Ferdinand

Agree. The top one looks 1940s/50s which looks like the age of the house; the other looks 1970s. TBH, neither of those dates qualifies as "old" - a significant fraction of the UK housing stock has roofs put on before WW1. Suspect that if you work on it, the 70s roof may suffer from broken tiles and it will be a self-creating piece of work. Concrete tiles have a shorter lifespan and do that. Unless you have rooms in the roof it is about insulation up there and attention to detail. Have a word with your Council Housing Dept about free schemes in your area, probably ECO3 or ECO4, or something local. Some elements may not be means tested. You may need to remove any existing insulation first if there is more than perhaps 50mm of it. F

We'll I'm just under 3 years into my mum's estate and we are only now making *real* progress - beneficiaries paid etc. That is solicitors.

Potential red flag there. It is not imo worth risking your relationship for - hope that it is not the case. You may find it's a decent investment even if you do not build, mind. Though make sure to get things in the right order, so as to lock in PP whilst not torpedoing any of your self-build subsidies such as exemption from CIL. Is the issue arguments amongst Executors - there's nothing stopping probate sales? F

I was confused, but then I realised you mean the door frame at the *bottom*. 🙂 The path to my front door is done with slabs on ASP (Adjustable Support Pads) from Wallbarn with river pebbles filling the gap to the wall. I think that or similar would meet your needs. I even have a disabled ramp to the front door on the auto angle adjusting ones. Since they are adjustable I have just set them at gradually higher levels, and the adjustable angle heads give me a wheelchair suitable slope, to boot. It's as solid as a rock, as cheap as chips, and completely dismountable so regs should be of less relevance. Since the river pebbles section is mainly air it should be OK. Here's a thread with some piccies and one added below. In your case you would perhaps want cut stone slabs rather than my 2" thick pavers. The one note I will add is that your surface below needs to be firm. You can adjust, and I have a shed on these on a sinking fojundationma nd just wind them up a bit every year or three, but I think your entrance patio needs to be smooth - unless you deliberately make it rough to conceal changes. Ferdinand

Only triplicate? @Onoff is not a planning officer, and I rest my case.

A note to say that I appreciate the gentle, but long-term, reflection that @TerryE has put into this blog. Cheers - just re-read all of it.

What do others do? My supplier, who is mainly trade, lets me buy take complete packs of tiles (unless it is a special) or complete bags of adhesive back - as long as it is within a day or two. So I just buy a couple of extra of each to make sure I am covered. Ferdinand

On the length and poking out into the road, some said would that be a problem. Checking your drive as is is 5.7m long, and I think you are getting a bit more at the house end, but losing a touch by the shallow angle. Since a huge estate in this country is under 5m, I'd say you will be fine unless you plan to obtain a Lincoln Town Car, a Humvee or the Batmobile. The Panther Six would fit. So for the length one, I'd be inclined to use a variation on the old tyre in garage on a rope trick, and have something initially soft then solid than can be nudged, so that you know the rear end is not outside your boundary, yet they don't appear in your lounge. I'd do that as a supplementary to two ridges in the surface - say at 2m and 1m from the end, chosen as appropriate. So normal cars could either just utch up to the first, over the first, or up to the second. If you want to stop tyres at ridge 2, it could just be a set of your driveway blocks on edge or on end. F

/offtopic Nah. Get a Toyota.

For things liek microwaves, it will also be condensation in the cupboard.

Talk to your local insulation chariy or council to see if you can get insulation in the roof space bit. Often they will require there be minimal there at the start (so you check what their conditions are and remove to use somewhere else before the survey).

Sounds like you need someone with a private explosives licence.

Ideally you want front-vented things. Also those 600x600 porcelain tiles, trimmed slightly. are very useful (and cheap). You need to consider whether you want gloss, matt etc. The last lot I had I used one for a wall-protector behind the hob, one as a floor protector and easi-slide for the fridge, one to turn a previous-built-in-oven-hole into a hot plate standing area, and one for windowsills. They cost £11 each. This sort of slightly lighter grey might work. Glazed porcelain, 600x600, £20 per sqm. https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Toronto™-Steel-Glazed-Porcelain---600-x-600mm/p/225446

Remember that you may have separate District and County councillors, and that in a non-unitary area Roads and Public Footpaths etc will be County.

On the 6ft fence, it looks to me as if a 6ft fence reducing visibility on that corner could be a threat to road safety for people / kids coming out of the side-lane. That would be the Highways Dept at the relevant local council (here it would be County not District).

Appliances Direct: up to 40% discounts on a number of freezers, including upright Miele freezers down from £2000+ to around £1200. Refurbed, but look worthwhile. https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/ct/refurbished/refrigeration/freezers I got my Liebherr as an ex-display one from there for £1400 not £2400, and it has been great. F

The other advantage I can see for a chest freezer is that they are significantly less expensive for the same volume of storage - being basically a cool box with a cooling system built in. And a disadvantage is that the shuffling-around-space is insider the freezer for a chest freezer, whilst it is outside the freezer for an upright - so the upright has 100% useable volume vs perhaps 75-80% for a chest freezer.

