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Is it the insulation they want to look at this time? I assume they want to look down the cavity to make sure it has been installed?

To save me looking through reams of paperwork, can someone help with the timing of building inspections please? We are up to roof height and the trusses are almost finished being fixed. I am pretty sure that we need a building inspection about now. I did contact our Protek guy who said he would be out if his daughter tested negative to Covid in the test he was taking her to. He did not turn up and I have heard nothing yet. If he does not answer his emails then do I have to contact the company to get another inspector out? I have it in my head that they need to inspect something before the roof goes on???

Just to update the above. I wrote to complain about the "statutory nuisance" (thanks for the tip) and to point out that she probably owes EA twenty years worth of fees that are probably around £1,700 pa for extraction fees. I included all our other problems caused by the influx of water not least the risk of flooding and loss of property value. She wrote back to, once again, accuse us of not complaining previously! Two pages of accusations aimed at us but the last (3rd) page notified us that she was getting quotes for capping the blooming thing!!! I think the EA fees were the deciding factor to be honest. I am glad I remembered how to look for registered bore holes which was another tip I learned on here.

Some good news. I have been messaging our farmer neighbour, as he knows a drilling company, and has also had dealings with the neighbour in question. He tells me that he has had an email from her asking for the details of said drilling company! If the Anglian Water bod's guestimate of 2 litres per second was in the right ball park how much would our neighbour owe AW if they charge £27.50 per 1000 cubic litres per annum?

Just pulled up the old certificate, on line, of our bore hole and the bore was 120 ft in all. 80 ft to Clay and 40 ft to chalk. It was a 4 inch bore. The rest level of water was 30 feet not 46 metres ha ha! The neighbours one must be virtually the same.

We live in good old, flat as a pancake, Norfolk. We have on our existing property an artesian well. From memory (!), when I looked it up, the water spouted to, I think, 46 metres when they drilled it about 80 or so years ago. Ours has a tap on it and has never leaked. The well belonging to our neighbour is no more than a couple of hundred yards from us. They had it drilled to irrigate their garden about 20 odd years ago and it leaked from day one. At that time I would say it ran at the speed of a quarter open domestic tap. Our neighbours apologised about it but at that speed we were not concerned and it kept our natural pond topped up in the summer Since then the flow has increased and increased and now draws attention from anyone passing anywhere near it. We had a visit from Anglian Water engineers over our new build and one looked at the flow and estimated it must be running at around 2 litres per second. He was incredulous that Environment Agency were not interested in addressing the matter. We were later told that EA quite like these situations as the water makes its way to the rivers and keeps them clean. This water is contaminated with iron oxide. Our own well, when it was drilled, was said to contain iron oxide too. The two wells are almost certainly from the same source. If our drilling spouted to 46 metres then you can tell the pressure of the leak! I think that the neighbour may have been quoted a high figure to cap the well because they did not want to lose their water source. I would imagine it is a much more complicated job to cap it and keep the supply pipe flowing ???

Yes it does seem as though he means "Double Charged" tiles. They have two layers of pigment and glaze and are harder wearing than ordinary tiles. An alternative to marble.

An elderly relative of mine who was "in the bathroom trade" mentioned to my husband something about some really nice "twice made" tiles that give a beautiful fine finish. Anyone know what he is talking about?

Well (ha ha), we have had "words" with the owner of the property from which the artesian well emanates. On a chance encounter, I introduced the subject of the flow emanating from it and posed the question that she might like to cap it. She was quite indignant (she has history) and informed me that it would cost her £30,000 to get it capped. Yes you read that right. We met again this morning whilst out for our dog walk. We gently broached the subject of her leaking artesian well when discussion turned to the fact that there had been some local gardens flooded, due to the ditches being unable to cope with the volume of water in them. I stated that her artesian well was not helping matters as it flowed into said ditches. She is adamant that we are wrong and as the discussion escalated she decided that the problem was all our fault because we had not informed her of how fast the water was now flowing before now. We tried to persuade her that the capping should not cost anywhere near the figure she says she has been quoted. I informed her that the local farmer who had helped sort the latest overwhelmed ditch problem estimated the cost to cap the well at about £2 -3,000. Her answer was that they must be "cowboys" if they only charge that much! Voices were raised but she would not budge from her stance that it was all our fault because we did not inform her, previously, about the amount of water flowing into our property. This even though she sees it come out of the ground and through a new "water feature" that she has created before making its way into our property.. We had an estate agent come to value the property and his advice was to annex the pond and "stream" into our new build garden as viewers of the existing house would be put off by the amount of water running at the bottom of their garden. We hadn't really wanted to do this as it all takes maintenance. Then we would have the problem of it detracting from any potential sale of the new bungalow. Does anyone have any idea how much capping an artesian well would cost? If we go to law will it have to be declared on the disclosure documents when we sell?

Anyone know how we would go about measuring the flow of water coming from the borehole?

I have looked on the bore hole map and, while our borehole is on it, the problem bore hole is not on it. I presume that this is because it was drilled just to water the garden and it was thought that the amount abstracted did not warrant it being registered. Since then, of course, the amount it produces has gone up a huge amount. This begs the question of should it be registered? If so, how does one go about reporting an unregistered borehole? I know, for a fact, that the EA came and looked at the water emanating from it when the developers were trying to get the owner to deal with the problem. We were told that EA did not want to do anything and so the developers made the decision to pipe the ditch along which the water from the bore hole pours. Their pipe ends up in our garden where it enters our ditch and flows through the pond and out into the roadside ditch where it attracts quite a lot of attention from passers by. If EA were not interested then, will they be interested now?

