Conor

Yeah, you just need building control sogn off. We changed our focus abcknin May to BC completion jobs only and got signoff end of July. Waiting for mortgage to come through to finish the rest of the house.

So you mean apply for a new water connection? Get it in asao as could take months to sort out. Start by phoning the water company and ask to speak to the new connections team. It's simple, they'll probably just ask for a location map and your connection point.

For first floor a good option is 150mm concrete planks, 50mm insulation, UFH, 50mm liquid screed. And below the floor deck, a 100-150mm suspended ceiling. That would be standard over here on a masonary or ICF build. Floor slabs go down in a couple hours. For the ground floor, pretty simple really, UFH pipes ties to the top mesh later then have the concrete power floated, ready for your final floor finishes. Plenty here have down that.

It's all over the place. In my sector (major infrastructure projects like water treatment plants and reservoirs), we're allowing for 20% inflation on materials for 2023. You could see some things come down, but i think anything that is energy intensive in production or transport (steel, aluminium, insulation, cement) will continue to go up. Quarry products and timber should be more stable. Shop around, setup cash trade accounts with at least three local merchants and ask each for quotes anytime you need anything. I found prices were all over the palace end quite often ended up splitting orders across different merchants as one would be way cheaper for timber but more expensive for concrete products and insulation.

Scenario 2 is most likely. Dig a slit trench to try and find the pipe, then connect. Hopefully the levels of your drains are correct and you'll have enough fall down to the sewer.

Hi. We know that was an issue as they initially submitted the plans at end of July but we're not validated until 12th sept... So obviously the planners we're not happy with the drawings. They are still rought but good enough to get accepted. We submitted our objection with six key points, missing and unclear details on the drawings was one of them. Thanks.

If you want lighter than the lime mix (if your sand is quite orange, the mix will come out looking a bit muddy) you can replace 1 of the standard sands with white sand. Going by your posted pic, think white sane may be needed. I'm doing to experimental mixes soon myself as we've a lot of red brick butting against white render and want to soften the contrast with pale mortar.

Get through planning first before worrying about the cost. Our 14m2 balcony is coming in at £17k. Steel frame, timber deck, pvc membrane, hidden drianage and paving on pedastals. It's actually been the most difficult item to cost and build. Need groundworks for the post foundations, steel manufacturer for the posts and beams. Sombody to assemble the steel and fix to the building. Joiner to do the deck. Roofing guy to do the waterproof coating. Brickies to do the parapet. Architectural glazing company to do the balustrading. It's bloody complicated and still not got half of those things sorted or costed.

Same here, solar no longer enough to keep tank topped up on a cloudy couple of days if we have a couple showers and a bath for the wee one. What we do now is have the ASHP set to 45c, and comes on 12pm to 6pm everyday. The solar diverter is still there, but the thermostat on the immersion is set to 58c. My thinking is that if the ASHP needs to kick in, it's just a short top up from 35c to 45c and during the day when there is stil some PV generation and the air temp is 16-18c. And if it's really sunny, the PV diverter will push it on up to 56c. I think in a month's time I'll change the timer on the ASHP to come on in the off peak period of 1am-8am.

I put our cylinder on a 75mm thick slab of compactfoam that I had leftover from our door blocks. This was done for practicality reasons, cylinder had to be installed before floor was screeded, and coundlt sit on the PIR. The savings will be minimal tho as the bottom of the tank is almost always cold and is a small surface area compared to the reset of the tank. Dont worry about it.

That's good. Mine gets 4.5mWh per year for a similar system with about 50% south facing. So far this year since april we've save £380 on imports, so yours could well be worth it. Will mostly depend on if you can make use of it, and if you have an EV and a Zappi charger, should be good.

Model it through PV GIS https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/pvgis-photovoltaic-geographical-information-system_en

It's not hard. The strings from the panels are just connected with MC4 connectors and plug in to the inverter. You'll need a rotary isolation switch. On at least the AC side but we've one on both. I bought a cheap MC4 crimp set from Amazon and did it. All the spark did was connect the AC side to the isolator and meter and consumer unit. Then his dad did the commissioning remotely. Not sure on the Eddi.

Yeah, the guys won't care as long as they can fit the stuff in. Mine was nowhere near the right height off the ground and didn't care. Same for the meter install guy. However, the guy that did our temp kiosk is tall was Mr Fussy and abandoned the job.

I'd go internall acres as well, however, you'll lose a chunk of room in either your pantry or closet. Thank about that. Also, you'll be creating a room within a room. Check with building control (shouldn't be an issue as it's not a habitable space)

Ecology are about 5% at the minute. Variable tho, so no doubt going up again shortly. Should be on their website.

Sharp sand aka paving sand aka concreting sand. Save the soft stuff you have for pointing and other jobs.

Our broker found several that didn't, most of the rest require "architect supervised". For others the requirements were only 2 years, not 10.

You need to be compliant with all the relevant parts and have BC inspect and be happy. Big things like your final SAP, airtightness test, working smoke alarms, level access at main entrance, working accessible bathroom, fall / edge protection and handrails at stairs and landings, relelvant certs for heating systems etc. We switched our focus a few months ago to just doing jobs needed for BC signoff. So our place still looks like a building site but has a nice paved ramp and landing to the front door. When the mortgage comes through we can then finish off the remaining bathrooms, balconies, landscaping etc

Our roof did the same for a while and I'd convinced myself it was the sound of overtensioned screws snapping and the whole lot was going to come done. It's grand now of course...

Nope, just building control completion cert. That's essential.

We're going through this. Our architect says each lender is different, and had recomenmded that we waith fro them to request the documents, then he'll draft them up to match what they are requesting. We've had our valuation and signed the agreement... The documents will be requested once the solicitors get stuck in.

Our new neighbours (who seem very nice) have submitted plans for demolition and rebuild next door to us, which we knew they were most likely going to do. They never told us in advance. Anyway, the issue is we're not 100% happy with their proposal, and as they didn't engage with us, and the formal process has started, we're going to submit an objection - mostly to highlight omissions from the application and get clarification regarding overlooking and light. It's just a bit too big and tall at the rear. The kind of things that could have been easily sorted if they came to use before submitting... The proposal includes a new 1.5 story, 9x6m garage with living room above with 7x2m balcony. This is behind the development line of the entire street and from our guesses, will look in to our rear living room, master bedroom and courtyard. Key things we'd like to object on are: 1. Their drawings do not have FFLs or ridge heights on the drawings. There's just a datum point, single ffl and scale bar. 2. Their drawings do not show windows on our elevations that face their proposed building. 3. Proposed building is less than 4m from a public sewer (NIW have been consulted, but I know for a fact that the position fo the sewer on their drawings is wrong) 4. Massing. Near doubling of the height and area of existing building, contrary to policy in a conservation area. The new annex is fully in the rear garden, behind all neighbouring houses extensions. 5. They've a note stating a hedge is 3.5-4.5m in height, in reality when trimmed it's 2.5m. this is the one between us and them, too low to offer screening from their first floor balcony. Any guidance how to best frame these points in relation to planning policies and general planner speak? Any templates or examples?

When ripping everything up, insulate what you can. What's the house age/construction and insulation?

What slope is the roof? If needing more light I'd be putting skylights in, vertical light is more valuable then horizontal. We have ~3m celinings in part of our house and 2400mm head heights for all the doors and windows, looks just right. You need some symmetry and constancy.