ProDave

If that really is for a septic tank, then I am surprised on a number of counts. Firstly it looks too densely built up for each property to have a septic tank and soakaway. Secondly it appears the soakaway is on Grosey's land. surely he would have known that when buying the plot. Thirdly, I can't see how building control allowed a new house so close to an existing leach field. Something does not adding up.

Ah, a picture of my role model. Trust me, I would not choose to spend that much on a bloody "computer" where they forgot to include the mouse and keyboard, but aparently my daughter will be "deprived" if she doesn't get one, and I would hate to be accused of child cruelty.

Well today's experience confirms BF is all a BIG CON We were looking for an ipad nini for a christmas present. Yesterday they were £239 on Tesco Direct. So we thought we would wait until BF for the "bargains" Get home from work, and there is an email telling me they are on sale for £189. Click through the lionk, and what do I find? They are on sale at £259 So, there might have been a FEW on sale at £189 which sold very quick, then the price went up to MORE than it was the day before the "sale" I wonder how many bought today thinking they had a bargain? All sharp and despicable practice imho. I did end up with one for £209 from Argos, about the only one who had not already sold out of the sale price items. [grumpy old git]Just serves yet again to remind me that having to work for a living is a pita. Work is increasingly getting in the way of life and I am increasingly resenting it [/grumpy old git]

Nobody has yet confirmed if this is foul water drainage or just next doors rainwater soakaway. This needs clarifying.

I too have been there, "digging out" the narrow bucket. It must be a feature if a narrow bucket, never happened with the 2ft bucket. I found I didn't use the narrow bucket often, a) because it was a pain to change over (no quick hitch in mine) and b) it tended to clog as you have found.

I have to admit I would not like the thought of next doors effluent draining into the ground right above and behind my retaining wall. Did you know this was there before you started? What are you doing with your own waste? I take it there is no mains drainage available? I would be concerned at your own soakaway getting overloaded. You really want to keep this "land drain" well away from your own effluent soakaway, and I would abandon all thoughts of harvesting it for anything, just find somewhere for it to go to.

That is plenty of pressure. The "leak" is probably the NRV being imperfect as there is no reservoir for it to charge up. I would say you are good to go with an accumulator.

Just accept Open Reach, rather ironically, are hopeless at communication. Next time you are passing by, retrieve the bit of rope that you kindly lent to them, and move on to do more important things with your life. When the rain gets in, and something stops working, a fault will be reported and they will fix it. Eventually.

At my previous house, the first thing I wanted to do was build a garage. It was an awkward corner site with the house set well back on the plot, meaning only a tiny back garden and a huge side and front garden. I wanted to build the garage on the side garden, the planners wanted me to squash the garage into the tiny back garden. The point of that ramble is when talking to the planners about the garage, I had described it as "built of concrete block and rendered". The planning officer just said "it doesn't matter what you cover it with, it will still look like a pre fabricated garage" It didn't matter how much I tried to explain that concrete blocks are like large bricks laid by a bricklayer, she just could not accept it was not a concrete sectional pre fab garage with a bit of render slapped on top. That is a very good example of a planner not having the slightest clue about buildings. My garage was refused because it was outside the building lines. I appealed, myself, on the basis that other adjacent houses were built directly fronting the highway and in relation to those it would not look out of place. A very well written summary by the appeal inspector agreed and made a point that the garage being closer to the road than the house formed a link between the old and the new and complimented the street scene, and formed beneficial sense of enclosure. Just really saying that some planners have not got a clue about buildings, and it is definitely worth appealing if you have a gut feeling that it is the right thing.

There is a phrase you will encounter when insuring or selling a house. "Non Standard Construction" These days, certainly in Scotland, timber frame is considered standard. My own house, with its non masonry cladding may fall into the "non standard" category. I understand the best approach then for insurance is to go via a broker who will know which insurance companies are happy with it and which not.

Is that in Scotland though (if so tell me who) we seem to have an extra 2p per unit network charge up here compared to the rest of the UK that the price comparison sites don't mention and I have not yet found a way to avoid. Our standard rate at the moment is about 14p which when you allow for this 2p network charge, is not very much more at all. Another thing the SNP say they are going to address but have so far failed to do.

