Alan Ambrose

Wow that's super odd - ours has been pretty much silent at all times except for the slight sound of water moving in the pipes. Now I think about it, even that seems odd. +1 to some actual diagnosis steps. Switch the Loxone box off for a minute, or disconnect the connection to the actuators and see whether most of the rapid stuff stops.

Thanks @OwenF. It's for a potential basement, hence 6m. I imagine excavations for the actual basement will be to say 3-4m. Goodness I still find geo a strange art - a module on soil mechanics in my engineering degree 40 years ago obviously didn't provide much enlightenment . To be clear, the SE asked for the list above, the £5K quote was for "track-mounted percussive window sampling rig, dynamic probe tools and equipment". I'm not sure why the geo quote ignored some of the requirements. I have asked them to explain and also to talk to the SE directly. Frantically reading Craig and also Atkinson but it's still black art heuristics to me, give me a clean CFD problem any day

Ah thanks.

>>> Looks like they’re gonna get away with it No, they don't have to. The OP should at least (a) send them a firm 'final demand' kind of letter with a two week window for reply, (b) then file a simple county court case. If it can be reduced to a simple 'money claim' e.g. just claim a refund - then it can all be done online in 10 minutes. I don't recall that the OP mentioned a £ figure, but I guess it is in the £5K range? That generally means no legal costs ever awarded unless someone is being a complete idiot. A lot of suppliers will fold once they figure (a) they want to use a solicitor, (b) they will have to travel to the claimant's local county court, (c) they're risking their own legal costs. Of course, the direct cost of discarding a panel is only a fraction (30%?) of the customer invoice amount, so it's not such a big deal to write it off.

Call me cynical, but the original developers outwitted the planners by building first a big extension and then had it approved for split off to separate dwelling. I’m sure they made out handsomely. The PD restriction was possibly an LPA emotional response to being outsmarted. It’s not supposed to work like that, of course. If you buy that logic however, then the LPA will fight to stop a further extension to avoid any more embarrassment. i wonder whether you have time to submit a pre-app for an extension? From an architectural viewpoint, your potential extension actually seems very sensible as otherwise the back of ‘your’ house is a bit ‘shaded’. Hard to tell how much as I can’t see an indication of compass orientation on the drawings.

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