Alan Ambrose

Thanks Declan, very interesting, and you're right - the SE has only specified to 6m.

>>> Mega watt hour. Good point

https://www.iflscience.com/deep-abandoned-mine-in-finland-to-be-turned-into-a-giant-gravity-battery-72835 ...It should be capable of storing 2 megawatts of energy.

@Moonshine - how did you do that measuring trick if you don't mind me asking?

Ah, my lowest quote £5K so far. The questions is - does it make sense to use 2 drill rigs?

The default set-up these days seems to be 'grid-tied' which means you can't use your battery when the grid is down. That may or may not be a concern for you? The 'non-grid-tied' / 'off grid' / 'island mode' is more complicated but could be more useful if grid power outages are a factor.

Hi, SE has asked for 6 boreholes - 2 cable percussion and 4 percussive window sampling. Does it make sense to use both methods? Whole spec below. This is on clay with sand starting maybe 5-15m down (from nearest BGS logs). Ta, Alan • Formation of 6 no. 6.0m deep windowless sampling boreholes. • Soil logging of all 6 boreholes. • SPT testing @ 1m intervals on 4 of the boreholes. • Undisturbed samples collected for lab-based shear box testing (6 no samples @ 1m intervals). • Disturbed samples collected for Particle Size Distribution testing (PSD) (allow for 6 no samples). • Atterburg limit testing on any fine-grained material encountered. • Installation of groundwater monitoring well (SI company to allow for 3 subsequent site visits). • Geotechnical report to document all findings.

>>> I needed a much bigger feed to the building Well I would check that out, of course. Maybe a third party EICR after the fact will help get BC over the line. EICRs are very cheap considering the amount of work involved.

OK you started my morning off well... >>> That's the whole advantage of loving in a PH spec house. Yeah, but you don't get to roll around on the sheepskin in front of the big log fire, do you?

It's fairly quick to re-draw if you know exactly what you want to draw. You can also clean up. You could probably get it done cheap on fiverr or similar - but specify exactly what package it's destined for. Your new architect may well send it out to a service anyway.

Or hire one of these for a day? https://www.screwfix.com/p/rothenberger-rp-30-pressure-testing-pump-30bar/83797

@TimL I would be very interested to hear your insulation plans. I'm struggling with the idea that a lot of retrofits need to use external wall insulation and in a lot of cases in towns (e.g. brick Victorian terraces) the planners almost certainly won't allow individual houses to use EWI and, say, render. So, I can't square that circle atm.

>>> with dead and live loads including the raft Ah good point, the 5 kN/m^2 I quoted earlier is the load of the building onto the foundation. The foundation will be heavy, so the load on the soil below the foundation will be much higher. Both numbers are important, of course, for designing the foundation.

For posterity, please let us know how it is to fit and how well it solves the problem.

Yeah, quite easy to do - just some simple geometry, look up the densities on ‘tinternet, divide by the floor area. Just take the bulky and heavy stuff, ignore the rest. Add some for live loads (defined in the regs somewhere). Even easier, your SE should have a rough idea in his/her head of the loadings from different construction methods. It won’t make that much difference to the work/cost of the foundations though. Are you building on soft ground with load limitations?

That is a tough start to the year, condolences and support from your friends here.

For peace of mind, you can pressure test now rather than wait until you commission the lot.

I have a place with PD rights removed. I put in an application and now an appeal to have them reinstated. I’ll let you know the outcome in 9 months . I’m fairly thorough - but the lack of PD rights wasn’t a factor when I bought it - I can’t remember whether I was aware and disregarded or just not aware. So, to answer your last question, I think that most potential buyers won’t notice. Also, I don’t think that reinstating PD rights is ‘impossible’ but just that, most people will opt to put in a planning application for what would otherwise be covered by PD rather than wait out an appeal to remove PD restrictions and then build under PD. I can’t quite figure out your drawings - the first looks like an old drawing submitted for the porch with your annotations on it? Is the second an even older drawing proposing the original 2-storey extension? To answer you other questions - your LPA is giving a fairly firm indication that any other extensions will not be easily allowed. Not impossible, but not that likely. Consequently, value the house assuming you won’t get planning for an extension. Not that you shouldn’t try, just that you shouldn’t pay for the privilege of trying.

Nice if you're going to do it, may as well do it well...

OK I searched for Iceverge and walls on here and didn't come up Trump, so I'm going to have to ask

Anyone know what happens to the leccy market - Agile seems to flip between two 'regimes' - near zero or a bit negative overnight (yay, fill ur boots) occasionally and then say 15p overnight. Haven't seen anything else over the last 3 months.

>>> Tell Me oh Chat GPT I like that you're addressing it as a deity.

@Simplysimon - does that mean you're heading for a 50cm wall thickness by the time you've added rainscreen and service void etc?

There's some instructions for checking dimensions here: https://jobs.north-norfolk.gov.uk/media/2627/measuring-pdf-plans.pdf That's probably the technique they're using. Presumably your edited doc looks fairly similar sizing to the original? You have the page size set the same as the original? (File / Properties / Page Size)

Of course, there are plenty of steel framed girder constructions - is that an option? Maybe too much time as a kid playing with Meccano or lusting over landrovers but the simplicity of separating the structural frame from the ‘cladding’ appeals a lot.