Carrerahill

Welcome, sorry to hear about your house. In your situation I would be tempted to contact a general builder/multi trade contractor as it will likely need a lot of programming of multiple trades to carry out the work, I would imagine, having not seen the damage, it will be a strip out, plaster/plasterboard from ceilings removed, flooring removed, depends on age of construction walls may or may not be OK, insulation could be soaked. Trying to manage that on your own if your not familiar with this stuff would be a bit of a nightmare for you and could cost time. We currently have a good crew of guys doing some work on a build for my parents that I was doing for them, but I became too busy with work, it started out as a bit of joinery and plumbing to get things moving on faster and a plasterer/tiler/painter who will also do other bits like finishing plasterboard etc., between the 3 of them they are doing everything we throw at them and taking it in their stride. A little team of guys like that and you would be sorted.

I realise a blinding error in my text above, I wrote, "so yes, I do believe they are structurally capable of large increased loads..." however, I should have said "so yes, I do not believe..." simply put I don't think things are build with all this spare capacity, you would be somewhat shocked at how close to the bone some things are. "Sweating the asset" is something we say a lot at work. I think, sadly, other things will overshadow the push for net zero, I cannot see this country remaining civil for much longer, too many things are now eroding the grounds on which global peacefulness was founded in the mid 40's and further bolstered in 1991 with domestic issues now becoming as big a threat of unrest with other nations. I hope I am so wrong, but I don't see the next decades of my life being as simple, trouble free and peaceful as those that preceded them. I am sure Ukraine had some national projects planned... I hear myself all too often buying bits and pieces and joking it's part of my apocalypse planning. I bought 12/24V solar charger controllers last week - this is my plan to be able to convert some of my PV system to totally off grid for little financial outlay, just in case.

Could you add some uplighting around the perimeter with good floor standing lamp with a good upward light component to flood the ceiling with light turning it into a huge reflector? Or do you have furniture or cabinets you could hide some fairly ugly, but functional uplight? Or mount some directional lighting (like retail lighting but nicer luminaires) to get light where you need it? https://professional.flos.com/en/global/subfamily/architectural-spotlights-find-me/

First of all, architects design no strength into any structure. Structural engineers do. As for the spare capacity, I think it would be fair to say most would be built to a Kg per meter squared loading based on car weights and percentages of car types on the road at a given time, they will always allow a safety factor and the chances are it will be absolutely fine, but, a bit like the unofficial loft conversion, it works, it seems to be fine, but its totally structurally unsound and everything is sitting near limits and it just takes one decent snow load and it could all be down, so yes, I do believe they are structurally capable of large increased loads, I am not saying they will all fall down, though, some might. For years I only designed enough electrical capacity into buildings for the building electrics, which in many cases were gas heated. No ASHP and no EVC's. If I try to add redundancy then or even today, the client will go with the cheaper option 9 in 10. The conversation in a design team meeting for a carpark would be like this: "As a very forward thinking structural engineer, and also as I have the ability to predict the future a bit, I think we should allow for most cars to weigh about 2200Kg in 20 years time" "What, no, what if we just allow for what we have on the roads today, I will be selling this carpark in 10 years to another operator, I want it designed to current expected loadings." "OK, we can save 50 tons of steel and 150 cubes of concrete" "Great, that will do nicely." Or me having a discussion with a guy building a carpark for an outdoor/community centre. "I have allowed for 100% of your parking bays to eventually be equipped with fast chargers." "How many do we need to comply?" "20% of bays with normal, 7kW chargers" "Just put in enough to run the 20%." "What about sizing the local transformer, main switchboard and sub-mains and putting in duct to all bays so you can at least just hook them up when you need to" "Nah, it will be years till we need all that shit, just put in the minimum to comply" I have had the above conversation in various guises about 20 times in the last 12 months.

Clogged with what? Has the ground level been raised around them and leaves and stuff is blowing into them? If so, that issue may need fixing first.

