Mr Punter

I am really sorry to hear this. Sadly it is not that unusual, especially if they are paid up in full. With insurance, all your contractors should have their own but you also need self build policy. Others will suggest the best value. Is it possible to contact the sparky and see if he will come back to work for you? Don't bother if he is a pain though! Hopefully the house is fairly weathertight?

No reason you should not get consent for a new connection for 1 property.

You need to apply to the Sewerage Undertaker - often the water company. They will do an assessment on capacity. You will need to do similar for all services for their infrastructure capacity if you are proposing 20 units.

Where we are there is a lower connection fee but I think they have increased the infrastructure charges. I have never know them to inspect a connection but have once been asked for photos when we made a late change to our proposal. There is nothing stopping you installing a new chamber but you will probably need the consent of the sewerage undertaker. If you are connecting a property that was not previously connected you will need to fill in the form and pay the connection and infrastructure fees. The wastewater charges are often on your water bill.

I think they charge about £250 for sewer connection fees.

I looked at the Fairshare website. It assumes that I will move to a house of equal value and pay SDLT at the current rate every 20 years and uses this to claim that an annual increase in property tax of £1450 per year is in fact a 'saving' of £292.

This is a transfer of wealth from rich to poor. It would kill affluent areas and benefit poor areas. It will bear no relation to the funding of local services. It is not a terrible idea but I think a halfway house would be more acceptable. Also, I am not sure how they arrived at 0.48% as I think it may need to be nearer to 0.6% to be revenue neutral.

Over half our housing stock is flats. A quarter is terraced houses. Most of it is existing. How the hell will the heat pumps work out?

If there is room for a crane or telehandler, timber frame will get you in the dry quicker. I have done timber frame over a concrete (ICF) basement. We used timber joists for the ground floor structure. You will need to work out where your insulation is going and carefully plan the junction between the 2 systems. Make sure the join between them is at least 150mm above ground level.

From my understanding, trivial alterations would be a 'non-material amendment', more major changes, but not increasing impact on neighbours etc would be a 'minor material amendment' and would seek to vary the condition referring to the drawings in the original application. 'Material amendments' include changes that would affect neighbours and this would will need a new application.

So the short answer is you will not benefit much with MVHR as it will not be able to compensate for the uncontrolled air losses through the open chimneys but feel free to have it anyway. Agreed that you will struggle to get Building Regs to pass an open fire. Not sure if the convector box ones would let you scrape through? I think they are a bit more efficient than a straight open fire. If you have a fair bit of land you may want to consider mounting the PV panels on an outbuilding or at ground level as you may need quite a few.

You will need your own plans. These could be cheaper if you want them based on what the neighbour has done. Maybe have a chat with them and find out who did the design and the construction?

That did cross my mind. Could be a Teutonic thing.

The dropped kerbs you could do by way of phot and covering letter to highways. I have done a traffic management plan. Below are the headings. Try and cover them all. This one was quite detailed but for a simple project could be brief. Site address Planning ref Description of works Contact info Permitted routes for deliveries (overlaid on map with weight restrictions etc) Construction traffic hours Site access Abnormal loads / unloading by crane Highway damage prevention Vehicle scheduling (table showing number of vehicles at different stages) Other highway users Travel to work / contractor parking.

Are those for some kind of basin? Got a picture of it all finished? Be nice to see an "After" photo on this thread!

It is quite difficult to see because of the split levels, but I would not want to bring the pipe back into the building if avoidable.

How did the airtightness test go? If an improvement would make a difference you could go round with some tape and do a retest? Extractors, boiler flues, trickle vents?

I would use Weber LAC with sheets of fibre mesh embedded. 3mm thick and can be rubbed up to a sanded finish. Don't get it on your clothes it will not come off!

Agree with @Ferdinand regarding the need to consult an expert. Please report back and good luck!

Get some guttering on there. Google suggested https://www.oasthousegutters.co.uk/

I have not seen this type of condition attached to large estates but they are often attached to smaller schemes. What is the exact wording?

The design looks good but I think the budget is way out. Did you get a proper quotation from a main contractor for £250k for the extension and renovation? If so, let them chose how they build it, just tell them the required spec (u values, air tightness etc) and let them work out how they will best achieve it. For what they are doing it seems remarkably cheap. I have looked at this and I think it will be cheaper and simpler to demolish and start again as there are almost no external walls that have been retained and any that are will require considerable works. Also need new ground and first floors and new roof structure.

Another thing you could consider (not sure if it would be possible in practice) is to have the two left most switches as masters doing a whole area, say, top one for all kitchen, bottom one for everything else, then have the rest of the rows for you to play with to adjust your preferred setting should you wish.

I have got a mini grid setup in the kitchen with 2 rows of 3, plus extra switches 2 way nearer the sources, so they can all be switched off when leaving the room, but it is set so the top row do the kitchen / dining / living and the bottom row do the landing and stairs. Six switches till took a while to master and I don't think I could cope with 12. I have a four storey house so the landings need to switch stair string lights, stair wall lights and landings in a logical way. We had to get the sparky back to rewire them so they all work in the same way.

OK so forget the type C waterproofing, it is just the drain surcharging. Does this just serve your property or others? Do any neighbours have the same issue? Can you take a bit of the boxing off and see if there is a leaking joint? Can you get a firm to CCTV and report on the condition and direction of the drain?