saveasteading

Dead right. The contractor must be expert but the SE does the spec. Each should respect the other. How will you know the contractor is expert in reality rather than confidence and chat?

Thanks @Onoff. As you had surmised, I was about to duck out of this. I was wondering if bots were infiltrating BH with click bait. Hence I asked the simple question of why digging was not an option. No answer suggests something untoward. And Out.

I'm being pedantic here. Often there is a difference between "The Requirement" and the multiple explanatories following it, or summaries by other parties. Not all bcos even realise this or appreciate any question of it. Must or should or may? "Must be reasonably airtight" as opposed to ' here are the standards expected. In reality it is usually easier and as cheap to test than to argue the case another way. I haven't done hours of checking this and am not going to... we will get an air test. But if anyone knows I'm wrong, and it is a requirement in the green bit of the regs, I'd be interested.

If i understand. You have been told it dies not qualify as PD. You do not have planning permission. Therefore it is wrong to start. You are hoping to get away with it because you don't think the neighbours would complain. It's wrong to drag them into this. And they or the postman, or anybody might mention it in chat. It would be plain wrong whether you got away with it or not. The bco is not the planner but, if i remember correctly, they would send a notice to the planners. If you explain this all to the bco I doubt it will help; probably the opposite. And what if planning took weeks still because of some random issue? It's generally a bad idea to dig footings too soon. Come January it will all be legitimate and you won't have to worry.

I can see the attraction of icf and I costed out a couple of buildings this way, at design concept/tender stage. It wasn't right for my business and these were both private houses, but I can see the attraction for a self build dwelling. My biggest concern is buukding end of life*. I have a horrible image of the building being scrunched by a concrete crusher and eps being mixed with the rubble or flying off in the wind. Then the crushed concrete being laid as hardcore full of eps. One could redo any "carbon load" with this shown as waste or contamination, to get a different solution. Or perhaps and I hope, this has been thought through and resolved already. * this can be much sooner than the design life due to land use changes.

No please: more distraction. This has got my attention and your experience is wanted. Self evidently, a PV panel will prevent some ( a lot of) solar energy from reaching the roof. Not only is it shade but also the energy is being taken away as electricity. Can you explain why it would be insufficient, in your circumstances of on principle?

I had missed this, now obvious, option! Sedum is very heavy so out of the question. But PV? It's likely this could work. If you were to ask an SE to look into it they might find a bit of spare capacity. Specifying joists is simply choosing the next size up that takes the load, so there is usually some spare. Then they might consider the gantry spanning between structural walls, not all bearing on the roof. OR joists will have little capacity at midspan but more near to the supports... fix there. If the task is to make this specific thing work, then they can look at several options, review other loadings more critically, and even take an overview if it is not quite there. First find a lightweight PV system.

This is top of my head reaction as I dont know your roof product in detail... and given read back. I'm assuming that absorbed heat from direct sunlight is the issue, rather than outside temperatures. A reflective surface would help hugely, but it gets dirty if flattish and looks poor if raked. Might it be more effective to fit an additional roof covering... a sunshade effectively. If this was raised by 50mm or so then it would radiate some heat, have an air gap and also allow air cooling through draughts. The outer material could be metal cladding (uninsulated), board and any waterproofing, or tiles. If the roof was flat then paving slabs on pads. This would reduce the absorbed heat massively.

Your wish is my command. Being a nerd I stopped to look at this small development with finished and in progress together. I thought some of you might like to see both. Mostly small windows with shutters. One bigger opening, also with shutter. Of course if there is a wonderful view then that would affect the design, but if kept rectangular, the blind can still work. My puritanical streak on this is that some people expect to walk around in T shirts all year. We already have the technology of jumpers and opening windows. And really, how often does a UK house suffer from overheating?

Because I've been looking at garage doors, I've come across several external rollers for windows. They are not as expensive as I had assumed considering they are outdoors and motorised. I can vouch for how effective these are in Mediterranean weather, keeping sun out in summer and heat in, in winter.

Exactly so. Hence fines and points for traffic offences.

