ToughButterCup

Here you are . Bosch , natch - wodja expect from me? Bought mine years ago, works well, gets nicked often by the children. Love the central hole in which to shove a marker pen so you can accurately mark the wall.

I rationalise a raptor strike as 'weeding out the weaker / older / infirm / stupid ' ones. Watched a pigeon being hit by a peregrine once : a feathered explosion .

Here you are ..... They have a very much more interesting call when they miss a strike. You can hear the irritation in it. It's based on the one in this video, but is much harsher , repeated quickly and more 'p!ssed_off'

Welcome: birdwatcher by any chance? Anyway, after a five year 'lurk', whadya think of the place? Useful innit? Trouble is there's too much information here - lots of wading to be done without any immediate (stress immediate) return on useful information. But, with five years worth of looking around you'll be aware of the inherent complexity. So - keep it simple - to start with anyway. The shorter the question - the better. The more images, the easier it is for us to help you. A video will help (see Accepted file types below). Dunno about you, but I hear more sparrow hawks than I see....

Yes I can confirm that moving in before completion does not affect your subsequent VAT claim. What does affect it it is the LA's Valuation Officer's visit to your new property. If the officer judges you to have been living in the property, then the valuation for Council Tax process starts. In short keep your HERAS up and locked even though you are living in the house.

Genau ! My wife while running a university department supervises people doing their doctorate. About 4 years in to our build she looked me straight in the eye and said .... " You know how doing a doctorate hardens you off (wer schreibt) : well this (proper) self-build has done the same to you: you've really got to stick at it. (der bleibt)" You've also got to master the detail. Every damn time. Yes, COVID and Br(shhhh)it are often put to 'good' use these days I feel. @Post and beam all power to your elbow. Really pleased to hear that story. 6 sentences for a grand indeed. In my neighbours (unlawful) application it was almost a complete report for free. Lets all three of us start an Ecology Collective: Buttercup Beam and Cando. Strapline: Ecology Reports Professionally Copied and Pasted - Self Builds a speciality

The Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 has a noble aim Give 'experts' the responsibility of operationalising the Act (to whom else would we give it ? ) means that of course ecologists see an income stream, and disappear up their collective fundaments standing on every last detail. Except, not every expert does has his head in his Botticelli. The experience from the Planning Application for the house next to mine shows that ecologists can actually be sensible: a RAMS is - here - absolutely fine. So why not for our place? My ecologist got it wrong, next door's ecologist got it right. I paid half my ecologists bill and asked him to justify why I should pay him the balance. No response. The exception proves the rule. Again.

Pleasure @MDC. Read up on all of your LPA decisions where ecology was involved. Read between the lines. Work out which ecologist the LPA uses to make the 'expert ' decisions for them. (The Planner couldn't give a stuff - they just act on the ecologists recommendation). Then look up that ecologists (expert's) work and read every single one of his / her recommendations. Work out who he / she works with. Nods and winks work on their networks as well as any other professional network. Then - if you have to - talk to a range of ecologists who could possibly work for you, and read (say) the last 6 reports they submitted. There'll be one or two that are close to your ' specification' . Try hard not to be annoyed at the amount of copy>and>pasting that goes on. Whe I retire from my retirement activity (house building) , I'm going to call myself an Ecological Technician (as in Architect, Architectural technician). Then copy and paste till my hearts content and get paid for it. Friday Night - International Party Night. Have a good one. Ian

Summary: Delay your project by one year. In that year, kill the wildlife. Then get the ecologist back. What sort of idiot posts that kind of nonsense? I'm not an idiot. But that is the truthful sum of my experience in three sentences. That is what happens locally: I have seen local farmers do that. I have talked to the ecologists who have worked on those farms, I have talked to the farmers. I know them well enough for our dogs to be on good arse-sniffing terms I have bitter experience of following the ecology guidelines to-the-letter, (I'm German - zero imagination in relation to telling the authorities to get stuffed) and watching a neighbour take all the information I paid for (£2500 worth of work) and apply it to his own Planning Application - then submit that stolen information (plagiarised?) to a different Ecologist, and get a recommendation for a RAMS (Reasonable Attenuation Statement - cost? a few quid) - whereas I had to spend about £6000 sorting it all out. Having thus raised my BP to 190 over 60, here's a reading list for you. I am not arguing you should kill any wildlife. Ever. Can't take a joke? Don't apply for planning permission.

