ProDave

So the Scottish regs require a continuous ventlation rate of 0.5 ACPH My kitchen / dining room is 4.8 metres by 6.8 metres and 2.4 metres tall so a volume of 78336 litres. So we need to change half of that per hour = 39168 litres per hour which works out at 10.88 litres per second for the whole kitchen which will be via at least 2 mvhr extract vents. So not much ventilation needed only 5.4 l/s per vent terminal. Plus the ability to boost at 50% (I am sure our boost will be more like 100%)

I'm not sure I see your question yet, but I can't see why a poly tunnel can't be discussed like any other garden building. Not sure how you find the room for a poly tunnel with no garden, I presume some arrangement with the land owner?

Doesn't that depend how many beers he's had?

Let's turn this into a "spot the fault" I'll start with pitch leaking from the head. 951 clamp on the earth (that can crush the cable resulting in a very big bang) and a SWA cable exiting the bottom of the CU with the armour not clamped at all. EICR fail for me.

I lost a friend and "good customer" just over a year ago to bowel cancer. It was picked up in his early 50's as part of the screening process up here for anyone over 50. He had an operation, Kemo etc then had the all clear. (at the time he kept this all quiet, all I knew was he spent a lot of time in Glasgow for a while) then 2 years ago it came back, it had spread, was inoperable and terminal. He died December 2015. In fact it was only his wife who actually told me what was "wrong" he just told me he had some "health issues"

I am miss understanding something here, can you clarify please, are you worried about planning permission or building control sign off? I would have thought this small extension would be permitted development, so I assume it's building control you are concerned about? And since they have approved the foundations I would take that as acceptance.

the tiny amount of DC power a router needs, connect it to a battery..

Ah the old "portable earth" A classic case of having a very slight idea of what you should do, but without understanding how it might work, and how that one definitely won't. But seriously, if your DNO can provide a genny that can power your whole house free of charge, and installed the same day, I would not bother.If yours is an isolated failure (i.e your neighbours still have power) then it's probably a cable fault. the only times we get a power cut is during a storm when trees come down (all overhead here) and then the outages are measured in thousands of homes (then there's not enough DNO generators to go round) the longest we were off was 3 days, and we just kept the WBS goiong 24/7 for heat, cooked on gas, and used the camping gaz lights. Frankly I would not want a generator thundering away and having to keep re fueling it for several days.

I spent about half an hour on my boat in a thunder storm. I was never sure what I should do, but in a plastic boat, floating on the sea, with a big metal pole sticking up in the middle I decided it would be a good idea not to touch that or the stainless steel stays that support it.

I would add to Jeremy's point above. If you know one panel is subject to daily shading and the rest are not, then that one battery that it charges will consistently get less charge than the others, effectively limiting the capacity of the whole system.

.... stood off from the wall on porcelain insulators so a leak, and water running down the wall would not get into the meter and supply head. Oh how standards have slipped.

All the new builds I do seem to use whatever bit of MDF / Ply / Chipboard the joiners happened to have kicking about / rescued from a skip, and the DNO (SSE here) have never questioned it. All they seem to want is something they can fit a wood screw into.

A bit late actually since I finished this a few weeks ago, but that's all the roof insulated and lined. Blog at the usual place http://www.willowburn.net/ Look for the entry "Insulating the roof"

A tip for some that may help.. When I ordered our garage window from Rationel as a single window, I thought I would make it as "cheap as possible" by specifying two fixed panes. When it came in more expensive than I thought it should, I queried it and found in fact the cheapest option was the "standard" one fixed pane and one opening pane.

A "normal " fan is an "axial" fan (think of a fan blade on an axle) A Radial, or Centrifugal fan generates a lot more pressure and can cope with longer runs of ducting. Here's one: http://www.screwfix.com/p/manrose-in-line-centrifugal-shower-fan-kit-chrome-100mm/41379

You want a radial fan, not an axial fan

I've seen "front doors" at the back of a house, but that was a clear example of taking an off the peg design and turning it around to ensure the living room got the sun and that's just where the door ended up.

If it's for your own use then I can see no reason not to use 240V lamps. You will need to change the plug or make an adaptor (and UNMAKE it when you are done so nobody uses it to plug any real 110V equipment into 240V)

We went back to BT after the nightmare with Talk Talk. Basically I just could not get them to fix a broadband fault. They were afraid to actually pass on the fault to Open Reach for fear they would get charged for fixing the fault, so chose to do nothing but keep sending me yet another new router because that must be the problem. I ended up escalating it to their management and I parted mid contract with a refund for all the BB charges I had paid. Switched to BT, immediately reported the same fault and they fixed it. The overwhelming lesson from that is it's not worth saving a few £ if the customer service is so utterly disfunctional. That has put me off trying other re sellers.

Nope. BT unlimited broadband "helpfully" tells you that you have no limit so there's no point in showing you how much you have used. (i'll bet they know, just don't want to tell you)

Hi and welcome to the forum. You are not the only architect on here, so you will have some backup. I think mention the word architect here and it's a bit like marmite. So keep your tin hat ready. Personally I had very bad experiences of an architect. I could only find one that charged a fixed fee being a percentage of the estimated build cost. Telling them that I didn't want it project managed and put out to tender did not make them budge on their fees. And as it happened the actual build cost ended up a little over half their estimated build cost. To say I felt like I was being taken for a ride and was just a "rich self builder / cash cow" was an under statement. I ended up using an architectural technician who charged a much more reasonable fee related to the amount of work he did, not some ficticious build cost estimate. I would hope I was just unlucky and you will tell me your fees and scope of work are both reasonable and negotiable.

But that would mean installng a usage app on my pc, SWMBO's pc, SWMBO's phone, and daughter's tablet, then add them all together. Shame the router doesn't just log it, or BT were not so unhelpful.

Anyone know how to find out how much bandwidth you are actually using in a typical month? Would be useful to have an idea when looking for alternatives. We are with BT unlimited and if you log into your account it says (in slightly more polite terms) "you have unlimited broadband so we refuse to tell you how much you actually use" Likewise I can't find anything in the router that logs actual date wither way.

Okay, this Tethering thing. That restriction is just "wrong" to me. surely some enterprising software engineer must have written an application that can relay mobile data to another device while hiding that fact from the service provider?

GifGaff is 3G isn't it and no 3G coverage here. I need to wait until the new 4G mast is build here and see who offers what then. What puzzles me about the location of this new planned mast, is it is certainly not positioned for "main road" coverage. It's almost as if it is intended to serve a small scattered low density population for home use.