Ferdinand

I actually had matching green one next to the pink one this morning, but decided life was too short to be boring. I do but they are reserved for walking backwards.

There would also be a massive increase in ‘homeless’, since rentals in both social and private sectors are roughly 100% occupied whilst half of Owner Occupied houses are actually under occupied. Move a million houses from rental to OO, and you create half a million people needing a new house. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/817036/FA1422_overcrowding_and_under-occupation_by_tenure.xlsx Ferdinand

Real obsessives will be satisfied today as magenta and green are complementary colours.

Is that not a reference to capital gain rather than rental, although there arecth8ngs such as the tax free lodgers allowance which sensibly encourage exactly personal housing as income supplementing. Clearly a rental sector is necessary as .. leaving aside voluntary renters for jobs, not wanting the biter of maintaining etc ... there are around 12m people with impaired credit who would struggle to buy even if it was affordable. Ferdinand

If it can’t be seen I don’t worry about it. Irritates “all screw heads aligned” people in “shoes off” houses. ? Ferdinand

I have socks which are generally all the same above the foot, even though they may have different colours on the toes :-). Or at least only a couple of versions. Rather like the slight advantage of a dust-coloured car.

Yes. IMO. The Cabinet Level Ministers - bosses of the above - are as bad.

I bought one of these stainless drying racks for £30, which seems great. Just fits in the shower cubicle or the bit of space outside the cubicle. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B071K5FQYN/ F

Can you swing the other way and use it as eg garage, workshop or basement? 3m could be a nice gym if you avoid certain equipment. Or you could dig it out even more to have rings? .

Thanks all. So I am in the ballpark with my times. And the thing to watch is to set it up in the morning when the Waschmaschine has run with the morning solar, to be clear for the next morning. F

There is always a silver lining. I make that about 50 bottles of beer per sqm, if you can reach it all from the ladder with a system of trolleys. Or Scalextric AND Beer. YES !!! (Yes. I know ... weird measurement. But it is better than the BBC measuring Madagascar in blasted football pitches.)

I assume then that it is structural. What are your plans for the wall upstairs? If it is staying you will need a new support of some type of course. is the building listed? And a plan and some photos would help. Ferdinand

And to be fair, I still have to strip half the beds from Christmas visitors. And I am planning to move the tumble dryer to be directly next to the washer - just like yours. That will create space for a second dishwasher. More seriously, I do have more time at present as I have lost my caring responsibilities, and am trying to get back into the swing of maintaining a more extensive network of friends, looking for volunteering opportunities and membership groups etc. Potentially quite a creative time.

I think the sore thumb is that the vast majority of pension tax relief money goes to higher rate taxpayers, whilst they want it to benefit lower income groups. I think I would support an adjustment - now sure how far. And because it is already capped quite aggressively (40k max, relief lost over 150k income iirc) there is probably space for a somewhat gradual adjustment. Pros and cons need careful consideration, though. But I think we have a budget coming with significant changes. Ferdinand

For drying washing, my mu always emphasised the importance of a washer with a high spin speed. Ours is I think 1400 rpm which makes the washing significantly dryer than even 1200.

I'm playing with ways of drying washing indoors efficiently, and I would welcome comparisons. Currently experimenting with a drying rack in my downstairs bathroom either in the big shower cubicle, or just in the room, which is the warmest room and has an extractor fan. I find that leaving the fan on dries a load in about 16 hours. How long do other people's efforts take? Bear in mind that I do not have full MVHR. I could get a Pulley Maid for the utility, but I am not convinced that would be much better, or I could potentially stick a dehumidifier in the bathroom with the washing. Ferdinand

You need a shelter belt of trees for your washing line ? .

Apologies for a third post. I think there may be a few clues on proposed Planning Reform in the Architectural Beauty Commission (more Bs in the name that Billy Blinking Bremner) Report - The Roger Scruton one. That came up with 75 recommendations - some rather nebulous, some quite interesting. Digital Building Passports is one of the more interesting ones imo. Attached. Ferdinand Living_with_beauty_BBBBC_report.pdf

I would say it is perhaps more likely to affect how long you have to build it. IIRC in England the squeeze has been on the timescale you have to reclaim the Stamp Duty. I could be mistaken there, however.

I think Scottish changes would follow a couple of years later, and (obvs) be blamed on the English ?., whilst probably also incorporating an innovation or two. I hear that there will be generous stuff for first time buyers from the locality - to the extent of reducing the purchase price by a third. Which will be good depending on who it helps. I also hear that there will be quicker routes to planning permission, in order decisively to reach build targets of 300k per year. I hope that that includes build quality measures. They have made very significant build volume progress over the last decade, and I think they want to nail that one as legacy. The measure I would like to see is dealing with London - and for me that is either: 1 - a high density redevelopment of one of the large Council Estates to provide most of a decade or more of housing growth. By high density I mean 200-300 dwellings per hectare. It is normal elsewhere. 2 - lift Greenbelt Restrictions (parts of the London Greenbelt are a mess of scrub and brownfield). 3 - a dozen garden cities. They won't touch that .. too political. Potentially over a generation rebalancing north may help that. Ferdinand

I can't answer your question but ... precautionary principle. We had to do some heavy fiddling with the waste in my main bathroom because we were adding a bath last summer. No other option. My plumber heavily emphasised that if it was being put somewhere where it could not be got at in future if a joint leaked along the pipe (we had to add the bath waste into the same pipe), then use the most reliable possible connections. I do not know what those are, but if that is you then someone will know. Ferdinand

Can you partly or fully hang it from the roof structure?

Excellent idea.

Welcome. A semi extension is not a *huuuge* project, and others have done similar so advice and experience are around - so relax (a little), for a bit. Recommend vodka and chocolate ? .

I'd expect to see certain extra taxes, but the Tory Manifesto left headroom for approx £20bn a year of extra investment - which would pretty much cover the stuff I have heard about. They created that headroom by relaxing the limit on the govt deficit to 3% of GDP , which I think is historically a prudent level. Given that most of our national borrowing is on low fixed interest rates over longer terms than most other Western countries (the BofE are startlingly better at managing the debt than all the others which was to our huge benefit in 2010) - info on BofE website - I think they may know what they are doing. The 100 bn+ figure for HS2 is an upper bound of a range and is massively inflated by anti-campaigners and the type of assumptions that place 30 years of management risk in the number. There is some good debunking by the editor of Rail News. Having said that, CGT takings seem to be at an historical high thanks to Landlords getting out or incorporating. F