Bancroft

Have a look at the 'Registering a Site with Openreach' thread that I've just put up. Might find some answers there. Note that if an existing system belongs to someone else (eg Virgin Media) my Openreach guy said they wouldn't touch it so beware of falling between two stones.

Thought my experience with Openreach recently might be of use to others who are signing up for a new account and fibre to their new build. Bit of a long post but could be useful. Registering your site. There is no menu system for “individual building own home”. You have to pretend you’re a full-blown developer. Live with it. But, when filling out the details take particular care over the following: • They will require quite a few specific plans of your intended build and site. Keep these as simple as possible. They couldn’t get their heads around the fact that our planning permission only covered part of our overall land. Instead of calling to ask for clarification they just rejected the registration. • Don’t try to use the new name for your property as it probably won’t come up in their database. Use the existing address details if at all possible. • When filling out your name and signature, make sure you use exactly the same details. One of my failed registration attempts was because I put my full first name in the Developer’s Name box but then just put my initial in the signature box. The registration was rejected because they were different… • When you’re asked who you’re ‘signing on behalf of…’ use the same name that you put at the top of the form. Another registration failure I had was because the Openreach form somehow incorrectly picked up the wrong data field and created a developer called ‘On behalf of Developer’. (I’d inputted ‘on behalf of developer’ at the direct request of the Openreach assistant who was filling out the form with me, line by line over the phone, but it was still rejected). • When putting your address in, check and double check. My fourth attempt at registering our site was rejected because I apparently kept putting my own address in incorrectly. The Openreach assistant eventually told me that I had put in our village name rather than the large main town under which our postcode lies so their system rejected the application. • Be aware that they probably won’t tell you your application has been rejected. It will simply say ‘delayed’ on their website, with no amplifying reasons. Use the online contact system to ask why it has been delayed. • When talking with Openreach assistants during this phase be aware that they are simply human forms of ‘computer says no’. They have no autonomy or ability to think for themselves. Once registered When you do finally get registered, they will send you an email telling you how much it’s going to cost you. On ours it said: Just a heads up—according to your Building Regulations, you only need to go for Full Fibre if we can hook you up with an offer under the £2000 cap. Unfortunately, we couldn't do that this time around, but we can still get you Full Fibre for £ 11,278 + VAT. No other explanation of the cost was given – no breakdown of costs, no indication of what work was/was not included. Nothing. The only way to get any more information is to sign the contract. Further down the email they do explain that after signing the contract they will allocate a Field Based Co-ordinator. You will then be able to talk directly to them and have a sensible conversation. You then have 30 days to pay the bill. If you don’t pay, then they will just void the contract. This is a stupid way to go about business but we’re talking Openreach here, so… Talking to a human on site Having gone through that process (nearly 2 weeks in total) and signed the contract I finally got to talk to our FBC today. Absolutely brilliant. He agreed their systems are stupid, took a very pragmatic view about what we were doing and how we’re doing it, and even gave some great advice for how we can make our installation even better. He’s now gone away to find the real cost of what we will have to pay. Wider considerations If you do all this early enough, Openreach will provide you with any ducting you need. The ducting needs to be grey, rigid polypipe, 96mm for the main run, dropping to 54mm for the final connection. Openreach have guidance on their system about this and how to lay it if doing your own. We bought our own simply because I hadn’t registered with them early enough (despite my best efforts) and we want to put the ducting in a trench that’s being filled in tomorrow. Hopefully, things will get easier now that I have a local FBC to talk to. I will update you if anything useful is learnt. Overall thoughts I’ve had similar experiences with Openreach/BT in the past – you need to go through hell on the phone/online but, when an engineer turns up they’re really helpful. Just hang in there while you go through your apprenticeship phase.

To be fair, I think he said it as a way which he thought was showing he was open and flexible, ie 'I don't mind how you contact me'. That was fine but didn't help me in my quest to find a best way of working. We are going to have weekly catch ups, starting tomorrow. This idea is really a way to be able to capture all those bits in between in order to give him a heads up. That way, when he arrives at the weekly catch up he isn't met with a barrage of questions/queries and, hopefully, will already have had time to consider what needs to be done/how to answer the questions.

Agree, which is why I'm looking for a more passive/structured system that he can look at when it suits him rather than be bothered at random times during the day. This should be possible once his other project(s) start to wind down and he is on site here more often. One other thing I'm looking at is Trello. It looks like it does all I think we need and, after another discussion with the builder, he seems willing to look at other options.

