ProDave

Post your findings here please, as I am in the same dilemma, buy now for use later, or wait.

So you go ahead, buy the plot, start digging for the house and find their drainage field. You will have to dig all that up which is likely to be a lot of foul ground, dispose of it, and build up and re fill from good ground. And then what? Just cap off their pipe feeding it? That will get nasty and messy both physically and legally very quickly. The only way this is ever going to work is alternative drainage for the existing house installed first and you still expecting to find at least some foul ground to remove and replace.

So basically they have a large garden to accommodate their drainage. They want to sell a big chunk of that large garden that probably accommodates their drainage field so they will need to pay someone to allow them alternative drainage under a paddock. Their motivation for selling is no doubt a lot of £££ so if I were the paddock owner I would bt asking for quite a lot of ££ to allow that. It would almost be a ransom situation.

It is really weird. Speedtest tells me I am connected at 75Mbps up and down, and just about everything else works, but this forum is more off than on today. Is there some sort of DNS problem or server problem? Edit took multiple tries to get this reply to post.

No other problems for me, just this site. It partially loads, e.g I can read a thread, but the "reply" box at the bottom does not populate with all the code needed to post a reply. I think this is only the second post I have managed to make all afternoon. As the internet is all about packets of data and IP addresses, i fail to understand how some of it works and some does not.

All afternoon the forum has been flakey, pages not loading at all, timing out, or only partly loading (e.g reply functions not loading) I have re booted my router, my computer and browser. It has taken me over an hour to get this to post, I regard it as a temporary message to be deleted when the issue is resolved. I will keep trying to see if others have the same issue if I can get the forum to load again.

The trouble is, this law is here for good. I really do hope for a change of Scottish government at the next election, but no new different government will re allow WBS's. Imagine the bad press that will follow if they even suggest it?

This is a ban not just on WBS but anything that produces CO2 so no more oil boilers or gas boilers or even gas fires on new builds. What about bio ethanol stoves? I am glad my house is complete, with WBS. This new ban really is the nail in the coffin for any thoughts of doing a third self build. Not that I had any such thoughts at the moment, I am happy where we are in this house. By next winter the press will be full of "lousy ASHP" articles as the mass builders step change to fitting ASHP's and do it badly, or worse still they take the easy option and fit electric boilers giving customers expensive eating bills. Also in other stupid housing comments, from another article linked to that one "His comments come after Location, Location, Location presenter Kirsty Allsopp, 52, said in January that detached houses should be banned for being “environmentally impractical”.

It sounds to me the vendor has not done due dilligence, and what they are selling as a building plot may not in fact be suitable. That is not something you want to gamble on. If it is a viable plot and you buy it, where will YOUR drainage go to? Assuming there is a solution to that, then the obvious next question is as part of preparing this plot to be suitable to build on and therefore suitable for sale, why is the vendor not first updating their drainage system so it is both up to date and certain they know where it is exactly? This one might get a laugh, but trust me is meant as serious, have you tried divining? Or know someone that has?

Flexi conduit is awful for pulling cables. Use rigid conduit with SWEPT bends not elbows. Any conduit is virtually impossible to pull a second cable through with one or more there already, so you have to plan it that you are pulling all cables together. In a previous house I did such a refurb by starting with two radial circuits adding on as the next room or part room was done, and they only joined and got reconfigured as a ring upon completion of the final room.

Probably the simplest way to solve this is get agreement from the vendor to did some test pits. One close the the boundary and one at each corner of where you expect the house to go. If none encounter any drainage then fine.

You want a hacksaw cut between L and N Can you not get the rogue cable that enters in the back re routed to enter the top like the rest, thena hacksaw cut between all the holes will solve the problem.

The fix to that, is power down, remove the tails, put a hacksaw cut between each of the holes, replace and re connect cables. But if there is no actual evidence of heating, and it has been like that for probably 30 or more years, I would challenge the tester to justify a C2 rather than a C3 Why did you have the EICR? If it is just for information, you are not obliged to have it fixed. Only if it is something like a rental do you have to have a satisfactory EICR/

I remember watching it and the arched tiled roof was stuck together wish plaster of paris. And I remember thinking "doesn't that turn to mush when it gets wet?" After it had collapsed once, I am not sure I would trust it enough to sleep under.

I would be asking him what guidance note says it is a C2. i.e. asking hum to justify that.

Picture please. I am struggling to understand why one through the side and one the rear matters. Is it a case of the hole the cables go through is too big and not the correct IP rating?

Sorry to say that is a lousy job. There are usually joining strips but I think those gaps are too wide. You have to face up to them and tell them they are not doing good enough and to correct those poor joints. I do hope you did not pay full in advance?

200m2 of matting? you have more bathroom area than my entire house.

No, it was merely shown on the planning as "ground mount solar PV" and that is what I built, with no design input. I just put some poles in the ground and started bolting bits of framing to them and that is how it turned out. Standing room in the middle but it gets a bit low in the eaves.

That started just as a ground mount PV, then I thought it would be madness not to enclose the sides. It is only as a rough storage shed in this case, firewood, bikes, and things like cement mixer etc. Just a load of pallets for the floor. If I was going to make it as a proper shed / hut I would make it a bit higher, and build the shed but a lot lot better.

This would be a raw sewage pump if I understand correctly, as it would be pumping from the house up INTO the treatment plant? I would really try and avoid that if you can. A pumped system needs a holding tank. Does that not have the same distance constraints as a TP? i.e. if you can fir a pump station there, you can fit a TP there? Care to post a site layout plan? if you can get a gravity option, I would.

I suspect we might not be your target audience here. "Soft Landing" is not a policy we ever discuss and is certainly not anything i have heard of.

Use all your big appliances, WM, TD, Dishwasher etc close to mid day, preferably one at a time. Time your ASHP to only do it's DHW heating after 11AM, the sun should be up by then and most of what it uses will come from the PV on a sunny day. Fit a PV diverter to send excess PV to the immersion heater. That just about covers it for us. BUT if I install any more PV then that will have to have batteries, otherwise it would just be too much to use real time.

Can I assume if, like me, you included the ground mount PV panels on the planning for my house, that I have not therefore yet used any of my permitted development allowance so I could still add another 12 square metres of permitted development PV? Alternatively is like mine ended up, with PV forming the roof of a shed, you could carry on building as many sheds as PD allows each with solar PV covered roofs.

I would say no Picture from here (first google link that found the picture I wanted) https://www.e-lindsey.gov.uk/media/4257/050-Unvented-hot-water-storage-systems/pdf/050Unventedhotwaterstoragesystems.pdf You are supposed to have 500mm of straight pipe below the tundish. Yours appears to go straight into what I think is a waterless trap. Whether that will cause a problem I could not say. You could try manually operating the over pressure or over temperature relief valve and see how the water flows?