Conor

Are you (and your bank) happy with the reduction in value when you do this? I.e. not selling any time soon and/or you've a low LTV mortgage.

I thought locking (with a key) windows were a thing of the past? I've always assumed the insurance question was asking about latches that click in to place, so can't be teased open from the outside. In my parents house, they had single friction latches. If I ever locked myself out, all I had to do was gently and rapidly bang on the frame where the latch was, and it would just work it's way up and open!

Make sure you use 100mm perforated pipe instead of 80mm. Also, decent bed of clean gravel UNDER the pipe. You want the gravel to do most of the work and pipe only come in to play in heavy flow situations.

Go for 20-30mm stone then.

We've 10mm mixed stone on gravel grids. You really, really need grids for small stones.

Just turn the paver over so the correct face is up ...

Most of the UK is running a lot drier than average. We should have had 310mm of rain by now, it's just 220mm so far. Still, a long way off drought conditions fortunately.

What you've supplied isn't nearly enough. You should show locations and species of trees, hedges, anything hard. Remember, you can only claim VAT back on landscapimg items that are on you planning drawings. It doesn't need to be exact, just cover the bases. A snip of our drawing. We are in a conservation area, so landscaping is a tad more important, esp trees. We've only done a fraction of this and will be many years, and won't look it at all!!

Been tracking my generation. We've produced more this April than any other month in 2024. And by the end of today, it will be the third best month overall in the last four years. Good to see but the lack of rain is a tad worrying.

How big a house do you need? We're a family of 4 and have a 253m² net house and it feels huge. Better to build to the budget you have and get it right.

Glad I didn't tell you guys about my 200mm thick slab with 300mm / 450mm thick ring beams 🤣

A better way to run it is during overnight low rate, and let heat radiate out during the day. That's what we do, very rarely the heat is on during the day. You'd maybe want an ASHP with a slightly bigger output in that case, we've a 9kW heatpump for 253m² floor area, similar U values.

As above, if somebody did the work, you can't claim, they should have zero-rated their services.

No, just don't let the digger track over what you put down. Work back to front.

How thick will the topsoil layer be? And I'm assuming unscreened soil? We had a 5 tonne digger lay our topsoil. Compacted it way too much, now it's a muddy mess and will need to be redone. I'd only track the bottom most layers and leave to top 300mm or so to be compacted by hand roller, at most. Don't roll the top 50mm seed bed until after grass has germinated. Consider drianage now. I got cocky because we did the soil in a dry, hot spell and thought the fact that we are on a slope and the previous land didn't get water logged.