Already emailing and WhatsApping and that works ok but still seems clunky. Email is fine but doesn't tend to get looked at much while on his phone on site during the day. WhatsApp gets seen more often but isn't really conducive to longer messages (in my mind). And with both, although they record everything, you end up scrolling back and forth trying to piece together the invariable mosaic of information. I'm trying to find a system that will keep all information on each topic in the same place, that we can both add to, and that we can also highlight red/amber/green status and when things have been closed off. Yes, it's finding the sweet spot between ease of use and usefulness for the task. A whiteboard would be fine but doesn't work if he's away at another site for a few days. similarly, I've thought about a diary/logbook of some sort but that would mean the builder finding a pen and sitting down to write stuff! I did. His response was 'whatever' which was far from helpful!

We're using a main contractor to do the slab, ICF and roof skeleton of our build. Like many builders he's spread across a few sites at any one time and, Sod's Law, is usually away when something comes to mind that I want to speak to him about. At the moment I'm just noting them down then ambushing him the next time we talk. But I'd like to formalise this a little. Ideally, I'd like to be able to make notes/ask questions and put them into a 'system' that he can see. We can then either discuss them next time we're face to face, or he can answer on the system. By doing that, he will have a heads up of the questions rather than me ambushing him and it will also start to create a history/timeline. Any thoughts on what might be the best system to use? It needs to be a simple system we can both read/write to, ideally not complex to set up, and easy to use for the IT challenged.

I put this question to a UFH guy as it said glycol was needed. He said that they recommend glycol only for the initial fill while the property is being built. This is in case there is a prolonged cold spell before the system has been comissioned. He then said that once the system is ready for commissioning, the glycol should be drained out and water put in. Would be nice if they actually explained that in their information.

How are you supposed to get upstairs? Might be re-defining the term 'botched'!

The Iranian Navy isn't/wasn't a key player. IRGC fast attack craft and mining are. Some estimates have up to 3000 FACs/Speedboats in the Iranian orbat. Just takes a lucky RPG and a tanker is in a world of hurt (and Lloyds make others uninsurable). And I would be very surprised if Iran hasn't been building up mine stocks as that is, potentially, their key weapon in the shipping war. Dhows, fishing boats, FACs can all be used to lay nuisance minefields and the US can do little to stop it. Interestingly, heard on the news this morning that the majority of the very few ships still transiting the Straits are Chinese-owned. Clearly sailing without Lloyds insurance. Soon, the world could be buying our oil stocks from China...

Good that you seem to have a solution for this. Thinking creatively, I wonder if anyone has gone as far as building their own fire hydrant system? Would just need a hose connector at each end and a 4" pipe in between. Fire engine plugs in one end and fire fighter plugs a hose in the other. Granted there would be some cost but probably cheaper in most instances than a sprinkler system.

So how does this work if you have planning conditions that you are required to complete 'before commencement'? For example, one of our 'pre-commencement' conditions was that we had to put protective fencing around a tree root area. So, Heras fencing went up after planning had been granted but months before commencing the build as there were other pre-commencement conditions we had to achieve. You may be right though as I'm applying logic to a joint planning department/HMRC scenario...🤦‍♂️

When Trump visited the UK last year and said a great deal had been done with the UK for AI, what he was really saying was he wants the UK to pay to build new power stations to generate power to supply to US-owned AI projects. Thankfully, I believe that is just another of his 'deals' that has turned to nothing. But, the power requirements for AI are still under the radar and few people have really clued into it - especially government. Similarly, government are lauding AI but not thinking about how increased unemployment will reduce income tax and NI contributions as AI expands, leading to a tax/spending gap. We live in a disconnected world...

If your patio/back garden is big enough, how about an earth tunnel? I was quite keen on trying to incorporate one into our new build but the architect just went into tilt mode whenever I tried to bring the subject up. Just wasn't on his radar so didn't exist in his mind.

Thanks for that. Were the outflow/return pipes from the ASHP individually insulated within the larger black pipe? Does it impact performance with them being so close together?

@Nickfromwales - can I ask why some of the pipes shown in your first photo above have been clad in additional insulation? Was it just to stop rubbing/interference before entering the manifold, or was it for other reasons?