PeterW

For the baby version of the 4T - they are reworked wheeled units with a track system that is supposedly patent however Claas have been building them for years as quad track units. Oddly the selling point seems to be on environmental basis which I can't understand - I would have expected it would be more about ease of use on soft surfaces

Thanks @Mikey_1980 Did MBC break out the price of the insulation / floor slab in their pricing or was it a package ..?

Has anyone got a ballpark range for their build up of a passive floor slab per square metre ...?? Just interested to compare the different systems

If it's anything like the one I got it's a waste of money - listed 8 local "potential contamination sources", 1 of which was the office of an industrial seal manufacturer and the other 7 had been demolished anywhere from 6-25 years previous ...! One is now the site of a new Asda..! Most of the info is free if you know where to look anyway ...

@joe90 are you using the extruded insulation as the former for the slab ..??

There's now a vertical borehole soak away for really tight spaces but not sure how it works ...

Anything other than a cesspit needs a leachfield - and a cesspit basically needs emptying every couple of months so it's not cheap ..! do you have mains sewerage near ...??

What is the banister arrangement for the the open side ..?? love the open arrangement - - steelwork looks very simple but very clever !

If you are away from mains sewage then you will need a packaged treatment plant - still needs an effluent drain field but better than a septic tank. Don't forget that reducing your water intake reduces your sewage bill as they only meter what comes in...

The only uses for rainwater - even filtered - are for outside taps, WCs and washing machines. Anything else that could potentially be used for food such as dishwashers and drinking water (including showers) must be treated properly or be from a certified source. Look look at wildec.de for cheap 10" filter housings. If you bury an IBC well it doesn't need any algae treatment as it doesn't get sunlight but I plan to "shock" the tanks if needed with a few chlorine tabs which cost pennies. If you filter at the downpipes it makes life much easier too - there are lots of very easy and simple filters out there that can be made with ordinary parts as in tank filters can be incredibly expensive

Most of the water used in a house is for flushing toilets, not for drinking. Look seriously at rainwater harvesting - in Wales on a hillside you will have plenty of that I expect ..!! I've designed a fairly simple system using 3/4 2nd hand IBCs buried in the ground, some black MDPE and fittings and a jet pump with a pair of filters and it comes to around £300 for the bits. Payback is 2 years at that rate and it's easily installed. There are no fancy automated systems, just a low water alarm that is only there to allow me to put a couple of hundred litres in the tank with a hose.

Which is where my head is at so that is useful ...! I've also applied the 6 rules to the non-material amendment submission - but that is for another thread !

Still begs the question which takes precedence as there is no scale on the page and all are "approved" ..!

Most new builds don't have an "address" until they are completed anyway so I would expect it is more about the name on the invoice rather than a delivery address Give the VAT helpline a call

I've got the rendering of the house design we inherited with the plot and tbh it looks pretty hideous ..! it's also slightly worrying that the image rendering doesn't match the plans yet it's all on the single A1 plans that are approved so it will be interesting to see what the "correct" plan is ! I will resubmit a set of new plans for the NMAs and redraw the old ones too - minus the dodgy image !

Thats a bit pricey ..! What's the breakdown of the costs ..? Is it the road closure that's causing the issue ..?

Oak worktops I use a mix of 50/50 coconut oil and beeswax. Melt the beeswax and stir in the coconut oil and pour into a jar. Just put it on with a cotton cloth and buff - works well and is 100% food safe too !

Was it not a Merlo..??

@Nickfromwales as its only supplying bogs etc, I was looking at a jet pump with a 20 litre expansion vessel to hold the pressure and setting the pressure at about 2 bar at most. This is low tech and low cost ! http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/231897223757?_mwBanner=1

Yep pretty much ..! Various technologies that ranged from rotary inverters in the 70's to "active neutral point clamped converters" now that are used for stuff such as offshore wind farms. Did some work on a project that was looking to include HVDC a while back and the stuff they were talking about just blew my mind !

Check Hargreaves range at Drainage Online

Brett Martin do a cast iron look range - the downside will be the tee will not look the same as proper cast but will be similar. You can buy cast fittings still and they aren't as expensive as you think but cutting cast pipes can be a bugger ..!!

So the plan is this. 3 or 4 IBCs buried under the patio linked together at the bottom with the first tank connected to the downpipes using filtered hoppers and the supply taken from the last in the line to limit the sediment transferring between them. I then plan to put a 5 micron filter and an activated carbon block in the garage before feeding the WCs, washing machine and outside tap with the supply. Question is - should I use a submersible pump or a jet pump...? Both will need some sort of pressure switch to sense a tap opening or a WC flush, but there the similarity ends. My thoughts are that a submersible pump will be cheaper and easier to maintain but by design it will pick up more sediment and that means the filters will need changing more often. Also, it will cut out at a higher water level. A jet pump will sit the clean side of the filters so will not be prone to pulling as much sediment - plan to pick up from just below the water surface with a floating pickup - but for a pump with a switch and a pressure tank it is much more expensive. Other option is to pick up from the IBC outlets and balance across all 3/4 tanks with the jet pump that slightly reduces the cost as the links will be 25mm MDPE. The commercial models tend to do in tank pumps but that means you don't get the full water capacity. They also need a separate flow / pressure switch but not too worried about that. So has anyone else used anything like this and have any thoughts ..??

Just how sharp are the teeth on those tunnel bunnies of yours..??!!

Thats a grey area when it comes to small holdings, and even the definition of a small holding is not fully defined in law. There is a whole raft of case law on this which is being continually challenged - there was one recently about whether 10 acres could be deemed as sustainable in a business sense. Up to 0.4Ha the rules are as per what is above, over that then it gets into the "business need" territory. It's further confused by what's constituted as an agricultural building, and again by whether it is deemed temporary or moveable (field shelters for example). The business need also also gets muddied when you look at the ancillary functions - is a farm B&B which is on the face of it more profitable than the farm an ancillary to the farm business..? Or could it be deemed the main business through diversification ..??