Ferdinand

As I say - best of luck.

You may have done it, but I would probably want a test hole by the house to find out about existing foundations, and perhaps another one if you are doing any sideways extending, to find out a little about ground conditions and let the professionals give me better advice on deeper foundations etc whilst they were in my employ. If the original architect was as good as it seems, there may be a very good reason underground as to why it is only a bungalow and not a house :-). And - as ever - go to the Council Office and read the entire planning file, or get all of it via an email request or FOI. Ferdinand

You need to check your height etc if it is going close to the boundary. https://ecab.planningportal.co.uk/uploads/miniguides/outbuildings/outbuildings.pdf

Do not forget that there may be materials left over that they will give you if you take them away. That could happen on one part of the estate before they build another bit, since the materials may arrive as a "house kit". A newbuild Aldi near here gave away 7 pallets of facing bricks last month, due t the cost of landfill or removal.

There was an interview in the Sunday Times this week with Chemmy Alcott, and she was saying how she often goes out on the Thames at Hampton Court on a Paddle Board. Try one of those?

On my iPAD your email displays in copperplate! I somewhat disagree with others on the thread. I hope that I am wrong on these points, and welcome contradiction. ISTM that paragraphs 2 and 3 of your email is probably an admission that the potentially unsafe (safety margins etc) situation has been created by the actions and omissions of the highly qualified professionals you employed, who should have known better, and that therefore insufficient investigation had been carried out wrt the nature and location of the lines oversailing your plot to make sure you could complete your development safely. The proof is that if these had all been done effectively, there would be no risk of being too close to the wire, and the house would be in a slightly different place. Therefore the DNO could argue that any action to mitigate the risk is your responsibility not theirs, and that any recourse for you is against your surveyor and architect not the DNO, since the actions of the DNO did not create the present situation. I can't see any defences against that argument, unless there was some admission or omission in their response to the Planning Application, if they were consulted. But presumably they would argue that they relied on your professional survey. Were I them and my interpretation correct, I would probably expect you to come up with and pay for implementing a solution - either doing something with the wire or something to your house. If the offer was on a 'without admission of fault' bases, I might withdraw it in those circumstances. Notwithstanding any notice to move equipment etc, for the longer term they could apply for a Necessary / Statutory Wayleave (whichever is the correct term now). That is not a process with which I am familiar, but in the case of an HT line to a large number of people I would perhaps expect them to succeed. (Personally I wonder whether the maximum offer they may make would be a little less than the estimated cost of getting a statutory wayleave.) If they choose to play it by the book (ie hardball), in the shorter term (ie now) they *may* be able to ask the Local Council to apply a Stop Notice or a requirement not to build whatever parts would be close to the HT wire, for reasons of safety or security of supply until such time as a solution is in place, particularly given your statement that your workers continued working. That would presumably be after serving some sort of notice on you requiring a solution, and escalating if they felt the response was not adequate. Or they may have such a power themselves, or be able to ask the HSE. For these reasons I do not think your legal or practical position is especially strong, and I think that this indicates that it should be played softly. Personally, I would suggest withdrawing this email if you can, and talking to that firm of Chartered Surveyors before resending. If you have already taken professional advice and my points above are wrong, please say - since I am not a lawyer, and this entire post is just my opinion not advice. Wishing you success. Ferdinand

You want to move te one upstairs not the downstairs one, as at present the ensuite loo is positioned to wake up the people in the other bedroom. Ideally it would be on one of the side walls. To make your ensuites feel bigger get a bigger shower ... even say 1m or 1.2m x 900 feels much more spacious than say 800x800. Ferdinand

Is that for me? I was aiming just to illustrate the concept of "pavilion" and "corridor" when you asked what @caliwag meant, rather than provide a full analagous situation. Suspect the one I illustrated would have a slightly chunky budget ?, being built out of Oak by an Oak specialist company. As built that scheme in the picture looks like about 75k-100k to me. But similar things can always be done for about half the all-in cost by self-builders willing to sweat detail and apply elbow grease. In this case I suspect it would need different materials to meet a reasonable budget for ordinary mortals. My pic came from here, and you could ask them more details if you wanted: http://www.essenceofoak.co.uk/OakGardenRoomsGallery.aspx I also think it is a good opportunity to think through your requirements after the various comments, and come back with questions. Or indeed have a chat with a designer. It is also perhaps worth a look into Planning - I think your original idea would need planning permission (closeness to boundary), @caliwag's pavilion may fall under Permitted Devleopment (PD) if you meet the terms of the "Proposed Larger Home Extension" scheme which allows 6m rearward extension until May 2019 under PD if you follow the neighbour consultation scheme and no one goes "nay, lad". My suggestion is away from the side boundary on both sides so should fall under normal PD if you stick to your 3m. Ferdinand

