ToughButterCup

Rats are worthy opponents. They'll give you an evenings good shooting practice if you use an air rifle with an image intensifier. Either that or find yourself somebody with a Patterdale terrier or six...

That looks very nice indeed. I like the way that the curves contrast with the straight lines in the rest of the bathroom. Rather than do something as creative as you have, I just went out and bought one. SWMBO really likes it, but I don't like it very much because of its infrared switch. You have to wave your hand in front of it before the damn thing lights up. I know it's a first world problem, but it seems to manage to switch itself off just as quickly as it switches itself on - one hand movement can cause it to both switch on and off. As I say, a first world problem.

You say '... planning to object ...' Typical neighbourly fuss about nowt. Check your local council rules about the issue: but I bet you this is nothing to lose any sleep about at all.

Adapt this to you window dimensions: DIY cost of concrete wood and a bit of effort £500 Grow any climbing / shading plant on it.

Yes, the edges of Spring. At long last. Time to save up for the next price hike. 😔

Just toughen up Mr Bishop. Get in that cold shower.... Nobody will hear the 😱

There's a fine balance to be held between legitimate concern for your own property and intrusive concern. Your neighbour's security, connected boilers, circuits which may or may not be connected (isolated or connected at the CU) damp in their house, the time it might take to get things back to normal could all be considered entirely your neighbour's concern. It's in nobody's interest to cause damage to a neighbours house. Acrow props often cause people to wince when first seen in place. Reading between the lines, I 'feel' all is not well between you and your neighbour : you report that you have talked , but don't report the result of the conversation. If I'm right, then a bit of jovial banter and joke about the cost of cement or the price of fish is what's needed. I do hope so.

Might you be able to post those here: be careful to annonomise sensitive content - faces / house numbers ...?

Ships in the night. I met her years later - not a hint of a sniffle

Talk.

Beers, cheers, smiles, sleep.

In haste: just checking that you have read this thread

Thats a shame. My friend swam in a water-filled quarry on the Malvern Hills. Maybe it was the purity of the water that counts?

Thing is @Dave Jones, all my professional life I've had to deal with challenging behaviour: from nasty hairy-arsed sergeants to screaming toddlers or neighbours who nailed our gates shut when we got Planning Permission. Or people who broke my nose in the Pot Still in Glasgow. I've got to the stage where I think of bad behaviour as normal and to be expected. And to admit that mine isn't perfect either. In this instance, I should have been more than capable of dealing with the core issue (safety) and have been able to look past the rudeness and sloppy practice. Its just when you've been in pain for a good month or so, it wears you down. There's less spare capacity to deal with an official who tells simple lies and on the basis of that, threatens unwarranted legal action. I'd just had enough AND wasn't taking my pain killers. Next time, I'll ignore the email, take my pain meds and wait 48 hours. Then be as unreasonable as I can be.

Perenial Allergic Rhinitis. Had a friend who had it: she said it protected her from hayfever. Cold water swimming sorted it out almost instantly (week or so)

That's a ma boy..... wish many others learned that before they started posting Welcome!

After having written the above post, I took a shower and a dose ofTramadol. The world looks different when you've had a good slug of morphine. You know how a friend or close relative can see what you - ill, upset, cross and in pain - can't see..... well Debbie asked me if I'd had my painkillers yet this morning. 😔 I'm trying hard to do without them - but I should have taken the hint when they sent me out of hospital with 100 Tramadol (morphine) tablets. Maybe I'm not the RoughTough HeMan I once was. I was hoping to finance a decent night out in Lancaster with most of that box of Tramadol. A more detailed reading of the email from the HoD of the BCOs at Wyre Borough shows that the original rude BCO is off the case: I've been told to contact his younger colleague. Is it just me and @nod who get rude BCOs? Lesson? Stay fit and well or don't build a house. Welcome to the newly avuncular, pleasant Ian. Now, lets check: where's that Tramadol ? - Top stuff

That's very loyal of you Gary. Thank you. Yes, all of you are all right. I should; shut up, read my signature line and fit a restrictor of some sort. Even just a bit of 4x2 across the window will do. What I object to in this case is the manner in which this whole matter has been handled by the BCO. I really can't do any work on the house at the moment because both my hips have been operated on and it's hard enough to pick up anything from the floor let alone do any work around the house. They have been told that formally. I intend to start work when I'm signed back on again , I've sent them the minutes of our meeting outlining what should happen and when. I think they've lost those and they've just decided to have a little paddy. Well I can have a paddy too. It's about time I learned from my English colleagues. Stuff them.

