ToughButterCup

This case appears to me to be simple. IF the work is Permitted development - IF- and nobody in authority (other than those working on your behalf) has written to you formally to require a bat survey then one is not required. Without that formal requirement, all discussion about the issue is mere chit chat - including the hearsay related by your architect. For all you know he (she) misunderstood the context in which the ecologist referred to 'requirements' If it's not on an official piece of paper in your hands, it isn't an issue.

I (erm, we..😳) fitted ours so long ago I have forgotten how we did it. But I do remember fitting some of it in a thunderstorm. How tired of living were we ! In answer to your point @Oz07, you can rest a ladder on it, it sounds nice in the rain and you can't hear it expand and contract in the sun as happens on our cottage. Thanks everyone. Tomorrow's job. 😑

I've watched their videos and looked at the tradesman and thought they forgotten more than I know about how to do this. It's how they support the work that is so skilled. I'm going to have to set up a work table to hold the downpipe in place while I cut it. I am ashamed deeply deeply ashamed to have to admit here in front of millions of people that I have not got a hacksaw. But now that I come to think about it one of my children will have stolen it. Ah well it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, so here's the excuse for another trip to the builders merchant. Knowing them they won't have the size I need will they? 😑

fekkin' it up... I have some metal Lindab downpipe that needs to be cut - to install a diverter to a water butt. I'm happy about marking it out (use a downpipe bracket) , but I'm hesitant about cutting it. Why? 'Cos it's thin. Once it's been deformed (by me grabbing it and trying to keep it still) it never goes back into shape properly. Anyone know how to cut it cleanly without bending it at the same time? I've looked on Tinternet and on Lindab's own site without much success. Hence this post.

SmartLife is an app designed for the control and management of smart devices. How the industry has the temerity to brand itself 'smart' ... Just a quick look at Reddit and other forums show the one thing the IoT is not - is smart. The sector is where video recording was 25 years ago - on our knees swearing at the teeny-weeny display, and failing to record our favourite program. I've just thrown 3 SMART plugs in the bin. FeckUmAll. Every fukkinoneovem.

Now you tell me. Could have done with that advice before I tried to mend the SWA cable I pulled up (and snapped) with the digger. Mind you if I'd taken all the advice so generously offered on this site I'd have finished our build long ago. Instead I break stuff and then - when furious with myself for being so stoopid - I read the instructions. Our electrician came out and mended the SWA for me one freezing Bank Holiday evening 20 minutes after I'd rung him. James at CEPS

That must have been a difficult post to write @DTL.... Well done for stepping away from a difficult problem - difficult because so much emotion is invested in buying a house and not just money. All may not be lost. You stepping away from purchase might just result in the vendors rethinking their sales strategy.

No foul drainage, no house. In its current state (if I understand the current situation correctly [ no foul drain and an obvious problem])) the house is close to worthless.

At this late stage my advice - based on bitter experience is - read my signature line.

Our SUDS offering is very simple. Duct all the roof water into two rain gardens. Overflow from the rain gardens goes into a pond. Overflow from that leaches into a bog garden. Any LPA official even slightly interested? Yawn. Newts, toads, frogs, dragonflies, mayflies, midges, swallows, flycatchers, grandchildren all love it.

Yes. 10 years later, I'm still recovering from the trauma. Not joking.

New glasses... thats the one Suddenly my laser level only had one line - not two .... ugh

Seen in Edmonton, Canada recently ... Makes my carpentry look expert........

Thanks very much @Marvin. I saw this thread and thought - Aha! A present for SWMBO for Christmas. The way I see it, she produces more green stuff in one half acre garden than one person ought to be allowed to. And about double the waste material: every bloody year. She's like a whirling dervish. But we're having a large greenhouse built ..... Bettcha its going to be used as a garden office innit.... Where's @Ferdinand when you need him? As he says The Devil (or in his case God) is in the details

- and so you need a properly qualified opinion from a reliable, trusted professional source. We buildhubbers are merely nosey, interested amateurs.

' ... suspects the foundation might not be deep enough ....' And we all know that the architect's arse is now covered because he suspects . Everyone in the food chain you will be feeding is reducing their own exposure to liability and risk. The only way of countering suspicion is with hard evidence. Get it. Ask someone (you?) to dig down and look at the current foundation profile and / or have a couple of appropriate depth cores taken by a geotechnical firm. Send those results to a suitably qualified SE.

Yes. and Bollocks

Nothing to lose, nobody is going to evict you are they? Just Bloody Do It

Yes. I struggled with the German way in Berlin in the 1980s... pain in the Botticelli. Principally because of the Wall. I enjoy dipping in to European-ness ( wife has Irish Citizenship) - several languages on the go most days. But German-ness is too 'heavy' to this-is-the-way-we-do-[anything] German-ness is all over the building sector in the UK - large bits of our house is German manufacturered or designed or owned.....

I love Windy. Especially the weather radar. Its a big help windy.com

Just been back to Berlin. Lots of interest in the build. Commonest question... "When's it going to end ?.... You've been at it for 10 years" Support came from surprising sources - two friends of friends who had built houses themselves - one a crook beam wattle and daub house in the Harz mountains... ( Both moaning like Hell about official paperwork) "Nie" (never) "Noch 10. Jahre" (10 more years) "When it's sold" Most of my family are in or have been in the construction sector in one way or another over there. Lots of head shaking, tooth sucking - and piss taking. One said "It's the way wives get ideas when they see what's been built...." Naturally his wife was chatting to someone else. When, hivemind, oh when will this end?

The tank needs draining. That'll preserve the seal.... Which reminds me 😐

Worse, chicken food sometimes contains Vitamin K; the antidote to rat poison. I find insomnia, windless evenings, a good thermal sight , and a German PCP air rifle makes the problem more interesting than annoying. Blocking most of the holes up and putting dry ice (from our lads food business) in all but one hole almost guarantees a stream of conveniently placed targets. We've stopped poisoning them because weakened rats are easy targets for our tomcats. They tended to vomit the remains by our bedside or on my (not her) pillow. Getting my own back as it were

New York city has taken to blocking up holes and popping dry ice in a couple of other holes. The resulting CO2 starves them of oxygen. There are many YT videos about the various rattling methods. Rats are really interesting animals. They provide me with late summer evening and autumnal sport .

Hello @Dee. Here's what I have written about them They are worthy opponents. Intelligent, calculating but sometimes stupid.