Can you not do a deal regarding the kitchen, power only run to pre-cored holes for downlights or something? I am not aware of your situation, are you self building and have a fixed price with agreements in place, built to plan and the builder will hit your with variations for any changes? You could always use tuneable colour if you want some cool light. 4000K light can be good for reading and study as it is closer to natural daylight, it is also a favoured in offices and generally the workplace as it is good for focus and alertness, this is due to more blue light from the light spectrum being available, blue light supresses melatonin production, a hormone which makes us sleepy and drives our circadian cycle, something that is heavily impacted by light, it would have been sunlight, however with all the artificial light we are exposed to now it stuffs things up a bit. So sitting in 4000K light at 2300hrs when your thinking of reading a bit and heading off to the land of nod is not conducive, however, when you need to read something and stay alert and focused or do some work, it may be, albeit you are artificially influencing it. This is why visual devices often have a night time setting to remove the coolness, the "blueness" from the screen to help reduce the influence on your body. When Scottish Power did their new HQ in Glasgow someone got wind of this, they opted for 6500K lighting in all the offices, it looks hideous from the outside and must be worse to work in, but they heard it would keep everyone alert and focused, then, across the road at the RoS, they were kind to their staff and installed circadian rhythm friendly lighting which tracks the colour temp of the daylight, so 2300K in the morning, peaking at I think 5500K in the afternoon for a while before heading back to 2300K.

https://jmoncrieff.co.uk/lighting https://www.creative-cables.co.uk/content/67-components https://www.creative-cables.co.uk/content/68-Indoor-lighting http://www.spatial-lighting.co.uk/shop Remember, you can go simple now, and change them as you learn to live with the space and funds become available again.

Yes, but it is also a science.

A lot, in fact, I did a BA in lighting design (and I had the opportunity to do a PhD) and specialised in it for about 15 years, although now I am a consulting building services engineer I still do a lot of lighting design as every project we do still needs lighting. Don't get too hung up on lux levels and uniformities and glare and what not for domestic lighting, even when I do domestic lighting I still just use my professional knowledge and best practise. The issue with domestic is that it is not used like typical commercial buildings, offices, it is an office, you light it like an office, or a warehouse, you light it like a warehouse. Houses are a different kettle of fish, you can put a single pendant kit into most rooms and that complies with what BC want to see. However, we all know we will add desk lights and table lights and floor lights. Kitchens are about one of the only rooms in a house that needs proper, as close to a "design" as you need for task lighting. If I am doing a kitchen in apartments etc. I usually go for about a 500-600lumen downlight, say 2.4m ceiling height, spaced at about 1000-1200mm in a row or array to suit along the counters - typically I will pull out a second row if there is a dining room table shown on the architects GA's. Bathrooms being about the only other room that needs dedicated properly "designed" lighting or else you are stuck with it. Corridors I would typically put the same in in about a 1200-1500mm spacing. I have my go to downlights for these applications and I know the optics will give me the right distribution to work in these spaces for me. Very occasionally I will fire up the lighting design software and do a quick check calc if I want to do something a bit different. "Design" when used in a domestic situation, to me and for many interior designers and even lighting designers is just picking nice lighting, and placing it in such a way to create some nice ambient and useable light. A well placed downlight to create a scallop of light down a tall wall above a stair, or a row of small (e.g. 35mm) down lights along an oak balustrade in a hall, or some recessed LED strip into shelfs. Dimmers are also your friend when it comes to domestic lighting as it lets you add all the light you want, but without the concern you might end up with your living room sitting a 600 lux!, however, make sure you pair your source and dimmer or you will have a hell of a time. I have often put in standalone DALI dimmers (Osram DALI MCU) with DALI driver luminaires to guarantee nice dimming and when done wisely, the over-cost is not that much. Houses, in my opinion should always be 2700-3000K light. I hate seeing 4000K (or worse) in domestic settings, however, that is my opinion, I think some people like the clinical look.

Yet to see it. Commercial projects that don't use cast ductile often use the terracotta stuff in basements and risers.

That lands pretty much dead on with my summary. Sounds fair.

Of course he will never find any contamination!

BT did/do offer a ONT/hub with backup battery.

