Ferdinand

Further comments. You can certainly do it yourself - judgement call for you depending on how difficult you think it will be. A planning consultant will know local policies (if you choose the right one - look for experience of similar projects in your LA area). Any PC worth their salt should know most of the members of the Department by name, their strengths and weaknesses, and how to work on each individual. That can be a useful boost for you, but still the more you get familiar with it all the better use you can make of your consultants. I would draw up your ideas first, with a list of clear questions written down, so you can use your free first half-one hour chat well. Do not shrink from asking eg "what is your best judgement from our conversation of the chance of getting this is first time, and if we had to Appeal". Give the PC time between contact and meeting to have a decent look and think. You need to know that each App is considered on its merits (in theory), so arguments from "that one did this" can be dismissed, but sometimes you will get away with it. Unpredictable, perhaps partly dependent on if anyone objects. I do not see the "on street parking by others" having much weight, and you will need to meet the policy. You can argue things like good bus services or close to town to argue perhaps one space instead of 2. Once you have PP you could of course sell the plot. You may well be able to get better returns from different housing stock if rental is the aim. If you are over a parking increase line, you could design in a large bedroom and split it later if that helped. In these circs you could do something like a traditional shared drive. The Council will be concerned that it fits in - so be relatively conservative. Although OTOH it is traditional to put a landmark house at a corner, which this is. All the best. F

And https://www.google.com/search?q=buildhub+plant+room+site:forum.buildhub.org.uk&safe=off&sxsrf=ALeKk00AU00Y4K3Oo9E9DgXE3L4PqeZsrw:1582518559136&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi398SErennAhWVgVwKHRHHCtYQrQIoBDAAegQIBRAP&biw=785&bih=390

Try searching the forum for Plant Rooms. eg

My middle lounge, between the front room and the conservatory at the back, is rather dark. It is approx 4.2m x 4.2m, so small-medium size. At present it has a central single pendant fitting. I am casting around for a fitting with several bulbs to make the room brighter. In search of examples, does anyone have a fitting of this type that you like? I will consider a wiring modification with a project in a couple years, but for now I can only sensibly change the light fitting. Cheers Ferdinand

But he has a mullet ...

>Not sure I get this one, other than a joke ] OK. Explanation ? . You have designed your house to incorporate an essentially 10m high void, which requires to be maintained. Cleaning skylights, painting every so often etc. To do that safely you either work from the ground (no good for painting) or find a safe way to work from height, or another solution. Ladders are not considered a safe option for other than the lightest jobs. I would not do anything heavier than empty gutters from a ladder (but I am cautious). Which leaves you with hiring a pro, hiring a means of accessing height safely, a scissor lift, or a portable scaffold tower. That is leaving aside all the outside maintenance - gutters, render etc. It is also leaving aside eg doing your ceilings (esp. cathedral ceilings), plasterboarding, insulating, wiring, and all the other stuff whilst building it. Significant nos of BHers get a scaffold tower during the building process. That seems the practical solution for building and continued maintenance - including safely cleaning your skylights every year or so. A good quality portable scafffold tower would cost approx 1-1.2k new or £500-600 secondhand. Mine was £400 from a BHer for a 5.7m German made tower, and has been used in 2 years for building a car port, rendering a gable end, doing cathedral ceilings, repainting an industrial unit, and is currently doing the ceilings in a small cafe at a gym that i have a small stake in. It is about to be borrowed by my b-i-l to do work on his fascia boards and gutters on his house. To hire one will be £70-100 a week. Mine can be built by 2 people in 90 minutes and dismantles to fit in my estate car. I think it will still fit once I have an extra 2m stage, May seem surprising, but worth considering. "Partial justification" was aimed at the 9m high skylights adding another job to the 27 we can already identify. F

I went for window cleaning poles, as my windows cleaners do offer a solar panel cleaning service but it is a little prohibitive at £1.20 per panel and it would need doing regularly as quite a few of my panels are tree sheltered (plan is to move them in due course onto a South facing car port when it has been built). I have 35 panels in toto which adds up quite quickly at those rates. I have the normal window cleaning at only about £9 a month to keep the front facade tidy. I have skylight but I can reach most of those. I would guess they would need cleaning maybe once a year, and that cleaning the outside will show up the inside .. spiders and so on. A bit more of the justification for an 8m scaffold tower? Ferdinand

