ProDave

Outdoor solar shower with a small and clearly visible reservoir of warm water.

Could this provoke a long term re think of the stupidity of making so many people work in such a small area and forcing them to travel on overcrowded public transport every day to get there?

We are all overhead here. The usual cause of an unplanned power cut is a tree or a large branch brings an overhead line down. It's blowing a hoolie good and proper today, as strong if not stronger than most of the "named storms" we have had this winter. There was a forecast for gales in Shetland but we are some way from there. Gusting to 55 at Sumburgh, gusting to 43 at Inverness. I guess it's a bit blowy all across the north today.

People will get really P'd off with a shower timer. Imagine the lady of the house is having a good shower, hair all lathered up, and the water goes off, and it will be 10 minutes before it comes back on. You will probably get an irate phone call reporting the "fault" and a lousy review. In the accommodation business you just have to suck up the fact that guests have no interest in energy efficiency Like the guests we had that would turn the thermostat up to 30, then when it got too hot, open the window, but leave the thermostat at 30. I share the views of a few others that if you are going off grid, LPG should be in the mix somewhere..

I don't like those quadplexers. they won't work for instance with the wideband LNB's now used for Sky Q for example. No substitute for extra cables.

That is the symbol for the bathroom light fitting, so when you turn on the switch the light comes on and the fan starts, That is showing a "loop at light" wiring configuration.

Electricity usage is about 18% down on normal, so I can't see power cuts due to excess demand. Power cuts due to storm damage might be an issue, but you would expect the network operators to be "essential services" and at least have staff on call to repair damage in the normal timescales. It sounds like a headline to sell newspapers to me.

Design the house with low temperature heating, e.g UFH, and a large DHW tank e.g 300L with a heat pump input coil. Then fit the oil boiler. If oil goes through the roof in years to come, swap it out for an ASHP.

You did well to get it that cheap. Boiler Juice says only down to 39p https://www.boilerjuice.com/heating-oil-prices/

Provision for 1 terestrial feed and 2 satellite feeds e.g. for a sky or freesat box.

I would not bother with what some silly regulations says, I would do what you want. But personally as a minimum I have provided 3 coax cables, a cat5 and a telephone cable to every tv position, all brought back to a central cupboard. That central cupboard has a duct to bring telephone and aerial cables in and is where the broadband router lives. I also included 3 long hdmi cables tot he main downstairs tv's that allow one satellite box to live in the cupboard and be watched from either downstairs tv. Most of our tv is watched live from satellite or terrestrial.

Not going to get it. Operating an emergency only service and collection only https://www.williamwilson.co.uk/

Never thought to try them. But not answering their phone just now so they might not be open. I will try later un case they are just at lunch. What was their price per sheet?

Make SURE the trench cannot fill with water. Empty pipes FLOAT. Ask me how I know

My problem is while some online suppliers are staying open, not all manufacturers are. My particular problem is everyone says they can't get multipanel as they re shut.

But I still don't see any words that make me think rental income is going to be treated as "self employment" If you are reading that into something please show me what.

I don't think so. At our previous house the plot came with a deed of servitude to put the soakaway for the drainage system under an adjacent arable field. That was included in the PP. But the presence of that soakaway does not in any way mean you would now be able to go and get planning for a house on that bit of field. In all other respects it would fail the tests in the local planning policy. It is surprisingly common to find all or part of a domestic drainage system under agricultural fields. You need to be looking at other policies, infill, completing a development etc.

If they count my rental income as well as my actual SE income I could be in line for a bigger grant than I thought.

For property income I claim the £1000 allowance as my actual expenses are usually lower. For my SE earnings I claim actual expenses as they are more than £1000 All explained in the link that @Barney12 posted Regarding the self employed help from the government, there is a useful summary here on MSE https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus-self-employed-and-employment-help/?utm_source=MSE_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=31-Mar-20-50599902-4311&utm_campaign=nt-hiya&utm_content=8#sesupport Quick summary:

@scottishjohn do they still have bears in D&G?

Just a heads up. Amazon have the Firesticks on special offer just now for a limited time. I have just ordered one for £19.99 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazon-Fire-TV-Stick-Streaming-Media-Player-Alexa/dp/B0791RGQW3/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=fire+stick&qid=1585684368&sr=8-1 I have been looking on ebay and you would struggle to get a second hand early version one for that. I don't know how long the offer will last.

And don't forget you can tow the static with any half decent car. They are not road legal due to weight, lack of suspension and brakes etc, But providing you take it slow you can tow them a fair distance. That's how I got mine onto the site. (don't forget to chock the wheels before you unhitch)

I am struggling to understand where you can legally erect that. It's 2 storey so that immediately means it can't possibly come under the portable building / caravan building regs exemption (which in any event would mean building it on a base capable of being lifted by a crane) The insulation values mean it will fall a long way short of meeting building regs for a house, and will probably fail BR for a whole host of other reasons. That only leaves a non habitable garden outbuilding which would still need building regs due to it's size but not so stringent as a house. If you have the space have you considered the usual option of a static caravan, giving you temporary accommodation to build the house slowly as you can afford it?

My foundations came in at £10K for a similar sized house. BUT I had my own digger at the time. I stripped the site and dug the trenches. The builders just poured the concrete (strip foundations) and built the blockwork up to damp course for that.

The obvious thing to do with that is build it as a bungalow first. Build the roof with attic trusses properly specified for the rooms in the roof later and cut the joists ready for the stairwell opening, then close in the stairwell opening for now. Don't fit the upstairs windows except those in the gables. Get it up and functioning as a 1 bedroom bungalow using the living room as the bedroom. You then install the stairs and do the loft later when you can afford it. If you are crafty, you get it signed off as a 1 bedroom bungalow and get the council tax valued on that. The council tax would not normally get re valued when you "extend" it into the loft. That makes it a roughly 70 square metre bungalow and you stand a fighting chance if you are careful of doing that for £100K