Carrerahill

You clearly have not been in many large industrial buildings, try the size of a Minibus for them and pumps that sit on concrete plinths... to be honest that boiler looks about right for a large house given it's age, floor standing and oil.

I am not sure this is going to work like you intend, using LPG is going to cost far more than oil. These LPG distribution firms are crooks.

1. OK costs - I get it, but assuming your not going to end up bankrupt don't let money cause you too much undue stress - I get it money is very important and you need to be careful but in the grand scheme of things if it will be a drop in the ocean looking back in 3-4 years then try and ignore it. 2A. Sounds like the neighbours are in insane, I would want to shut them up. In this situation I would send them a letter. Outline the fact you are not starting too early or too late and that works are carried out during normal hours of business, if your house was owned by a developer and being worked on by a developer they would give not a hoot and do as they please, OK, you need to live next to these people but just state to them they need to deal with it. 12:00 is unreasonable, on a Friday the guys are thinking about going home at this point. I think between about 07:00 and 20:00 you can make noise and it is not against the nuisance noise, even in my eyes 08:00-17:00 would be totally fair. In fairness later on a Saturday and ideally nothing noisy on a Sunday would be respectful. 2B. Your relatives need to be reminded things are not normal just now, and that perhaps their builds were less onerous or went to plan because there were no issues. Relatives who "know best" are often a pest. If you can, just tell them you appreciate their thoughts but please can they not remind you as you are under tremendous stress. I think that is friendly enough and might get you some breathing room. 3. Yes, I get that, just accept that your life is a part (more like full time I am sure) house developer just now! Good luck.

Word of advice, if you can relax a bit and just accept Christmas, you and those around you will have a better life. I don't know if your target date is driven by you and your families own expectations and eagerness to get in or if there is a financial implication or maybe current living situation implication. I used to set targets and dates for completion stages all the time, until my wife asked me what would happen if we were not done by date X. We were on holiday when she asked me this and I had a clear head, I thought for a bit, but I must have looked rather perplexed to her because I had no answer. Nothing would happen, I'd have just failed to meet my target date. We came back from holiday with a new date, it came and went, I didn't care. It will be what it will be. I now even have some weekends off from working on "the site". We are actually nearly done, our gravel arrived today for the newly landscaped bits, so did our fence timber. Maybe I should say completion date is the 27th of June... or maybe not, who cares. It will get done. I got my completion certificate yesterday so technically I am done, but you are never done with a property until you sell it!

This is this case for sure. You must look closely at who writes some of these articles. If I was an ACM removal specialist I know what would be in my website blog! Every story has 2 sides. Everything out there is rigged to lead people down one train of thought. I called out 3 ACM business to quote me to remove my garage roof, I got a great quote, £300 - I had the cash in my wallet to go for it, but didn't trust them not to rip it up, spray broken sheets all over my garden, maybe grind the heads off bolts. At that money they were also surely going to dump it. Next guys were £1200 - I told them that was steep, how much were they factoring for ACM disposal to which he said £800 - I told him he was being ripped off because I had 3 quotes for disposal, 1 from a place I had to take it myself wrapped up £160 - and £350 for a small ACM skip and the worst quote was about £700. He didn't like that I knew the costs. 3rd was a joke at nearly £3K. Mention ACM's and people get greedy. I can think of more dangerous and hazardous jobs that cost less.

In a word No. To victims and families of victims of asbestos related illness/fatalities I am sure they would say, hold on a minute, but having essentially been through accidental and chosen, risk managed exposure (with PPE) I have done a lot of research into this and founded my own ideas. There are various types of asbestos, blue, brown and white in order of danger, blue being the most deadly due to the smallest fibre size. Most asbestos containing materials (ACM's) found in houses will be white, from floor coverings to corrugated cement boards and almost certainly the stuff you had in your house. Most ACM's like flooring, adhesive and roof sheeting have the 5-12% of asbestos bound into them - so even when cut the fibres are bound up by bitumen or cement etc. making them bigger and heavier therefore they sink, don't float in the air as much - especially outside, and due to their size don't find the same way into your lungs. The boards used on roofing and for soffits and what not was often cut by installers with a hand saw with not so much as a paper mask, generally done outside this work thus concentrations of the dust was low and quickly carried away. There is good evidence to suggest many of these guys are still about to tell the tale how they used to cut it. White ACM's are also the only ACM that non-trained personnel and DIYers may remove under the HSE guidelines. Until not that long ago it was acceptable to dump old cement asbestos sheet material onto farm lanes and tracks to fill in potholes and could be buried on farms - the place was awash with the stuff being ground up into smaller and smaller pieces over the years - there was not a documented increase in agricultural workers with asbestos related illness. White asbestos is one of the only asbestos types that can actually be cleared from the lungs. One of the highest rates of asbestos related disease from white asbestos is actually school teachers and hospital workers due to the fact these buildings were filled with the stuff - not those who worked with it strangely. I think I would worry if I had had long term exposure to the stuff, I have removed a garage roof with full PPE and sort of accidentally cut through floor boards with a circular saw which was covered in bitumen adhesive and bits of old vinyl flooring, I do suspect they were ACM's - I didn't really consider this when I started this job - it was a bit of a worry but I had to move on a hope that my hopefully one off maybe high exposure will be OK. The benefit here is the bitumen and vinyl sticks to the asbestos, much like cement in cement board and doesn't actually just instantly release clouds into the air. I didn't read a few websites for my research, I downloaded medical journals and HSE reports and guides and spoke to Asbestos removal experts and read risk assessments and managed to speak with loads of old timer tradesmen from yesteryear to form an educated summary of just how bad is this stuff. Something else to bear in mind is that ACM's are sitting in gardens and farms across the land, old 50-60 year old sheets deteriorating away, rain washes the dust into the ground, it dries up and blows about - there is asbestos in the air all the time I do not intend ever to deal with ACM's again - I think my couple of instances of contact will be OK and I think yours is even better. What way was the wind blowing? Or even was it blowing at all? Any air movement and unless it was a prolonged release of fibre being gently blown towards you, then chances are you are fine. Even a breeze towards you would arguably have carried the fibres off so quickly due to their very low mass that you never even got a change to breath them in! Don't worry.

