ProDave

I certainly would have grabbed a good number of those slates they ripped off before they got skipped, if nothing else so if you get anybody to improve things you have the material. If the builders had said anything i would just tell them I am reclaiming the ones they took off my roof.

Or a couple of courses of brick then a UPVC window to give light into the garage.

All this talk of what if the nut comes off. But no mention of nyloc nuts or even loctite?

This "housing crisis" is nothing new, it has not just appeared, but is the result of a generation or more of flawed policies limiting the number of houses being built and the policy of selling council houses to tenants, but not then being allowed to use the money that generates to build more council houses. And lets just say I am very glad I am no longer a landlord. The policy makers just cannot see the cause and effect link between the policies they implement and the result it has. People talk of Tory Austerity, but I have spent my whole working life under all sorts of governments and a common them all that time has been cutbacks, savings and efficiency. You would think by now having been trying for 40+ years we would have the most streamlined, and efficient public services on the planet providing tremendous value for money and an excellent service...... I am retiring now and I am probably one of the last that left school into a 4 year apprenticeship that set me up well for the rest of my working life. In a time when only the really bright kids went to university and did a proper worthwhile degree. Then it became fashionable for everyone to go to university how dare you say I am not intelligent enough. Then someone decided it was a good idea for the students to pay for it and start their working life with a massive debt burden. But in spite of that, the lemmings still continued to go to university.

My 5kW ASHP draws a maximum input power of under 2kW so happy on a 16A circuit.

Your complaint is not about the mix of the mortar, but the fact it is crumbling and falling out. No point claiming it is 6:1 and they counter that it is 3:1, it is still crumbling and falling out.

The solar PV will try and produce a sine wave output at whatever power is available. Burst firing of a PV diverter is easier and less likely to cause RFI problems, Just think of the meter as averaging it's reading over a short time period, hence the shorter higher bursts of dump load get evened out as far as the meter is concerned.

Many (including my home made one) work by burst firing. Most electricity meters work on an "energy bucket" and only register power consumed when one whole watt hour has been consumed. That takes a little under 1 second with a 3kW immersion heater. So I set my burst firing time to be half a second and the immersion is on anything from 0% to 100% of that time. So say there is 1.5kW surplus, then my immersion heater would be on for half of that half second period. As long as energy both ways does not exceed 1Wh the meter will not register, it will count up a bit then count down a bit.

I think it is a myth that buildings "settle" Yes timber will shrink and warp. Screw pops are usually the result of poor workmanship. Plasterboard needs to be flat onto what it is screwed to. If the joists are not level then some boards will not be touching the joist and the screw will be trying to bend the plasterboard to touch, and it's just wound up like a spring and screws will pop. But most definitely the builders problem to fix. Hint: any that are not visible from 2M just give the loose plaster / filler / paint that is covering it a little encouragement to fall off so it is visible from 2M.

For that small height change, I would not build a retaining wall, but cut the turf back a bit a re profile it so it slopes down to the slabs without a step.

Heat your domestic hot water is the easy and obvious one. It will reduce your HW bills to close to £nil for much of the summer. The next obvious one is use all your big domestic appliances like washing machine, dishwasher etc one at a time at around mid day.

A 100A leisure battery would have a theoretical storage of 1.2kWh, but in reality less than 1kWh as you can't discharge it to 0. So you could run a 1kW element for less than an hour or a 3 kW element for less than 20 minutes. In the middle of a power cut that is not going to warm your house up much. Save the battery for lighting and other useful things. On the other hand my WBS can deliver 5kW for as long as I keep adding logs to it. The one in our static caravan ran nearly non stop from November to March the winter we spent in it.

I would say it needs the same rail. Otherwise BC will say nothing to stop you walking onto the green roof then falling off that. Of course if that bit of handrail were to fall down after completion......

Before you dismiss alternatives like timber frame as "not solid" perhaps you should have a look at some that other buildhubbers have built. Unless larger plot = more £££ there is no reason not to put a small house on a large plot. Our plot is about 1/3 of an acre.

"Silent" will not be "best" I have fitted several of these recently for Landlords who report them as very effective for dealing with problems in bathrooms, but they are good because they are versatile and very powerful fans, which makes them neither cheap nor silent. https://www.nuaire.co.uk/product-list-page/cyfan You can adjust the idle speed so could end up with a quiet (but not silent) idle speed.

I thought that was a joke. I have not seen those on sale for years, let alone one with a matching fireplace. Interesting point though, a prolonged power cut in an air tight house with mvhr would probably require a couple of windows cracked open a little, so it would then not retain it's heat as well as normal..... So I would light the stove.

And if you do go to appeal, it sounds like your case officer has already written the basis of your appeal claim for you. Make it CLEAR to your planning officer that if it is refused you WILL be appealing.

The original joiner should have realised that, and fitted the original 2 hinges literally as far apart as possible. When adding a third hinge, putting it in the middle has added nothing That is the point it will pivot about if the first 2 hinges are straining.. You might, just might fit another hinge above the top hinge, if so that would have been a good place to add it, and if one would fit a 4th hinge squeezed in below the existing bottom hinge. There is a good reason why you see heavy doors hung with 3 hinges, but 2 near the top, not in the middle. He might be a good joiner, but he is a poor engineer.

Can you rig up a camera inside the cabinet recording video (A phone should do that) so you can look at how the hinges, top and bottom particularly flex as you close the door. If you can see how they are flexing it will give you an idea how to strengthen them.

Perhaps for the average person, an easier, and potentially more accurate measure of how "good" a house is, would be to simply publish the annual heating cost. Problems with that are separating heating from other energy use (I fitted an old electricity meter specifically to measure heat pump consumption) and of course those prepared to live in a freezing house over winter would get a "good" score.

We got an A94 on the as built sap that I am happy with. BC told me it was the first A he had seen. I have often speculated if we want to sell in the future it will be almost impossible to replicate the same EPC. but no plans to sell.

In normal use an ASHP is not noisy. No more noisy than say the roar of an outdoor oil boiler burning away. I do have a problem with mine at the moment, the fan motor has a failed bearing that is whining whenever it is running. That is a fault and is on my "to do" list to try and replace the bearing. EDIT: there is a common theme here. Why do people complain about the noise of an ASHP, but not the roar of an oil boiler burning (and the smell of those)?

I think this has been discussed before. To work, it has to be some exotic pipe coated with something like silver. Any normal pipe used for that is likely to get cold, condensation and mould then all sorts of horror stories about what it draws into your house and people have had to cap it off and abandon it.

If you want best insulation for a given thickness, then do as we did, make all the elements of your wall, insulation (which brick and block does not) So we have 200mm timber frame full fill with insulation and on the outside, 100mm thick wood fibre (more insulation) and rendered on the outside. Inside a 25mm service void for cables and pipes then plasterboard and skim. Total thickness 380mm.

If you do your insulation and air tightness well enough, you won't need upstairs heating unless you like a really hot bedroom. Like many on here, I put UFH in the bathrooms upstairs, but not the bedrooms. I put electric points in the bedrooms for a panel heater if it turned out some heating was needed, but they have never been used. Nearer the time when you have a plot and are designing the house talk us through the design and we can advise on what you need.