ProDave

One would hope you have the proper diagonal braces, and for a long run make a bracing tower.

My BIL uses 2 bits of welding rod. My own divining rods are the left over bucket handles when a couple of 99p builders buckets met their end, straightened out, and a 90 degree bend at the end.

Sounds similar to ours. I set it all out with a laser level and a surveyors tape measure. For temporary marking I used a roll of red and white marking tape stretched between canes. Then sprayed with floor marking paint when I was sure it was all correct. I had a planning condition that I had to mark the site and the planners needed to visit and check the marked location, and then I dug to exactly that, so there can be no issues with it in the wrong place. On the basis the trench foundations were conveniently 1 digger bucket wide, I measured and marked the centreline of each trench and dug to that. When the builders came to pour concrete and build the footings, their man did not believe I could possibly have got the trenches in the right place by doing that so they spent a whole morning setting out profiles and string lines and measuring then re measuring and concluded my trenches were spot on.

I am one that can "do" and believe in divining. Not sure it will find a dry empty drain, but there's a fair chance it will find a drain with water in it. Indeed the day I found I could do it, was when my BIL gave me his rods and said "have a go" so I slowly walked across his yard and suddenly the sticks swung together. "That's a drain pipe you have just walked over"

Do the pension(s) have a lump sum element at retirement age? If so you could consider that part being interest only with the pension lump sum clearing the debt at retirement?

They look like the tiles I have been laying in my bathroom. Just the grouting to do. I HATE grouting, that is SWMBO's job.

Pray tell us where from? Is it the same make BAL?

Ah yes I remember now, I took a while to connect the dots. So is this drain connection through your in-laws house also going to serve your plot? If the cost is split between two it starts to become more feasible.

Just a normal plot for the Highlands Seriously there are plenty of nice spots like that available up here, wake up and smell the coffee.

The problem with a treatment plant is finding somewhere for the liquid effluent to discharge to, which means some form of soakaway or discharge to a watercourse. It can take a surprising amount of land for a soakaway and I would be surprised if that garden has enough land. So you are then looking at what is behind you and if the landowner will consent to having a soakaway under his land (what is that roughly triangle shaped bit of land behind them?)

Our school has just issued all pupils with a yellow high viz vest. They have to wear it waiting for, travelling on, and getting off the school bus....

I tried to get my daughter to have a go driving the digger, but she wasn't interested, the most she would do is sit in the cab with me. Ah yes the things we did as kids, and survived. I remember the climbing frame in the playground at school was on tarmac. It taught you if you fell off it hurt, so you did not fall off. Today they all have cushioned surfaces to land on........

When I am looking for major items I always get TP and Jewson to quote. It has got to the point I almost feel embarased to ask TP as they are never the cheapest lately so never get the order. This seems a recent thing, earlier in the build they were coming in competetive and getting a lot of the business. I wonder what has changed?

It is amazing how councils vary. I dealt with all my pre commencement conditions by email with the planning officer, at no cost whatsoever. When they were all satisfed I got an email, followed up by a letter, stating all the pre commencement conditions had been satisfied.

I opened a credit account with Jewson, for the one reason that they were introducing a delivery charge for orders under £150, but not to account holders. Some say you get a better price with the cash account, but in reality the way to get the best price is haggle (play one BM off against the other)

Oddly enough I don't have trouble with my knees. I guess being an electrician I am immune, or they have no feeling left!!!! I just find it a messy and tedious job, especially mixing adhesive from powder, which is why after just a few hours have had enough for that day.

Perhaps a planning guidance leaflet dropped through the letterbox with some parts highlighted? A bit like when I got wind of my neighbour intending to culvert the entire length of the burn through his garden. I made sure he got a copy of the SEPA guidance note, which basically said oh no you can't.

Surely if they have started work without first gaining PP,. you should be notifying the council of your concerns?

At out last house I "broke all the rules in the book" Floor tiles (mixture of slate and ceramic) glued directly to P5 chipboard with a "flexible tile adhesive" and UFH. 14 years on, all is still perfect. Present bathrooms that I am tiling are tanked with the Impey Water guard membrane which is a decoupler.

In Scotland I think PD is eaves height max 3 metres within 1 metre of the boundary. So a 2 storey extension would NOT be PD What are the concerns the OP has about this extension? As I see it the real issues are ensuring there is no eaves overhang, dealing with foundations that may or may not go under his land, dealing with fencing and boundary marking after the build, access during the build etc. All of which will be dealt with by a party wall surveyor. The only planning issue is I would not want a window from that extension looking onto my garden, and the planning process would be the time to object to that if they propose one. At least with it not being permitted development you will have the planning process to ensure it does not cause you issues.

Not quite the answer you want (as I am doing my own tiling) but I have just bought 7 square metres of porcelain tiles, adhesive and grout. Total cost of materials £222 The scary thing being the adhesive cost more than the tiles!!!!! I will have spent 4 half days doing the tiling, so lets say 2 man days, the labour would cost more than the materials if I had to pay for it.

We settled for top hung openings that swing outwards, and you can swing them right out and back to present the outside face of the glass to the room for easy cleaning. Ones that tilt, or turn, always strike me as a mechanical nightmare and seal compromise, plus as already noted they open inwards, not good if you have left a window open and it rains.....

I will add my experience for a complete contrast. I could not find a TF company that offered the insulation level we wanted, and one even refused to talk to us when I suggested I may take a standard TF design and add extra insulation to it also for various reasons we were using strip foundations and a suspended timber floor downstairs. So we ended up getting the frame detailed by a local arhitectural technician and then built by a local builder who have done many low energy houses. We contracted that same builder to lay the foundations then build and erect the frame, so any issues of the frame not fitting the foundations were theirs and theirs alone. As it happens I dug the trenches. The first thing the builders did was set up the profiles and the guy doing it was surprised to find I had actually dug the trenches in the right place. They were very particular to get the walls mm perfect, straight, level and square. But even so, the frame team did not build the frame to the drawings, instead they came and measured the footings as built and built to match that. The frame was built by hand off site in their workshop and brought to site and erected as complete panels as any other TF. The roof was different, a vaulted roof cut on site supported by big ridge beams. We had an open ended contract with the builders, basically "you carry on until I tell you to stop" That was because of limited finances. We actually got further than I thought we would and when I told them to stop they were happy to do so and we parted amicably. (I still see one of them regularly) Since then I have been doing all the work myself. There was one issue (similar to one noted above) that the rafters that made up the cut roof were not quite all straight. By then the roof was tiled so way to late to alter anything so I corrected it by packing the battens that make up the roof service void, and the finished, plastered ceiling is now perfect. I should add we had a very good working relationship with the builder. They were always happy to discuss details, in particular air tightness detail as the frame went up, and offer suggestions. They were also happy to make minor amendments, like the position of a couple of doors was altered very slightly,. and ensuring the stair opening size matched the stair design we were using (slightly different to shown on the plans)

That would do. But I would not pay that much. Some timber from a builders merchant and those concrete pads look awfully like garden wall pier toppings, again from a builders merchant for a lot less no doubt.

My static caravan sits on a base of 300mm compacted MOT1 topped with a layer of gravel to make it look nicer. It sits on 12 piers of concrete blocks on their sides. There are 4 lengths of steel angle driven into the ground and it is strapped down to those at each corner to ensure it stays where it is when the wind blows.