Yes, it's safety. I'm close to losing a sense of humour about this BCO. He's just covering his own Botticelli - couldn't give a stuff about our saftey. I can't do what I can't do at the moment. And I - in turn - couldn't give a stuff about Sign Off. We don't need it. Maybe one day we will, so it'd be nice to have. Thanks Gary. If feel a brief - Up Yours - email to the BCO coming on. Ian

By what authority may a BCO require a job to be done by a certain date (fit a Juliet balcony) Yes, I have one who is insisting that I get this job done by the 28th of April. I wish him a hearty dose of Osteoarthritis in his hips and a fifty year waiting list.

The drainage sector is the single most dysfunctional building sector of all. There is no formal qualfication for practice in this sector - except maybe that your nose has been cauterised at birth. . He works closely with [... x, y z, eh...] Ask for his contacts - do a bit of Due Diligence. Trust your instinct. If I were in your situation, I'd have less hair than Kojak or Bruce Willis. You can't find anything in the GBRs..... Here's an extract from my blog about this sector. Have a smile on me. ========================= Adapted from my blog Let me take you with me on my first steps on the road to cynicism in the building sector. For some reason (sewage smells?) many people appear to delay attention to the soft and smelly until it’s either too late or until they’ve backed themselves into the smallest room in the house; and then, trousers round their ankles, they allow someone to lock the door from the outside. Evidence? Use the search terms refusal and percolation on our LPA website. ‘Refused pending percolation test results’ is all too common. Imagine then my incredulity when, on the recommendation of a colleague, a company turns up to do a ‘PERK test (mate)’ for a drainage field on our land. Just a bit of context…. we live in sight of what was a clay quarry, within cricket ball throwing distance in fact So, there might just be a bit of clay around “Yeah, that looks fine (mate) you’ll get a drainage field on here no bother” he says without so much as lifting a shovel. “Tickety boo ” I say. “Gonna do the percolation test then?” “Aye… I’ll get ‘t shovel from ‘t van” “Where’s your machine then?” I ask. “ No need for one (mate)” “I’ll get the tea on then” . Tea duly made…. yer man’s gone A square foot of the turf has been gently disturbed in one spot, and carefully replaced. An alarm bell sounds in the dim, dark recesses of my brain. And instantly switches off. Time for the pub. Friday is International Party Night in our place. ============================ Good luck .....

Hmmm, a common ICF 'worry'. And it needn't be. I built in one particular ICF, sent the design to an SE: his response was (can't remember the detail) - but in essence, you'll need to fetch enough from your local steel mill. Asking colleagues on BH , one response was - ask the ICF producer's own SE: and what does the ICF's published guidance say? The reason for that (apart from the obvious) is that the BCO may well not know. S/he'll want access to the formal documentation about it I rang Durisol's (spits quietly) SE up and had a chat. He listened to what had been specified, and when he'd finished blowing his breakfast out of his nose with laughter, sent me a prpperly certified design. Including his fee, we saved several thousand. In places, I doubled up on his recommendation - a few quid extra. Get the official documentation Ask for Ndura's own SE to specify for your design.

Yes, and Yes. And so can the wall and the cesspit. The pigs may well remain too. I think I permission about a month before the window shut. Had the applicant managed the micropolitics of the situation better, I guess he could have squeezed his application through too. He's so in-yer-face with anyone and everyone: even his partner admits that he has anger-management issues. He also deliberately delayed his application because he wanted to open a bakery on the site where the stables now are. A fatal delay. 8 / 9 years ...... talk about grinding slow......

You are not alone in suffering unreasonable and threatening behaviour where soft and smelly stuff is concerned. Here's my neighbour cutting off (by nailing the gate shut) access to our Skeptic Tank when he heard we had gained Planning Permission. I can't be sure, but I think I remember that I might have reversed the nailing process with the bucket on my digger. Surprisingly easy to make mistakes like that I am told. From that day to this, we've not paid a penny towards pumping the tank . Saved £400. That makes it about £10 per nail.

Phhhhhhhhhhhh. He's going to be even more inbloodysufferable now. 😔