ProDave

SIPS is one of the easiest methods to get correct and air tight so to get an air test of 2.9 seems like a lot of poor detail, or deliberate leaks? To be honest the difference between 2.9 (needs mvhr) and 3.1 (does not need mvhr) is not significant. I doubt you are going to get problems, especially if the bathroom fans have a slow constant speed. But the house would have been better if he had tried harder and done the job properly. You will no more get BBQ smells via mvhr than any other ventilation method, and they do have an off switch so if there was a rare case of a bad smell outside you could turn it off for a while.

So YOU have erected the dark brown fence on what you believe all along is the correct boundary? and the builders erected the light brown fence on top of the wall in the wrong place. If you continue the fence down the (shared?) passage between the houses then the problem is solved. It does not need to be an intimidating high fence if you don't want, just a row of posts and wire would mark the boundary and leave your neighbour free to do what he wants with his half. This would seem a lot simpler than trying to get legal and argue it is the deeds that are wrong. My only concern would be now you have erected the dark brown fence, the neighbour may decide to take down the light brown fence which would leave his garden looking down on yours compromising your privacy.

There is probably not as much spare / surplus firewood where you are. Around here, without a WBS I would be constantly begging people to come at take my firewood away (I am sure there would be plenty of takers)

IF you make that choice (I advise against it and avoided doing so in my own house) then make sure you buy a LOT of spares. You can almost guarantee when one fails in say 5 years time, you won't be able to buy an identical replacement. So to avoid having an odd one out, or having to change the lot, buy lots of spares at original purchase time.

One thing missing from that list is a downstairs bathroom, or space to create one. You have to show that somewhere you have room to provide a bath or shower room. In our case that would be achieved by splitting the utility room in half to make the shower room if we ever need to. Our downstairs WC at the moment is in the utility room. A bit unconventional but allowed. Minor thing, CO2 monitor in main bedroom.

I used to estimate new build wiring on 1 hour per point, where a point is a light switch, a socket, a light fitting etc etc. So go and have a count up of what you want, it is likely to be a lot, well over 100 so I would say the hours being estimated are about right. This is a rewire, so will take longer as the old has to come out. Also this is a "period property" so we are talking about plaster on the brick, or lath and plaster walls. So you have to include chasing out the plaster and re plastering afterwards, is that included? and the re decorating? And no electrician likes lath and plaster walls if there are any or lath and plaster ceilings. I was mostly timber frame and plasterboard thankfully, I hated when I had to do work in that sort of house, sorry.

That's another statement I contest. I found almost by accident that dowsing works for me. I have done absolutely nothing to develop any skill.

My point a few post above is it needs a massive movement of your hands to make the rods come together if you are just standing there. go on try it? When you are actually dowsing and you find something then the rods move together with no preceptible movement of your hands.

or mains powered lights?

Where are you mounting a cylinder with such limited height?

I still want to know what makes the rods come together, as I am absolutely certain it is not movement of the holders hands. So rather than arguing does it find water or not? I would like to see any study into just WHAT makes the rods come together when they do? My example is my water connection. Scottish water sub contracted it. The subbies turned up, dug a hole where the plan said and found no water pipe. They dug deeper, no pipe. They dug further into the field, no pipe. They were about to pack up and go away so I went and got my rods. You could almost see them stifling laughter when I walked slowly into the field and "found" the pipe about a metre further than they had dug. They agreed to try a little further and there it was. I had no knowledge of where the pipe was and was as surprised as them that it was so far from where Scottish Waters plan said it was.

The cost of extra materials for air tight is not much, for our TF house it was a few rolls of air tight membrane and a lot of air tight tape. The BIG thing is attention to detail at EVERY stage and by EVERY trade to avoid unnecessary holes of any size, anywhere. And then there are avoiding the planned holes. No individual extract fans (which most of the time are just an unwanted 100mm diameter hole in your building) No letter box, no cat flap, no open vented fire with a chimney or a flue, no trickle vents in windows. Instead you have MVHR that does all the ventilation with just one ballanced inlet and outlet and removes the need for all the other uncontrolled holes. And if you fit a stove, have one with ducted air inlet or otherwise known as room sealed. There are additional costs if you want good quality triple glazed windows etc. Our house has typical U values of 1.3 to 1.4 in the walls roof and floor, and even up here in the Highlands we don't have heating upstairs. If you are going to do it. seek detailed advice here, but it really means educating and supervising every trade. Don't just let the electrician and plumber drill holes where they feel like it. Plan it with them and keep an eye to make sure they stick to the plan.