Or option 4 - Buy all/most of the materials for your house, but make sure to order plenty spare... get the VAT back and use to build your garage with the spare... This is a little deceptive but arguably you would get the VAT claim on it anyway, but it would need done with the house, this just saves you planning hassle if a PD garage suits. Just a thought.

Thought were were talking sink wastes here. What is the min. for 110? 1:80? Range 1:40 to 1:80?

It should be between 1:40 and 1:110. So PeterW was meaning it is "within" the regs.

Object. I'd request a meeting with the planner and ask how much the letter of objection is impacting their decision, maybe they would refuse anyway. You said the neighbour is a developer? So how would he like if all his developments were objected to and blocked. You are a private individual trying to improve your house for your benefit and you care about your area - as a developer he cares about money. I think I would try and track him down for a coffee and a chat. I suspect that he has some ulterior motive, hoping you will move away because this house no longer suits and wanted to buy it for himself to develop? Is he planning on selling up soon and doesn't want to sell a house next to a building site.

I have one here that was sent from a Demo Company to a LA - PM me your email address and I will send it to you. You will need to re-write it obviously.

When I design/build things I always work on the principle of the hat with the big brim - get water away from the house, shed, garage, external power distribution cabinet with as big an overhang as I can. Remove the sill and you remove a layer of protection.

Agreed - we, as a practise were asked for DWG drawings this morning, there was a wave of laughter across the office. It depends where the job if of course, complete and fee's paid, maybe. But lets face it, that is like a joiner giving away potentially 25-100% finished window surrounds or cabinets he has made in his workshop without a payment agreement.

Not so - maybe you are getting confused with a PDF XREF. You must have an older or lighter version of ACAD. I import PDF's probably 2-5 times a week - full import to give me a fully functional CAD drawing that I can edit and tweak to my hearts content. Layers usually even come in too, although not always spot on but good enough to work on.

Looks excellent!

Madness given you literally drag the PDF into CAD and it will let you import it!

AutoCAD can import and convert PDF plans, commonly done, you just need to insert the scale details which should be easy if there are scaled dims on the PDF, then you can use that as your scale point. Not ideal but rarely have an issue with it.

They are so bleedin' backward. Really, its shocking, really really shocking. I admire you trying to break the mould, I try to break it too but often do end up going down the boring tried and tested route for a multitude of issues.

I'd probably hold of sending this until you have full permission - listen to your architect. They are meant to put the letter out for 21 days consultation, that should be done almost immediately, then they sit on it for 5 weeks then issue grant/deny - that's the 8 week statutory period. Covid lets them re-write their own rules I think. Just build it then you will get their attention!

I am with outfox the market. Electricity is 18.9pence per day standing charge 16.1273pence per unit Gas is 18.9pence per day standing charge 3.018pence per unit All prices inclusive of VAT. You will probably have to pay more being up north as they factor in ease of supplying - cities for example are cheaper to supply than rural areas.

Not if the device is selected properly. Service panels rarely have fuses anymore, even the main incomer will be on a MCCB. We design a lot of hotels and multioccupancy resi and the submains are never on fuses these days. He isn't doing the work, his sparky will spec an appropriate device for the installation.

If I was specifying this at design stage, I would put it in the utility, after the DNO's cut-out install a 100A MCB in a little 2 way enclosure - you may even want to consider a 4 way unit and put in surge protection - then run out a SWA cable as a submains to the consumer unit. I'd use a 25mm 3 core for the short length and all the additional cost will be.

Very nice. Looks good. I love concrete pours! Even now with my build nearly done, any excuse I get, I order a ton of all in one and get the mixer out. What is the deep hole area that appears to have shaft leading down to it?

I have an internal soil pipe that also carried roof gutter water for about a year (until the build was on far enough I could fit the external downpipes) - the soil pipe serves the upstairs bathroom, so gets a fair bit of use and runs down a wall in the kitchen. I had the same concerns as you, acoustics and condensation. To deal with this I protected the void with a VCL, ensured it was also essentially ventilated, and then sorted the acoustics by building a sturdy frame around the pipe and sheeting around the pipe in in OSB then 12.5mm PB. Once skimmed, when the shower is running or WC flushed, you would need to be standing in kitchen, in total silence, listening for it. I also ensured that it was a straight single piece of pipe to reduce noise creators like bosses and connections. I am happy with the solution and it was easy to do. I went under the house during the winter and had a look for signs of condensation running down the pipe and there was nothing, if it did however, as it touches nothing it would run to ground level where ventilation would deal with it.

Not knowing your situation exactly makes this a little difficult to answer but do the meters need to move or could the consumer unit just be re-located, in which case maybe the meter can stay put. Again, not clear, can the cable head stay put and incoming gas pipe or again, do these need to move?