Ferdinand

OK. This is a PITA. The good news is that the boiler has not died. The kitchen room temperature took an hour to start going up (by 0.2 C). Was out for the morning, and despite running the water circulation in the ufh at 55C and it on on manual, the kitchen temperature of the floor tiles has not gone above 25C (actually measured with a flat thermometer sitting on the floor so may read a little low), and the room temp has stuck at 19C, despite having the biggest Combi boiler in the Worcester Bosch range at the time on the end of it. I need to be able to run the rooms where mum is at 23-24C throughout the year, *especially* in the winter. The first place is to rebalance and checkover the UFH, but I do not expect that to be enough, and I suspect I am losing a lot of heat downwards (90mm Celotex iirc beneath the ufh). So I am going to need something supplementary in place fairly pronto. Hmmm. Rebalance and see. Ferdinand

Find out what the rateable value is - may be below the small business exemption level. And the liability should fall on the tenant (once you have a tenant), which may affect what you do.

Why is the entire population of BH not surprised ? ?

Good call by @Onoff. I usually install a walkway at joist level in a loft, and arrange the top layer of insulation so that one run can just be whipped off. (And put an obvious sign and arrow so it is clear where it is). Costs little and adds convenience. F

For example, an Outline Application could be for Building Houses and the Design of the Roadway, with everything else reserved. You might d9 that if you had doubts whether they Council would approve the roadway, so that you do not pay for archaeologists, tree surveyors, naturalists, drainage designers etc if the road not being possible would stop you anyway. Then you could do all those at the Detailed stage. Or getting an Approval at Outline will convince a potential buyer that the development can be done, and leave them able to design eg the precise mix of houses to meet their needs, without you having to waste money doing something they would not agree with. Ferdinand

I was going off point 6 ... details not submitted ... plus the fact of Approval, and thinking that that left Reserved Matters for those items. I guess that that it could be that there are conditions we have not seen. Though I think the same points about timings probably apply if Detailed is in place. F

IMO the convert to resi for 18 months is a red herring for reasons you state. If you want some revenue before the project I would say rent it out to someone for storage or storage + admin office, which the Council have probably acknowledged as an existing use by granting you Outline on that assumption. That will bring maybe 5-10k in Enfield for no trouble on your part. I would worry more about the Outline Permission expiring, if the chap still has that stuff to do. If the PP runs down to 6-12 months left, it is arguably worth less. Have your Detailed Application ready. You probably need to speed him up. Ferdinand

Hmmm. Upstairs rads are working after several resets. Need to get an eye test, so I will pop off and see if the ufh has heated through in an hour.

Will try that, but 2 separate timers - upstairs is rads, so I would expect to keep one though there may be a funny pipework config. Separate room thermostats and 2 timers ? - both currently set to manual "on".

"Retrospective TPOs" do not exist, though there may be some ambiguities in process timings. What are they going to do once it's gone - make you build a new one out of matchsticks?

Not apocryphal. I think that in some places it is Standard Operating Procedure, and in some places in the normal practise. To op: imo do at least what you need to do first. But bear in mind that if you get it wrong you can't reverse it. IMO if there TPOs then do not break the rules. You can check either online in some places, or by asking for a map of the area with TPOs, carefully asking for an adjacent address that will include yours. F

Perhaps weed suppression membrane? When you create your loft hatch, remember to get a properly sealed one, and take care with the type of ladder. I like these sort, but they are bloody heavy if you get them wrong and they open on your head. F

I think I need a plumber out, but I wanted to see if anyone had any ideas. The circs are: Hot water OK. Central heating is totally dead. Bosch Combi Boiler, about 4 years old. Boiler is Greenstar 42Cdi Classic. A large one. A new bathroom rad fitted a few months ago. Slight weep from one pipe joint. Pressure reads marginally down (1.5 bar to 1.4 bar). A Reset makes no difference. No fault condition shown. My Circuit Breakers are all where they should be. I think I need a gas engineer, probably on Monday. Probably for a service which is due and pick up the fault. (Just before mum comes back from hospital next week - typical). Have I missed anything. eg Is there a fuse for the CH side controller that ican just push back in? Cheers Ferdinand

I think his cost our taxes £1645. I get 2 sheds for that. But it keeps needing repairing. Can I swing by and get Hoisin Nicked Dick and Poached (in both senses) trout? I have never done duck, but dad had a flock one year and said they were far harder to ring-neck than geese. If you get into Turkeys there was once a demonstration in an interview with a US Vice-Presidential Candidate.

Can't wait for the vid.

