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ProDave

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Everything posted by ProDave

  1. ProDave
    Up here, BC will issue a "certificate of temporary habitation" to allow you to move in and complete the work, then issue a completion certificate later. I don't know if this is possible in England. Ask them.
  2. ProDave
    Or dig the hole at the wrong time of the year here, and watch it fill up with water all by itself. I have to say our partial soakaway then discharge to the burn is working well. At this time of year as I predicted it is working as a land drain to keep the water table down, there is a constant small trickle from it even when we are not discharging any water. In the summer it is the reverse with most of what we discharge being absorbed by the soakaway and very little going into the burn.
  3. ProDave
    Just get the builder to leave a gap and install a lintel so later you can dig it out and thread a pipe under the wall.
  4. ProDave
    Well foundation trench inspections are required by building control, as are witnessing a drain pressure test. So it's no a very big leap to ask for BC to witness a percolation test, other than the fact it will be a longer site visit waiting for the water level in the hole to go down.
  5. ProDave
    For a minute I thought you were showering with warm beer, I don't know what made me think that.
  6. ProDave
    I don't have much hair left and what is there is very short. Let's just say hair washing does not take long. Water heater is gas instantaneous so we will only run out of hot water if we run out of gas. The complaint is the stupid way it is plumbed making the run from the boiler to the tap about 3 times as long as it has to be.
  7. ProDave
    I thought I had seen just about every form of house construction, but here is a new one for me. Terraced ex LA house, been stripped bare for major refurb and rewire. In the kitchen, the party wall between this and next door appears to be just a timber frame, with 3 layers of plasterboard on the frame (presumably the same next door on the other side of the frame) Customer wants sockets on that wall. There were none before, in fact there are no electrics on the party walls at all. I can't go cutting holes in the 3 layers of plasterboard without compromising the fire rating. The only solution I can see is leave the 3 layers alone, batten it to make a sevice void and then a 4th layer of plasterboard. He will have to accept the room shrinking a little. Anyoine encountered this before?
  8. ProDave
    Ah a soft southerner Just coming up to a year in ours. And we picked the longest coldest Highland winter for many years. Had many nights of -10, even -12 one night. A mere -3 forecast tonight, balmy weather. The best thing we did was fit a wood burning stove. That thing has been going almost non stop since November. It's been a struggle at times to keep up with preparing wood for it, but it has saved us a fortune in heating. The first month we were in we got through 47Kg of gas in a month. We stopped using the gas fire then.
  9. ProDave
    The shower in our static caravan is like that. Solution: Turn the shower on. THEN start getting undressed. By the time you have got your kit off, the warm water has arrived. No time wasted. Same in the morning. I have got to know the point during my shave when it is just the right time to turn the tap on, and as I put my razor away the warm water is just arriving for a wash.
  10. ProDave
    But if you have a private waste water plant discharging to an infiltration field then you are adding to the water that the land has to absorb.
  11. ProDave
    I did my own percolation tests for building control. Nobody questioned anything. I was honest enough to highlight the problem with seasonal high water table, which is why we had the struggle to find something that worked and ended up with a permit to discharge into the burn. I could have just ignored the water table issue and installed an infiltration field and nobody would have been any wiser, except me when the garden became a swamp. While I agree it is wrong that anyone can submit false results, I would not like to see a system where you have to use an accredited testing company for things like this.
  12. ProDave
    How far apart from the road crossing? Ours was only a couple of metres in the field the other side of the road and it cost £1726 including the road crossing under a 3 metre wide single track road (same road ceossing used for telephone and electricity)
  13. ProDave
    If you are fitting internal insulation then you would create a service void for cables etc then plasterboard. Be very careful dry lining and insulating internally. so many people do it poorly and create a "plasterboard tent" By that we mean a layer of plasterboard with an air gap behind it and that air gap is open to outside either through gaps around the windows to actually open to the loft. I work as an electrician and lots of old cottages around here are like that, and on a windy day if you unscrew a socket or switch from the wall, a howling cold gale comes out of the hole.
  14. ProDave
    That is still not right. He has only "given you" 3 months grace. What if you are like me and expect it to be well over a year until completion? If you are happy you will finish in 3 months then fine, but I would still be fighting.
  15. ProDave
    We have a mezanine to the largest bedroom (extending over the smallest bedroom) It was detailed on the plans including the building warrant drawings. We are not intending it to be anything other than a "storage platform" to start with so access only by a portable ladder and no hand rail. Eventually some form of fixed steps will be installed (and a firemans pole if my daughter gets her way) which will dictate the need to fit a handrail.
  16. ProDave
    Hi and welcome to the forum. On a brick walled house you do the wiring by chasing a channel in the brick fitting the cable behind capping and re plaster. Are you sure it's cavity wall? unusual for 1930's most of that period were solid 9" walls.
  17. ProDave
    Hi and Welcome. Yes I am not far away, probably 45 minutes or about 30 miles. Looks an interesting site, but being so sheltered may be midge hell in the summer.
  18. ProDave
    You just bolt the pigtails to the cylinders and turn on. Remember they are left hand thread. If you bought the 'van from a dealer it should have come with a gas safety test certificate. If you have not got the cylinders yet, phone around the suppliers. You can usually blag a pair of cylinders without paying the hire charge, though when I tried this Calor would not do that so we have a different supplier (actually slightly cheaper for the gas)
  19. ProDave
    Mine was through buildstore but I forget which insurance company the policy is with.
  20. ProDave
    Our build used epoxy chemical anchors to bolt the sole plate down. About 10% of them did not set and had to be re done.
  21. ProDave
    Ours specifically says on completion it transfers to normal buildings insurance for the remainder of the term.
  22. ProDave
    So is ours which is why the pv will be ground mounted out of the way of the trees
  23. ProDave
    I think it depends how the pipe run gets into the house. In my case, the pipes will travel a metre or so along the wall, into the garage, up inside the garage into the plant room above. I suspect that is a long enough pipe run with enough bends that I won't get any transmitted noise. If on the other hand they came straight in to a habitable room I would use flexi's.
  24. ProDave
    Thanks. I wish someone had told me that a year ago when I was buying mine.
  25. ProDave
    Ebay. A German supplier on there regularly sells bundles of 20 rolls or Tescon Vana for way below what any UK outlet sells it for. e.g. this one works out about £15 per roll delivered https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/pro-Clima-Tescon-Vana-Klebeband-Profi-VE-20-Stuck/261425541408?epid=1104754860&hash=item3cde2d3120:g:pI4AAOxy3HJTJhWC
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