Ferdinand

Really good comments so far. Mine: 1 - I think you could enlarge your shower trays. Something like 1.2x.8 is better than .9 x .9, just to use. 2 - I can see no provision for boots and cloaks. Is there space at the end of the utility by the back door for a big cupboard? 3 - Not really sure about the front door area. If this is Scotland do you not want a porch, or at least an overhang? 4 - The upstairs bathrooms look as though they could be improved wrt plumbing runs - especially soil pipes. 5 - I might go for a sliding door on the plant room entrance, to help the door clash and carrying things around vs swinging doors. 6 - Think a bit more extensively about how to manage heat wrt views vs window size. There are solutions like Sage Glass or verandas if you want both. 7 - I think you need to consider carefully integration of indoors and outdoors for doors, windows, walking routes and so on. Especially as it is in a national park. Try drawing a location plan with views, sunrise-sunset and so on, and matching that to your room locations, times of day when you do different activities and so on. 8. I would consider windows sites to give you sunlight into the stairwell and the interior - perhaps including a roof window over the top of the stairwell - to give shafts of light in the heart of the house that can be viewed from the entrances and rooms as you walk around. Also some thought about glazing in internal doors and perhaps even walls. I can see a fully glazed door to the snug / lounge working well with a rooflight above the stairwell, for example. Or a tall narrow stained / frosted glass panel from the lounge to the stairs. Also possibilities of using mirrors to reflect light around. A subtly placed floor to ceiling narrow mirror in peripheral can create the impression of an entire extra room, and make the space with the mirror seem much larger, for example. My thoughts. Ferdinand

I made my neighbours move their boiler flue round the corner onto their property, rather than over my drive.. I think the issue is around the need to ensure and undisturbed exit, which for a discharge over a boundary cannot be guaranteed. May be different for low / high level. Check with your BCO.

The air temperature is design to be warm enough so that the Maillard reaction happens. I'm presuming, but that would surely be the basis of the claimed crispiness, which was the usp of the air fryer initially. Ferdinand

For BHers I'd say use bulk bags that materials came in. Fill with leaves, possibly stack up 2 high, and leave for 18 months-2 years. It contains little nourishment, and is good for soil structure - which is why I'd guess the person quoted suggests mixing with compost.

If you don't use them they become utility room clutter 🙂 . I'm trying to find out whether I would use it. The R4 piece you linked before compared them to a fan over with an ultra strong fan, which seems a good analogy. Which! apparently have 14 different recommendations, and they now come with many different programmes. They deal with the Mallard reaction by you making sure that the Mallards are dead. I have one in my freezer waiting, and hopefully it won't react. Taste reports seem good. Ferdinand (*) *innocent face*

I'm having a look at one of these, as a general rapid cooking device for the kitchen. Does anyone have any experience or recommendations? Household size is up to two. Thanks Ferdinand

You hope... :😇

Correct, or you may not. Which doubly reinforces the point that you need to use your skill and judgement, plus advice you think appropriate. And be sure where your appetite for risk is on the scale, and that you will still be standing if you buy this relatively-less-expensive opportunity and it goes tits-up.

I think fencing off the roof from behind might be easier. Suitable height fence then grow a similar height hedge behind it?

Call @pocster ...

On the seller motivation for not going for Outline: 1 - it may be the cost of getting outline. Applying for PP for a potential 6 or 8 bungalows is not cheap. Quite a few thousands. It could also take 6-12 months. 2 - It may be an elephant trap in the plot that is not in the sales literature reducing the probability of getting PP, and the same could be the reason for going to auction. Could be a former use of one building requiring expensive land investigations, or services or drainage being difficult, or a mineshaft, or a former oil leak from a heating system, or made ground, and so on. Do some digging (research, not literal 😁). Have you spoken to the people in the bungalows on the other half? 3 - Has it been marketed before? What happened if so? 4 - Or it could just be a quick sale required for any number of reasons. Death, divorce etc. In situations like this you need more information to allow you to trade off part of the risk. F

Is not the issue with the downstairs loo is that wheelchair accessibility is a Building Regs requirement? I am not sure whether the shower is required to be accessible. But this is again your subject, so I guess you have that covered. Also I think I recall that a raft of new Building Regs came in on I think June 15th this year. I'd encourage you to do the more relaxed stairs to the extent you can - you lose about half a square metre and it makes a noticeable difference. F

I like the project as well, especially the upstairs open to the warm roof. You should know being an AT, but check if the number of bedrooms you submit with requires an extra parking space or other stuff (minimum private outside space is a common one - may require an opaque tall front gate so your front lawn is private) under policy. It should be easy peasy to leave it as 2 big bedrooms upstairs and divide one later. Does your downstairs shower room meet disabled 'turning circle' regs? Personally I prefer roof windows to be towards the top more than you have it, so there is a sense of light from the sky - unless they are ones you need a view through. Keep your staircase gradient as shallow as possible (ie towards 35-37 degress rather than 42), as it makes the whole house feel more luxurious. If you can. F

At least two Rolands have won Nobel Prizes.

