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Thanks @saveasteading but i rather stick to water based rads if possible. I would consider electric only if it ticked all other boxes, but that has no timer or wifi control. I guess wifi control isn't essential if electric heats up within 5 minutes. Have no experience of electric towel rads so don't know how responsive they are.

Yes, but one can't take the trade benefits of EU membership without giving up that control. Otherwise, it would undermine the whole point of a customs union. If we could have our cake and eat it, then there would be nothing to stop the UK from undercutting the EU in negotiations with third parties and then importing stuff to the UK from outside the EU more cheaply than one can import it from within the EU and then exporting it to the EU. So for example, let's say Australian wine carries a 2 euro tariff when imported to the EU. The UK leaves the EU and makes a deal such that it can import Australian wine with no tarrifs. Ozzie wine is now cheaper in the UK than in France because we decided not to charge tariffs. Some clever merchant spots this and starts importing Ozzie wine to the UK and then exporting it France. This effectively robs the EU the ability to impose that 2 euro tarriff on Ozzie wine. So it completely undermines the customs union. We could have left the EU but joined EFTA like Iceland Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland.

Thanks for the replies @PeterW, @ProDave and @joe90. Is there an alternative way to have smart control of towel rads, either by rigging up some sort of "false" radiator valve outside of the bathroom and fitting the tado smart thermostatic valve there or by losing tado altogether and using something else? I appreciate that if the tado is fitted outside it won't be able to sense the temp inside the bathroom, but that doesn't bother me as much. I just like the smart control that means I can control the valve from my phone as well as set it to different routines on different days. We had this at my old house (on radiators outside of bathrooms, not in bathrooms) and would love to know how to replicate this. I prefer to stick to water based towel rads as I think they are more efficient (i believe, but might be wrong about that) than electric.

I have some Smart radiator valves made by tado from my old place. Our new place will have UFH throughout, except that in the bathrooms we'll have some small towel rads as well. I was thinking of using the Tado rad valves on those towel rads. Below is what the Tado website says. I'm thinking of installing one about 50cm from a bathtub, so in breach of the requirements. Given it is IP20 rated, what's the worst that could happen? Would the tado die from a few spashes, or could it actually be dangerous? They are battery operated, so not plugged into the mains. Is this something the BCO will spot if I breach the rules?

excess demand over supply

Welcome to Brexitlandia.

Good to know! I was literally just about to order from them. So where's best for Grohe toilet frames and cisterns?

Or a Prima: https://www.ergonomicdesigns.co.uk/product/BPR405~prima-plus-3-in-1-kitchen-mixer-tap-in-matt-black.html which isn't a bad price for WRAS approved and 10 year guarantee

Does anyone have a pronteau by abode? http://www.pronteau.co.uk/4-in-1/propure-monobloc-swan/configure

Agree with that. Builder's depot also does good deals on toilets, particularly if you need 2 or more.

There are a few online shops that do good prices. Depends if you know alley what you want. QS Supplies and ErgonomicDesign are both pretty reasonably priced. Victorianplumbing and drench are cheap, but watch out as a lot of their stock is cheap Chinese stuff.

Welcome to Brexitland.

It's not a huge floor area as it's just in the loft, but I will wait for @ProDave to comment on sound/impact transfer. (And before somebody tells me I don't need heating in the loft, I do - We've not been able to achieve a passivehaus standard of insulation.)

That is clearer, thanks. So the UFH still goes above the Chipboard, but rather than in the XFLO, which in my case is 25mm thick, it would go in the pug mix, which you think would dampen down footsteps so no need for the 6mm rubber. It's a small saving in height of 13mm (as 18mm battens with PUG in between instead of 25mm XFLO , and no 6mm rubber layer) but sounds like extra work. Not sure it's worth it for a 13mm saving.