That was very decent of you, I would remind Dan of this facility, and incorporate the words, "fair use" into the conversation. This is a policy often used in holiday rentals for electric and free Wifi and all sorts, and it is just for these situation - I think you work out (I am happy to help you do a load analysis and work out a fair kWh per day rate) rate that they can use it, anything over that they must pay you for the electricity. That might solve things, if not, at least you get paid. Let me assume you have a 2kW heater in there, if it was on for even 3 hours a day that would be 6kWh a day, so 168kWh - I think that could easily be halved for a non work-shy workforce, but leave it at that. Then there might be kettle boiling. If the kettle boils for over 1 hour a day then you need to start talking, so another 62kWh a month, running total: 248kW. Then I assume tool usage, this is a bit of a variable and I don't know what tools, if just charging power tools and the odd bit of corded saw or drill use - tops 2kWh a day, so another 62. Total: 310kWh a month. I think that is fair - they they are running a power tool a lot that is a heavy consumer, then maybe add a little more. What is that £100-125 a month depending on your tariff. The good news is, as they are your facilities you can configure the heating to suit if you need to. Are you far from site?

Think I would keep it behind the units, it just makes life a bit easier in the future or if there are any leaks etc. Can you go under the floor? Solid slab?

In fairness she can still have a very simple, basic phone plugged into the phone socket on, for example, a BT modem. It emulates a copper line.

Well, they sort of do. What they are planning is a fibre/copper interface at the nearest village or more densely populated area, they will then maintain the copper line via the interface. Fibre goes in one side, copper lines out the other side c/w integral power supply to run the phones plugged in at the other end. I do not think it is being spoken about too loudly as its seen as a failure option.

Or, a hybrid VOIP where, likes of BT, provide a socket on the side of the modem which you can plug an old fashioned phone into. If patched and wired correctly within a house, you would never know it was any different. BT ditched Redcare lines last year I think it was, part of the switch-off but also because they know their fibre alternative needs backup battery to remain active in event of a power failure, in the case of lifts, one of the very time you may want it - most are now GSM.

I think that Dan should know that the site has cost £1500 to run, I would raise it as a friendly comment, even give them the benefit of the doubt, albeit clearly not, that maybe they had left it on a couple of nights/weekends by accident and that the bill was £1500 could they check the heater was being used for lunch break only with maybe, a tea break. They are being paid to work, not drink tea in a warm cabin. If this doesn't remedy the situation, you could also have the heater put on a timer locked away, a little boost 30minutes before site typically starts to take the chill off - they should arrive and start working, not have tea anyway, and then again 40 minutes just before and through lunch time. That should be plenty. If you had it hardwired and locked in so they cannot mess with it, and it is found to have been tampered with, then you can complain. Most of these guys would typically be happy to sit in their van out the cold!

Does it mention welfare facilities? What if, for example, they had an electric van, and were charging it up, even at the normal 13A plug lead at 3kW solid all day? A line must be drawn in the sand. I think power for a build and power for heating the welfare cabin could be deemed quite different.

Very possible. Most big concrete slabs are actually many slabs with connecting rebar or slip joints. The SE who is doing your extension, get it to give you a little bit extra to confirm your makeup and how you should do it. If it was me and ground situation was right, I would leave rebar sticking out the first slab so the second slab can get poured and tied to the first. But your build sounds like it might almost be 2 quite separate slabs that meet at a door way, which is even easier. Consider Topflow (Trademark name of Tarmac concrete product) for your slab if you want a flooring ready finish.

That looks like a good space!

That isn't really how you make MDF shelfs, those brackets are more used for solid timber, like oak or oak mantles. These thick floating shelves are usually made up with a timber frame inside. I made the stereotypical floating shelves in an alcove unit, first I built a frame in 30x30 pine, fixed that to the wall, then fixed a piece of spray painted 12mm MDF to the bottom, then I created the top of the shelf with 18mm MDF with a return on the front with 12mm MDF, that was all filled/sanded and sprayed to create a seamless finish, that was then simply offered up to the frame and it is held in place just with the caulk - I also incorporated LED lighting into the front edge. If I just wanted a plain floating shelf, I would build a timber (or metal) frame, fix to the walls. Then make a "sleeve" piece -i.e. 2 pieces of MDF joint with a front piece - fill and prep the whole lot and paint (spray paint for me).

Surely the plans don't state you need to keep "that" wall, just a wall in that position? Don't see why they would be precious about a block wall! I could understand if it was a 300 year old stone wall. Take the concrete out and give the wall a nudge, put it down to a site incident, excavator bucket crash or something, dig out and rebuild.

It's the Russians...