Is he on a TT supply? Agree with Steptoe, a 40A mcb in the CU and a 2 pole 2 module rcd in a separate enclosure would be better.

What nobody has picked up yet, is you have "total control" a Tariff I believe unique to Scotland and no longer available to new customers. It's a bit like Economy 10 in that the the storage heaters and the whole house gets cheap rate for 10 hours a day. BUT it has one BIG advantage that the "A circuits" are always on, and always metered at the cheap rate. These are supposed to only be used for "heating appliances" and typically you will find panel heaters in bedrooms connected here. But you are also allowed to connect water heaters and Showers. So all you need is a wylex 40A rcbo and you can have cheap rate showering 24/7. You lucky b%%$$"£$£$£

So you are saying this is a new build, wired like that and no insulation fitted? Best compromise, unclip the cables, lay them flat on the plasterboard and insulate over?

They must have thought copper was expensive in the 60's, because most installs from that era the cables are strung bar tight, and there's barely enough slack behind a socket to pull the front off a fraction.

I am planning just 25mm battens and counter battens. My thinking being I don't want the wood clad portion to be any thicker than the wood fibre and render portion. So 25mm batten, plus 25mm batten plus 20mm board plus 20mm board = 90mm overall thickness. Using 50mm for one of the battens would make the overall build up to 115mm which I don't want.

That assumes I am prepared to pay the higher standing charge and higher daytime rate, jut to get a few KWH cheaper at night. But I like the thinking of immersion heat just the top half of the tank for "her" morning shower and the legionella cycle. As long as half a tank lasts 25 minutes or I will be in trouble.........

And I plan to be different again and have solar PV (almost certainly without any FIT by the time I get there) so the emphasis will be on maximum self usage. So the daytime is when the HP needs to be working most, not over night. if I had my way, a dribble of luke warm water from yesterday would be plenty for a morning splash of the face, and let the HP do it's thing when the sun is up for a nice tank of water for the evening which is when we do the washing up (don't let anyone tell you a dishwasher does away with washing up, it just reduces it and deals with the fiddly stuff) and for my evening shower. For this "plan" to work, I have to convert SWMBO to having an evening shower rather than a morning shower. Any advice in that department appreciated.

That's a good point. I don't think so or rather hope not. The mezanine is a storage platform, nothing more, nothing less that happens to be open to one of the bedrooms. If the issue is raised I will be arguing that it should be treated like any other bit of loft space and noise transmission is not an issue as there is normally nobody there to create noise. I will be filling the gap between the floor and the ceiling with some form of insulation (probably whatever is left over or can be bought exceedingly cheap) I will admit it is a deviation to the plans. The plans showed two adjacent bedrooms, each with half a vaulted ceiling (i.e the dividing wall going right up to the apex) But we had a think about it and decided it might look a bit odd so we hatched the idea to put a ceiling over one room creating a mezanine accessed from the other. It saved having to build a 4 metre high partition wall.

That is certainly a good solution and is what I have in my new house, but the higher cost puts some people off.

There is a LOT of work in moving a consumer unit by any distance. Just "extending" all the cables is not always the best option. It is often better to rewire the first leg of each circuit with a new run. It has to be taken in the context of what other work you are doing and the disruption it's all going to create.

Question for Jack. You seem to imply you only want to heat the tank once per day with the ASHP and hence the "boost" with the immersion to make it "last the day". Is this so you can run it overnight on E7? Otherwise I can see no reason why the ASHOP doesn't top it up as you use DHW during the day.

On that basis I think I will go with 12mm ply, providing I can find some that has a decent surface finish.

Yes, but 18mm would give you a structural board at 400mm centres, so logic says at 250 centres you need less. Looks like I am not going to find any official guidance here as nobody does it. I am just trying to maximise the headroom in a tight space, so yes half an inch may be the difference between hitting your head or not.

Too much work and fiddle to infill flush. I'm looking for something that will just go down as a thin floor. the trouble is I put my joists at 250 centres deliberately to allow a thin floor, but nobody else works to less than 400mm so nobody specifies what will "do" with 250mm centres. I will probably look at the ply in the merchants next time I am there and see if any is good enough to sand and varnish as a finished floor.