Alan Ambrose

Yeah, I hope they find a way to build more houses, but pretty much every government for the last 50 years has made housing 'a priority'. Also, you have the entrenched planners, appeals system, nimbys etc in place and even if you invent new policy that doesn't mean you will change the system at all quickly.

>>> Maybe we 7 +1 should write to our mp. I'm up for that. My other half works for government, so will ask her the best approach.

>>> ghost voltage I'm thinking it could also be a crossed neutral. You have RCDs in that consumer unit? Another simple test - turn CU on and all MCBs off. Your stray voltage should be zero. Turn the MCBs on one-by-one leaving your suspect circuit til last. See when the ghost voltage turns up.

I would dig as deep as possible with the JCB not for perc test but for DIY soil investigation. Maybe the extremities of the plot and one in the middle. As I said, you're looking for anything sandy or porous at any depth to begin with.

Ah

I sometimes use a shipping service (myUS) to ship stuff from US to UK where the supplier can't be bothered to do the customs stuff etc. Works well, not cheap but you can consolidate several orders if you want to make it more cost-effective. There are similar services from other countries.

Goodness. Except where you're craning in huge windows (I'm not) I plan to do myself. Just read the number of dodgy installs detailed here on BH by 'professional' installers. >>> want the supplier to measure and take responsibility for any errors Buy yourself a laser measure and check a few times. Control your risks, have a backup plan etc - it's not rocket surgery.

A couple of other easy tests to do: + Switch off the MCB and leave for 10 mins or so. If the 10V goes away, then it was likely just charge being held in some LED power supplies or similar. + If possible, turn the whole consumer unit off and see whether the 10V goes away. If so, there might be some cross connection e.g. on the neutrals, between circuits. >>> the other circuit connecting to the junction box was removed some time ago I might also be inclined to double check whether this was fully disconnected. Know what that circuit was used for?

Hi, reading back, did you ever have a soil investigation on your own site? I see the mention of sandstone on some of the records above and wonder whether there's any prospect of finding that? If you have a JCB, I think I might be inclined to dig the deepest hole I can in the extremities of the plot and look carefully at the spoil as it comes out. Anything remotely sandy may well signal success.

It's a bit odd - are you using an auto-ranging meter and is the number actually 10mV? These are lighting circuits? Does the 10V persist for a while e.g. a minute?

I'm cautious about bonfires - I don't know whether the 'authorities' could claim that as 'contamination' at some point. Anyone know for sure? >>> Maybe 50% of that or less if most can be done with a small tractor and a flail mower Actually, I think that should be 1/2 day or less with that equipment >>> An option is to have a digger in to strip the topsoil and everything in and above it. Might that be construed as 'commencement'?

Sorry to divert the thread a little, but it is still on the subject of determining fair overrun amounts. >>> 2.5M without any bank borrowing ? Unlikely. It's a cladding project and mostly paid for by the government. No borrowing or bank QS. The contractor refused to give any progress on time or budget until a few weeks before expected completion. At that point the QS went in very aggressively with a 10 week overrun on a 27-week project plus scope to overrun further. The QS has supplied no calculations. Minimal extra work has been discovered to add to the project costs. The client has never run this kind of project before...

It’s a bit weird isn’t it? Considered turning the heating on in my shed for no other reason than just to make a few quid. Decided that was ridiculous.

Actually it’s not such a big deal to put panels flat on a flat roof - a techy neighbour has that set-up. Again pvgis will tell you exactly.

>>> how can it be sense to pay the turbine company when they turn them off because of too much wind or over production and pay them for the electric they are not producing I’m hoping this policy will be extended and someone will pay me for not building a house.

In 20 years time you may want to replace the panels (falling efficiency of older panels / lower cost / better technology available) and probably the trays (the plastic will be brittle and probably the wrong size for the new panels). That is, pretty much re-roof assuming you've crowded your roof with panels. At that time, might you may have wished you did the on-roof thing as that probably only involves replacing the panels and bolting them onto the old rails?

@saveasteading Know any hard-arsed QS to argue the client's case on a £2.5m project? To be clear, this is not my project but one I'm familiar with and the contractor's QS has gone rogue.

Or calories - there, that reduces the confusion...

I would say that's maybe 8 person days max of brush cutting at whatever daily rate (EUR 200?), so EUR 1,600? A few hundred to have it carted away. EUR 2K all in? Maybe 50% of that or less if most can be done with a small tractor and a flail mower ... and they have the equipment sitting around and live within a km or two.

I'm guessing the nearest blue dot (to your green dot) is meant to be the chamber. As everyone has said - take the lid off and you'll figure everything out including depth. May only take you a few minutes. Actually the map shows two inspection chambers either side of you plot and one in the middle (the latter unlikely but worth looking for). Any two points located with depths etc and you're probably home and dry (so to speak). A topo at a later date will give you the respective invert levels and positions accurately on the map. A bit weird that they didn't just run it along the side of the road and not through your plot. You could ask them how much to move it to give you maximum flexibility.

>>> I veto the build Ah, a reminder that there are some things which trump the laws of physics It would be most thermally efficient if there were no windows at all - but we could show a real time picture of the garden on the TV 😒

>>> PHPP will tell us our heating demand (e.g. 10W/m² heating load), but I'm not aware of it giving a cooling load. Here are the tabs in the PHPP spreadsheet (below) - a bunch for heating / shading / ventilation, a bunch for cooling, and a bunch for overall energy use and HP sizing. Also look at https://passipedia.org/ Your architects should be on top of both heating and cooling. Personally I don't see any environmental problem with running A/C or HP in cooling mode if it is driven by PV. By and large, the heating / cooling balance is governed by the amount of glazing - particularly S, W, E glazing. Little glazing roughly means easy to heat and cool, much glazing means potential heating and cooling problem. You can intervene with shading, external binds, low g glass etc but the amount of glazing is key. I'm wrangling this balance too atm. I'm coming round to the idea that you can somewhat balance winter solar gains (desired) with summer solar gains (somewhat undesired). FYI PHPP has an analysis of positive winter heat gains by window vs. undesirable summer heat gains (bottom image) which I'm trying to fully understand.

>>> has anyone got an EDPM roof that’s over 10years old ? The general guarantee is 20 years if that helps. I've wondered whether the sun might eventually do mine in - it gets awful hot on there in summer. Mine's been there 5 years already and the last time I was up there it looked as good as new. >>> I used the thicker Firestone EPDM the 1.5mm stuff?

What kind of pipe has it got labelled on the map? Would it make sense that the manhole you have found is on the route? How big is the manhole cover? Want to post some of this up, we”re kind of working in the dark here.

@Marvin Put it on myself. 5m by 12m. Bloody hell - how did you do that? Impressed. 135kg by my reckoning.