Conor

We had the same dilemma. We could have remortgaged and lived in our old house, or sold and rented. We sold. Best decision as we ended up spending more money than expected and would have struggled otherwise. And with interest rates being what they are, you want to minimise your borrowing.

Nothing to add to this except I'm considering the same. I've several long lengths of 16mm UFH PET pipe leftover that I was hoping to use. I'm wondering if you could use those barb fittings for hoses and drill small holes in the sections you want to water?

Ha, good luck with that! Any application will be a battle.

If it's a conservation area, the tree has an automatic TPO, it's just not listed individually. We built in a conservation area and there are lots of extra rules and assumptions. For example we can't cut our hedge any lower than 2m in height. We can't build wooden panel fences. Most of what you've mentioned would not be easy. I suggest your get hold of your local conservation area design guide and take it from there. Also, look up recent applications in the conservation area and see what decisions were made.

You won't get that, water companies protect their data for obvious reasons- terrorism, sabotage, theft etc . Get in touch with your water company with your query and the will tell you the nearest viable supply. The answer is also much more complicated than what is the nearest pipe. It needs to be the right pressure, size, purpose (you're not going to put a 25mm tapping on a 1200mm raw water trunk main or a pumped supply to a reservoir.)

Ah, so you have an electric system sitting on top of the the underlay? Trying to picture the build-up. What thickness is laminate?

No, but top tip is to place it well out of the way or works and vehicles as some day it'll squished by a 8-wheeler. And on the outside of your fencing so postie can actually get to it. We got a basic metal one from B&Q or the like and screwed it on to one of the main gate posts at the entrance. Turned out to be too close.

Pressure test it first. A kinked pipe might be stronger than a coupler.

We submitted a lengthy and scathing objection to our neighbours plans. They still say hi and stop for chats, and we split the cost of trimming the boundary hedge. All depends on how they take it. If your partners objection isn't based on planning law / policy, the it'll not really be taken in to account anyway.

I'm sure building regs plays a big part, e.g. in Ireland the NZEB BER means the easiest way to pass is to use a heatpump rather than boiler. It's now the default choice, even for developers. Zero incentive to do that when we built last year* *not up to speed on new UK regs.

make a form-work and make planters? Or even a bucket to make large flower pots.

We used 5mm wood fibre underlay, has a noticeable softness, but no sinking or bounce. And it's cheap. As you've underfloor heating, the last thing you want is an insulating underlay.

Make your life simple, use interlocking retaining blocks. More expensive, but easy and fast to lay once you've a level base.

I've worked in the UK and Irish water industry for nearly 20 years. Not for a water company tho. I've worked with various ones in that time, some public owned, some private. Some good, some bad. Our view of the companies is totally different from the media's/ public's. Operating and managing a water supply network is like spinning plates. Underinvestment goes back decades before we had private water companies and we'll be paying for that forever. Same applies to Ireland, even more so.

Both me and @dpmiller have coolenergy monoblock units and are very happy. Only time mine has not been perfect in the last year was when we had a power cut and I had to reset the unit when the power came back on. I got the full pre-plummed package at £6500. Two and a bit days to install, worked straight out of the blocks. Cooling function is a godsend.

Make sure the pipe is going in to the fitting dead straight, with no side tension. It'll likely leak. Came across 100s of cases like that in new site when we were surveying new meter box installs. If it's the bsp thread that's leaking, try putting the original fitting back on and use a compression adapter on the stub of original pipe. If it's leaking at the stoptap side, you could call the water company and ask for a replacement.

Would be worth setting the mounts up so they could be adjusted through the year. E.g. fixed to a scaffold pole on top, and have a couple different notches or brackets on the lower mount. I can picture it in my head at least. Would be totally worth a couple of hours of work a couple times a year adjusting the angle from ~80⁰ in winter to 30° in summer.

Is your pipework mostly copper or plastic? By shutting off a high flow under high pressure, you create a pressure wave (surge) the propogates back downstream. In the water industry we use either surge vessels (bit like a large expansion vessel) or a surge relief valve. These deal with the shock wave by allowing it to push the water in to an empty space. In a closed system like yours, there's nowhere for the water to go so the energy is transferred in to the pipework and attached applicances. Not normally needed in a domestic setting tho, either turn your tap off slowly or reduce your pressure down to 3bar. I'd be doing the latter as you're also reducing the risk of a leak by a factor of several (there's a graph somewhere with failure rates and pressure.)

I mean french / patio doors. We've two inward opening sets from internorm at 2000mm total and they are grand.

1830 is quite narrow for sliders, your clear opening will only be about 750mm. Better off with double doors.

I'd be wanting to make them both 32mm tbh. A few pennies more in material. Mad not to. Even if NESW only give you a 25mm tapping at the main, it'll still give you better flow and pressure. Fill your pond with rain water 😀

We found the paint really, really thick and hard to apply. It says don't water down, I'd be tempted to water down the first coat regardless. And do it now before the slabs go in as technically you need to cover any part that could be exposed to flame. Depends how fussy our BCO is. Ours wasn't, but was very complimentary with our effort and said quite often people just paint the visible undersides.

Here you need to either paint, double board or fully pink board. I chose paint. It was not the right choice.

180mm is loads. Make sure the slab company come out to measure up once steels are in and ask about the install order to make sure they've thought about them slottin in between the steels. They messed that up on ours and we had to prop a slab up and slide a beam in to it. Instead the beam should have had a plate welded to the bottom to take the slabs.

What's the bearing? Ideally 200mm, min 100mm. What are they supporting? You've a lot of fireproof painting to do there....