I don't know, but I'm getting the impression that LT has some competent back room staff who have been working on this for some time. Also hearing interesting things about developing the relationship with the European Commission.

Judging by R4 this morning, fixed rates will be capped to the pro-rata £2500 cap for 2 years.

Yes, I'm teasing a touch. I'd suggest that the "limited return" point will be somewhere beyond where you are now, so I'd go for at least 50mm of PIR and perhaps a bit more given energy prices and that I only get to do it once. Framing or dot and dab is the choice of method. If you are already inside an insulated wall then your cold bridge is well limited. I'd suggest the 62.5mm or 72.5mm PIR backed plasterboard, or perhaps use separates if you can get a really good price on the PIR (but will require framing) - the last one I did a few years ago I found non-foiled 50mm PIR at £10 a sheet, which was OK. If you dot and dab remember to make sure your glue lines prevent air circulation in the gap. And you do need to check the requirements for a thermal element under Regs. ATB. F

Make sure you consider what you might want to replace it with in the future, and that that can be done without messing all your plumbing and electrics around again. Remember that gas boilers are on the way out over a decade or two. Personally I would consider boxing it in suitably where it is, too. The lattice sheet stuff that rad covers are made out of can be very useful, and can be bought in sheets relatively inexpensively. F

Remember to make the EWI thick enough and to discuss permeability and ventilation.

It's sometime 1976-1979 ish. https://h-frame.weebly.com/79-001-timeline.html There's a Yoochoobe channel called "WorkMateGuy".

>Macerator at WC ( no bitching about that ) The bitching is for when you are trying to mend it if it breaks. "How are you getting on, dear?" "I'm in the sh*t". That's one heck of a vintage workmate. I inherited one of those from dad 10+ years ago, who himself had it for at least 35 years. F

Can your House Automation system cope with the solution they used on the exhaust pipe of the Death Star? Just need to make sure that none of your local rats are Jedis.

Are you going to miss or notice losing an extra 1/160th (=0.625%) of your room dimension? (If you need to get rid of a 3.56m wide Jackson Pollock to make that possible, I'll take of off your hands, and collect at no charge) Why not go for 75mm PIR everywhere ? 😛

And don't forget to consider ventilation alongside your insulation if it is airtight. (You may have done that on the other thread which I have not reread.)

@OP Yes and that requires the underfloor void to be dry and sealed. In effect you created a shaped plastic bag from your DPC and fill the inside of that. You don't do it if there is a chance of water coming back - high water table, flood risk, standing water in the void etc. When I did my bungalow the BCO was nervous as it was not familiar, so for simplicity I went with insulation below floor level to the bottom of the joists to let any dampness escape, and made sure the cross-ventilation was good below that level. At one place I had to replace the air brick with a periscope version to get it below the new insulation, and 150mm above the extra concrete which had been added to the drive at some stage leaving the air brick at ground level. On EWI, it is *really* important imo to use a specialist long-term in the business (not a general builder or one who can't show you 3 previous EWI projects where you talk to the customer) as there is a lot of detail that can be got wrong, and it is a bugger to redo afterwards. A simple example is if they don't put the 2G in first, as the EWI has to overlap the frames with a suitable detail. And *everything* (drainpipes, satellite dishes, lights ...) mounted on the wall has to be mounted outboard of the EWI or considered carefully - otherwise cold bridges. A good cost up here (North Notts) in 2018 was around £110-£130 per sqm of wall area. Read this thread for some thinking: Perhaps @Adsibob can tell us how it went and identify some elephant traps. Also on EWI you tend to get recommendations with a low amount of insulation - say 100mm. The material is cheap, so I would go with 200-250mm of EPS as a compromise - some argue woodfibre as it is moisture permeable. Plus you need to be sure where the dew point is at your temperature range, to ensure you get no interstitial moisture condensation (more complex if your cavity wall is insulated), and need to be sure that any moisture that makes it in can make it out again. It is easy for the structure inside the wall to show through to the outside. Also of course, it's a semi so you have the step and the coal bridge to next door through the entire cross section of your external wall. F