by a suitably qualified person and a report submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority before any further works within the exclusion zone taking place 5. The proposed development to proceed in accordance with the recommendation made by section 3.2 of the submitted Mitigation and Enhancement Measures Statement (Amenity Tree Care, 08/09/2020) unless varied by a European Protected Species licence subsequently issued by Natural England. Agreed features for roosting bats shall be permanently installed in accordance with the approved details. 6. Prior to first occupation of the dwelling hereby approved, one electric vehicle charging point shall be provided to that dwelling, made available for use and maintained and retained thereafter to the following specification; • A single Mode 3 compliant Electric Vehicle Charging Point for the property with off road parking. The charging point shall be independently wired to a 30A spur to enable minimum 7kW Fast charging or the best available given the electrical infrastructure. • Should the infrastructure not be available, written confirmation of such from the electrical supplier shall be submitted to this office prior to discharge. • Where there is insufficient infrastructure, Mode 2 compliant charging may be deemed acceptable subject to the previous being submitted 7. (a) No development or other operations shall take place except in complete accordance with the tree protection measures and methodology identified in the Arboricultural Impact Assessment and Method Statement report and associated Tree protection plan dated July 2020 with measures to be implemented under Arboricultural supervision in accordance with BS 5837:2012 Trees in relation to design, demolition and construction. – Recommendations. (b) No operations shall be undertaken on site in connection with the development hereby approved (including any tree felling, tree pruning, demolition works, soil moving, temporary access construction and / or widening or any operations involving the use of motorised vehicles or construction machinery) until the protection works required by the approved protection scheme are in place. (c) No excavations for services, storage of materials or machinery, parking of vehicles, deposit or excavation of soil or rubble, lighting of fires or disposal of liquids shall take place within any area designated as being fenced off or otherwise protected in the approved protection scheme. 8. If, during the course of development, contamination not previously identified is found to be present, no further works shall be undertaken in the affected area and the contamination shall be reported to the Local Planning Authority as soon as reasonably practicable (but within a maximum of 5 days from the find). Prior to further works being carried out in the identified area, a further assessment shall be made and appropriate remediation implemented in accordance with a scheme also agreed in writing by the Local Planning Authority. 9. (a) Any soil or soil forming materials to be brought to site for use in garden areas or soft landscaping shall be tested for contamination and suitability for use prior to importation to site. (b) Prior to occupation, evidence and verification information (for example, laboratory certificates) shall be submitted to, and approved in writing by, the LPA.

Is the "plot" clearly defined in the PP application, is the existing house within the "plot" ?

I spoke to our DNO ( SP Energy Networks) when planning our new build about 4-5 years ago. They assured me there was no need for an external box so long as meter was within one meter of external wall, so ours is in the plant room. The idea of an outside box that anyone could tamper with did not appeal, to say nothing of appearance. Had a builders box outside during build, the duct to the plant room ran back to near that and then an undergrond connection was made ther to connect the new house. I had expected the DNO to run a new cable all the way to the pole useing the ducts already in place, just connecting the duct to the builders box with the plant room duct, but no, they used the cable already to box and made an underground connection. One more point to fail ?

We laid our Indian sandstone last spring, supplied by Westminster Stone. They were indifferent about sealing, but as I wanted to seal supplied “Mattstone H2O Seal 2” We only did part last summer , it still went a bit green over winter but not as bad a unsealed part. The downside to sealing was it was like a waxed car, great droplets of water collecting on the surface, the unsealed part dried out much , much faster after rain. Both areas needed a good clean this spring. Wesminster Stone recommended not using a power hose to clean it with saying this would make the surface more open by washing bits out. Suggested that we should wash when needed with proper cleaner, ( which of course they sell !) I used dilute acid , a brick cleaner, first and after rinsing, washed again with a soap bleach mix . I’m sure domestos or similar would be fine, but I used agricultural Sodium Hypochlorite mixed with fairy liquid, mixed at about 750ml Hypo +250 ml fairy to a bucket of water. Use with care splashes will sting and bleach clothes. Brush over, leave to soak and wash off with hose. Worked well for me all green washed off. Think the bleach is the important bit. Do Not mix the bleach with the acid !

Check local records, local knoledge that your water quality will be OK. I spent a lot drilling a borehole, good water supply at 50 M but it was so sulphurous it was not fit to use and treatment costs prohibitive. If you left the water in a bottle over night it stank of rotten eggs next morning. I should have guessed the water was 'special' as there used to historic health spa next door!

Our brick and block walls went up 4 years ago , 125 cavity with 115mm Kooltherm. The builders did try hard but it’s impossible to keep it flat against the blocks, no matter how well laid they are. You therefore end up with a chimney effect and therefore thermal bridging, who knows what the actuall u value is, problably 20% - 40% below the calculated value. Equally impossible to maintain the 10mm residual cavity. The builders turned up with some cheap tape for the PIR boards, I insisted on Kingspan’s recommended tape , cost , in excess of £1000.00 ! for a 210msq bungalow. The floor on the drawing was also Kooltherm, we just changed to a much cheaper PIR and put 180mm in , deeper than the planned Kooltherm but still cheaper. As we are beam and block foundations it was easy to adjust the drawings to accommodate this.

Start here? https://www.allbrickandstone.com/brick-library/ 1000+ bricks to look at. Find the best match on line, get a sample and compare. When you come to build , matching the mortar will also have a big impact.

Hi Thats exactly what we did. Do you already have Planning Permision, or have you submitted plans? Good Luck.

Cherry trees do have a habit of suddenly dying, normal life span is 10-30 years I think. Wet roots is a common problem. Did yours die during this last wet winter ??!!