Ferdinand

I'd say your shower will not be using 15l a minute throughout, and that quite a bit comes from elsewhere rather than showers. I was thinking of a similar thread, so thanks for this. Average usage for Thames is I think around 145l per person per day, so on that metric you are not doing badly on crude arithmetic. For Jan-June this year, I used 160l per day. I currently live on my own in a 200 sqm house. But I did use some in the garden, and I divide general overheads by one not five. The best numbers in northern Europe are I think Denmark, which uses 104l per person per day. There's a target. You can probably save some water by using a dishwasher not washing up by hand. Someone will give you a flow reducer for your shower if you ask. Cups of tea lol - how many football pitches is it? Ferdinand

You may find that objections are not considered until they are all in and after the closing date. That is how mine operate. I have found value in an early phone call to the Planning Officer, perhaps ostensibly to ask how to object so as to avoid wasting their time with fluff and outrage buses. But if you know of policy contraventions it is also an opportunity to help write the POs agenda before they have read objections, or perhaps even looked in detail at the plans and perhaps without breaking cover if you don't want to (you don't seem worried about that). If things come up after the closure date, you can submit further material and it has to be considered if it is before a decision is made. Get your LPA's list of "relevant planning matters", and get as familiar as you can with their polIcies. These are their boudnaries to define "not relevant". The point about habitable rooms is well observed - make sure the LPA know where your habitable rooms are if relevant. You may get things like obscured glass or a clerestory. Be short, focused, well-researched, and polite. Whose hedge is it? Can you trim it to 1.8m? Ferdinand

Welcome. Have you tried old episodes of Grand Designs for suitable inspiration? There have been a number of practical (ie less upbutt than sometimes happens on GD) designs based around farms - I recall a couple who built one so they could move out and let their children have the main farmhouse with the farm. Farmers normally have their feet on the ground, especially when it comes to trebling the value of a small piece of land and getting a forever-house to boot. Rather like a several hundred £k detached Grannexe shaped like a farm building, and with practicalities such as a North Side pantry. May be worth a look. If i have time I'll do a peruse for a few episodes. Ferdinand

I think squirrels would look better, personally.

What happens to a 4m shed with a 2 sided mansard roof, and a flat centre on top? (He asked helpfully)

Yes - unauthorised work to an LB is criminal. Can get expensive. There are strange corners to the law, such as if an 'orrible 1970s conservatory was on the building when listed it is protected. And their tend to be fewer as you go N in England, aiui as Pevsner was more hurried up there and he was used as a bit of a guide.

If he's the other side of the sale property and you do that, he'll still be your neighbour 😛.

When did he last sell something? These days solicitors are far keener on checking paperwork. Part of this sound OK wrt Planning and Building Control, some not. One option is to let them sell it if you want rid of the project next door. Another one is to ring up the Conservation Officer, Planning Office or BCO with an innocent "is this OK" query. Probably useful to query something that can be seen from the road. You need to reflect very carefully on whether you want to do this.

At the end of week one, these are the import and export numbers: An average export price of something like 25p per unit, and import prices rising from 27p to 33p suggests a approximate break even on electricity in real time at this point. It is still better to use than export, however the payment is around 4.5x the FIT export rate for me. Unit rate (per kWh) Sep 50.866p Oct 33.018p There's work to do on the panels, and hopefully on a questionable tree obscuring a large chunk of my panels. Should be able to do better than that number.

Not urgent. I was just trying to make my next @Onoffcharacter assassination gentle wind-up was a stiletto not a bludgeon. Now I'll get off Zoot's thread.

What were the topics of rounds 1, 4, 5 and 8?

Given it is demonstrably their kit, and is infrastructure, I can't imagine that there will not be a legal provision or case law buried somewhere. But I can't give you a reference.

Previous related threads: My thread about accessing the tariff (which was frozen to close this one):

I you are demo / rebuild. there's a strong argument to build them first under PD, then you can leave them out and still use them during the build.

That was a for instance as I read it. Which was why I mentioned a min/max humidistat to find out. I couldn't live somewhere with 72 - I would be coughing all day. Had a Ts bungalow with that problem, and condensation etc. Too many total people + dogs, and too little ventilation. Fitted trickle vents with removed closure flaps and a PIV fan, and it did it. But if genuinely something like 72 in the entire area, I would have to move house or seal it and maintain a low dampness zone inside.

There are umpteen fixes available (Sageglass, anti-solar film, reversible single-room heatpump, ability to circulate water around the ufh to spread heat around, outdoor blinds, careful design of penetration rate of the wall (decrement delay), and many more. You can also solar heat model the structure. Experience here is that MVHRs move very little heat, and that it is important to consider autumn and spring sun angles when designing the depth of the canopy. I am currently planning a veranda partly to shelter my 2 south facing windows where the rooms overheat, and I am planning a front to back depth of 4-5m at a height of around 3m. F

Excuses for not working are important 😁.

Interesting. I have a pair of double doors to my conservatory which are only 1.1m total opening, and I find them a pain - even to walk through sideways when only one is open. My main route is to the garden so perhaps I carry things two handed more often. Or perhaps I am wider than you are 😛?

