IanR

Nope, more likely there's already (or will be soon) an enforcement order in place to normalise the development without consent, unfortunately. Assuming this was once a lawful Agricultural building (and there's not been and Change of Use granted), the development that has now occurred is stopping it from performing its lawful use. The Council will most likely require it to be returned to its original condition.

Unfortunately no Rights to Class Q in an AONB, plus the development that has already happened would stop the PD. What's the planning history on the site? Any enforcement orders? The Estate Agent is unlikely to have done much investigative work themselves unless the vendor has paid them for it. They'll be giving their opinion based on previous experience and what the vendor has told them. It does sound like a non-starter since you would have thought the vendor would have exhausted all options having invested in the barn's development. But he may well have upset the Council by developing without consent. There's likely to be some history on the planning portal where the arguments for and against planning have been played out. May give you a hint at whether there is a way around any Council objections.

I misjudged this. I've put in a traditional number of switches to cover multi-way switching of lights and a touch screen panel thinking I'd regularly need access to the app. Could have got away with half the switches and the touchscreen is now used to stream the output from the camera at our entrance Loxone has been able to control all my heating and cooling hardware. Modbus to the Nibe heat pump controller, IP directly to the Airflow MVHR and relays to vents and blinds. Not fully configured yet, that's a work in progress, but the basics are working.

I do generally like Google products and applications but... Really... £367 for 1 motion sensor, 1 keypad and 1 tag. They gotta be kidding.

Unless you've had a ground survey completed and know your soil bearing capacity I'd stick with "standard" hardcore thickness which is as per your builders suggestion. Loads are assumed to pass through the hardcore at a 45 degree angle, so for 150mm thickness of hardcore the loads is spread across an extra 300mm width of soil. Unless you know your soil can bear the extra load then I'd leave it at 150mm thick.

My data network totals around 45 points. Difficult to estimate the time for running the cables as it was done at the same time as the rest of the first fix, but I'd be surprised if it took the Spark and his lad more than 2 days (I have some long runs), so around £750. Second fix, terminating them in the rooms, at the patch panels, and into cameras etc, probably ran to about 3 days, so another £1100. So mine was close to £2K for the labour, and probably £300 - £400 on cable. Can't break out the cost of the face plates in the rooms as they are all integrated in the power sockets. I'd had separate quotes for the same work which came in between £5K and £6K

You must be "pushing the boundaries" on your Application, I've been quite envious when watching what EFDC has permitted in planning terms compared to Chelmsford, although I've only looked at Change of Use applications. Probably a case of the grass appearing greener.

Hi Jim, welcome. Where abouts in Essex? We're a little south of Chelmsford.

This was my thoughts, and on mine the 50mm vertical connection drops directly into a 110mm waste so I can't see anything getting caught up.

It's not "roddable". There's an insert that restricts anything bigger than a few mm's from getting into the trap, and when you pull this insert out you can clean away anything in the top of the trap, But you can't pull the trap out and rod through.

I'm happy to recommend the linear gully I used: A decent price too direct from the manufacturer.

For me tilt'n'turn, inward opening is the best option. We have very little on our internal cills, and what we do is by fixed windows. We're always using the tilt function. Currently leaving some windows open 24/7 as we haven't commissioned the MVHR yet. We've had a small amount of water trickle in on one occasion when there were high winds and rain. Our windows are set quite deep into the reveal though. We also have external blinds on some of our windows, so inward opening simplifies the control of those, and having them tilted behind the closed blinds, overnight, in the bedrooms is really nice.

I really like the internorm tilt & turn and was already familiar with them from living in Germany for several years where they are the norm. I didn't like the Rationel version that was on offered 2 years ago or so, they fix a sash within sash to achieve the function, which thickened the aesthetic and looked a compromise. If I'd have gone Rationel then would have gone top hung outward opening. Are you comparing like for like on those prices. If so I'd personally go with Internorm. While I felt that Rationel were good, I felt Internorm where a higher value product, and was very surprised to be able to get them at the same price.

We've had a few emails back-and-forth with JB, he's our favourite at the moment. Thanks for the Steven Brown link.

Looks fab! Especially like the kitchen/living space with the different ceiling heights dividing the space up. Can I ask who the artist is of the Highland Cow in the Entrance hall. We're in the process of trying to commission something similar of a Shorthorn for our converted cow-shed.

The Ofgem website caveats the changes with 'pending Parliamentary approval'. Since the changes are due to come in 20.09 do we know if Parliaments done their bit yet?

I believe that while they had a profitable domestic side, they'd struggled with cash flow for a while on the trade side. But they needed the volumes from the trade side to support the workshops. I'd posted the following at the time:

The wood is Olive Ash, which does have very similar tones to Oak. The book matched grain is very clever. We have two runs that are around 3.5m each and the grain matches from one end to the other. It was made in a local workshop, who after 30+ years of trading sadly went insolvent just before my install.

We went with a downdraft, recirculation unit from Elica. Very powerful, but a conversation stopper on full chat. Thankfully you seldom need to run it on full speed. Exhausts through the kick board under the hob unit, which isn't noticeable. Added bonus is it puts a physical barrier between the young family at the breakfast bar and any hot pans on the hob.

While you could put the UFH pipes under the mesh I agree with the SE's judgement on the Engineering perspective. Reducing the pour thickness locally under the shower is OK, but not across the whole floor. Not sure I'm understanding 100% but sounds like you wish to run some 40mm/50mm waste from the shower gully to a foul drain (through/under the EPS?). Should be fine if the gully you're using allows rodding access. If it's an open shower with a screen to the side then 1200mm of sloped shower shower floor should be more than enough. You shouldn't need to slope the floor that isn't part of the shower. You may need a bit more if you plan a drencher head. Have you thought how your sloped floor will meet the adjacent unsloped floor, if you plan to use large format tiles. I assume the screen will run along the side of the slope so at one end they're the same height and at the other maybe 20mm different. It's a tricky junction. I did... belt'n'braces... Tiler thought it was over kill. We used Ditra matting also which acts like tanking itself. Pretty sure you could do away with it, but it's quick and cheap to add so why not.

I'd just corrected my original post. Here it is, Intelligent Insurance: https://www.intelligentinsurance.co.uk/

I've just taken up a policy with Intelligent Insurance. The price was so competitive that I'm wondering it it's too good to be true... Edit: Sorry, Intelligent Insurance, not Intelligent Finance.

You've got to strip out the differences between the quotes to be able to compare. Even the small stuff like Internorm deliveries turning up with Installers and 100% handled by the Installer compared with what we were offered by Rationel which was us taking delivery and storing at our risk until the installer turned up a few days later, adds value to the Internorm quote.

Is that like-for-like? Approx how much per m2 and for which product? I know my experience was not the norm, but Internorm were slightly cheaper for me like-for-like (although I ended up spending slightly more on a higher spec Internorm and a "PH" install that the Rationel supplier didn't offer.) I believe a lot comes down to the supplier you use. My local Rationel supplier was not interested in negotiating any significant discount, but rather tried to push another brand "if I wanted to save money", Where as the Internorm Supplier I used seam to have much better discounts from Internorm than the other Internorm suppliers I approached.

Here's what we used, we got ours through the Barn Owl Project run by the Essex Wildlife Trust. It then gets monitored by them and then, as happened this year when we had 4 chicks born, they all get ringed and registered. We had a roost in a barn adjacent to the one we developed, so knowing we'd disturb them we put up a couple of boxes in an adjacent hedge row. The Owls used one of the boxes as a breeding site in the second year it was up.