The XFLO Micro is described here: https://www.cellecta.co.uk/product/xflo-micro-ff/ it basically provides pipe routings and heat diffusion in a high compressive (500kpa !) easy to install package. For the 16mm pipes I'm running however it needs to be 25mm thick. I'm not sure how I would do what you are suggesting as surely for pipes to go in between the joists, i would need to drill through the 50mm wooden part of the POSI and I thought the whole point of posi joists is that they can't be drilled or notched and one has to route stuff through the metal webbing.

I've just found out that the Cellecta XFLO Micro FF, which are foil faced extruded polystyrene boards is not compatible with my choice of finished floor, which is 14.5mm engineered wooden parquet flooring. The parquet company recommend gluing it down and Cellecta say that whilst I can glue the parquet directly to the XFLO Micro FF, it is designed for larger planks to just float on top, rather than small parquet to be glued. They have suggested adding an additional layer of plywood above the XFLO Micro FF that I can then glue the Parquet engineered boards to but that would result in this build up, which is pretty tall at 73.5mm plus adhesive. I was concerned about it's height already, and so the additional 6mm and adhesive makes it even taller: 14.5mm parquet adhesive 6mm ply 25mm Cellecta XFLO Micro FF 6mm Celecta Ruberfon Impact 6 dense rubber matting (this prevents impact sound transferring to room below) 22mm T&G Egger peelclean xtra chipboard 200mm POSI Joists filled with rockwool (other than where MVHR pipes go) There must be a better way of doing this. With normal joists i could drop the UFH into the gaps between the joists and suspend it on battens, but there are two reasons I don't think that is possible here: I need the space between the posis for the MVHR ducting - or is there space for doing both here? The POSI is 50mm wood then 100mm gap for ducts then 50mm wood, so space for battens and UFH would be 50mm at the very most I would lose the ability to put the 6mm rubber matting under the UFH system. It would need to lay it over the UFH, which isn't ideal for responsiveness of heating system - although it doesn't have much of a U value. Any thoughts much appreciated!

The Qettle Mini is exactly what I want, except I hate chrome. Shame they don't do brushed brass or brushed steel.

I have 600 by 300 tiles going down on the same floor as 600 by 600. It just made it easier to fit the tiles to our bathroom in that way - rectangular ones in the rectangular shaped shower area and square ones in the more square shape elsewhere. Just found out the rectangular ones are 10.5mm thick whereas the square ones are 9.5mm thick. Does a 1mm discrepancy matter, or can I just have a bit more adhesive on the thinner square tiles? Hopefully someone like @nod will provide some reassurance.

Just checked my contract and it is the builder's duty to: "comply with all statutory obligations applicable to the Works." Fat lot of luck that will do me in a criminal court though!

Just googled this. It doesn’t look very secure. I don’t have windows or a front door at the moment.

Thanks. So I pointed out to my builder that he could change the hoardings so that they are 1m set back. (This isn’t mentioned in the legislation, but is mentioned in the Council’s guidance.) He said he would charge me for the work and that it would cost more than the £195 licence fee. At the time, I thought it was a simple case of paying the licence fee, but this was before I discovered the requirement for £10M public liability insurance. I feel like the builder should have done better for me here. He is experienced enough to know about the licensing regime so really he should have known about this. When I challenged him on this, he said he had never worked in this London borough and that he thought the licence was only required in more central London boroughs. But googling other council’s websites, I think it is a fairly common requirement in many London boroughs. It just feels so unfair.