Thanks Ian. So that would presumably mean that the laitance would still need to be removed for a click-fit? (Self-educating here as I have not done an on-screed floor myself for some time as main protagonist.) F

Does it make a difference whether one is having click fit or attached flooring? Ferdinand

Once you have got the water warm round the system, then you need to come to a happy balance between how fast the water is pumped, and the flow (in) and return (out) temperatures. Compared to rads you want the system to be running for relatively long periods with lowish flow and return temps. I think my pump is on "2" out of 3 settings, and my temperatures are roughly 40 and a bit in and 30 out, with the heating on the timer for about half of the day when on. If I need more heat I tend to tweak the temperature on the boiler for a bit, or use the manual 'on' on the main control for a couple of hours, rather than messing about with the 7 day controller, or just use an electric rad for an hour. If too hot I just whack it off for part of the day. But here, there is someone in most of the time. Add: my house is nothing like at well insulated as Jeremy’s. Ferdinand

Thanks. This was the one that I objected to then had the thread hidden a few months ago, and now has conditional PP for a smaller development. They came back and have resolved most of the issues after they lost the PP then the Appeal following my representations and the Council's view, including reducing from 2.5 to 1.5 storeys (33->26 ft) at the apex of the roof, 4 beds to 3 beds which reduced parking and amenity space requirements and made the PP implementable, and sorting out the parking mess they proposed. Not ideal or what they promised when they sold me my property, but acceptable in the circumstances. It is still proposed to build over half of where my 2.5m wide currently unoccupied Easement runs, but the is non planning and the carrot is to negotiate that away in return for them pre-installing ducts for me, whilst the stick is a threat to install them myself across the full 2.5m width and potentially injuncting which will prevent the building of half of the 2 semis. Time to have a conversation toe-to-toe and try to come to a win-win agreement. Ferdinand

A quick one. A new Planning Permission has been passed which includes a soakaway for onsite surface water disposal. Which body is responsible for enforcing the location of the soakaway being a sufficient distance from the boundary, and also the new building, in accordance with Council Policy? Is this Planning or Building Control? Cheers Ferdinand

Do not worry .. took me a couple of weeks to do it all. Go down the offie half way through. Unfortunately this excellently named place is in Sunderland. It is like a boozed up version of Open All Hours. I love Fatso's Cafe next door. If they put one of those in London the Mayor would try to ban it for the implicit suggestion that fat people eat more sausages.

Ye Gods. Our Local Plan has just been withdrawn again before adoption, and they are starting at the beginning. I rushed my Planning Application through in summer 2013 because they were about to adopt the new Local Plan that suddenly excluded my bit of field. Gotta love the planning system. Ferdinand

The back garden faces South-East. @Me111 @caliwag is thinking of this kind of thing (I think), but in a more modest form:

Presumably he escaped somehow when they tried to throttle him ? @pocster Is the cause your T not behaving in a tenant-like manner? In which case you could probably recover some of it or charge it to the deposit. Perhaps the investigation and repair costs, but not improving the pipe. Lord Denning, Warren v keen, 1954. Held: The defects particularised were due to fair wear and tear for which a weekly tenant was not liable. His only obligation is to use the premises in a tenant-like manner and therefore, the landlord was not entitled to recover. Lord Denning said: ‘The tenant must take proper care of the place. He must, if he is going away for the winter, turn off the water and empty the boiler. He must clean the chimneys, where necessary, and also the windows. He must mend the electric light when it fuses. He must unstop the sink when it is blocked by his waste. In short, he must do the little jobs about the place which a reasonable tenant would do. In addition, he must, of course, not damage the house, wilfully or negligently; and he must see his family and guests do not damage it: and if they do, he must repair it.’ and ‘if the house falls into disrepair through fair wear and tear or lapse of time, or for any reason not caused by him, the tenant is not liable to repair it.’ https://swarb.co.uk/warren-v-keen-ca-1954/ I wouldn't normally bother about this unless it was blatant, as my Ts tend to be so long term that it is far better for me to find out what caused it and ask them not to do it again. The last time was a blockage caused by "flushable medical wipes" in a slack drain. Ferdinand