Are you talking about cleaning the inside or the outside? Can one specify self cleaning glass on the outside? I think you may perhaps be not quite up to date with modern window cleaners, and their poles which go up to 10-12m from the ground or more. For the outside you need a roof angle step enough such that a long pole can reach past the gutter without being Made unable to reach the skylights. Otherwise they will have to use elevation or some other method. I think a conversation here about cleaning the inside might be helpful. This is the box mine for cleaning solar panels arrived in (plugs into a hose), which is not the biggest. There are 3 sections this long. That is 8m plus 2m of me. Ferdinand There was a conversation wrt solar panels here

Apologies for the slight misapprehension. ME is unpredictable as you say - I have friends for whom it has persisted, and friends for whom it has gone into remission after a year or five. One of those was pensioned off by her school after the sick pay regime ran out, did nothing for a year or two, went back to her parents, and then 10 years on was running a lighthouse for the National Trust - including all the tours up to the light. A good story, but rough along the way. If you want sound insulation for the guest bedrooms I would recommend the Soundblock version of rockwool, which is denser and not *that* expensive. It is good to see your thinking developing - a mistake that is easy for self-builders is not to take enough time in advance for knowledge to develop and the concepts to "brew". Never be afraid of taking thinking time (which it sounds like you aren't ? ). Cheers F

Products like this from Wickes save you making the bigger hole https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Converter-Kits---White-Single-to-Double-Socket/p/710075 (Information not Recommendation] F

Where roughly in the Midlands? Someone May recommend, or have look at the Double Glazing Industry Blogger, who covers products. https://www.doubleglazingblogger.com/blog-3/ https://www.doubleglazingblogger.com/ Welcome.

Do not run the, bare .. put conduits in. Am stuck with tiny cables in my kitchen floor because they did not conduit. This is the stuff I used for runs within my conservatory for electrics. About 20-25mm, flexible, inexpensive of whatever sort.and the foam should get a key on the ribs. If necessary use similar but larger as I think I did when provisioning for Virgin, with cords pre-installed.

(*) Four times the nuptial bed she warm'd, And every time so well perform'd, That when death spoil'd each husband's billing, He left the widow every shilling. Fond was the dame, but not dejected; Five stately mansions she erected With more than royal pomp, to vary The prison of her captive Mary. When Hardwicke's towers shall bow their head, Nor mass be more in Worksop said; When Bolsover's fair fame shall tend Like Olcotes, to its mouldering end; When Chatsworth tastes no Ca'ndish bounties, Let fame forget this costly countess. Note: The Cavendishes, still ensconced at Chatsworth, seem to have outlasted the Walpoles.

