Ferdinand

Can anyone come up with an estimated extra costs that will apply? Two of the obvious ones are: Legal paperwork costs, for which I reckon you will be looking at low 4 figures (punting - £1k to £3k). Reduced sellability and value of the first one built, for which the first person building may have a reasonable expectation to be compensated if the second person does not build within a reasonable period. What exactly are the benefits of doing it this way? My considered view is that it is probably a far better plan to build closely spaced detached houses, which will defuse a huge number of the complications. I would say split it equally with perhaps an agreement how far you will be from the common boundary, and sharing what you can share (drains and driveway?), both get PP, you put in enough groundworks to lock yours in, and rent it to your brother for a peppercorn for a bigger garden until you want to implement your PP. I can't see much upside, except perhaps in having one Planning Application that cannot be withdrawn, but that would mean that there may be issues about signing off the completion of the first house as the PP will not be completed for 10 or 20 years. Are there complications there about house 1 getting its self-build subsidies and tax breaks - which require completion (eg the VAT reclaim). Other know far more about this side of the paperwork than I do. You need to examine this very very carefully and cost benefits, including potential impact on your filial relationship, or you may discover dragons later, and have a dispute. My experience of this was that I bought a cottage off my gran, which with her house was potentially going to form access to a biggish building site behind. It came off 24 years later, but I was stuck with the same house for that period of time, and there were some brief but hellish family politics based around my ownership in the house I owned making my interest diverge from my sibling who owned the other half of the building site but lived 200 miles away. So things that mattered to me were just seen as an obstruction to making the maximum money. Ferdinand

I thought the calculation needed to be (something something something something something) = 109l pppd. :🙃

I don't think that holds to the extent implied - energy intensity of GDP (kWh/$) varies massively even across peer economies. It's quite possible for a wealthy county to use similar total energy to a similar less wealthy one. For me, that is one of the more hopeful signs that we can reduce emissions without returning to 1400. It is quite possible for development to happen with fewer emissions. We did total emissions per pop above. (Obvs there are factors such as exported emissions, local climate etc so it is all non totally precise). For example, numbers of kWh per dollar of GDP for several countries, with a fuller graph below. Compare for example Denmark and Sweden, or Switzerland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. UK - 0.88 France - 1.08 Germany - 0.98 Denmark - 0.74 Italy - 0.89 Switzerland - 0.60. USA - 1.48 Belgium - 1.60. Netherlands - 1.21. Canada - 2.45 Sweden - 1.35. Singapore - 2.44 China - 2.13 South Korea - 1.8 Poland - 1.16 Spain - 1.1 Here's a chart: Here's how that energy intensity of GDP over 25 years has changed for Bangladesh. They are using their carbon 3x as efficiently to produce income. Tis is even trade adjusted. I haevn't quite answered @SteamyTea's q in the units he asked it, but these are adjacent numbers.

Slight rant there. Sorry - close to my heart.

I stand corrected on Sheds in the front garden, though you could have eg a bin store as it is non-permanent. I think.

New builds stopped being a noticeable part of the problem years and years ago, since they each use only a fraction of the energy of an inefficient older house. That's not a reason to stop raising standards, eg the latest lot of Building Regs changes model as reducing modelled emission by 31%, but we need to know that this is the 20% side of the pareto analysis. Plus the large majority of houses in the UK *are* older, as we like to keep them around rather than rebuild using shed-tech every 30 years like in the USA, or have newer stock due to recent wars and more frequent renewal like much of the European mainland. (For impacts, see the problems Germany has with water supplies in their remaining older city centres). The needed fix on newbuild is what it has also been for years - a rigorous inspection process by the BCO, rather than a game of pin the tail on the donkey inspecting one house from X. We need to recognise that the UK has been effective in reducing emissions compared to our peer countries, and we use little energy by comparison with our peer countries. This was a graph I put together earlier when there was a remainer-type (one Siobhan Benita who is on perambulation through lots of political parties) trolling around on social media for things to help diss the UK wrt the EU, over the period of the current govt: On energy usage (which I agree is very desirable to have low - need to build less infrastructure, or can export more), we are also doing OK by comparison. This is all energy usage, not just electricity. Though it is not "consumption based", which would make Germany (all those cars exported) and perhaps Norway (all that oil exported) look relatively better. F

If you feel it is worth the expense, then it is worth it, though 2-3 feet apart staggered in rows 2ft apart would give you a better hedge. My preference with that is to put in a wire mesh fence on the boundary beyond the hedge (my parents did one with a single wide plank above on edge paving stones) which then gets buried in the hedge. F

It would not need PP since plants do not need PP, but I'm guessing that children growing up timescales mean it would perhaps not be 6ft high and solid in time. A low fence (to say 1m, and perhaps see through to help your young hedge) with a hedge or reasonable evergreens is a very attractive answer, though, if you can make it work. That's what my mum did when I was three.