I found I can do dowsing. Don't ask me how, it just works. For the skeptics, I suggest you take two rods with bent ends and hold them in your hands. Now try and make them come together on purpose. You will find you have to twist your wrists quite a lot, certainly a very visible amount, to make the rods come together. Then watch someone dowsing and the rods come together without any visible movement of the hands of the person holding them. The comment above about them coming together about 1 metre past the target. I find that is more a time delay than an actual distance. Having got a rough location, pass by again walking very much slower and the point of action will be closer to the target.

Generator changeover switch https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/116460891458?_trksid=p2332490.c101875.m1851&itmprp=cksum%3A116460891458b79176b6849842dea54e82775ba14cf7|enc%3AAQAKAAABcAwqOHi2KCgf4%2F6SZSv1me4ebI%2FvqXEw%2FHB%2F8iWWqhXshqX5uohPx20BUGvMHd%2FNVdDC4KI%2FKTb49Rx8STjwMT6FumfvwgT%2BuVTaR3SZ3p348VRbA%2FTZNiAsQeTGoW59%2BW%2FUJrXmpr5hhWbI9yTw1RGQbyjxPcAqegqth%2FU5%2B%2FpivkqsLe%2FrQerAcD9BuwDR6wUgBHtodmc1uq7p424y098AjO5vgw8wt4m1TJ1TGXD1bx%2BesoaKZrYXrn8ohz0Zq%2BngYf8j2F7c0l%2FPPkplrlhzR6wh4mXIGCmmZTEPe9%2BgJDxTkiRBvaVvqTUncSj63wgzPU0TZoOAofoZPTDACotpFuElzYXKW9egCBQj9G3x4sHn0mRlYn32PuBoG0iAGQmiFYa7xpSC%2FZno%2FyP0Mk%2BklG4%2FB18cHBGP%2B%2B60N8XEu5fU9Z%2BJ51qUc3xqFNp%2BUa7iFTIZhtgCtiJhZFrMMOQUNqfkHU%2FCvH%2Bcd51h3nmn|ampid%3APLP_CLK|clp%3A2332490&itmmeta=01JTZ4RVZYWEQP5S31B8BNMH59

Ours is a Mendip stoves Churchill 5. Chosen because it is a nice compromise between traditional look and modern look. and it takes both primary and secondary air from a direct air duct. Very pleased it burns well, easy to manage and keeps itself clean.

^^^ Oh GOOD. In just 5 years, we are going to stop building ANY more wind farms. We just have to fight off the proposals until then. By which time the amount of renewables generated will flatten out. Planning to get roughly 1/4 of your electricity from "imports" in the long term seems a bad plan for energy security.

I have just submitted my objection to yet more wind farms close to here. My objection is on the basis we have enough already and there is no need for more power here. The planning system is disfunctional in that it only considers individual parts like "a wind farm" That planning application does not even consider HOW the power will get from the hill to the nearest substation. Let alone the high voltage grid additions or upgrades needed to transport the power hundreds of miles because they are building the damned things too far away from where the power is needed.

I know it is after the event, but when they announced they were replacing it, I would have been having the conversation asking them to move it further left as seen in that picture, and offering to remove that fence panel to facilitate that, and replace the fence panel afterwards as appropriate.

I think that door is one if the internal walls dividing the previous garage, so those will come down to make it back to one open space again. It is the door from the garage into the house that must be a fire door. It almost certainly was but we don't have a picture of that one. If not a fire door will need to be put back.

Dumb question but surely these are copper pipes of a standard size, so can they not be joined with standard solder pipe fittings? Or does the pressure go too high when running?

All our planning drawings were done with heights referenced to a temporary bench mark which was a row of nails driven into a fence post on the highest corner of the site. That is still there. Surely a ridge height is only important when it does not want to exceed that of neighbours. Nobody ever checked any of our heights.

Blame Mrs T. It was under her watch we closed down the UKAEA and with that development of our home grown reactors which we used to build a lot quicker than that.

It is the shape of the gravel that is important. You will regret getting round pebbles, whatever size, they don't interlock and will constantly move around when driving on them. Instead you want crushed or otherwise irregular shaped gravel that interlocks together better and so does not move around much as you drive over it.

Insert an extra strong back, or equivalent through the web close to the bath to help ensure the load is spread

As I keep saying. Scotland has enough wind generation for now. It is further south that needs more so time for them to have most of their hills covered in wind farms.