ProDave

The lawful development thing is usually an acknowledgement that you have done something without PP and got away with it long enough that they can't take any enforcement action. I don't see how that relates to this. If you have to demolish something before you can commence building then notify them that you have started the demolition and ask for confirmation from them that "the development has started" In our case we had a planning condition that the first thing we must to is create the new access from the highway before we can start building. I notified the planners when we started to do that and i had an email followed by a letter acknowledging that the development had started.

Mineral wool, Glass wool or Earth wool should cover that?

Why are you not going straight to appeal?

The batten is just to secure the OSB. Air tight membranes and taping go over the top of the OSB detailed here http://ardross.altervista.org/Wilowburn/insulating-the-roof/

So, to understand the full picture, you got PP to replace that old building with a new one but only put "rooms" in the ground floor leaving an empty loft? You now want to put rooms in the loft (just room in roof not a full on roof off and add a second story) and the LPA say no? Is that about it?

That's a batten to catch the edge of the OSB sheet about to go on. OSB sheeting first, air tight membrane, battened service void then plasterboard. In my original picture you see the batten running all the way down and behind the first bit of OSB already in place.

If you have a photograph of the previous mezanine I would say that is good grounds for appeal and just make it clear to your LPA that is exactly what you will do if it is refused.

I was using the loft roll for insulating my sun room floor so it did not need to be self supporting. Frametherm 35 used in my ceiling, self supporting between the rafters before being boarded. I did one test section where I put a strip in long before I was ready as a test and left it there for 6 months and it did not sag or fall out.

+2

What is the application? I successfully used Frametherm 35 for wall and roof insulation. If it does not need to be self supporting, I paid £20 per ROLL (about 6 square metres) of 150mm Knauff loft roll

Intello is the Bees Knees. Protect Bariair is pretty good but cheaper.

Tony Tray. A sheet of air tightness membrane laid over the top of the downstairs wall (lapping down the wall a bit) that then wraps around the ends of the joists. the upstairs panels go on that and then the membrane laps up the wall. It makes the job of making the house air tight oh so simple compared to taping every single joist end individually.

I did the wiring for a loft conversion with a similar issue and building control accepted and signed off with a fixed step in front of the window making the rise from the top of the step to the window less than the 1100mm. I think the important thing is the step is made as a permanent fixed feature so it's not going to disappear the day the completion certificate arrives. i.e don't just screw the step down on top of the carpet. I think it's a load of nonsense because if there was a fire, I very much doubt anyone is just going to stand in front of the window and burn because they can't get up the 1100mm to get out. But rules are rules.

Hi and welcome, looks very nice.

I would do neither. Electrics chased into walls and back boxes sunk into walls is so yesterday, and as an electrician I hate it. I would parge coat the walls to seal them, and then fix vertical 25 by 50mm battens to the wall. That creates a service void to run pipes and cables and the plasterboard screws to those. A 35mm back box fits nicely in the 25mm cavity and the 12mm of the plasterboard. Then it is SO much easier to do your wiring and plumbing and so much easier if you want to make alterations at a later date. It's even possible to run the wiring so you can literally add an extra socket just by cutting a hole in the plasterboard and picking up the cable. This is normal practice for an air tight timber frame, no reason not to do it on a block built house.

Unless it is an area with lots of bespoke one off designs with unique architectural features, for purely build for sale, I would stick to brick walls and tiled roofs. You will not alienate any buyers with that. Then by all means concentrate on quality, good windows, good insulation and air tightness, under floor heating, ASHP, MVHR but expect probably 50% or more of buyers to take no notice of that and be more interested in the kitchen and bathroom units. Most people on this forum are self builders wanting the best for them, not too bothered about cost, resale value or resale difficulties because for a lot of us, resale is something our children will have to worry about after we have moved out in a box.

@Onoff How long do you expect this battery strimmer to run for on a charge? will it be long enough? I strimmered the whole of our property last weekend, first time this year and it took about 2 hours and 2 tanks of fuel in the petrol strimmer. I would be mighty impressed indeed if you had enough spare batteries lined up already charged to match that length of running.

The "typical" 1930's semi has a living room at the front, a dining room at the back and the pokiest of tiny kitchens at the back behind the stairs and hall. I grew up in such a house and my sister still lives there still with the pokey little kitchen. About the best "simple" alteration is take down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room to make a kitchen / diner across the whole of the back of the house. That is a structural alteration involving removing a load bearing wall. It's even better if you can incorporate part of the hall into that opening up to square off the new room.

Interesting. I am looking to get an air test done soon and I would just have been ringing and booking a test. It never occurred to me that not all testers can go below certain limits. So if I booked a random test without checking their equipment, and it came back as 2 ACH I wonder how the conversation "why so bad, help me find the air leaks" would go?

I hate brush cutter blades, lethal things, don't go ANYWHERE near a wire fence with them. Just get a nylon line strimmer head for it. That cuts everything I want it to and does not get so bothered about the wire fence lurking amid the long grass.

So is that the latest way to get free spare parts? You buy a complete item from Amazon, remove the bits you want and return the incomplete item for a refund?

You can connect a 3.68Kw inverter to the grid without prior permission under G98. Over 3.68Kw requires DNO approval under G99 BEFORE you connect it. So the first thing is to ask your DNO. You may find, like here, they will want to charge you to upgrade your local grid before giving permission. If that is the case you might want to look at a 3.68Kw grid tie system and a 2Kw off grid / battery system as separate items, and load switch big appliances to the off grid system, or just have big appliances like washing machine always powered from the off grid system and only switching back to the grid when the batteries get too low?

If you have mains electricity then why do you not want the PV grid tied? I am not aware of anything that can do what you want but I am sure you could design and build something, but all the loads you want to individually switch would have to be linked to a bank of changeover relays. And then it relies on the selected equipment presenting a constant load and not minding a brief interruption to the power as it switches over. If the PV is gried tied, as is normal, then the usual thing to use up surplus is dump excess to the immersion heaters, or battery charging for use later.

Inter-floor insulation between flats is not going to be the cause of cold draughts. Your issue lies with the walls and their insulation and detailing. I strongly suspect what has been discussed lots of times that you have a "plasterboard tent" What I mean is the walls are poorly detailed, there are cracks or poorly detailed openings that allow cold air to bypass whatever insulation is in the walls. This cold air can move around between the wall and the (presumably) dot and dabbed walls and the cold air is emerging at the wall / floor junction. Short of stripping the walls bare and detailing properly the best short term cheap fix is to dry sealing up all the cracks at the wall / floor junction.

Ah glasses. I have a superb pair of distance glasses, from the optician, used mostly when driving so I can read the roadsigns at a sensible distance (mostly to correct astigmatism) But do you think I can get a decent pair of reading glasses from the optician? NO. The present pair I took back because they were not "right" but they passed the "test" which is give you some small text, hold it at "reading" distance, can you read it? Yes I can. Then they are correct "reading" glasses nothing wrong with them. But i can't read my computer screen because is is a little further away than "reading" distance, in fact the range of distance they work over is minute. I pointed out my pound shop self select reading glasses work at book reading distance, work at computer screen distance, and even if I look across the room at say the tv, I can still pretty well focus on that. What the pound stop glasses don't do is correct the astigmatism so are never going to be perfect. When i explained all this I was told I need a specific set of "work" glasses but there is no NHS subsidy at all for these so prices would start at over £150 I declined and still use £ shop reading glasses.