Yes. With an absence of work, the trades will charge less.. perhaps a lot less. This usually takes a year though for realisation, expectations and pride to change, and perhaps some nagging to reduce the day rate and get earning. Land prices can also drop, but big landowners are less likely to need the money. Bigger contractors may also reduce margins in the short term, but this is only a few %.

And the paper ones don't break down fof a year or 2. I guess they are woven like J cloths, so are no softer than cotton... and will still clog drains and treatment tanks. Out with the nappy has to be correct. For trade use, eg mastic wiping, have a bag to hand? Toilet paper is made of loose fibres collected on a mesh so are not woven or even tangled, so come apart again.. I've been to the factory... (the glamour of my career) cardboard boxes to loo rolls.

If you search that article and link to a small film , you will see some surprise flushed items. And it says the ban is 18 months away! The caring shops could stop stocking them now.

So long plastic wet wipes - but should we be flushing the new ones I'm amazed they were still being sold. But even paper ones take years to break down so they shouldn't be flushed away to sewers, and especially not to a digester.... perhaps this is why some need to be pumped out annually. It's ne of those things though.... how much of the popuation care? So it needs legislation. BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdjr4gk7v38o

I think occupants will want to hear the cooling. It's a luxury and the sound will remind everyone that 'something is being done'.

Be aware that the house will be moving a lot seasonally. So going too deep would make the new foundation too much stronger than the existing. Your SE should tell you exactly how to do this. Width, depth, length, and how to ensure that the new concrete is jammed tight under the existing. Presumably the new extension will go before the bco. Your SE will need formal calculations for all this. What will the new foundations be?

No and no. You don't need us here to tell you all these basic things. The Internet will tell you the cement to ballast mix, or look at rhe cement bag, or ask at the merchants when buying 8 bags for starters. Report back on completion please. You didn't say why you couldn't dig a hole for a post. What will the gate be an opening in? Fence/ between buildings?

I look at the weather forecast time- related charts for your area with interest, and so often see the rain stopping after the eastward moving weather front passes the Cairngorms. But on a newspaper simplified forecast it will show rain. Don't tell anyone how good the climate is though or there will be thousands more white box estates. Bracing tomorrow though as Norway sends its unwanted weather south? The light blue produces the peaty water to go with the barley from the yellow. Mmmm.

This appeared in my Facebook stuff today. An ad for maps. Perhaps you will find it as interesting as I did. Eg the vast area of blue which is mostly uninhabited. Of course we all look at our location. What struck me was how tiny and precise some shaded areas are, especially where the brown which is showing as a long strip but very narrow. I haven't yet looked to see if there is any geographical feature coincident. Ahhh the quality has diminished in copying. But eg see Morayshire where I'd guess the brown band is 30 miles by 3 miles. Is black best for solar panels... sunny and regularly washed.

I prefer to catch leaves here.

It appears to be a requirement in owning an outdated but legal treatment system, that you explain it in basically a house maintenance manual. It makes sense to do the same for any quirky design decision like this one. This chapter is then displayed in a fuse cupboard so that it doesn't go missing. So @ProDave could do this re the tank and rest easy for any future owner or contractor being fully aware.

I don't like the idea of a massive concrete surround for a tank. Cost of corse and that it is not usually necessary. Beautiful work in the pic above btw. Tying it down to a slab will need reference to the tank chosen but should be easy and controllable. This is key. There is no reason why you can't put a notice up on your tank explaining this. And another one under the extract cover. If it's tied down anyway, this shouldn't matter, but better to be safe. In reality a good tank doesn't often need emptying so wait for a dry summer.

2 x half gates will be more stable Quick sum. All approximate. 45 gallons, 200 litres. Concrete is 2200kg/m3. so 440kg. A big bag of ballast is 800kg. So with cement and water one bag will do 2 barrels, approx. If not quite, then chuck in some rubble. Presumably you will cut the tops off the drums.

Underpinning is hard work and done in stages. Dig access trench along the wall to the bottom of the footing, then as far beneath that, as instructed. So you are quite deep. Tunnel under the footing locally, about 1m wide. Mining. Fill under the wall with concrete and wedge up. Repeat. Backfill. Commercially this would be many hundreds£ per metre. Anything is better. Is the ground that poor in bearing? The point of letting the existing wall take the load is to use the existing bearing capacity.