Like Highlander, there can be only one. An MP might have one going cheap .. er .. quack. Though the rumour is the ducks boycotted it. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5357568/MPs-expenses-Sir-Peter-Viggers-claimed-for-1600-floating-duck-island.html As it happens I am a distant acquaintance of the Deputy Duck Warden in the village of Foolow in Derbyshire, who does the work. The Head Duck Warden is (if still standing), Lady Morris of Castle Morris, who is the widow of Lord Morris of Castle Morris - a member of the House of Lords who bought Foolow Manor to "decline and die in". He has now declined and died.

I think I linked it in the costings post. Did I?

Upstairs is also a shower tray, but set at 20mm proud of the floor. The shower wall tiles were already there, and previously the shower screen went right across the alcove; I turned the end panel through 90 degrees to make room for a bath. Here is a video. Really needs the sound muting.

The tiles I used for the upstairs ... family ... bathroom were these - Canada Grey. https://www.tiletown.co.uk/en/canada-grey-floor They are a matt finish, which imo is a better balance between non-slip and easy-clean than the ones mentioned in my reno of the 'disabled friendly' bathroom. Tiletown will send a free sample.

I do indeed, and I will have to go around again. And the bedroom is carpeted ?. F

IF you work through it with the units in English rather than SI eg "m3.s-1" as "cubic metres per second", it may help. Also it is perhaps not intuitive for many of us to think of air in kilograms. F

All true. Though in the Oct-Mar period I tend to have my ufh on for very long periods sometimes up to 2/3 of the day, and the house cools down relatively (to newbuilds here) quickly, and the balance is between 1 - Warm enough, 2 - Low water temp for efficiency, 3 - Higher water temp or supplementary heating for responsiveness. F

Don't forget - I use PIV fans in all my rented houses to provide condensation / mould resistance and resilience against non-ventilating or washing-on-radiator tenants, as I have not accepted trickle vents for years. I often add a low volume trickle fan (used to use single room HR fans) in bathroom and kitchen to provide a "poor man's MVHR". I have always used fans with backdraft shutters and recent PIV loft fans, but have taken to the continuous ones more recently to give a low level forced airflow. That is all together with high quality renovations to provide a resiliently cheaper to run / humidity managed enviroment for Ts, which aims to keep them comfortable and staying for longer, partly by giving them energy bills 1/4 to 1/2 less than otherwise. The heat cost of having continuous low volume fans installed is in that context. And an extra £25-30 on your gas bill may or may not be significant in exchange for whatever difference it makes to your environment. This year I have done the same at home, and I do not think I have it quite right yet. In my case I have an increasingly frail mum coming back from hospital so need a warm and responsive environment. That she has moved into a downstairs south facing bedroom that is cold in winter and overheats in summer (runs up to 35C on sunny days) is the next thing I need to manage, exasperated by ufh not being *that* responsive, especially in a well-insulated but not superinsulated house. At this moment, my downstairs bathroom is at about 21C, my kitchen is at about 19C, and mums new bedroom is at about 16C. Clearly I need to rebalance the ufh again for the winter, and perhaps fit one of those carry around wireless controllers. I really want the whole downstairs at 22-23C. F

Fair cop. Full "question" in future. Must not make people think I am in a submarine. "Flood Q, Number One - Crash Dive". (Damn - just drowned the spy gadget specialist. No more exploding rat-poo for me.) F

Thanks. So - a detectable amount (albeit not yuuuuge on a Trumpian scale) or 1250 kWh per annum ish = £100 or so of electric or £25 of gas. My total energy usage is something like 12000 kWh gas and 4-5000 kWh electric for a 4-5 bed house (assuming the numbers I gave Cheap Energy Club are still right), for a bill of around £900-£1000 pa. The effect on responsiveness and perception is more interesting, even though the power to compensate is theoretically only 150W, which should be a rounding error on a properly sized gas boiler capacity. So a heat recovery fan there would reduce that by 75% in theory (may have one in stock) but give a slightly cooler than ambient draft in the bathroom by definition, but I suspect I am better reverting to the Airflow Icon. Suspect a bigger issue may be 1 - that the ufh is temperamental, and slow to adjust as they always are, 2 - that we are relatively poorly insulated for ufh, 3 - that the central programmer is immediately outside that bathroom door and so will switch off too quickly is not offset-programmed, and 4 - that I tend to use the upstairs heating relatively little, which means that I may lose a lot up the stairs. But every little helps, marginal gains and all that. Back to Airflow Icon I think when I get to it. F