jack

Good. She has a job that presumably requires her to know the basics of the relevant laws and procedures. If she can't be bothered to learn those she should be sacked.

Nothing can happen unless they put their position in writing. Until then, it's just some idiot trying to take advantage of you on the phone. Personally I'd wait until she sends the promised email. If she doesn't, that's the end of it. If she does, then you have something specific to respond to. If you feel like you need to do something, Ferdinand has the right idea.

Stupid and irrelevant analogy. Her house is a dwelling and presumably she's living and and using the extension. Your house is not a dwelling and literally cannot be lived in. That's pretty funny. Isn't the valuation office literally the only body with the right to remove it? One possible way of proceeding: Make sure you've cancelled any direct debits you might have had in relation to council tax. Get them to put their position in writing. Pretty sure someone calling from the council isn't sufficient - insist that they put their legal position in writing, because as far as we can tell, it's bollocks. Since they can't take money from you, they'll have to start legal proceedings. They aren't going to do that without being sure of their legal position. Maybe contact the officer at the VOA and see whether they have any advice? What's your local paper like? They often like a human interest story like this.

Bloody jobsworths. How can they charge you council tax on an unbanded property? Did you tell them that the Valuation Office has recently removed your property from the council tax valuation list and that you have a letter proving this?

Welcome to the forum. Structural engineering seems to many to be a dark art, even down to the remarkable variations in prices that people are quoted for the same job! Looking forward to your contributions (which I see you've already made a start on).

They don't. Most are designed solely to work with showers.

At least one of the sellers of these units suggests that they're the cheapest way of getting some extra EPC points.

That said, the shower water in the drain is at ambient pressure, while the water in the incoming cold water pipework is at 3 bar. I'd like to see faecal coliforms swim against a leak outputting water under 3 bar pressure!

We feed the drains of two showers into our system. Our family situation means that we frequently have two showers in a row in the same shower. I think this tends to maximise the efficiency of the system. We have a 250L UVC that's heated by an ASHP to 55 degrees (we also used to boost the top quarter of the tank with an immersion heater but in the end stopped doing that). We've never run out of hot water, even when four of us have showered in quick succession My thinking was that in a low energy house, DHW becomes a dominant user of energy. Showers are the most significant user of hot water, so it makes sense to reduce that if you can. Even if the maths didn't show a quick payback, I still think that a decent reduction in energy usage is a nice-to-have. As for complexity, there was a little bit of extra plumbing, but other than that it's pretty much set and forget. I suppose I should check whether it needs cleaning internally every now and again, but I haven't managed to get around to it yet.

Actually, I think he'll need to start again well before he's finished!

Exactly my understanding too. That's what we did. We said "Well, we're 50:50 on whether we'll knock down or extend. We're just after an in-principle idea of what sort of thing, generally, might be allowed as a result". The planning officer eventually - and begrudgingly - agreed to give us the informal chat we'd booked. She then went on the say "I hope you're not planning anything from Grand Designs. We hate Grand Designs around here". I was in the process of pulling an issue of Grand Designs magazine out of my bag to show her, so quickly changing to a self-build magazine that had some more conventional examples. She also boasted that they'd fought several applications for Huf houses and had successfully knocked back all of them except two. Both of the Huf houses I know were built are out of sight of the road - I can't possibly see what basis there is for arguing against modernity on principle, especially when no-one other than a visitor to the property can actually see the house. In the end, we got something very modern (eg, flat roof) through, so it can be done. Short answer is likely "no". You can't pay householder fees on anything involving a new build, whether a replacement dwelling or a new build on a vacant plot.

We had this issue when we approached our local planning department for some informal advice about knocking down our bungalow and rebuilding. The moment they heard we were considering knocking down, we were refused an informal discussion (which are advertised as being available for householders) and were instead told to pay the fee for pre-planning advice for non-householders. From memory, if you're building a new house on a vacant plot, or knocking down a house to rebuild, you can't be a householder. By definition, you're a developer, even if you owned and lived in a house that is to be knocked down and rebuilt. I don't know what the definition is if you're just doing an extension.

Similar here. 289m2 house, four occupants (and a doggo), and we run the MVHR at 80m3 per hour. In fact, we ran it at 50m3 per hour for the first year we were here and have never had any issues with moisture or air freshness. I think the critical thing is that the air is being refreshed continuously, even when we're out, or there's only one or two of us at home. There's no boost when people are having showers, and steam clears away very quickly. The only time I turn it up is if we're going to cook something smelly or we have a lot of people over and need more fresh air.

One thing you might find handy is suitably sized grommets: https://www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk/products/pro-clima-roflex-pipe-grommet/ Much neater than strips of airtightness tape, and less likely to fail over time imo.

Really useful summary, thanks so much for posting it. One minor point: isn't the Brink (we have the Excellent 400) meant to be self-balancing? I don't know what period it achieves this over, but 100m3 seems a massive difference between supply and extract. I wonder whether that's after it's done its best to self-balance? When I did a preliminary check on ours, most terminal flow rates were within 10% of the design. Most were slightly under, so I just bumped up the overall rate and that got me there (other than the utility room, with an extract about a metre from the manifold - was overextracting by 20% or so, which I fixed by adjusting the terminal).

