Alan Ambrose

This is for the connection?

It’s not impossible to have a garage in front of the principal elevation, of course. It might help if the garage doesn’t look ugly. We just got planning including that. It wan’t really possible to do anything else much as the plot is long and narrow. The previous permission also had a car port in front of the house. Run it by your LPA? If you look around your local area you might find a bunch of examples to show the LPA.

This unethical use by LPAs of CIL law (or interpretation) has to stop. Government should be setting an example on ethics, not racing the private sector to the ‘now you’re f….d’ bottom. This makes the dodgy parking enforcers, the seedier part of the insurance industry, the people who sold detached houses as leasehold, and the guys installing flammable cladding in high rises … look like saints.

Congrats

You could double check by putting similar assumptions into Jeremy’s spreadsheet?

I think someone else on here found a 3rd party negotiator working on commission. Is that a route?

Are there not examples on your LPA's portal? There are on mine.

Which reminds me ... I was going to put a pressure guage below mine so I could at least keep an eye on the pressure of the water side.

Probably ok then. Would be interesting to measure tho.

I wonder how important the compensating charge pressure is? I’m thinking that if the water & air pressure are v different the bladder will be stretched to ….y. And we all know what that feels like. It probably shortens its life. I’m thinking a lot of these get installed with the factory 3 bar precharge - which could be way off.

>>> In economics, as opposed to accountancy, if you get your expected return on capital investment i.e. 6%, then it does not matter what happens to any excess. I’ve never come across an investor, who although planning for a 6% return wouldn’t happily take a 9% return.

I said I would report back from the planning meeting. Firstly, it was personally useful as I said hello to our planning officer who I had only communicated with by email (he, by coincidence presented the first two applications on the agenda) and also the councillor for our area who had called-in a couple of the applications. The layout was interesting, with the councillors in a big horseshoe and the 'public' squeezed into a small rectangle. There was a small table for the 'public' to speak from with all the councillors and relevant planning officers bearing down on them. The planning officer spent an age going through each application showing a dozen or more drawings and photos, walking through the history etc, and doing a reasonable job of summarising the LPA's position and the issues at hand. The councillors were an interesting lot. Some said nothing at all, some reacted a bit to the officer's presentation, some were chummy with the planning officers, one sat apart and only had a list of pre-prepared points on a couple of the applications. Some of the 'public' spoke - an architect and a planning consultant speaking for some of the applications and a bevy of town council / posh residents / hired consultants obviously co-ordinated over their objections. As it was getting late, I left after 3 hours and 3 applications, but the meeting was sure to on for another hour or more. Pretty much as expected, but interesting all the same. I'm still not sure of the process for getting an application called-in.

I’m not done yet, but have the same impression that I have to back the LPA into such a tight corner that they have no alternative. They’re still not acting like an organisation that is going to be influenced by what a mere appeals inspector has already put on paper or anything their own employees have said in the past.

I really like our current barn conversion and that’s one of the big reasons. There’s a sense of airiness and generosity (if you don’t mind me slipping into designer-speak) that you don’t get from 2.4m rooms with flat ceilings. I agree that changing light bulbs is a bit hard, but I have a tall stepladder for that. It was 5 years or so before I bought it because a couple of the LED bulbs had failed. You get the same sense from grand houses with their high ceilings and big windows & doors.

>>> what should I be looking for? So, I can answer this question, can I ask @mickeych how long ago did you make your payment and approx how much? I think the story is a bit subtle - looks like a founder that started the business on a shoestring and expanded too fast. Looks like he has already incorporated his next company.

>>> flash steam plant for a car There's a guy in Norfolk that my dad used to know who had a steam car with amazing accelaration. I believe he built it himself. I did see it once briefly, but don't remember much about it.

One way is to take some calipers and measure the diameter of the copper in one of the main conductors - with the current most decidely off, of course. CSA Overall Dimensions Diameter of each Live/ Number of strands Approx Measurement across Max Neutral copper core strand bundle of strands (‘diameter’) Current 1mm² 7.8mm x 4.25mm 1.13mm 1 (solid core) 16 1.5mm² 8.2mm x 5mm 1.38mm 1 (solid core) 20 2.5mm² 10.3mm x 6mm 1.78mm 1 (solid core) 27 4mm² 11.9mm x 6.25mm 0.85mm 7 2.56mm 37 6mm² 13.5mm x 7mm 1.04mm 7 3.13mm 47 10mm² 17.1mm x 10mm 1.35mm 7 4.05mm 64 16mm² 19.4mm x 10mm 1.71mm 7 5.12mm 85 It goes without saying that you shouldn't be doing this unless you're completely sure you know what you're doing. Seems possible that its a 64A cable from your picture above. p.s. what's the main 'fuse' rating of the secondary CU?

That brings back very bad memories of steam tables and 'thermo'.

Ah, presumably something like this: https://www.anglianpumping.com/product/pressure-vessels/200-litre-accumulator Remember GWS accumulators operate on a 60% volume to use ratio meaning a 300 litre vessel gives 180 litres of powerful water before returning to mains flow.

No, don't believe so. I'm guessing it has the usual rubber bladder (?) - so the difference between fully stretched bladder and fully relaxed bladder ( 😀 ) may be a smallish fraction of the total tank size. 1/4 maybe? I'm guessing the manufacturer could tell you.

BBC reporting new targets compared to old: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c878ppdexl3o

I'm thinking that some SEs expect to work at quite a slow pace. I asked for 3 or 4 for quotes for basement design. After a couple of weeks a couple got back to me. One quote was a one liner and more or less said 'around £5K maybe' (I forget the exact figure) but without much sense of what would be delivered for that. I chose the one that actually got back to me with a somewhat thought out quote. I assumed the ones that didn't get back to me were not interested. Letting the others know, one said 'oh, I didn't think you were in much of a rush, so I haven't replied yet'. So, could just be that your expectations are very different from their expectations.

Yeah quite, it wouldn't be the first time an LPA has taken advantage of someone dying. I'm interested in seeing the terms. Annoys me that central government make some laws (BNG exclusion for self-builders) and then local government finds a way round those laws.

Hmmm, I'm not as optimistic as you re the move to give planning officers more power. There's loads of blatant 'decision based on single person's opinion alone' there already and this will empower the planning officer's even more in that regard rather than having a check and balance.

The government are fairly fond of cliff edge ‘now you’re f….d’ rules. This kind of thing needs to be stopped both in the private sector but especially in the public sector.