Alan Ambrose

Maybe a bright general builder. Failing that a bright guttering guy to check that downpipe coupling. Or a bright handyman. Maybe the latter. The reason I say 'bright' is that it involves a little bit of problem solving and water penetration is notoriously tricky. The probable answer is that one of the pipes has moved a bit / the elbow coupling is not sealing properly / the pipe is blocked with leaves and the rain water is penetrating from outside. An easy way to check is too see what happens the next time you get a proper rainstorm. Take a picture. Maybe the water isn't running off the top of the angled 'plinth' bricks as it should.

You could check - you might just have an NHBC certificate or similar. But as others have said - it's probably not a very complicated problem to solve, so I might just sort it out myself.

>>> would need a professional to help It depends how much you want to push the limit. If you start with the PH glazing suggestions: ...design for good, but not excessive daylight, with a maximum of about 25% of the internal south facade as glazing. All other orientations should ideally have only as much glazing as is needed for views, daylight and ventilation. As a rule of thumb total glazing area (excluding frame) of around 15-20% of treated floor area (TFA) is a good starting point for design. https://www.passivhaustrust.org.uk/UserFiles/File/Technical Papers/How to Build a Passivhaus - Rules of Thumb - compressed.pdf Or you can start with the Part O limits and work from there. If that doesn't look like enough glazing for you and you want to push the limits then solar glass / brise soleil / external blinds plus PHPP or TM59 or both. (If both, you can then take the best result if your BC will allow it.) At that point, you're working quite hard (and quite expensively) to get extra glass.

Well the OP says that he wants to call a start to preserve the permission for posterity. I’m pointing out that a couple of BH members have fallen foul of an expensive CIL gotcha. I only didn’t make this mistake (about £60K cost to me) as I’ve taken to running everything past my LPA’s CIL people before making any move pre-permission.

Some careful use of a circ saw and an old chisel would probably sort that out easily enough.

Note that there’s a CIL gotcha here if this is self-build and your LPA charges CIL - that is that you/your buyer won’t be able to apply for planning for a new design and get a self-builld CIL exemption. That’s because you have already started on this development.

My LPA’s CIL guys are quite helpful. Suggest running the problem by yours asap.

You can use two Heatmiser stats with a bit of a bodge on the thermistors for remote control. Probably wouldn't want to bother unless you use the Heatmiser set-up elsewhere. What rating is the MCB and do you have a way to measure the cable? Comparison with known cable sizes will work. Each immersion will take ~13A. Would it be easy-ish to run new cable?

To be convincing you would have to spray paint indecipherable markings in several colours, a week later put out plastic barriers, then traffic lights for elf and safety, noisily dig a hole on a Saturday morning at 7am, without any hearing protection and showing a deal of fat belly, leave it for several weeks, drop off some kerbstones and leave them for several weeks, place kerbstones badly and not even, sit in your van all day while it rains, and finish up 6 months later leaving a bunch of mess. Efficiently doing it all in one day would only attract suspicion.

Well it's all clear, you shouldn't put it inside. And you shouldn't put it outside. What's the problem?

Ah, you're one link away from success

Ah I just saw this - I just checked in the actual legislation, it says: "clawback period” means— ... (b) in relation to the exemption for self-build housing, the period of period of three years beginning with the date of the compliance certificate" ... and ... "compliance certificate” means a certificate given under ... — (a) regulation 17 (completion certificates) of the Building Regulations 2010" So, 3 years after BC sign off.

Leaking electrolytics will do that too. If you like working on small things you can (a) clean the board with IPA, (b) solder on little jumper wires after carefully scraping the soldermask off the bit you want to solder. Magnification of some sort helps a lot.

EPCs are a bit rubbish - but what do we expect for the fee? You can go back though and ask him to correct anything that's wrong and substitute real facts for 'assumed' facts. As you can see, you get penalised big time for electric heating and hot water. A bit dumb considering the government is trying to move everyone away from fossil fuels. But hey, you didn't expect those policies to be joined up did you?

Sure you can. It might depend on how difficult you think it might be to get approval though and how much research you're prepared to do. V. difficult might suggest a planning consultant or someone with an existing relationship with your LPA. Depending on how haughty your LPA is, you might also like to do a pre-app to get a feel. Also, you'll make more money if you can get permission for something smaller rather than larger - but judging a likely size to get approval might need research and/or experience. There's also the question of what you do if your LPA are not immediately convinced - do you push through maybe going to committee, fold, appeal? Also, don't underestimate the impact of a pretty drawing / photomontage / watercolour ... both to sway the planners and for the sale particulars after. I did, but someone more subtle than me might have got approval quicker / with less hassle / less work.

With that lovely design work you'll have no problem getting projects from any of the 'big tech' internet greats...

While the general feeling here is against GS, I did visit a guy last week who has had an open loop GSHP with the bore under a shed containing the plant. The bore was about 30-40m into sand & chalk. It had been operational for 10 years and he was fine with it. I'm a bit of a contrarian and can't help noting that the whole of southern Europe is fine with solar thermal also. I'm sure there's a latitude where it becomes less desirable.