Interesting. I thought that moral objectivity and norms were in the dustbin decades ago ... and that people who still believed in the concept were generally persona non grata. Historically I would link that to the rise of soft-sciences pretending to be hard-sciences, and perhaps going a little further back the decline of belief in revealed religion. Although as a non-believer one can argue that even revelation is relative. Perhaps a moral consensus is also relative to the culture . Perhaps what we need is to find ways to form a consensus, rather than define policy by a kind of Victim Narrative Olympics. I see Cochrane as an attempt to define policy based on a consensus arrived at through what is currently regarded as scientific best practise. Though I am highly cynical about whatever are the latest pronouncements - that may be media wanting story-fodder, though. A rather pernicious example this morning is that Council's are trying to build an analytical model to predict the probablility of abuse in a family. The problem there to me is that making it numerical will give it a spurious objectivity, and I do not trust Councils to be able to make such a judgement, given their record. F (*) I know I am off topic, but I think it is already off topic.

Won't most of those (except the Rowan?) take oodles and yonks and decades to reach any sensible blocking height? What about a whitebeam, in the knowledge that it may have to be removed in 2045 as oversized, but will have provided interest until then without too much shade? Or a hazel? Or perhaps a coppiced Eucalyptus, a flowering current, or a bhuddlea as part of the mix? Ferdinand

In theory Planning should not take a restrictive covenant as a Relevant matter. That is a civil issue of which they should wash their hands. Ferdinand

Yep.

I have these, which are probably the devil's spawn, but I just have them all set high enough to be out of the loop. We run it as essentially a single zone, and if I want a room excluded I just turn it right down. Ferdinand

Forgot to say, imo South facing conservatories are verging on madness not all they used to be cracked up to be - you get something that is too hot in summer, too cool in winter unless you invest £££ in heating, and very little extra on the value of your house. It is naturally usable for a time in spring and autumn. Witness all the companies offering to fix conservatories with various versions of real roofs for sums of £5k to £10k Put the conservatory budget into a real room extension with real insulation, and you will get something usable in 4 seasons, and which adds value. Or go with a shaded terrace at 10-20% of the cost. Ferdinand

@w_pienaar https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/searching-the-land-registry

@Me111 A couple of quick ideas. By all means cherry-pick, as I have ignored at least one of your constraints. The main ideas are: Plan A 1 - Switch the extension so your extra space goes mainly to living, where all of you get to benefit. 2 - Through lounge. 3 - Morning sun terrace for existing master. 4 - Move walls to make middle bedroom a little less corridor like, and give space for an ensuite and wardrobe in the master, and potentially a desk and/or wardrobe where the lounge wall has moved on the way in, and a 3m x 3m sleeping/relaxing space at the end (I would do a desk and storage over, perhaps with a single wardrobe at the side). Plan B 5 - Where walls are moved, a the master in the back corner gets space for an ensuite. b the back bedroom gets part of the new extension and space where the wall has moved to have either a desk or wardrobe, as above. c the front bedroom gets space for storage plus a desk, similarly. I think that is a far better balance. Plan C I have not explored this properly, but if the WHB and door in the bathroom were swapped so the bathroom door was just inside the front door on the left, all of that confused maze of doors and hall cupboard could be in the front bedroom, with the corner master being entered via what is now the front part of the middle bedroom, and that would transform bedroom 3. And the kitchen wall could be addressed. Phasing This could all be phased over x years if finances require. At the start the whole extension could be done and demolish your current external wall last (I think) to give the new middle bedroom and lounge, so you do not end up living in a building site. Then do the bedroom changes as you are able. What you have now: What you have proposed: @Ferdinand Plan A: @Ferdinand Plan B: F