ProDave

Is that REALLY a flexible pan connector? It looks like that horrible flexible ducting for extract fans to me.

I was thinking of Blocked Pipe.

Is that the one he's going to saw in half for @Crofter ?

A dose of bleach will have that sealant clean and shiny in no time. Forget all your "bathroom cleaning" products,. neat bleach works wonders. I paint it on with a paint brush. leave for a while then rinse off.

It is EE that have submitted the planning application so I assume it will be their mast and service. So you don't use a "phone" and tether it (as I assumed you would) you use a 4G data modem?

Okay I have to ask. but. Can anyone else see a certain irony, in using a mobile phone service, to provide your broadband connection, to use a VOIP service to make a telephone call. I have to ask the very dumb question, why not just use the mobile phone to make the call? I have a serious interest as there is a planning application for an EE 4G mast in line of sight of our plot, so we might actually some time get a decent 4G signal. If I can sort out the technicalities, like a decent BB allowance and the ability to make and receive calls at the same time as using the BB (is that even possible?) I just might ditch the land line.

Was this a new series or an old one? I remember an old one where they did this and it was a good demonstration just how big you can go and still be legally classed as a "caravan" hence exempt from building control.

Two 45 degree single socket bends one into the other might give enough set back.

See my own phone connection thread. I managed to order a new phone line without having my address on the postcode database.

Every bricklayer I have ever seen just rolls the DPC onto bare blocks, than lays the mortar for the next course onto the DPC.

Just write "unheated" on the plans? I have an attached garage. There is no mention on the plans of any heating, i am not expecting anyone to insist on insulation levels or air tightness of the garage, but I will be insulating it for my own benefit. Being a single garage under the limit it does not require any specific ventilation provision, though building regs do say in those conditions you should not attempt to achieve a high level of air tightness.

I believe they took a gamble and bought it as "amenity land" without any planning permission.

That view looks familiar. There was a "building the dream" house I am sure in the recent series on that side of the Forth with an almost identical view. I wonder if you know that house? I suspect it may be closer to the bridges than you are?

I did send that email, and he has tried to help, but to be honest, all he is able to do is keep me informed with what is going on, and from today's episode even he does not know what is going on. He doesn't seem able to do anything to hasten things along.

Based on a recent experience, do NOT do a single thing to a property to sell it. You might as well push boulders up a hill. We had a recent viewing (a rare thing in itself). they seemed to like everything EXCEPT the fact the house has wooden windows and he does not want the maintenance of periodically re painting or varnishing them. They are on good condition and just sanded and re varnished last autumn. If you think I am going to try and predict fickle requirements like that, and pre empt it by ripping out perfectly good windows and fitting plastic ones just so this buyer might have bought it, forget it.

This gets more rediculous So I had previously been told the job has been delayed until WB 27th March Today (remember today was supposed to be my connection day) I had not long got home when SWMBO tells me there's an Open Reach van driving up and down the road. Sure enough he's looking for the new house. He's fitted the socket inside the house. Dug a hole in the grass verge and located the cable we need to join to. He told me it should be a simple job, just enlarge the connection pit and make the connection, then make a connection in the joint box up the road. Then the bombshell. Because the joint box at the top of the road is right next to the road, it needs traffic lights. He will have to put in a request which will need a traffic light permit and that usually takes 2 weeks. FFS the guy that came on 1st March must have known that is where they would have to do the work. Surely it would not have been beyond the whit of man to order the traffic lights in advance? And what happened to all the complications that "delayed" the job? And this is from a "communication" company.

A "loophole" up here means we are not charged for building water. Up here water is charged with your council tax, No house = no council tax = no building water bill.

I don't understand what's going on with our EBICO supply at the moment. I have had three letters now. The first selling me it was transferring to Robin Hod energy and the price was not going up and fixed for 12 months. Then a letter to say it's going up. Then another letter telling me nothing is changing except the name. A bit of a shambles and if I was staying with that I would be phoning them to ask what the b%^$£%$ hell is going on. Ebico served us well when we were using almost no electricity to save paying a standing charge but it's now time to move to a proper arrangement so I will let you know how it goes with IRESA. I suspect all will be well until we get a problem...... We are still in the "cooling off period"

This is an interesting one. So BR day they are happy for combustion air to be drawn from under a ventilated floor but HETAS say not. How will that change if you are installing a little 3KW stove. BR for that say you don't need to make any provision for combustion air. Would HETAS agree with that? If so would HETAS also agree that even if you don't need to make provision for combustion air, they would not object to you drawing it from under the floor?

The total control is a good system if you have it. It has three separate CU's (usually two of them in one box) a normal "house" cu that gets cheap or peak rate according to time. An off peak CU that just gets energised at the off peak times for storage heaters, and the "total control" CU that gets metered at the cheap rate and is powered 24/7 This is only for heating appliances like panel heaters, water heaters, showers etc. If you have this tariff it's worth leeping it for the availability of the 24/7 cheap rate, but do check the standing charges and rates to make sure it remains competetive. E7 and E10 are identical apart from the settings int the DNO's time clock.

Lighting will be 6A (they stopped doing 5A mcb's a long time ago) and will be a radial circuit not a ring. 32A usually for hob an oven but check the manufacturers ratings, you might be having a 5 ring induction hob for all we know. The E7 usually has it's own smaller CU, but it can be done with one CU and two main switches but the CU has to be designed for that and is less common. If the tank has two immersion heaters use the top one for a timed boost from the normal circuits and the bottom one connected to the off peak circuits. If it only has one, use a Horstman (or similar) boost controller. Total control is an old tariff that's no longer available, it will be plain old E7 or E10 for the new house. Seriously look at E10.The off peak times work well for a morning warm up at cheap rate, and late afternoon worm up. It's really only the evening period when you are stuck with the peak rate. Have you found a local electrician yet?

My advice is do it the Scottish way, cover the roof with a solid sarking board (osb or ply) then a non tenting breathable membrane. Far better than the English way of just stretching felt over the gap. then it's battens and tiles.

Hi Ali and welcome to the forum. To give you a bit of encouragement, if you managed to sell your old house, then that's one respect you are doing better than us. 2 years and 4 months on the market.....

First thought is why are the brackets not fixed? what holds the windows in? Funny enough this is a similar detail that that I have been working on recently. It's a bit different in my case as it's TF, but the window reveals are clad in Kingspan and the windows then fixed with brackets. The "complication" in my case was twofold, one the brackets were individually packed with little squares of plywood, so that left an uneven surface to fix plasterboard to. and secondly the screws through the brackets, the heads sat so proud of the bracket. My solution, was replace the individual packing pieces with a continuous sheet of ply on the inside of the window reveal. This then just leaves the fixing plates a little proud of the plywood and it's thickness is pretty insignificant. And to solve the screw issue, countersink the holes in the fixing plate and replace the screws. In my case I can fix with long plasterboard screws through the kingspan into the timber frame. I am not sure what you would screw into, so some form of adhesive might be the way to secure the window end.

One needs a good view from ones throne.