Barney12

This is such a key point. What is just so frustrating about our long journey to achieve planning is watching so many people just openly flouting the rules and with no consequence. An "acquaintance" of ours has recently built a 20m x 12m shippon at his residential property to store his growing collection of garden machinery and a quad bike or two. He's in the park but like us cant be easily seen so just built it without even a thought to planning.

Thanks for all the replies guys. My A3 plans for which we were granted planning permission have absolutely no dimensions! Our plot is 1.2 acres surrounded on three sides by woodland, field and moorlandand. The house is in the middle of it so boundaries aren't too much of an issue.

This was the original plan. Unfortunately the park in their infinite wisdom have pretty much abolished the non material amendment process. Even moving a window can result in a full plans re submission. I suspect this is to raise more funds and to give them more time now their team has reduced from what I beleive was once a team of 11 to just 4! National Parks have been subject to some of the biggest budget cuts since austerity and their admin functions are all but broken!

I don't understand. Water can't go uphill

What percentage of the building is covered by a flat roof? Under 30% would not normally increase premiums, over that and it almost certainly will. There are also specialist insurers who are more comfortable with flat roofs. This is pretty standard fair for a decent broker so perhaps try a different one!

I'm a massive fan of the OSMO range of oils. Fantastic product and finish and perhaps most importantly of all is incredibly forgiving of being patched in the event of localised wear or damage. The spray grade osmo oil product produces furniture grade results if applied properly.

One of the problems with a house built to passive house standard is that the walls are rather thick. In our case 530mm due to MBC's recommendation of a block skin on our exposed site. Add to that an incredibly strict planning policy on the park which unequivocally restricts the volume of our new dwelling to 15% of the one being demolished and we're faced with reducing our room sizes as the architect drew our plans with 350mm external walls and going back to a revised planning application is way off the cards, the first time round was hard enough!! Now 180mm per wall might not sound much but many of our rooms were already small! Anyway chatting to an architect today (not the one I used) he said "well you've got your 150mm margin of error". He went on to explain that it was an industry standard acceptance that A3 planning drawings were accepted as not being final scale drawings and building was not always precise so that provided the building was no more than 150mm wider and longer then no planning department was likely to ever take action. I would be interested in other people's views / experience. Perhaps our new resident architect @Sensus has heard of this 150mm rule?? (Sorry to be so forward Sensus ;))

+1 on the use of 5amp sockets for table and/or floor lamps. Its something we have always done on our renovation projects in the past. Overhead lighting is just so severe. If you can invest a small amount of money to implement a scene controller for principle rooms then you can achieve great results.

I've just fitted a couple of Ansell LED Bulkhead lights in the recycling store (AKA Shed!). I was impressed by the light output / quality considering the price: http://www.superlecdirect.com/p-asbled-ansell-5w-led-bulkhead-fitting/

I friend of mine wired his children's bedrooms with kill switches which take out lighting, power and their dedicated wifi network He even has them on a timer. mind you as @Nickfromwales said my Dad always had a lower cost method. If he had got to the stage where he had asked (yelled) for the third time you were deep in the doodoo!!

If you are serious about star wiring to allow future proofing for automated/intelligent lighting etc then bare in mind that a lot of the systems use CAT5 for control. Thus if you really want to future proof then take a run of cat5 to each switch point too. Ive self installed Clipsal C-Bus three times now. It really is bl00dy simple to install and configure. All your loads come back to dimmers or relays at the consumer unit (or alternative node zero) and control (switches, PIR's etc etc) run on CAT5 which can be series, star or a combination of both.

Genious! Although I think the idea could benefit from a little value engineering...... Just get rid of the wife and spend more time in bed with the cheerleaders. Purely to keep warm of course

Sign off by building control IIRC.

Agreed. the Cross Water ones I've used in the past were fully serviceable from the plate. The only maintenance issue which would make you swear (ALOT) would be a leaking joint or pipework. When I did mine I was completely paranoid and didn't plaster the opposite side of the wall for a good two weeks just to ensure the connections remained dry even though I had pressure tested everything.

+1

I agree. Is this really a requirement in current regs to add sound proofing between floors in a single dwelling? The only time I can see it as possibly being a real issue is a WC directly above a commonly inhabited room. No one really wants to hear the tinkle and/or plops of their guests

Alno

When we did the barn conversion we put 6.1 speakers in the ceiling (thus 3 front, 3 back) and a floor mounted sub tucked in the corner. Everything was very carefully designed including acoustically lined enclosures in the ceiling void. We used Sonance units. it was 10+ years ago now so all the model numbers have been superseded. http://www.sonance.com/in-wall-in-ceiling However, it sounded amazeballs! Alas the son of our current tenant has managed to blow the two front (stereo pair) so thats that well and truly buggered :(.

@Bitpipe your bathrooms look great! Clean lines, simple colours, modern, not cluttered....right up my street. and a pocket door too which I equally like for bathrooms. P.S. Are those drawers below the sinks?

Just on that subject........... The good lady wife and I visited a high end German kitchen showroom in Exeter recently and they made it quite clear that they wouldn't provide the full plan on paper until you paid a deposit. Up until that point you have to view it on the screen in their showroom! We wont be going back! P.S. They told me that I needed a £35k budget for our 5mx5m kitchen area.

The cheapest that will meet the required spec! what if its electrified

P.S. I would though still say that I concur with the past views. Your planning is granted based on the ecology report at the time. You have started your build. Thus any mitigation is the responsibility of the other plot holders to control potential migration. A few hundred pounds spent with a good planning consultant might be wise. Just please, please don't go to Natural England or an Ecologist (who are licenced by NE) they will bury you in process and cost.

If you really wanted to be belt and braces about the issue one thing you could consider is just biting the bullet on the cost of steel hoarding between you and the other plot(s) Sat down on the ground. Ok, it might cost you a few thousand but you'll recoup some of that when you come to sell it on. That cost WILL be lower than the resulting ecologists if they get involved. If anyone said anything about the gcn's then simply ask them to demonstrate why they would transverse a steel barrier onto open cleared land! Something like: http://www.firstfence.co.uk/new-steel-hoarding-panels

I was interested to read that statement. I didn't think MBC ever did more than just slab and frame. Have you got them doing more?

I'm no expert on newts (our issue is bats!!) but I'm inclined to agree with @jamiehamy. If their were no planning conditions and you've already started I don't see what you need to do. This is very likely to be the LPA covering their backside. Whatever you you do don't contact Natural England or the LPA they will drown you in process and paperwork regardless of the reality of any obligation. It's the only thing they know!