Carrerahill

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...

What you propose is done all the time in commercial and high-end resi installs. Typically what is done is rather than having your lighting circuits fed directly from a DB/CU, you will feed the Loxone board from a say 63A supply from your panelboard/DB/CU and that becomes the lighting supply, for example, then you have 6/10A breakers/RCBO's to protect the various circuits within the controls board. If your controls also has other mains circuits, say, boiler or pumps/fans, you just size the supply to the Loxone board suitability, usually a MCB supplying a SWA cable, then de-rate and protect all the outgoing circuits with suitable protection devices. I have just finished a Hilton hotel reception area design where I have just created a 63A SP supply from the main switch board, which feeds Mode lighting racks, within the Mode racks we use RCBO's. Don't worry about the BS7671 CU heights, if you have a board that is 1200mm tall then it stands to reason you cannot have all switchgear at the p[prescribed height. If this was an issue then every single large board would be non-compliant. I know BS7671 says the breakers should be within 1350-1450 but that just isn't happening 85% of the time. If you have a board, at a realistic height, fully accessible, 1000mm step back, then your laughing.

I am looking to put Wifi in the garage, I have ethernet out there, I just want to extend the house Wifi for seamless connection - I have looked at a couple of Wifi Repeaters with ethernet but when you read the reviews you get mixed signals. Has anyone bought a little, inexpensive, easy to configure repeater, which is working via ethernet that they are happy with, robust, easy to configure etc.? Thanks.

Remember ventilation if you are creating habitable spaces. Quite a few M&E things to consider: fire alarms, emergency lighting, heat/vent etc. If you need assistance PM me.

Well done for admitting you were the blue line advocate, I think I would have stayed quiet!

Orange line. Every time you look out one of the end doors it will look out of alignment and annoy you. Or, use wall washers down the wall, and then stagger some others to the other side so you create a washed wall of light, which tends to be what creates the perception somewhere is well lit because we look at vertical surfaces most of the time, floor could be practically in darkness and your eye would still think the room was well lit.

I think the drainage is the least of your worries. Those slabs run right up to the house and almost at or maybe above DPC. I cannot see any tell-tale signs to suggest it is above these slabs. Anyway, looks like he is using excuses for lazyness/poor work. If I had been doing that I would have been lower for starters and I would have sloped the whole lot away from the house and hard up against the drain channel. He has screwed up the levels and now uses lame excuses to try and conceal his failings.

I would leave it all alone, and buy myself an access chamber, big enough to lower over the whole lot (notches cut to sit over, or undo and reconnect through the duct connection points on the chamber. That is also how that would be done commercially if it was already installed like that. We did this at my friends farm and it has made life so much easier for him over the years. That gives you no more pipework or cost, and leaves you with good future access to the whole lot. I cannot tell from that image the sizes involved but you can get all sizes, 600x600 - 1200 x 600 600 * 800 etc. chambers. Also far cheaper than Atlas chambers. Keep life simple, too short to mess with things like that when an easy option exists. https://www.plastics-express.co.uk/600mm-x-600mm-x-335mm-deep-access-box-p-pm445

Flippant.

Why people buy new builds is beyond me.

Almost certainly will be, could be a Chinese model so we may not "know" it though. If images of it start to emerge I am sure people will soon work it out.