Ferdinand

is there space to land a ladder on the top lintel of the window? Looks like a row of bricks above it. Though personally I would hate doing it. Cleaning a gutter at that height is bad enough. It would be a scaff tower for me. F

@Pete Put the untidy bit in the middle of the run from front door to back to decouple the two ends. I would have them tidy at both ends of the front-door to glazing-with-pillars run where your spaces are, then use a band of these or contrasting tiles reduced to whatever space is left to mark the transition from hall to kitchen-diner, as a "feature not a bug" thing. This assumes parallel walls front and back, and precision tiling if starting from both ends - any wonky angles will need planning for. On the corridor I would line up with the wall straight through to the door at the LH end to fit in. I would use 100mm cuts where the 1.3m wide bit is, and 400 cuts on the top side of the corridor where it expands to 2m. I would deal with the bottom side wider section near the door by having some sort of 400 deep bookshelf, display or storage unit - possibly tiled underneath but it would make it look more intended. 400 possibly feels the right depth for shoes and various outdoor gubbins and sports and pets doodahs, and is in roughly the right place in the layout. Would give variable cuts on one side of the corridor only, which I think would help. I think that all those 400 cuts, including the potentially untidy middle ones as perhaps the bottom of your shoe cupboard, may save you quite a lot of wastage. F

Sounds like you need to apply a little cost-control to your planner, or at least some discipline. Unless there is a hefty copyright fee or something else in that £270. £270 should be the best part of a day for a normal Plannign Consultant, and that plan did not take a day (imo). Whatever you negotiate and he accepts. It would be reasonable to include eg survey costs, valuer costs, legal costs as things to count against the uplift imo. If you ask your legal advisers they may have a schedule of normal practice. Just do not put yourself in the position where there are things on the list you cannot prove. Again, the agreement is what you negotiate, though without PP there would be no uplift so a conditional agreement is likely. If you get him to accept a fixed price offer, then you make a judgement call based on your estimate of what you can achieve vs what he wants. You also need to check just in case you already have prescriptive access for what you need to do down that route. eg if you have the right to drive down it then potentially services could go the other way and you may just need to say "I'm building this house and wanted to let you know I will be building a drive", rather than "I accept I may need to cross your palm with silver." The sort of games you can play are to get agreement for access to a rear entrance to the existing for say a garage, or something that only applies to one PP and do it in 2 jumps with a small uplift first, or carefully worded such that it covers the both. But that would be sharp-elbowed, and not a good thing to do to neighbours. For all of that you want a local recommended property type experienced solicitor who should have all the agreement boilerplate in their computer, and will be a great help. Look at local firms with one to perhaps five branches who have several partners and someone specialising in property. If you get up to a regional firm with a corporate car park in the local city your wallet will definitely know about it. I always say that for a recommendation ask a qualified professional surveyor ideally a RICS at your established local estate agent. You want to talk to the hoariest old git in the back office - the one who looks either heavily stressed like Captain Pugwash with a pepper-and-salt beard and 6 unwashed cups of tea on the desk, or the one who looks relaxed and extremely well-lunched. But in any case the one who has been there for 15 years or more. F

Another option is adjustable support pads, which are .. adjustable in height. Need a reasonably firm base, however. Google using that phrase. You can shims for slopes, self levelling, and all kind of things. Help potentially if It moves later. You would probably want Wallbarn Megapads or similar. Check carefully for your exact application.

