ProDave

Another thing with posts, you need to dig a nice parallel sided hole. At one previous house a neighbour had a fence installed. The contractors were not very careful, and the first gale, many of the posts simply pivoted out of the cone shaped hole with a cone shape block of concrete still attached.

Used crushed / irregular stones, they will lock together and not move much. Do not use rounded "pebbles" it will be like walking on marbles. (a mistake I only made once when ordering 20mm stones from a builders merchant without seeing them or asking any more details)

Could you actually see movement at the base where it comes out of the ground? It is surprising just how much concrete posts will bend so movement at the top if solid at the bottom is okay. However it does look to me like they filled the holes not with concrete, but with bricklaying mortar, probably because they had plenty of that on site ready?

I looked into GSHP's for here. I soon concluded even if I did all the digging work to lay the slinky myself, the cost of the pipe, fittings, and the brine to fill it was way more than the cost of the GSHP. Then when you see the advice is replace the brine every 10 years, the ongoing costs outweigh the additional efficiency compared to an ASHP.

+1001 BC are not interested in that. We formed the entrance, got services connected and the static caravan on site before we even started on the building warrant.

If it has planning that is locked in because the development is clearly "started" then just go ahead and create the entrance using the details on the plans that are already approved. THEN think about a new planning application, knowing you can still fall back on the existing "started" application if that is refused.

That is for a Scottish temporary habitation certificate, I don't think England has such a formal process.

I got this written into the planning for ours, that I wanted the static caravan to remain after the build as a "garden building". This overruled the usual clause saying the static caravan must be removed. Instead they inserted an alternative clause "habitational use of the caravan shall cease upon occupation of the house" They are just ensuring you don't end up with the caravan as a second separate dwelling.

In principle you should be able to find the structural points of the wall at first floor height (that will probably be supporting the other floors) and span a floor from those. but to access your new mezanine floor you will need a short staircase up from the half landing but there I see a problem, those stairs will be cutting across a dooorway. Picture from below may help?

English BC must be somewhat different to Scotland, as once our shell was up wind and watertight and all insulation in, BC inspected and I then asked what is the next inspection needed and was told "completion" They never did inspect first fix plumbing and electrics. As it happened we got them in sooner to get a temporary habitation certificate and then the completion inspection.

And for mass take up of renewables like heat pumps and solar PV someone really really needs to give all the DNO's a kick up the whatsit and make it their problem to upgrade the grid rather than saying no you can't have. Take away the hostility that people like me would face if they wanted more PV for example.

The electric car thing. We are being told they are just as good as an ICE car and we should all have one. Just 2 problems with that. First they are NOT as "good" in some respects because range and charging times limit their use compared to almost instant refuelling of an ICE car, and they are even more hopeless if you want to tow something. The "sales pitch" needs to be more honest, they are just as good for many users that don't do long journeys or tow anything, but be HONEST that they are not a drop in replacement that will suit all uses. And if you answer that with "they will get better" then that just reinforces my point, they are not yet ready for all users so why buy a pre production development model? And secondly they are just too expensive, most people like me could not afford one even if I wanted one.

You build up the foundations from the existing ground to your finished floor height and then you infill the ground around the house to raise the level. Building up first would mean you are building on unstable made up ground.

That calculator gives me estimated 7KVA rising to 14KVA if I add a car charger. I better not tell anybody if I ever add a car charger then. Actually our 12KVA supply is in no way limiting, it is wired in the same 35mm concentric cable to the house as any other modern connection, and fitted with a 100A main fuse. So it is 12KVA only in name.

SSEN We are not far from the substation but we were the 8th house connecting to an existing 100KVA transformer. They seem to have calculated 100/8 = 12.5 and offered us a 12KVA connection hoping we would cough up to upgrade the transformer. They clearly have not heard of diversity.

Yes we need some "levelling up" They were equally hostile when applying for a new supply, 12KVA was all they could offer without charging for a network upgrade, I got the distinct impression they expected me to decline that and say "how much for an upgrade"

Here is a thought. Can't a solar farm share the same land as a wind farm? Mostly built in hills so not productive farmland. Yes some panels would get some shading from the towers but it would seem to be a good dual use of land and infrastructure.

The DNO's need to be forced to be less hostile and more accepting of solar PV. When ours was registered with the DNO (under the old names I forget which but 3.68kW) they read the model number of the inverter "TL4000" and without reading anything else rejected it, told us to disconnect it and apply for permission and there would be a network upgrade charge as it was over 3.68kW. Forcing them to read the documents and that even though the inverter had 4000 in it's model number, it was only 3.68kW resolved it and they accepted it, but it showed they are hostile, do not really want it, and will use any excuse to try and extract money from the customer.

I assumed they are supply pipes, but we just don't know do we. Surely the water co should at least be able to tell you if they are supply or drainage pipes? Of course there will be both in the vicinity, but if only one is on the map it still begs the question, where?

You need the lid off that chamber. There are no drainage pipes shown on the plan, but there must be some, somewhere. So perhaps that chamber is for the drains. I still say all would be answered in 5 minutes with the divining rods, then you know where to carefully dig for confirmation.

I did my 1/3 acre plot all on my own. Can you not do the same?

Not a name that rings a bell. Plenty of info and schedules here https://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/#home.html

It is used for streaming internet radio (mostly Radio Caroline) playing music from it's own memory, or from a phone (via Hi fi Cast) I would not know how to set up two Pi's to talk to each other like that, but the advantage of a hard wired audio link is they all play in sync throughout the house, no lag between one and another.

An example of "under engineering" In the tv's I only put power, 3 * coax and a cat 5 cable to the bedroom tv points. We then decided we wanted sound in the bedroom, from the same Pi Music box as downstairs. A quick bit of lateral thinking I repurposed the 2 spare coax cables as audio left and right to the bedroom.

I had the opposite. Scottish water subcontracted our water connection. The plan said the water was in the verge the other side of the road. The subbies dug for it and could not find it. They dug deeper and further from the road into the field, still no sign. They were on the verge of packing up and going home when I got my rods out. You could see them sniggering as I slowly walked further into the field and my rods reacted, so I said "here it is". Just to humour me they dug a bit further and there it was.