We sweep ours with a wide microfibre brush. Doesn't take long. Other than that, we just do an occasional mop (probably not as often as we should, if I'm honest). Seems to work fine.

I bought a Miele washing machine last year (similar deal - on special, with cashback and free 1 yr detergent, plus 5 year warranty). It arrived with literally no screws holding the rear panel on! From my subsequent conversations with the retailer to get it replaced, they are indeed delivered direct from Miele.

I think the thing with Miele is that their stuff works better, and in general for much longer, than that of other manufacturers. It's when thing go bad that they seem to fall apart. I beggars belief that a company can sell such a premium product and yet apparently be so bad at customer service.

We have polished concrete over a structural slab. We had to go for 65mm rather than the 75mm minimum suggested, and have ended up with a couple of cracks. I haven't tried filling them yet, but they aren't the end of the world. A few things: As I said, the minimum is 75mm - thicker is recommended. That's a lot of concrete if you already have a structural slab underneath, but hey, concrete looks cool! The polishers can only get so close to walls. We did ours before plaster and skirting boards. Even so, there's a clear region along every wall that was polished by hand tools rather than the big grinders, and this does look different, and in a few places is slightly undulating. If you're happy with this (we are - we think it adds character), it isn't an issue. If you aren't happy with a different-looking edge, then the pouring and polishing needs to be done before the frame goes up. That allows the whole surface to be polished, so you get edge to edge consistency. You then have the not-insignificant problem of protecting the floor for the rest of the build, including while the frame goes up. Whether you get polished concrete before or after the frame goes up, you will be protecting it for a long time. We used Correx throughout the ground floor. Even though we taped it at every edge, we can still see dark lines in some areas where the joins were, two years after moving in. Also, dirt and dust finds its way in, and can cause scratches. Polished concrete companies get their concrete from local suppliers. In our case, we wanted to see a small amount of exposed aggregate visible after polishing. We really didn't want black/dark aggregate, but the company couldn't/wouldn't make any guarantees about aggregate colour. Was fine in the end, but a risk, albeit slight (I've never seen black aggregate anywhere near where I live. We have numerous sand and gravel pits nearby and they all have light stone). Concrete can be tinted to whatever colour you like. We wanted something a little darker than one of the standard tints and the company was happy to come up with something custom. Again, it was to our risk whether we were happy with the colour when it was down - if the concrete had been yellower, for example, that would have changed the colour in a slightly browner direction, but in the end we got a nice warm dark grey along the lines we were expecting. Concrete is easy to keep clean, but even with a sealer it can stain. My wife accidentally left a bin bag on the floor overnight once, and some sort of fluid leaked out. We now have a large, permanent dark stain in the kitchen that's a bit unpleasant. I personally wouldn't have concrete in a kitchen again under any circumstances. Would I go for concrete again? Not sure. I suspect that large-format tiles are a hardier long-term solution, but let's face it, they aren't polished concrete! If I had my time again, I think I'd perhaps tile the kitchen and have concrete everywhere else. One thing I really like is how it feels underfoot in summer. Winter... less so, especially when the ASHP is on the fritz so the slab is unheated!

We just don't have the solar gain unfortunately. The one one decent window on the south side is shaded by a large tree most of the morning. Still pretty warm, and very comfortable, with not much energy, which is the main thing.

Concrete can develop fine surface cracks depending on various factors during curing. They don't affect strength, as I understand it. Whether this is what you have I don't know, sorry. Definitely one for the supplier

Bugger, what an inconvenience.

I did the same! As for living in a passivhaus-level house (in terms of insulation and airtightness, although some of our windows need adjusting at the moment), we're still waiting to get our ASHP fixed. As such, our sole source of heating for the entire winter so far has been a single 2kW electric column heater in the kitchen, with a small fan on it blowing the heat around. Mostly I've had it on the medium setting, but turned it on full for the colder weather recently. It isn't on all the time, and I usually have the thermostat set at 4 out of 6. We've been perfectly comfortable (my wife would say it's too cold, but she always thinks it's too cold). At the moment, it's -3 outside. I'm sitting here with a hoodie on, in a room at the other end of the house from the heater, and the temperature is very pleasant. The bedrooms are somewhat cooler, as usual. The bathrooms could do with being 2 or 3 degrees warmer, but they're still warmer than in any house I've ever rented. I am having to wear thick socks, because the unheated slab is very cool (we have polished concrete throughout our ground floor - not the warmest option in this situation!) Incidentally, I just received my electricity bill for the last quarter and it isn't much more than for the same period last year. That really surprised me.

Feel free to post your detailed construction drawings in the relevant subforum and you may get some useful feedback, even just along the lines of particular areas you should be watching the timberframe company.

Check your building inspector doesn't want more. There's some official-ish document around that suggests 10mm if I remember correctly. It's based on the width of a small imperial door and anticipated flow rates - something like that. Edited to add: Knew I should have searched before posting. Here it is: http://www.titon.co.uk/pages/knowledge-support/building-regulations/part-f-ventilation-england-wales.php