This looks like a good project, with a number of potholes on the way. My brief comments 1 - Get a formal valuation at the point of gift. It is a matter of judgement whether to maximise or minimise this within justifiable guidelines, depending on your parents’ estate size and if they are in their last 7 years. Logic probably says minimise and get the uplift in your name. Will really help with all kinds of future conversations with authorities. 2 - You may be shocked by the access bill. Case law says it can reasonably be a third of the uplift it generates in the value of the plot.So begin recording irrefutably everything you spend, so in theory expenses can be deducted. But he may just alight on a price, and in a sellers market of one you are probably a little powerless. Grin and bear it. 3 - Get used to holding a poker face and reflecting before reacting, even if someone says they are going to insert a porcupine in your posterior, backwards. The pause to think, and keeping stum, are really critical skills. 4 - Talking about land as a deposit is confusing. I would suggest ‘equity’ is a better word. Their are BSs out there that will treat it just the same. Try Penrith for one. Ferdinand

This is the Appeal Decision and the Officer Report. The Council are a bit hamstring in that they cannot apply the National Space Standards without an up to date local plan (which is silly by the Govt), and that they are relying on very recent caselaw. The site has quite the spectacular Planning History. 18_01306_OPD-OFFICER_REPORT-716608.pdf 3220904 appeal decision.pdf

That is going nowhere. It will fail Building Regs, and there is yonks of rental regulation that will stop it on Complaint to EH .... starting with category one hazards under the HHSRS, such as ventilation and fire escapes. That is unless he does it to an acceptable standard. Suspect it is part of a Planning Strategy to redevelop, and by doing change of use early under PD he gets to make it residential with no objections. Perhaps they will deem it to be 15 Band A units in as short a time as possible. The article is rather unfortunately incomplete in its assessment imo. Speculating, embarrassment of the Commercial to Residential PR law may be the target, which is unfortunate as it enabled a lot of good conversions as well as some bad ones. F

(personally I ask for the one I want to drink, as I am sure all on BH do. ?) More on topic, I sometimes use the ESE capsules which are wrapped in paper. And can I plug our local roaster, who are just coming up to 100 years old and are ironically called the Northern Tea Traders. They roast about a tonne of beans every week, and the prices are from about £3.60 for 200g. Depending on which of the 20 types of bean you order. Minus about another 10% for orders over, I think, £30 or £40. If you are Within the region and commercial (or a big drinker) they will provide you a free and maintained Bravilior filter machine - think of those ones with 2 jugs, and deliver your coffee. The region is roughly Leeds to Brum across England, and the amount you will need to make is about 50 jugs per month. https://www.northern-tea.com/shop/coffee/ And these are the most moreish chocolate product in the entire world: https://www.northern-tea.com/buy/milk-chocolate-coated-cocoa-dusted-almonds/ Ferdinand

Or, more concisely YES !!! Aaaaaah.

My chosen weapon for physically removing moss is a gutter brush on a 2x extension pole. No idea where it came from ... parents saw one in a shop once and swooped. It only extends to about 12ft, but that makes 18-20 with me. Should be easy to find online. I did a high bungalow roof with this before selling it. The problem I have now is that I have one storey of wall, then about 7m of roof above that .. which is too much for the brush. So it will be the idea below when I next do it. For the ‘spray with copper sulphate and leave to die for a couple of months’ option I would look for a traditional fruit tree sprayer, which will do anything between 2m and perhaps 5m plus you. Or for more fun get hold of a water soaker of the bicycle pump type, which you can make yourself for tuppence https://www.instructables.com/id/5-Water-Guns/ Or buy one for about £3. They will have a 10m range, get a bucket of CuSO4 solution, and Robert is your relation. Maybe. Just practice frost with water so you do not go over the whole house and kill next door’s cabbages. I got one from the pound shop a couple of years ago which had enough range to discourage the cats and squirrels on my front wall from the front porch and protecting the nesting birds a little. Ferdinand

1 Make sure they are happy with a washer-dryer. I find the drying by those to be less than stellar. However, @JSHarris can probably attest to the performance of that model. But he has mvhr in an ecohouse, and your parents may not. 2 Check the readability of the controls. At worktop level, away from a window, in a utility it may be different to a brightly lit shop. Especially for oldsters. I have trouble with our new one, let alone mum. 3 Check on the exact programs used constantly by your parents, and that those ones in particular are easy to use eg if the dial position is at the top or top half, not at the bottom. And ideally that their favourites do not require further settings after the dial. God is in the detail of the defaults. 4 I can recommend a current Bosch, which have a dial and then a control panel that lets you adjust nearly everything easily. It also has a short cycle. Ferdinand

Interesting the differences from orientation, position and trees. My rather larger array has general 16MWh since Feb 2016. I think Jeremy’s was put in in spring 2014.

