Mr Punter

It needs to be motorised and controlled. The pulley type lifts are only good for 1 storey and this one travels 3 storeys. Also it has a load capacity of 50kg.

Here is ours. The motor is housed above hence the access door. As with all lifts they take up a fair amount of space v. their capacity.

I have used stranded speaker cable for this as it is flexible and was spare. Also it is white so doesn't stand out if exposed. I would be interested to know what is "proper" though...

What happens if you need to double flush (or even triple flush!) a stubborn lurker? Surely it will get poached?

I would get a demolition asbestos survey.

Whirlpool used to do a lot of Ikea stuff.

This varies a great deal so get 3 firms to price it. Any asbestos? That must be dealt with by specialists prior to demolition.

Our dumb waiter serves ground and third floor. Kitchen is third floor. Cost was £8k plus VAT stainless steel car and door. In a 2 storey house I would put the washing machine in the same floor as the bedrooms and if pos have an outside drying space there too. It is a bit silly lugging clothes up and down stairs to clean them. We have bedrooms on levels 1 and 2 and wash machine and inside and outside drying areas on level 2.

In no particular order: The front door canopy is far too small to provide shelter. The WC will need an outward door for part M which will clash with front door. The WC window seem enormous. Waste of energy. Stairs need a rethink. Not keen on the office door being under the stairs and clashing with the other door. wtf is "SECRET" all about?!! It may be difficult to mount the consumer units on the pocket walls. Maybe put them somewhere less focal. Why have a dumb waiter? I have one but I have a four storey house with the kitchen on the top floor. Loads of wasted space in the "ADD'L UTILITY" I assume the garage is bikes / motorbikes / bins? Make sure you have enough storage in the kitchen. There is a large amount of glazing which may be an issue for privacy, comfort, heat loss, solar gain and cost. I think the upstairs needs another en-suite shower.

You need to fill the mixer. Is your estimate out by time or volume?

The Wago connectors I mentioned earlier are nice because you just use one terminal for each wire and you don't need a screwdriver to tighten. I am not fond of the choc bloc type that you have used, especially with more than one wire in a terminal.

Between 1:6 and 1:9 will be fine. Make sure you dig down the trench to remove any soft material. Backfill with type 1 and thoroughly consolidate. If the sub base is not wide and solid the concrete will not hold up.

Yes I have applied for revised consent on a few schemes. Maybe you could talk to the planners or the conservation officer to get a feel for what would be acceptable.

Why not? I installed one. Pretty straightforward.

A lot of the gas duct is useless. Best bet is duct with pipe pre-installed.

Explain to him what you just said to us and offer him what you feel comfortable with. You don't need to fall out over this.

It sounds like they are from Royston Vasey.

Can you not get the gas pipe laid in with the rest of the services? Gas can be a real pain as as soon as there is any scaffold they will not work. Doing it later will make a right mess. No drainage shown so I guess that goes elsewhere? It may be best to run the intercom in a separate duct than the power for the gates. You need to run a duct across the drive as well for power to the other gate. Allow for a socket by the gate post / control box.

My architect asks for a bonus on receipt of planning. It means he doesn't submit anything silly and ask me to pay for amendments but it is not so high that he is out of pocket for an unsuccessful application. Probably nearer 5-10% than 25%. If a big redesign is needed I would expect to be paying extra for that. How much extra money does he want? What do you think would be fair?

May be worth getting some 4 terminal Wago connectors and using those to join the wires. From you new fitting you need a live and neutral to connect to the neutral and switched live terminals. You could use the flex wire from the now redundant pendant.

I adapted a cooker hood - removed the motor but left the metal grease filters so they can be put in the dishwasher from time to time. The larger the fan and ducting, the better.

As long as you can get to it for servicing it is fine. If the area is unheated, lag all the pipes properly. The nearer to kitchen and bathroom the better.

The idea of the hood is to capture the smoke and steam before it escapes into the rest of the room. Unless you have a very powerful fan and a large area grille I think it may disperse before it gets extracted. I like stir-fry and cooking meat on a griddle, so I have a hood with grease filter but with a fan mounted remotely in a plant room above to make it quieter. I used a variable speed controller but it seems fairly useless so I just switch to full. I used 150mm duct and a Soler&Palau 200mm fan.

Hi @Biglad and welcome. Not sure if you need planning consent or if this would be covered by permitted development but you would need building regs in any case and I suggest you get plans drawn up with calcs and bearing details for the steels and submit these to building control and you can ask for their comments on foundation type as they should be familiar with what is required where you are. You could get a builder to do the shell and finish it yourself. There should not be too many risks with this type of project.

Morning @Stu68 and welcome. That looks like a lovely house in a fine location. I don't see any point in removing the ceiling level rockwool. It may help attenuate any noise from outside and the MVHR unit. The 2 degree temp difference between loft and adjacent heated space will make very little difference to the MVHR heat losses / efficiency and is nowhere near enough to be a condensation risk on the ducting. Unless there is an issue I would leave all as is and enjoy the place.