I imagine it is licenced as they had it dug by proper contractors. As for drying up it is gushing at a rate of knots that causes people to stop and point at it as it exits our property. It never slows down let alone dry up.

There is one for sale for on Facebook Market Place for £50. Description is "Hardly Used" which probably applies to most of them. We thought it might be useful? Quite local and kept outside so should be covid safe.

Now that is very interesting! It had occurred to us that it might be the case but we were not sure enough to start a discussion based on that thought. We may well have to engage a solicitor given that the well owner is such a difficult person to deal with. I am sure that somewhere amongst all our household paperwork that we might be insured for such a legal bill?? The neighbours affected by the recent flooding are interested in discussing the problem with us as we were in residence when the borehole was drilled. I have to say here that the water from the well runs down a ditch and away from all the properties affected by flooding and so was not directly responsible for their flooding. The water emanating from it, however, does add to the overall amounts in the local area. The ditches become overwhelmed when heavy rain is added to the huge amount of water emanating from it. The farmer neighbour informs us that a contact he has in the well drilling world says it should not cost more than a few thousand pounds to cap the well. The owner has quoted to me that she does not have £30,000 to spend on capping it. I am not sure where she got this figure from. Perhaps the contractors who drilled it were anxious to get away from her and quoted that figure as a reasonable figure to entice them back?! One thing that trouble me is would it affect the value of our property when we come to sell? Is it a desirable asset i.e. a tumbling stream running into a natural pond or a source of concern to prospective buyers?

Our farmer neighbour, an all round good guy, offered to dump a 20 ton load of clay subsoil at our end of the drain pipe. He had had dealings with the owner of the bore hole when trying to rectify the flooding issues for all the other neighbours. The farmer is the local good guy who sorts out all our problems from fallen trees to washed away foot bridges etc. The bore hole owner is the entire opposite. When she bought some land from us to extend her garden she argued over the fencing of it as she did not want to be responsible for either of the fences that formed her boundary! This is just one of the examples of her personality. @Gus Potter it is an artesian well and was drilled at least fifteen years ago. They came and apologised for it leaking and entering our property but we were ambivalent at the time as it was so small an amount. The development has already taken place. The developers tried their hardest to force the owner to cap the well but to no avail. She was not going to pay for it. They decided to pipe the ditch it runs along and turf over it. Now that heavy rainfall has occurred in our area people are sitting up and taking notice of just how much water is entering the the ditch that drains their gardens.

As I searched for my old thread I have come across this one. It is very pertinent to a local issue we have. A borehole was drilled about 15 or so years ago and leaked from day one. At first it was at the rate of a full running tap and it came along our ditch and into our, natural pond. It left our property via our ditch which joins with the roadside ditch and off down the road to the nearest river. The level of flow has gradually increased over the years and is now huge and we have been told by, a visiting Anglian Water chap, that it must be running at 2 litres per second. There is, of course, the obvious worry of flooding in heavy rainfall but also another worry that when we come to sell our cottage it might concern any prospective buyer. Having said that the developers next door, who eventually piped the ditch, did say that they would love to live in a house with running water through the garden. Due to heavy rainfall recently some of the nearby properties had some, unrelated, flooding. Ditches were investigated and they have all discovered that there is a leaking borehole downstream of their ditches. The offending borehole has been made into a water feature right slap bang in the middle of a ditch that helps to drain their property. The owner has been spoken to on several occasions about all the different problems this borehole is causing but refuses point blank to do anything about it. When the developers approached her to see if they could come to an agreement on capping it. The borehole owner refused to contribute a penny towards the cost s the developer piped the ditch which sent it down to come out in our garden. When the developers were in discussions with the borehole owner they brought the Environment Agency in to investigate but they were, apparently, not interested in getting it sorted. Does anyone know if there is a way to enforce this borehole owner to cap it properly? The local neighbours are also having trouble with toilets not flushing due to the nearby pumping station being overwhelmed when it rains. Whilst it is difficult to say if the water from the borehole is adding to the rainwater or not it is still worrying. We still have a septic tank and so are unaffected. We are planning on connecting to the sewage system but wonder now if we should?

Just read a few things about it breathing and being better for health???

Can I ask how you got on? We both suffer with lung issues and so are thinking of using lime plaster on our new build brick bungalow.

Be careful, Kes, you might get the Self Build bug! We started out by complete renovations on three old properties. The second one we moved in on Jan 2nd. It was a solid brick bungalow with no heating system, no bathroom and just one cold tap in the original 10 ft by 7ft kitchen. Then we moved here to do it all for a third time. At least it was only September giving us time to get some heating installed before winter set in. Now we are self building in the attached field.

I have just been corrected! It is not that it negates the insulation but that wet plaster is better than dot and dab for heat retention.

The lecturer at Potton homes self building course.

We were told that dot and dab plasterboard on blockwork negates any insulation. The advice we were given is to wet plaster internal walls.

Well, it should be beautiful and to some extent it is BUT it is large and filling it with all the plants bought from a garden centre just proved too expensive. It ground to a halt once we had put in huge borders in the front and down one side. We did put the trees in first but found that they cast too much shade and shed too many leaves so we took some down. Had we known more about gardening we may have been able to get cuttings more cheaply from other sources such as on line nurseries.

We, luckily, ordered our windows really early in the build. The foundations had only just been dug! They have been sitting with the joiner ever since. Now I see above that glass is hard to come by so we may have to get on and order that. Such a worry though if there is another hold up and the glass is hanging around................

Our neighbour has just informed us that his windows are delayed because of a shortage of materials to make them. He is being quoted middle of January. They have been on order for some time and he has phoned around for a better time schedule but to no avail.