HI again @Falesh. I've been thinking on this, and I have the following further comments. I think the conversation perhaps needs to be a bit deeper than "finalising", though this is all your choice. Feel free to take this along as thoughts, if there is anything useful. I am assuming you have a short "Statement of Requirements" (1-2 page) that you will take along, and that you have used as the basis for your designs. If it is in your head rather than on the page, then it would be a good idea to have it written down - as that will help the architect get a grasp quickly of what you want. And save you both time, and hopefully you some money through using them efficiently. Can you find an architect who is a wheelchair user, if that would be beneficial? I think you may find that an architect asks more searching questions than finalising, but a second perspective is probably useful. Personally I would recommend going to see the architect in your wheelchair if you have the option, just to make the point as to how important that is and so you know they are aware of the size of your chair (just in case it doesn't fit well later). My mum was in a chair and it worked in our downstairs bathroom as she (4'10", 7st) and the chair (16" width) were both diminutive - but the bathroom would be too small for me in a chair. Don't let that happen. You need your design to work for a possible electric wheelchair, which are larger as we all know. Further comments: I don't think any of your bathrooms meet regs for an unencumbered wheelchair turning space (though I believe only one must), and that the doors will perhaps need to open into the corridor to create that space (and in case someone falls against the inside of the door and wedges it shut which is a Health and Safety risk). To my eye that would then need a bathroom redesign, and put a question over your door arrangement in the lobby, and may open a can of worms. I think you will get better feedback from your architect than I will give here, but let me mention a few of points: Will a huge 6m deep lounge-kitchen work there for daylight? You have one relatively small North window above the settee and a glass door at the end of a long corridor. Is that enough? (Think skylights or more windows, perhaps). Where will you eat? I wondered about a flip over snooker-dining table, but if it is your getting-elderly dad and you who can do things out of your wheelchair (but quite limited) i do not see that being practical. Is sofa and bedroom suite eating enough? I have had my frail mum living with me for the last few years and meal times have been an important time for social interaction. Is that linear kitchen well designed for someone in a wheelchair or who prefers to keep distances short? Might not an alcove or corner or peninsula plan be better, where you can reach all the key things by spinning on the spot (or having eg a perching stool), or taking a single step? Perhaps with a 720mm high breakfast bar as a separator from the room. If you plan to spend time in your bedroom-suites, then I might want them longer and narrower, to allow "zoning" - ie sleeping, sitting, studying / working. To me the square plan feels like a big bedroom, rather than a small studio suite, and has a feel of "always walking round the bed". If you have a space budget of say 19sqm, I might suggest 6m x 3.2m or 5.4m x 3.6m rather than nearly square. It would also make it more usable by others should you ever move out - 6m x 3.2m would make a double and a single, or a nice work-from-home space or second reception. Personally I am not convinced that bedrooms (or guest bedrooms) should be directly off a living area. Do you really need 2 guest bedrooms rather than one, given the beds have study / work spaces? If you want to keep the external corridor (which clearly you do), the other option to taking it away or covering it, is to make it wider and create a south facing suntrap courtyard garden. That would let your living area get sunlight, and let you have longer narrower bed-suites should you wish. It would only need to be about 3.5-4m wide so could just about squeeze into the existing footprint, thouugh an extra 1-1.5m would help.. Then you can have a separate roof on each side rather than a complex cut structure or cover for the corridor. You and your dad get your own "bedroom wing" in a classic South facing C-Plan. You also get a second socialising space in summer, and for all weathers if you add a say 2m awning / veranda / open porch. Would also keep summer sun out but allow low winter sun in. The pic below is a compact 3 bed bungalow on this plan that my dad designed way back (1970) following this approx. pattern. Here one arm of the C is bedrooms, and the other a car port and entrance, but it clearly works as a design as the business lady who commissioned in her 40s it is still there in her 90s now - and has happily lived there with 3 husbands and now as a widow. I tease her that she is one husband off being the new (*) Bess of Hardwick. It is smaller than your plan - I think each wing is about 4.5m wide, as is the patio garden, so I believe the living space is about 20% smaller than your area. (For comparison the road on the left will be 5 or 5.5m wide between kerbs.) ATB Ferdinand

First 2 seater gone, so now I can get my prototype Green Wall going. They turned up at this AM having taken Tetris to the top, saying can we have the first one early to sit on. Goo-do The rest goes tomorrow.

I’ll try and come back with come some comments on this over the weekend. Ferdinand

I sympathise to a degree with frosted bathroom windows - unless you made it above shoulder height. Hairy Rs first thing in the morning in the window across the road are not my thing, either :-). Though you may get away with a relatively mild frosted pattern.

The Impact Assessment for this measure with a huge amount of background info (eg: Household in Englannd using Coal as main energy source = 49k) for this issue: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/867428/burning-wood-consult-ia.pdf

Yep. That would be more OK, We used to know Sumac as "Pussy Willow" when we were children.

And if you cut it down you will get 20 or 50 from the suckers ? .

If that is Sumac, then make sure you keep it at a distance. It is a weed once it gets going.

It turns out that the father in law of the chap who is dismantling it fancies leather electric recliners. So good home found. Thanks all.

Out of interest, which type of willow? My favourite is probably Cricket Bat Willow, which as a tree is unusual and attractive, and straight and fast and ultimately 20m high.

Enjoy your stove :-). The one that is wing banned though is only the sale of wet timber in small volumes, so donations (or poaching or pickups) would still be OK legally.

Season it for 2 years ?. Then burn it.