ProDave

There is usually a reason why a property is sold at auction rather than a normal agent.

My low opinion of MCS was confirmed when a recent post here showed a quote for an ASHP and water tank etc for about £8150 So if that is the true cost, why are BUS grant quotes with the £7500 grant deducted not routinely coming in sub £1000 to the customer?

Building regs could be tightened to get close to passive house without needing any input from MCS (I am beginning to detest MCS) but the mass market builders would have to learn how to build properly.

What actual sizes are your door frames? WHO specified them the size they are?

So that is ONLY heating DHW in your original plot, not space heating? If that is so you must be using a lot of hot water or it is losing heat from the tank and regularly topping up?

For the wanting "cool bedrooms" this is where no heating at all upstairs works. Some heat will leak upstairs but it is easy to keep a bedroom at 18 degrees with the downstairs at 20. Manage the heat flow upstairs by keeping bedroom doors closed when you don't want any more heat going up.

Our ASHP is on the south facing wall, almost by accident as that is the best place for it at the back of the house. But in winter on a cold still sunny day, the front of the house can retain frost all day due to no sun and little air movement, while the back of the house is frost free and can actually feel warm in the sun. I refuse to believe the ASHP is not better off there than on the north frosty side of the house. Re "plant rooms" I don't have one. What was supposed to be the plant room is now my office / workshop. It has the MVHR unit and some plumbing controls and a pump. That is it. the hot water tank got moved out to a far more sensible central location to optimise short hot water pipe runs to the points of use, that is in a cupboard in the corner of the spare bedroom. Consumer unit is in the utility room. on the wall. all network and AV stuff in the cupboard under the stairs. If space is tight, I recommend distributed services like that sited in the best place for each, rather than one plant room full of stuff which (from what I have seen) often puts things like hot water tanks of far from optimum places.

Then he will have 2 short levels. Win win.

£8117 with no grant. So WHY are people eligible for the BUS grant of £7500 not routinely being quoted £617 total price to them?

The pipe will be 25mm but the actual meter, probably in a "boundary box" reduces it to 15mm for a short bit inside the meter.

So there is no need to dig up the verge. Connect to the pipe under your entrance and run the pipe through your land to the plot. All work can be done from your land avoiding a road closure. Get the water supplier to agree to that route and re quote with you digging all trenches on your land and no need for a road closure. Do you know exactly where the pipe is?

But that is road CLOSURE no traffic at all either way while works are in place which means giving notice to all the affected houses that the road will be closed for a few hours. Not just traffic lights. the only heavy traffic we get are bin lorries, oil delivery lorries and occasional heavy delivery lorries. It would make sense to inform neighbours not to book their oil delivery that day. @flanagaj will there be any other services that need connecting on our under this road? Who owns that entrance? could they be persuaded to allow the pipe to pass under their land and through to your plot?

If I am reading that right, the pipe is under the existing entrance (is that yours) has to be dug just a few feet along the verge, and onto your plot through the hedge? there is clearly room for the digger to pull off the road when a car needs to pass.

Post a picture? If it is single track and they are only digging in the verge, then traffic lights will do nothing. They simply need to put up some roadworks signs and when a car wants to pass, drive the digger out of the way. It would mean they could not pile the spoil on the road, but that would apply anyway even with lights.

We got away with no traffic management because it was a single track no through road, and Scottish Water brought with them a "road plate" and when a car wanted to pass, they slid that over the trench and drove the digger off the road onto our plot.

900 is the requirement for a domestic stair.

What sort of EWI are you thinking of and what finish over it? There are on line tools that will do a condensation analysis of your proposed new make up. But if doing this, I would add new insulation direct onto your existing plasterboard, and THEN the battens for your service void and plasterboard. That keeps all services inside the (hopefully) sealed wall make up with no penetrations.

I would do dowels and glue and coach screws from behind. That should cover all bases without spoiling it with visible fixings.

Unless the verge is wide enough for a mini digger I suspect they will want to close 1 lane of the road. What sort of road and how busy? I doubt you will get very far arguing it is not necessary. Post a plan of the proposal. Is there any way it could avoid running along in the verge, i.e. enter your plot at a different location? One thing I found when getting services in, is don't expect anything to happen quickly, forget any notion of trying to get different service connections coordinated, and don't plan a holiday in the 3 month window after your inspection as there will be no flexibility to change their date.

That is correct. But as you are going to the expense of moving the cylinder, give serious consideration to upgrading to an unvented cylinder that basically gives you mains water pressure hot water, and enables you to remove the header tank in the loft. Once you have had mains pressure hot water you will not want to go back to the old gravity feed system.

All our internal doors are 826mm and even that only gives about 780mm clear opening width. Cupboard doors can be narrower and of course a lot of what H sell is for retro fit into older houses and nobody is ever going to check or care. Time to discuss with H and change them for a bit wider?

Only use that soil to fill in around the outside of the trenches. Do NOT use it to fill in the inside of the trenches which will eventually support your patio, it WILL settle, you will not be able to compact it enough. The idea digging foundation trenches is you scrape them flat as you go with the digger bucket, you don't leave loose stuff in the bottom and if you do you remove it, not compact it down. You are trying to pour on stable undisturbed ground, not partly infilled stuff on top of it.

This is a major purchase, usually your house is the most expensive thing you ever buy. It IS worth a good long day trip to thoroughly look yourself. Depending where you are anything from 3 to 6 hours driving. If you don't think you can do it in a day, book a B&B. Get that carpet up and look at the slab, in particular look for crack. and as I say buy or borrow a good long spirit level.

And I chose the Conder for similar reasons, the main ones being price, and by buying from TP it was delivered on their vehicle with a hiab. Some other suppliers were telling me I had to have a telehandler on site to offload it from their vehicle. It would have been too high for my little digger to reach to lift it off.

Yes our plot is on the registry as land 50m east of (neighbours house) Street naming is another fun game to play later.