TBH I'd say that is your front garden, not the back garden. And you are likely to need PP for the shed in front of the building line, unless perhaps you use one of those semi-sheds that is a storage locker 1-1.2m high. Unfortunately it is likely to be determined by the building line, not by calling an enclosed front garden a "back garden". Sorry 😒. If the shed has only just gone you may get away with whumping another one there immediately, and hope no one notices. Otherwise imo you will need PP. except perhaps for the new driveway if you make it permeable to water (which makes it Permitted Development). Or you just do it and see if anyone jumps on you, then go for a Retrospective PP. But then you have a risk of not getting it and having to take it all away again. Since you will be spending a few thousand, I'd say go for PP. It may be worth phoning up the Council and making an appointment to talk to a Planner at the front desk, where you may get some useful guidance as to the rules that will apply. Frame it as you being intimidated by the system, and take your before and after along. It looks like an attractive scheme for your kids, so I'd say give it a try. HTH. F

@SteamyTea said: Wasn't that already tried, and was a total failure. Who remembers The Green Bank. One quick, cheap and easy way would be to drop objections to onshore generation projects. Let wind, solar and hydro compete with bio-gas, coal, nuclear and gas. Husk off, I think you are confusing the Green Bank, which raised £10bn of private Green Infrastucture investment by the Govt committing £2.3bn - which was energy generation / reduction on a large scale, with the Green Deal, which was about using the reductions from your energy bill to pay off a loan to pay for the investment in your house. It was far too complicated. * I'd say the Green Bank was a success, but Theresa May's Govt sold it off (fools), and the Green Deal was a failure, because it was far too complicated. Both owe their results to over simplistic free market dogma. As a died-in-the-wool free marketeer, I think it's clear that in these schemes the Govt needed a bigger role. The value of applying a free market is that (a) It means that things can be addressed in order of increasing utility without Govt second guessing / corruption when the guides have been set and (b) It means that what subsidy is needed is used most efficiently. If you want an example of a free market based initiative look at how FIT subsidies were reduced to nothing to ensure maximum utility, whilst the Govt-micro control obsessed boneheads (**) of the Green Party continued to demand subsidies that were double or treble what was needed and rent-a-roof entrepreneurs would continue to make fortunes of hundreds of millions from such subsidy. F * KISS. Just set a high standard, with taxes slanted to encourage it to be met. ** I am not keen on the UK Green Party, who IMO are watermelons, because I think frameworks to facilitate bottom-up initiatives are more effective than 45,863 expensive commissars in Council Offices.

No probs. It *was* a bit of a tome.

On the Shepherd's Hut, just make sure there isn't a David Cameron installed in it by mistake. Life would be very dull.

That was one of the key debates around the introduction of EPCs, and their definition. Do you go for "fabric" so you can compare it, or "usage" where you may get a better idea or be firmly misled? It's really the same debate as OFGEM and media quoting "typical" bills when actually the cap is on unit-rates and 3 defined 'typical' cases (low, medium, high) exist if you look 2 cm beyond the end of your nose. You can't win. Especially in the UK where the media is driven by maximising moaning and Outrage Buses. F

I don't see why this needs to be subsidised - except for say the bottom 20%, which has always had significant support. But an average property owner has an extra 50k or so on the value of their property in the last 3 years, driven by tax breaks. For those, just set a high standard and enforce it. I'd say that it is quite reasonable for there to be obligations to balance your chosen benefits. We have accepted that causing more emissions should carry extra costs as a principle. See carbon taxes and so on. I can't see a reason for not applying that to people who choose inefficient houses, and opt to keep them less efficient.

Landlords are already pretty much regulated to have their properties C or better within a very few years. I think there is debate about 2028 or 2030. D is required by 2025, and not to have it is an offence. The main problem is with existing older stock in the Owner Occupied sector. The problem there is that the last 3 Governments have been cowards on that question. I'd suggest higher stamp duty, and an extra band or two of Council Tax. Overall the average EPC is now just reaching into C - last time I looked it was 67-68.