Nice

Suggest yes, because (a) the drilling will be done by a specialist company anyway, there will probably only be a few in your area, (b) we should all have the discipline to get multiple quotes, especially for big items, (c) the local drillers will have experience in the ground in your area which may be super useful info. Sounds a deep hole. Know what kind of ground you're on? Looked to see whether there are any BGS records close to your area? I think the BH hive mind generally doesn't lean towards ground source. Someone will be along shortly to ask why not air...oh, I see I'm too late already.

Oh I see there are some quite cool-looking panels around. What kind of panels have you chosen? On the original question, I wouldn't worry to much. Maybe make the two end panels the same? I bet you won't notice after 5 minutes. I had fibre installed in the flats where we are now which involved running some 1mm white cable around the corners where the white walls met the white ceiling. Despite the fact they were going from an unusable 5-10Mbs to 1Gbs, the neighbours kicked up a right fuss about the 'sub-standard job' and 'atrocious workmanship'. Not a peep since and I never notice either and I'm quite picky. It all just blends into the background...

>>> But it isn't intelligent . It gave me a quote but then I asked a person to confirm if it knew what it was doing. ie it asked silly questions. Welcome to 1984, expect a lot more of this (:

>>> even with extra liquid the SLC has not created a level playing field and in some places I'm 4mm out Well I'm sympathetic 'cos I've been there before. I wonder whether a very low viscosity product will work? Or a careful re-application of the same product, just in the areas that are low, with some sort of tamping bar to get the level. Should adhere better if the original hasn't dried out I would think. That's only my guess though...

>>> Most of populated Canada is South of the UK. That's just spooky - they have snow and bears and everything...

Curiously, another article on California electricity suggesting that (a) there will need to be a big capital spend to support EV charging, and (b) the kW price will stay stable. BTW I think California is interesting for us - while 'special', it is an innovator, so the UK could follow suit, say, 10 years later. https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2317599121 BTW this isn't behind a paywall, just press the 'show more text' button. Summary below: Two researchers at the University of California, Davis -- Yanning Li and Alan Jenn -- have determined that nearly two-thirds of [California's] feeder lines don't have the capacity that will likely be needed for car charging. Updating to handle the rising demand might set its utilities back as much as 40 percent of the existing grid's capital cost. Li and Jenn aren't the first to look at how well existing grids can handle growing electric vehicle sales; other research has found various ways that different grids fall short. However, they have access to uniquely detailed data relevant to California's ability to distribute electricity (they do not concern themselves with generation). They have information on every substation, feeder line, and transformer that delivers electrons to customers of the state's three largest utilities, which collectively cover nearly 90 percent of the state's population. In total, they know the capacity that can be delivered through over 1,600 substations and 5,000 feeders.[...] By 2025, only about 7 percent of the feeders will experience periods of overload. By 2030, that figure will grow to 27 percent, and by 2035 -- only about a decade away -- about half of the feeders will be overloaded. Problems grow a bit more slowly after that, with two-thirds of the feeders overloaded by 2045, a decade after all cars sold in California will be EVs. At that point, total electrical demand will be close to twice the existing capacity. The problems aren't evenly distributed, though. They appear first in high-population areas like the Bay Area. And throughout this period, most of the problems are in feeders that serve residential and mixed-use neighborhoods. The feeders that serve neighborhoods that are primarily business-focused don't see the same coordinated surge in demand that occurs as people get home from work and plug in; they're better able to serve the more erratic use of charging stations at office complexes and shopping centers. In terms of the grid, residential services will need to see their capacity expand by about 16 gigawatts by 2045. Public chargers will need nine gigawatts worth of added capacity by the same point. The one wild card is direct current fast charging. Eliminating fast chargers entirely would reduce the number of feeders that need upgrades by 12 percent. Converting all public stations to DC fast charging, in contrast, would boost that number by 15 percent. So the details of the upgrades that will be needed will be very sensitive to the impatience of EV drivers. Paying for the necessary upgrades will be pricey, but there's a lot of uncertainty here. Li and Jenn came up with a range of anywhere between $6 billion and $20 billion. They put this in context in two ways. The total capital invested in the existing grid is estimated to be $51 billion, so the cost of updating it could be well over a third of its total value. At the same time, the costs will be spread out over decades and only total up to (at most) three times the grid's annual operation and maintenance costs. So in any one year, the costs shouldn't be crippling. All that might be expected to drive the cost of electricity up. But Li and Jenn suggest that the greater volume of electricity consumption will exert a downward pressure on prices (people will pay more overall but pay somewhat less per unit of electricity). Based on a few economic assumptions, the researchers conclude that this would roughly offset the costs of the necessary grid expansion, so the price per unit of electricity would be largely static.

Ask these guys maybe? https://www.loftsolutions.co.uk/shop/velux-spares/velux-external-cover-parts/