Alan Ambrose

>>> you can keep Koi in there. What a fantastic idea - maybe a fish tank in a niche in the wall? Or is that all a bit dentist’s surgery?

OK this is fairly easy, although please take care to give the key relevant info when asking a question, otherwise you're asking us to write very long mostly irrelevant if-then-else replies. The most obvious questions are what is your drainage situation / what soil-type do you have / where will this drain to?. So: Pay 'Freeflush' £100 for the SUDS calc. You need to supply the plan area of your roofs and non-permeable hard standing and your location. Hint: make your hard-standing permeable and draining (using say, MOT3) to vastly reduce that requirement. That gives you your tank volume. Figure out whether you (a) want to use crates, tank, pond, swale, lake or Versailles-like water feature and (b) where it eventually drains to - ditch, culvert, soakaway, drainage field. You will need a soakaway test for the last two. Draw a simple drawing showing the arrangement. Check the levels and drainage fall if you're not sure. Add a short narrative written in the language of a 5-year old for people who don't understand numbers or drawings. Example calc below and no, you can't use those numbers.

Buy a 2nd hand Armorgard box. (Yeah, I don’t know why the Americans can’t spell either.) Put your most valuable tools in that or in the house somewhere. All the rest of the xrap - nobody’s going to steal it, in fact you would have to pay someone to take it away - stick it under a tarp and then that’s an incentive to get your new shiny workshop up and running in less than a year.

Depends on the circumstances of course. Being given a bit of your parents land with pp. Go for it if you fancy. What could go wrong? Buying a brownfield plot for a bunch of cash with questionable access, drainage, utilities, newts, bats, rights of way, historic covenants, disputed boundaries etc? Don’t get any old conveyancer, get a land agent, commercial property specialist or someone (there are not many of them) with experience of buying that kind of land. This’ll cost more than minimum conveyancing fees too because of the amount of work required.

@Nickfromwales Re: clear CT1 I saw recently that the clear version is not intended for external use. Not sure why not - UV maybe or maybe a different formulation? See:

Just supposing you leave 5mm nominal gap around windows (this is a timber frame building). I get that you can install Compriband on the sides and top, but what about the bottom? Won't it just crush and leave a bigger gap at the top? 5mm temporary or permanent packers maybe?

I thought I would start this thread as I've recently started to grips with Non-Material and Minor-Material amendments. This is what I think I've learnt: + NMAs (section 96A) are called just that on the Planning Portal, MMAs (section 73) are dealt with by Variation of Condition - probably the condition that adopted your drawings. + Your LPA decides what is an NMA, and therefore they can refuse them pretty much as they want - there is no appeal. Similar for MMAs, but they can be appealed. BTW there's a government doc here: Annex A: summary comparison table - but it's seriously out of date. These are the questions that I have: + It's not clear to me whether with a MMA you need to re-apply for CIL exemption? + Is there any point to NMAs? It seems to me that if you're confident it will be accepted, then you might just as well make the amendment and then apply retrospectively if the changes are challenged. + Similarly, if you think there's any risk to an NMA, then you might just as well save yourself some time and go for an MMA - at least you can appeal that straight away.

>>> Not with a listed building on site. Interestingly, there is a neighbour between us and the farmhouse and they installed roof mounted PV panels recently. As PD hasn't been removed here and you don't have to specifically apply for permission to use PD (err permitted, duh), I wonder when and how the A2 PD conditions come into effect. Presumably not after you have installed the panels. >>> Ground mount them? I don't believe we have the space to ground mount them and then they would likely be subject to shading from tall trees. I've just submitted a MMA for the PV - at least I can take that to appeal.

We had an NMA refused just before Xmas which was largely concerned with PV panels. This was the relevant text: "The proposed alteration to the roof materials of part of the dwelling and the cart lodge would result in a markedly more contemporary appearance of the approved dwelling which is within the setting of a listed building which would amount to a material change in the design and its potential impact on the heritage asset." The proposal was to cover the roof of the barn furthest from the road with PV panels and change the look of the resulting ~300mm border from pantiles to trapezoidal metal - so it would blend in better. Sure, adding PV panels (which were described on the original application but not shown on the drawings) will make the look 'more contemporary' - but WTF, this isn't the 1950s. The 'heritage asset' btw is a farmhouse a 100m or so away - there are a couple of thousand of those in Suffolk. In my next application I will point out that we will be able to install PV under PD anyway but I notice this in the PD regs: A2 Development is permitted by Class A subject to the following conditions— (a)solar PV or solar thermal equipment is, so far as practicable, sited so as to minimise its effect on the external appearance of the building; (b)solar PV or solar thermal equipment is, so far as practicable, sited so as to minimise its effect on the amenity of the area; So, some wiggle room for the LPA. Thoughts?