My thoughts: 1 - I'd suggest getting a £10 min/max thermometer / humidistat off Amazon to investigate whether you have damp environments in rooms / areas of rooms. 2 - Are you sure that your extension is ventilating well? For example how does the air get in/out out - are there decent gaps around the doors etc? (Solution to that may be 6-8mm off the bottom of your doors) 3 - Try running a dehumidifier in the room with the excessive mould - if that improves it you know that damp air is part of the problem. (My first reaction would be to fit a PIV loft fan, but that assumes that ventilation is this issue.) F

I'm not convinced by that one - it means you need 2 hands to open both doors so have to put things down. Remember that in well insulated houses * cooling is as big an issue as warming. North windows let in a nice quality of light. One of the biggest problems we wrestle with hear is preventing houses overheating in summer, or in the spring / autumn months. Ferdinand * This may be everything now given the recent building regs changes - I had a building whinging to me last week about how all his future cavities were going to have to be 150mm not 100mm to fit enough rockwool in to meet the requirements. 😛

Had a listen. So they more or less agree with my view, through a less political lens. 1 - Any idea that fracking will make any impact in the next year or two is for the birds, due to planning and the need for local research. 2 - Existing fracking wells are a pinprick on the energy crisis. 3 - There is a confusion between Reserves and Resources, as always. A reserve being a resource that is known to be economic and feasible to develop. 4 - Work has not been to show that resources are economic to develop. Or that environmental safety claims have been proven - such as emissions of methame. 5 - Earthquakes are not a demonstrated hazard. 6 - Not mentioned in public - that this is a self-serving political mugging by people who aim to get started in the hope that the dishonest claims about helping the current crisis will get a foot in the door and they can make a "started so we'll finish" argument for 5-10 years time. 7 - Also not mentioned in public, that the opposition is like anti-GM - poison the public mind with overwrought claims, not based on science, and rely on that to make it go away. And protect the price of houses for Nimbys. F

Will listen after my bike. From the latest Energy Trends, this is quite interesting Q2 2022 vs Q2 2021. (Note this top table is *all* energy, not electricity) Look at the electricity export figure. The gas export number is so high as the Forties field was closed for maintenance in summer 2021. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1107502/Energy_Trends_September_2022.pdf The commentary: UK energy production increased on last year’s record low which saw oil and gas production affected by maintenance. Natural gas production increased by more than 50 per cent and oil production increased by 10 per cent. Low carbon energy also increased. • Total final energy consumption was 0.2 per cent lower than in the second quarter of 2021, as warmer temperatures decreased demand and offset increased activity in the economy. Transport consumption rose by 23 per cent with petrol and diesel consumption returning to near prepandemic levels. Domestic consumption fell by 28 per cent due to warmer weather and a decrease in the amount of time working at home. • Exports of gas reached a new quarterly high as imports of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) arriving in the UK helped supply Belgium and the Netherlands. Electricity exports also reached a new record high with the UK becoming a net exporter of electricity for the first time since 2010. • Energy received from Russia decreased on the same quarter of last year. With no LNG cargoes arriving from Russia, Russia’s share of the UK’s gas imports fell from 7.6 per cent last year to 0. Russia’s share of the UK’s oil imports fell from 15.1 per cent to 3.7 per cent in the second quarter of 2022. • Renewable generation rose 12 per cent on the same period last year due to more favourable conditions and increased capacity. Renewable’s share of generation rose to 38.6 per cent, with low carbon’s share increasing 2.1 percentage points to 55.0 per cent with stronger output from nuclear. Fossil fuel’s share of generation fell by 2.1 percentage points to 41.9 per cent. • Renewable generation capacity grew by 6.5 per cent on the same quarter last year, with offshore wind growing 23 per cent. The growth in renewable capacity has increased in recent quarters after a relatively sustained period of more modest growth. On a longer timeframe, renewable generation capacity is now six times greater than the same quarter of 2010.

Suspect that the prices need tracing through to see who makes the money, *if* this is the reason, and then we need to determine how much the UK benefits from tax etc. Perhaps I'm mistaken anyway. As a Brexit supporter, I think shale gas in current circs is vapourware. A little bit like the flares thrown out of Russian helicopters making no difference to a Starstreak missile, or a dog chew given to a toothless old spaniel while the family all eat hot dogs. 🙂 F

Here is the same graph one day later, which is about half the rate. If I had to punt for the cause of why it was double on Thursday vs Friday, I'd point to the French electricity workers strike on Thursday which closed down 4GW (=approx 10%) of French electricity production. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/french-nuclear-production-lowered-due-strike-2022-09-29/ Thank God that this country is not consumed by chaos ! Ferdinand

That's interesting. I was with Avro when they went bust (and the b*stards defaulted my account whilst I was in a dispute with them which has damaged the credit rating seriously), but the transfer to Octopus was smooth - perhaps because the process was regulated. Unfortunately for that one 80% of my solar is East facing ! I only have 1.75 kWp facing West. F