Looks very interesting, I would say special care would be needed for something so spread out for Energy usage in particular. But it will be fab to live in. I would raise a flag and say to balance any inspirational architectural aspirations with your feet on the ground. Example .. the Gasworks by Chris Dyson in Upper Slaughter is up for umpteen awards, but it only just scraped a D in the EPC stakes. In a few years that will probably prevent it being rented out, perhaps even for holidays. And it took them 2 years to sell it. https://www.zoopla.co.uk/property-history/the-gasworks/upper-slaughter/cheltenham/gl54-2jt/41509827 It has a fair amount of sustainability wibble attached to the architectural-bollocks, but in practical terms sustainable it is not, as the Energy efficiency is well below the national average. https://www.architecture.com/find-an-architect/chris-dyson-architects/london/gasworks “The introduction of a very carefully-considered architectural concept into the Gloucestershire countryside; one which is of national significance and distinction in its approach to quality and sustainabilty, notably the integration of internal and external factors.” Ferdinand

On a short break from my break. Stop making me post.

Hulsta Sale. Prompted by @Moira Niedzwiecka's bed thread, I see that Hulsta have a summer sale with a third off, and an ex-demo sale at 50%+ off. And there is a showroom in Northampton near to Moira. It is all *very* nice stuff: https://www.webstore.hulsta.co.uk/our-biggest-ever-summer-savings/ Though it is a slightly different end of the market to the bed Moira has posted from Wayfair, I recommend these, and it fits an "invest in what you touch most" idea. They are in the sort of Aga or Saab+ bracket. Parents bought one for the (separate for both sides) orthopedic mattresses (pull a puller and it sits you up for your cup of tea or book - electric version available) back in the 1980s and now mum has to sleep semi-prone it is just what she needs. For some of us this is probably in the "windowshopping for things I do not need to buy" or "just what I need" category. Ferdinand

Welcome. You probably need to have a very good idea how "restored" it is, to tell you how far you need to take it back - hopefully not at all. As commented above, it depends on your goals. One quick link: F

That would be bathstore who just had an 80% off closing down sale. How high would you propose one to be?

Could not @Patrick make some of these Bath Companion jobbies out of his yew bush?

Mine is waiting to be fitted when I tidy the appropriate location and can get to it. I loved Screwfix service when they brought their whole range of safes to the front counter for me to look at.

Half way up in the lawn. F

? (for short people) or doorstops. Yew is heavy. Or as you say donate to woodturner or sculptor in exchange for one or two pieces, say a house nameplate or a number or a box for loose objects in your hallway as examples. Something that will memorialise the tree for a few decades in your house. BTW what is that circle of toadstool things - pass the parcel installation?

The rope issue is, I think, that it only works in tension, and cannot apply any force once even slightly slack. And a non-elastic rope is unable to apply any force as soon as the tree moves even half an inch in that direction - other than to prevent it falling the other way if it moves back. Think about towing a car with a non-dampened rope downhill. There was a old 'background' joke in the Beano, where a guy is pulling a sausage along the pavement on a lead. "Why is he pulling a sausage on a lead?" "Because he can't push it, silly !" You need a special sort of powered or spring loaded pulley that takes up the slack continuously. Or a suitable dampened elastic rope. F

I think that would be because the plumbing and gubbins is no longer under the bath. Whilst with a normal bath you remove the front panel and squirm like an eel (this is why some plumbers do Yoga), stand-alone baths are supposed to be either steel ponds-on-legs with Lions’ Feet, or smooth and enclosed like a 30s modernist item (or because someone has sensibly been informed that SWMBO will NOT be dusting The lions’ feet). In the latter case you would probably need to lift it out. F

? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/105350.stm

Is that wall listed? Sorry .. was that wall listed, before it demolished itself ? ?