I received a letter today from my local Council telling me that I had breached section 172 and 173 of the Highway Act 1980 by not applying for a licence from them for my hoardings. The letter closed by pointing out that "Any hoarding erected without a licence is an offence... If a person contravenes this section, he is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale which is currently £1,000; and if the offence is continued after conviction he is guilty of a further offence and liable to a fine not exceeding £2 for each day on which the offence is so continued." Having now read those statutory provisions, it is my firm understanding that if I don't remedy the situation I could be charged and convicted of a criminal offence. That is obviously a very serious matter. I had no idea one needed a licence to erect hoardings. Reading into the history of the legislation, it appears to have been enacted following some scandals in the 70s about children who got terribly injured, sometimes fatally, by trespassing on building sites that didn't have hoardings. The landowners weren't held liable because under the Occupier's Liability Act one is not liable for losses arising from trespass. These provisions of the Highway Act were therefore enacted to prevent that happening. Fair enough, makes sense, and even though I didn't know I had to have hoardings as a matter of law, common sense told me to put them up anyway. I've done 2.4m all the way around the perimeter of my front yard, with a heavy security gate that is clad in timber. All the timber is painted with weatherproof paint and the builder has put his contact details and various health and safety notices up on it for all to see. Unfortunately, he did that only after the inspector visited the property and took a photo which has now been appended to the Council's rather menacing letter. The letter has a deadline for applying for a "retrospective licence" by 13 May 2021. I received the letter today. The Council's licence application form requires me to jump through various hoops. None of those hoops are mentioned in the legislation. This is just Council Policy, not law. The law just says I need to erect hoardings to the Council's "satisfaction... so as to separate the building from the street", and there is then a separate provision that says that I have to add certain bells and whistles, if they require it, such as a handrail and lighting during the hours of darkness. Whereas the Policy says I have to apply for a licence, provide evidence to the Council, as part of the licence application that I have £10 million public liability insurance and also pay the Council the licencing fee of £195 and a deposit which is the minimum sum of £593.86 but subject to their say so depending on their assessment of "the risk to the integrity of the highway". So if they deem the deposit should be more, they can. Again, that aspect of the Policy is not legislation. I have discussed the matter with a former colleague (who is a criminal barrister) and I also happen to be legally trained, so I know that legally they are entitled to interpret this to mean that they can force me to go through a licencing scheme and they can also specify what hoardings they want and how lit up they should be etc. BUT, beyond that, they are basically trying their luck and it's 50/50 as to whether those additional licensing requirements are reasonable and proportionate to the object of the legislation, which is to protect trespassers from injury. My question is, has anybody dealt with a Highways Inspector on a matter like this or similar? I don't want to push this to Court in that the only way to do this is: risk a conviction and a £1000 fine - no thanks; or jump through the hoops and then sue the Council for Judicial Review - which would be time-consuming and I only have a 50/50 chance of winning. But at the moment I can't actually satisfy the requirements of the licence application form. I and my builder only have £5M public liability cover. (He also has £10M employer's liability cover, but this is not relevant here.) It just doesn't seem reasonable that I or my builder has to pay for additional insurance cover when we are actually already complying with the main purpose of the legislation which is to have safe hoardings that effectively separate the building site from the street. Oh, and I wrote to the Council today to ask for an extension to their deadline of 7 days from the date of their letter, and they said "no." W@nk!r$ !!!! And the other thing I find amusing is that the Council Policy is that hoardings must be at least 2440mm high. Mine are 40mm shorter than that!!!

My sliding door papers has come back following site survey and I'm asked to sign off on a contract note that specifies the following for the "external weather seal": "silicone ARBO range or compriband 7-12" Presumably I should specify Compriband, but is 7-12 the right type? Didn't realise there were different types.

Maybe I'm looking at this with too much of a London perspective, but in London there's not a chance in hell you could do all that for £120k. But I guess it depends on spec really. E.g.: What kind of glazing are you thinking of? £3k kitchen or £30k kitchen? Is your staircase going to be complex or bespoke? If so, you're looking at £20k plus. If you can buy off the shelf, then it's a fraction of that. Will you self install the MVHR or get a professional to do it, as that could be a big saving/cost.

I think it depends what aesthetic one is trying to achieve. If, for example, one wants to have continuity between the inside and the outside, for large summer parties (and since lockdown for all year socially distanced gatherings < 6!), then having a wide opening with a flush threshold and trying to match the external finished floor covering to the inside finished floor covering, as well as the threshold material, it can work really rather well. But that requires enough space for furniture not to get in the way, etc. It won't work in every layout so it won't be worth going to all that trouble in every situation. It also depends what the external environment and view is like. We ended up only having 60% of our rear elevation covered with sliding doors