Alan Ambrose

There's nothing like a government-mandated monopoly owned by a hedge fund is there? There's a few of these around.

Agree with external blinds & brise soleil. Oh and low-ish g glass. But also, let vegetation grow in front of the windows in the summer. It looks great and, if you choose the right plants, they love it. Then cut it back in the winter.

If you’re lucky you might break even but end up with the house you mostly want - but likely after a few battles with planners, contractors, neighbours etc.

She’s taking the mickey, fairly obviously to try and stop you complaining about out of hours working. The boundaries held at the land registry are only approximate unless a special filing has been done.

If you take your annual power usage (or your forecast one) you’ll find your average consumption is a couple of amps, and that’s without allowing for self-consumption of PV.

I think that unless you have, for instance, some land in the family, then plots in the SE that make any economic sense are few and far between. Then you have a bunch of bidders, who haven’t done good arithmetic, who will bid over the odds.

How noisy do you find these?

Powder coating to any ral colour is fairly easy and cheap. Just ensure you discuss the right powder for outside use and that the original (aluminium, galvanised etc) can take it.

Suggest NMA. They always have a condition which says ‘build it according to the drawings’, that won’t change.

That’s crazy neat, congrats. What are the ‘grommets’ you used through the cabinet floor?

This is a bit of UKPN make-work. They focus on the HP and car charger as they’re the big loads. My contact actually asked for the make and model of the units. Just say ‘1 dwelling’ and make up appropriate numbers based on the max power / current for the units. Power is 230V x current in amps for this purpose. kVA and kW are ‘the same’ for this calc. No, of course they’re not, but power factors etc are way too much detail for this back-of-the-envelope nonsense. In practice 97% of the time, they’re going to give you either a single phase 100A supply or a 63A 3-phase. So, 23kW or 46kW. So, make the result come out at about 60% of one of those - so the thing makes sort-of sense to UKPN. The other 3% is for local areas that are close to their max supply limits. Ask them how much they can supply, and then magically come up with a number that is 80% of that.

Good question - I think that on a public road the highways dept might usually own the verge, say, a metre back from the road. Exactly how that all works, I’m not sure, but I think no harm in asking them. Our PP specifically states that our driveway apron should be built according to a standard drawing produced by local highways guys. Your council might have something similar.

Don’t forget all those cranes & silos.

It seems we don’t expect our own institutions to act morally, these days. And they don’t expect to do so, either. That’s a sad state of affairs.

p.s. the link gives this:

I don't think there's an alternative when you need to (a) support a load and (b) maintain a reasonable thermal barrier. Most good thermal insulators won't support much of a load unless it's spread across a large surface area.

@Iceverge - thanks for your idiots guide to grading. Do you need to keep the bucket vertical at the same time? @flanagaj - that's a great idea, I'll see if I can find someone locally.

Next they’ll be AI bots hosted in India.

My local highway guys say 3.7m to 5.5m as part of our planning conditions.

Did that help any? I see there’s some pricey magnetic ones.

OK this is what I have so-far for anyone repeating this exercise: PTP Comparison.xlsx I'm leaning towards a conical one like Mr Harris and for the same reasons.

Thanks, that's interesting - yeah, it's the '3 dimensions at once to pull the bucket on a level heading' that's stumping me.

p.s. while the ‘fall not protected by handrail’ look is cool, a friend had a horrible accident where they removed the handrail in their home and a couple of years later she slipped off while carrying her motorbike gear downstairs. Broke both wrists and was lucky she didn’t break her neck.

You might be able to run this past your LPA’s building control people informally and ask which regs they need you to meet. Or a private BC if you prefer. The ‘fixing to this and that’ may raise the spectre of a structural engineer if BC are a bit bolshy / nervous / jobsworth. Not bad in itself but a bit of extra cost. Look up the stairs and balustrades regs on NHBC for a simple explanation. I imagine the design is for industrial use and therefore not immediately fitting domestic regs - probably some simple mods will sort it.

I have the same problem - on what basis does the LPA approve or not a planting scheme? Maybe they won’t like the colour of your geraniums? Agree that it’s all a bit bollocks. Scatter in some detail to satisfy the 5-second optics test? Sizes, heights, species etc? I’ve seen a whole complex para on plans that just means ‘typical country hedge’.