If I've learned 1 thing on our build - it's question (or at least look very critically at) every damn thing. And for a non-builder, that's a massive task. Its having the confidence to challenge things that's hardest.

Our rainwater is harvested by our pond, water garden and water butts. All the water from the roof and road is ducted to a water garden, the overflow of that to a massive (5 tonne) underground sand filter. That overflow goes into the pond. If there's anything left over it goes into the water butts. The pond overflowed twice this year. It didn't make financial sense to use rainwater inside the house. The current arrangement saves a good deal of effort in the garden.

👍

Check the layout guy's work. Ours made two mistakes - each mistake was exactly one meter out. It took me ages to pluck up the courage to ask him back on site. I must have rechecked my measurements half a dozen times

OK, job number one tomorrow morning. I'll PM you then.

I have two Bosch inspection cameras (in one Bosch case), one video / still , and one a thermal version. It takes a bit of getting used to, but you can tune the thermal one to all sorts of targets. I can go ratting with it one night (20 meters) and fine tune it for window 'leaks' on the first story the next. Its a brilliant bit of kit .Bosch Professional GTC400C 12V Thermal Imaging Camera Just looked it up, I'm a bit taken aback by the replacement cost:....... I don't know how much it would cost to pack and send you them: I'll dig around tomorrow . Know anyone who's coming up and down the M6?

I'm not an experienced user: but I have seen that set up in Germany - air ducted from outside - then burned, and up the (old, lined) chimney. In Lueneberg ... Its common for German houses to have a basement, and so the post-build installation of a ducted air supply for a stove in the room above is quite easy.

Here, they start by killing the wildlife.

The whole sector could do with improved communication. A healthy dose of Emotional Intelligence wouldn't go amiss either. Every single issue we faced on our site was caused by failures in communication: builders being rude, my lack of confidence at dealing with poor workmanship, one plumber's mendacity was particularly memorable, phone calls unanswered. And builders (now personal friends) tell me of nightmare customers, pointless customer insistence on a wrong specification, non-payment, rudeness. Building Control Officers (not personal friends) tell me stories that would make anyone shake their head: corruption, backhanders - good old plain lies. Illegal behaviour: ecologists tell of farmers killing wildlife a year before a planning application. (Examples of all the above in plain sight from our own plot) Being barked at by an over-zealous HSE Inspector - small beer. And he would have expected the response he got because he's had worse.

Behave politely. Give @nod the chance to explain himself, politely apologise for the understandable but unwarranted intrusion, and then leave. I suspect that inspectors get more than their fair share of abuse - and so go in with both feet first and (not) apologise later. Which is why I thought that Gary should consider putting in a complaint: a shot across their bows might improve their general approach to people on worksites.

They do not have the right to access private property - without express permission. At the time, Gary was acting as a Domestic Client. Not a professional builder. The only way a mistake might have been made (by the Inspectors) was if @nod had not shut his HERAS gate behind him. HERAS is at one and the same time such an annoying bloody pain, and so essential.

You could tame, train and then store bats in them 🦇

You are correct. Tell them '.... I am a Domestic Client under CDM 2015.... Please tell me the name and contact details of your line manage so I can submit a complaint about your interference on a private site....' And then a cheerful Prestonian Bye Bye....

Here's a selection of videos for you to peruse, and maybe kickstart your own ideas. I'm looking forward to making ours -

Very interesting indeed Terry. Thanks. Ian

Does this question mean can the inverter divert power to the battery during the day IF the battery is ORIGINALLY set up to take night-time electricity ?