I've been looking at these Geberit FlowFit Pre-Insulated pipes to use as supply pipes to the bathrooms running in a 50mm service cavity. Probably 20mm ID to bathroom and split locally to taps / bath / showers? (Kind of assuming there's nobody else in there when someone is taking a bath/shower). I've highlighted the ones that have max insulation but just fit in my service cavity. No need to insulate cold? Anyone have any thoughts? https://www.pipestock.com/geberit-flowfit-pre-insulated-system-pipe-blue-coils

Probably the item that failed is the driver and agree the easiest method might be to ask Siteco. What's the Merrytek bit though? Some kind of presence sensor or Dali thing? It's possible, but less likely, that that has failed rather than the driver. A remote possibility is finding a constant current driver of roughly the same spec that will fit physically.

>>> We had no problems insuring it Us neither on a barn conversion, entirely timber.

A slightly different co-incidence. Swapped out a dimmer switch for a light. Flipped the breaker, double checked circuit was powered off, swapped dimmer, powered it all up again. No go. In fact after lengthy investigation it turned out all circuits on that entire phase were dead. What? Surely I couldn’t have taken out the main fuse for that phase? How? Much more investigation. Turns out that at exactly the same time I was swapping the dimmer, a likely lad had put his digger bucket through one of the phases of the underground LV line for the entire street.

>>> Ask loads of questions, we will give the same amount of answers Actually, we’ll give six different, sometimes mutually opposing, opinions for each question. 😉

+1 Yeah suggest you must have an SE look at this and do some calcs & designs. A useful check would be the weight of the windows that were being removed plus details of how they’re fixed and how the openings are presently supported. If you’re not modifying the existing apertures, the new supports, if required, may also reduce the window size allowed by a bit.

Yes, the US, but not unreasonable to think we might face the same potential problem here due to datacentres gobbling power: An electricity crunch is driving high bills in these states. It’s not getting better anytime soon https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/22/climate/high-electricity-bills-maryland-new-jersey-pennsylvania?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc&recs_exp=up-next-article-end&tenant_id=related.en

@gc100 >>> I just got a good passive aerial/dish and pointed it towards the nearest mask (looked up online). It’s just plugged into the back of the router that has the sim Possible to say a bit more? This was a directional aerial? With gain? More than one (I see some router ads wasping on about multiple aerials and ‘Mimo’). 4G, I assume?

Mine might be the little 1/4inch Makita DDF083 drill/driver and a set of hex drills. Oh, and a magic wand to wave over my local planning department…

My reading is that (with the possible exception of bathrooms) that low voltage dc e.g. 24V led strips (or ac come to that) is outside Part P. Similarly PoE which is usually 24V or 48V dc over ethernet cables.

I’ve recently been bugged by Enforcement a couple of times and had an Non Material Amendment (NMA) turned down. And the LPA owes me some money for their previous unreasonable behaviour. The whole ‘system’ is a piss take designed to stop development. The beneficiaries are the existing land/property owners, of course. It needs rolling back 50 years or so.

Sam U’s example: 1. Application Form (inci. the correct type 23. Economic/Employment Assessment of Ownership Certificate 24. Energy Statement 2. Site Location Plan 25. Flood Risk Assessment 3. Existing & Proposed Elevations 26. Heritage Statement 4. Existing & Proposed Plans 27. Inclusive Design Statement 5. Existing & Proposed Sections 28. Landscaping Strategy 6. Affordable Housing Financial Viability 29. Microclimate Wind Assessment Assessment 30. Noise & Vibration Impact Assessment 7. Affordable Housing Statement 31. Planning Fire Safety Statement 8. Agent of Change Assessment 32. Planning Statement 9. Air Quality Assessment 33. Public Art Strategy 10. Archaeological Assessment 34. Preliminary Drainage Strategy 11. Aviation Impact Assessment 35. Preliminary Ecological Assessment 12. Biodiversity Statement 36. Refuse and Recycling Strategy 13. Biodiversity Net Gain Statement* (incl. 37. Safety, Security and Resilience to completed copy of the statutory Emergency Strategy biodiversity metric calculation tool) 38. Topographical Plans/Surveys (Existing 14. Community Engagement Statement & Proposed) 15. Community Infrastructure Levy Form 39. Townscape and Visual Impact 16. Contaminated Land Assessment Assessment 17. Daylight & Sunlight Assessment (On- 40. Transport Assessments Site & Off-Site) a. Swept Path Analysis and 18. Demolition Plans b. Parking Surveys (Richmond 19. Design and Access Statement Methodology) 20. Draft Construction Logistics 41. Transport Statement Management Plan 42. TV/Radio Reception Impact 21. Draft Delivery & Servicing Plan® Assessment and

+1 with the exception of crazy wall or dodgy tiles. Even then, a good tiler will warn you in advance and give you the option.

Quite a good summary here: https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are-finally-taking-the-housing

Easiest way to try out is Arduino software or similar and the USB dongle which will present the 485 as standard serial. The manufacturer’s simple protocol is probably documented somewhere, otherwise it’ll be hard to guess unless you have a working example from somewhere. Post up docs here?

Congrats. You need the patience of a saint, no?