I don't have an allotment 🙂 ,so perhaps you have me cross-referenced? I think on the long thread, my contribution was about the Aquatron, which is an spiral separating alternative to a septic tank you put on the end of a normal waste system.

I think that's the only one that needs a comment. Yes - an air gap above. I would install 2-4" less than the depth of the beams, and install it near the bottom.

If using spray foam, you could spray paint it afterwards to make it less obvious.

Some of that may be available free - eg loft insulation. You need to do some digging. Also Jeremy Hunt hinted at more renovation / improvement effort - watch for the detail.

There's also this long thread, but it is mainly about treatment plants. There may be something in it. Again old, but the biological mechanics have been exactly the same since Medieval Long Drops.

One of our members @Tennentslager has a hut at Carbeth, near Glasgow, and used a boxed in dry loo which separates 1s and 2s. Details are here on his blog, quite a long way down the article - but since it is basically a weekend hut there are probably a lot more ideas that would be useful for your shepherd's hut if you read it all. You get the benefit from my interest in bodily functions in the comments. Summary: Dry Toilet And No Smell Whatsoever Apologies for the pic of the loo, warts and all so to speak... This is the 'seperate' plastic toilet from Sweden that has a front funnel and back void. The thinking is to seperate the solid and liquid waste as it is the combination Of both together that causes the smells we don't like. Urine runs to a soak away and the solids and toilet paper (and sawdust which helps the drying process and Erm...helps the appearance should you peer into the pit!)end up in the bucket below. There is a small fan running constantly which you can just see on the floor behind the urine waste tube. The fan is powered from our 12v battery and draws next to no power at around 0.1 amps. This provides an airflow which removes odours and aids the drying process for the solid waste.

Here's the presentation. I think they should have kept VAT free shopping for tourists (or perhaps reduced rate). And the silly buggers have maintained subsidy to the demand side of the housing market for first time buyers, which is completely loopy as it will continue to drive prices up. The commitment to consider energy saving seems forward looking. And Little Miss Dotty is now somewhat marginalised, which has to be beneficial at this time. I quite like this reply:

Yay. Scenario Analysis. Good tool whatever your views. Agree on the arrays of downlights. I have 19 in my kitchen (installed by previous occupier), and another 40+ elsewhere, and they *are* the devil. Though I changed them all (except those that were stuck) to new iKea LEDs in 2013, and I think only a single one has gone pop since. I tend to use this kind of thing as an alternative to drilling 47 holes in a plaster ceiling, or variations thereupon such as a round one with 2-4 stalks: I think that LED panel lights are a decent alternative for eg above your dining table, although a feature metallic fitting may work well there. You also need to consider dimmability, colour temperature (eg cool or war, white), colour tunability if you want it, and point sources such as uplighters and wall lights. You can some fabulous 70s style wall lights that will go with a patterned carpet and tartan golfer trousers to give you a wonderful Terry & June aesthetic 😉. ATB Ferdinand

A couple of further thoughts. You need to have designed your complete install method before you start, including machinery and number of people / skills. The attractiveness of tin cladding underneath the insulation is (in addition to catching fibres and looking nice) that you can order it in custom lengths which will exactly match your pitch length. The downside is that you will then be handling 6-7m x 0.8m hunks of corrugated 5m in the air, so it will be a sod to handle, even with something like a small spider crane or a 5m high board lifter. I can see one scaffold tower plus a powered lift platform being an practical and cost-effective combination for a rapid install. And the "how to attach to steel" still needs to be bottomed-out - I would suggest, once you have a method selected, a full scale trial on one small section of roof which is the left for a month to see if anything goes wrong. I was attracted to things like sheep netting and mesh fence because they come on rolls just like rockwool, so you can install the holding layer with the insulation at one time, and the sections of roof you have already applied will support themselves as you move up (or down) the strip. What about the use of PIR (or maybe sheet insulation of more robustness if necessary?) tacked up by expanding foam with a further "whoops" loop to catch any Great Collapsing Sheet of Celotex disasters as a layer to support and shield the rockwool? Or a similar mechanical solution using say sheets EPS? There are further benefits - it is light to handle, supplies extra insulation, can very possibly be used to cover your steel-rafter cold bridges. If you use alu-faced celotex with the non-printed side facing down that may also help your lighting, and you can seal it with alu tape to give you a 99% moisture seal to the roof. Just thoughts. F

That looks nice.