Alan Ambrose

I think you need a bit more meat - what kind of insulation standard, for instance? Is there a spec somewhere or are is this a rough quote with a lot of the detail left out? If the latter, there may be a lot in there for 'builder's contingency' for stuff left unspecified.

Err, remove the pipe, flash, put the pipe back with suitable standoffs?

A pic would be useful. I wonder whether this is due to moisture ingress - sandstone is fairly porous. Water expanding into steam might do it. Maybe granite would be more impervious to moisture. Or maybe a metal (cast iron?) or even sand hearth?

Vendor finance is quite common in the US, I'm not sure why not here. The risks are mainly on the vendor's side - after all they're giving you a loan. Have you got as far as discussing terms - see if they're reasonable? Potential for a good deal, of course, if they want to sell quickly.

If you do go down the pumped route, check out the discussion on Stuart Turner here:

I think I might be tempted to engage my own (proper) SE to do a survey of both sides of the wall at the same time as the other guy. The scenario you want to head off is 'pseudo-SE states problem is all down to you' followed by 'immediate claim of your liability and promptly whisked into court'. The 'expert witness' thing is maybe a bit of a red flag? At that stage you would be arguing (their) SE's qualifications and since it would be in the lower courts, the result might be a bit random. If you were able to present your proper SE's analysis and report at the same time, that might just head the problem off.

>>> Option 1/ will only make relations worse IMO I think sometimes you need to be firm with unreasonable people. As an example: I have a neighbour to my plot who recently declared "water from the rear of your plot is not going to cross our property". He hasn't given a reason or any hint about what kind of problem this might cause, if any. I have been perfectly pleasant to him to date. The drainage is, of course, very important for us and historically there has been drainage ditch there (now a culvert, converted before I bought the plot). It runs in his direction and all the neighbours use it for rainwater drainage and treatment plant outflow. I have sent him a pamphlet from our LPA describing how riparian rights work with the relevant sections highlighted. He hasn't replied. Next I will offer him the opportunity to withdraw his statement/threat or the alternative of a solicitor's letter confirming how riparian rights work. In my experience there's always someone trying to take the piss. You can try and deal with them sensibly and argue them round. But sometimes you have to treat fire with fire.

Ah tricky neighbours, don't you love them? >>> they are trying to blame me for it. Ah you sure that's the case or is that just a fear? There are a couple of options: (1) If you're sure they're just causing unnecessary trouble, then I might string them along and let them get their court order. Write to the solicitor as often as you can to bulk up their legal bill. In the meantime, be assertive and send your pictures to them with a polite but firm letter. By all means chat to them in person and see if you can defuse the situation and thereby stop wasting your joint resources. (2) If you're sure you have not caused a problem, give them access, and give the SE your dated photos, bend the SE's ear re your theories about their plants.

Maybe the combination of house prices ticking up, mortgage rates ticking down and reasonablly quiet politically for the forseeable.

>>> I had this, the local housing stock was a complete abortion of 1980’s fake Cotswold stone, there was no way they could say they wanted me to match in with a load of houses that shouldn’t have been built like they were. Yeah, quite, sometimes LPAs can’t see the wood from the trees. Soneone should tell my LPA that the objective is to improve the housing stock, not to bring everything down to a 1950s prefab standard.

Do your SIPS have a foil backing maybe? That might do it. The first solution he talks about is quite straight forward. If you’re not confident with a soldering iron on PCBs I might find someone who is - a geeky and capable teenager maybe? p.s. Like the writer of the article, I can’t believe they didn’t design for a possible external antenna.

>>> using the design process to understand what we want, as a learning tool Yeah, that's a perfectly valid design technique. You're the customer, do whatever you want. You might like to consider what orientations (sun, views etc) work well with your designs. As are mood boards, magazine clipping files, physical models etc etc etc. If you have the time and energy, there's nothing to stop you thinking about construction teechniques, insulation amounts, plant etc. And reading the 'ub here to learn a lot.

From planningresource.co.uk - I didn't know anything about a 26 week rule? Bolton Council last November revealed that it had been wrongly keeping fees paid to its planning department that it should have been paying back. Since 2013, local planning authorities have been legally required to pay back fees if a decision has not been made after 26 weeks, unless other agreements or exemptions are in place. Now a 12-month internal investigation has reported that the ““the potential maximum financial liability, if we go back to the commencement of the change in legislation, is £450k”.

Oh I see - that’s kinda dumb surely - capacity should be real world capacity no? i.e. what could be generally be generated if nobody was told to throttle back? I guess the economics makes a bit of sense - pay generators less if the grid has to spend lots on that part of the grid to make their electricity viable? Make electricity cheaper around the generators for those who have to put up with the infrastructure?