Not actually entirely convinced - his main distinction is cold air escaping. My upright freezer has solid glass shelves and full depth solid plastic baskets in each shelf. So the air is kept in just like a chest freezer, almost none escaping from the other shelves / baskets. So I can get the benefit of no need to go rummaging and a smaller footprint, with far less sacrifice than suggested. IMO. And I don't - checking the specs - see much difference in energy required between simlilarly sized upright an chest freezers. F

There seem to be a couple of wrinkles in how the baseline against which the reduced usage is compared are generated. Presumably the £3 comes partly from not having to pay a premium to compete for the inflated peak price. Will it also save having to pay money to eg diesel swing resource generators? Have not got my head around that. And do consumers have to be compensated for power cuts? So avoidance thereof saves money.

Two easy ones, that may not meet your need: If you are with Octopus you can download a file with half hourly readings from the website. Or you could put the Smart Display in the outbuilding, and read it directly out there. My Smart Meter display does not take gas readings from the Smart Meter due to the ~15m distance, but I do not especially miss those so it is not a big issue. It does hget the Elec readings, which are more of interest. F

The next one won't use any because solar PV.

I can confirm that the 650g loaf of bread I just made has used about 0.8 kWh of energy to make 🙂.

The short answer is no, we won't run out in any serious way unless it is a 1 in 100,000 case. Our media take a 1 in 100,000 case, and go "this *could* happen to all of you" - Panic. Panic. Panic !!!. That is a problem with an almost universally tabloid and political media. Did the forecast £6500 energy bills happen? All this happened last year. and there were hysterical articles then. Extensive power cuts did not happen then either. Example: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/07/risk-of-uk-power-cuts-this-winter-has-increased-says-national-grid With ref to @Billit's National Grid outlook reports, the Gas ones are here: https://www.nationalgrid.com/gas-transmission/insight-and-innovation/winter--outlook and the Electric ones are here: https://www.nationalgrideso.com/research-publications/winter-outlook It's worth reading one of each at least once to appreciate how they do the modelling. When I looked at the early outlook reports back in August (ish), the risks of cuts were about the same as last year, and it did not happen then. They measure to something like "five times this winter a few people may have short power cuts at peak demand time if it is a really, really cold day". ie Not very likely. Then the media go ape for clicks / attention / to poke the Govt / whatever; just a problem of the UK media. AFAICS the risks are not much different to last year, though supply is perhaps better in that we have much more renewables and interconnectors on stream than last year. Plus our main North Sea Continental Gas field has not been under maintenance this year. In 2022 over 2021 UK domestic oil production is up by 10%, and gas by 50%. See the most recent Energy Trends report: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1107461/Energy_Trends_September_2022.pdf Gas demand is down on last year by 5-10%. And we have been happily exporting huge amounts of both gas and elec to the continent to prop up the European Grid throughout the year, because we have 20% of Europe's LNG import facilities, and a whole fleet of CCGT Electricity Stations currently producing Elec for France and the continent. The UK has been a net exporter of electricity this year for the first time since 2010. The shift in terms of trade is around £5-10bn - not small. Plus Rough gas storage came back on line last week at 20% capacity - increasing our storage capacity by 50%. From small to rather less small - but we have domestic production so don't likely need to cover 100% of our usage. So what if Mr Putin sends his subs to wreck all our offshore infrastructure? I'd say we are resilient to interconnectors going off, as we are exporting. And taking all the offshore wind off stream would be quite an ask, but would be more of a potential disruption. So me, I'm fairly relaxed, but I do have a Super SER in the garage. F

I think herb lawns end up taking more effort and maintenance than you would prefer, though Herts sounds possibly quite benign a place to do one. There is a National Trust version of one at Sissinghurst in Kent after the experience of Vita Sackwille-West *. There is an article about it here. They found it tricky and have now replaced with something more like a big stone paving patio with Thyme in the gaps: https://sissinghurstcastle.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/the-thyme-lawns-revisted/ https://www.facebook.com/SissinghurstNT/posts/vita-was-a-great-lover-of-bringing-the-indoors-outdoors-and-her-desire-for-this-/2814891468540481/ Ditto chamomile, aiui. We have one of their two large herb gardens near here at Hardwick Hall which I visit regularly, which is a bit windswept and I have never seen any thoughts of trying one here. My suggestion if you do not want a feature needing maintenance is to consider how green roofs are done, which need to be hard wearing and tolerant, or look for what the dominant creeping plants are on your local soils similar to your potential lawn. F * I do hope Sackville-West was the inspiration for the Sackville-Bagginses in Tolkien. Perhaps as an aristo she was in the habit of stealing spoons. Too young, probably, however.

Heh. Personally I bought a couple of gallons of surgical spirit to clean everything during Covid, and I still have a fair bit left. Technically, Absinthe would do the job 🙂 .