You should be able to plane it quite easily, but the edges will be even more vulnerable I think. Possible to cover them with something at least temporarily waterproof? Some kind of tape maybe?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/oct/07/ive-fallen-out-with-people-the-bruising-debate-over-uk-zonal-energy-pricing Anyone understand why all regions seem to have generation capacity much higher than peak requirements?

I’m in the process of buying a van for the build and looking for a cheapish way to do car insurance. Me and the mrs have 2 cars already. Now, I can’t drive a car and a van at the same time (so, it’s mostly the same risk) so I’m hoping there’s a cost effective way to add a 3rd vehicle. Also there’s some complex stuff re no claims bonuses and multiple vehicles? Anyone figured this out? I understand car enthusiasts who have lots of cars have a way to do something sensible. Anyone figured this all out?

I might have been clearer - there’s a gotcha on self-build exemption of CIL on a 2nd application. If you’re building a bunch of units then self-build won’t apply.

>>> It's a ground floor. Ah, I wonder if you have any idea what’s underneath and whether there’s any insulation at all? You can guess based on the age of the building or core drill to get a better idea. For rooms that get intermittent use, you can heat only for the hours you need to use them, but that may be less possible for rooms that are more occupied. In the worst case (concrete all the way down) you might like to get as much xps/eps insulation in as reasonably possible.

In your shoes, I would send both applications in. Take one or both to appeal depending on the result. That’s assuming you have time and money on your side. Appeals are running at a year atm, so factor that in. Of course, you won’t get an answer up front, that’s what the decision process is for. Nearest best thing is your architect’s and/or planning consultant’s judgement. My experience of pre-apps (only two) is that they’re a complete waste of time and can be actively misleading, which is worse than not doing them in the first place. That may be case officer or LPA dependant. How good is your LPA? - look up the stats. Yes, like a tombola, there’s a lot of luck involved and most of the LPA’s judgements are simple opinion cloaked in planning jargon - it’s not a rational process at all. Engage your councillor too.

Hope that goes well and a fit of common sense breaks out at the LPA. I assume you don't have CIL there? Beware of submitting another full application if you do - it may well be very costly.

OK here's my 10c. I've installed a three of these and I've had a couple installed elsewhere (not by me). The comments above are kind of true. You don't mention what is below the 'light cement floor' or what room this is. Bathroom? It makes it so much harder if we have to extract the clues from you like some kind of cryptic crossword. My floors were all in flats so it wasn't like there was 300mm of concrete below. 4 bathrooms, one kitchen. I think these were laid on the subfloor in all cases (probably chipboard) with a thinnish (maybe 6mm) 'tile backer' board. I would have used a thicker board knowing what I know now about insulation. The three I laid were all heating wire rather than heating mat. Two had ceramic tiles over (I didn't lay those two), one plastic tiles of some sort, two resin (Suba I think). You might want to put in an extra thermistor btw for redundancy. They all work(ed) fine (one flat is sold now). All on a thermostat and a timer. Not too expensive to run. Very quick to heat up. Quite effective I think. Lovely if you like warm feet in the bathroom. One failed - due, I think, to something leaning against the controller causing it to overheat. I have UFH in one bathroom now at a different property. Works fine again, much slower to heat up. Not sure what's below it.

Yeah, I think it's answered here: i.e. a '4m' tower has a 'platform height' (bit you stand on) at 2m, a 'tower height' (max height of safety frame) of 3m (i.e. 1m higher than the platform) and a 'working height' (reasonable height you could reach up to) of 4m. So, if you need to actually reach a widget at a height of say, 8m, you need an 8m tower. Ladders are similar. This assumes you can reach up 2m higher than the floor. Even as a short-arse I can do that, at least for a while holding some light tools. Holding a heavy SDS drill all day drilling into concrete? Well you probably need something 1m higher so you can hold it at waist height.

Suggest giving the whole services in the wall thing a miss. Use surface mount plastic sockets and plastic conduit or metalclad and plastic or metal conduit. You might want the sockets above desk height for ease of use and it's possible you might want a group on a big switch so they can all be turned off at once. Sure in a ring main around all the walls. Philips square led panels for my money - but screw straight onto ceiling. Ensure all insulation and heating is going to work properly - you don't want it to cost a bomb to heat. Ditto windows - it may be cost effective to install double glazed and better frames. Maybe a quick stab at the J Harris spreadsheet to check. Wall mount remote controlled fan heater for quick heat up before you start work. Whatever heating you're comfortable with after that. You could fix up the wood burner if you really like it, but it'll take up quite a lot of effective space once you keep everything flammable away from it. Strictly, the install/recommsiiosning should be (or if BC is not required, for your own peace of mind) Hetas or BC-notified. Don't ignore solar gain either - my workshop gets crazy hot in the middle of summer.

For associates: daily rates vary between £450 and £1,700. With the 10 most extreme values thrown out, the spread comes down to £800 - £1,050. So, say £925?