Ferdinand

It goes from 2 to 3 with the addition of bedroom 4 :-). i'd guess if they have considered it that the plan is to negotiate back to 3. F

Thank-you. Forgot about that. "Planning Application - Ful". I think I will make an appt to see the Planning Officer for 10 minutes and ask him how to frame an objection to each point, and why it was validated :-). The likelihood is that he will not look at it in depth until the comment period finishes. As it happens, I know the applicant because I bought the house from him - nice guy, and I think he is just seeing what the Council will let him do. Ferdinand

Update: We had a visit from the commercial-company-working-with-Age-UK. Helpful, but their stairlifts start at a little under £2000 and go to £2800 installed. Refurbished ones are available - which are newish reused ones which have been supplied under Council schemes, but only save about 10% on the new price. They also supply showers (not material different from the fixed screen large footprint type most of us like, but they will be at least £3k. Investigations cotinue. Ferdinand

I would appreciate any comments on a PP in my area. This is the one. Plans attached. App form at the link. https://www2.ashfield.gov.uk/cfusion/Planning/plan_history.cfm?reference=V%2F2017%2F0562 My interest here is that I own a house next door. I have no objection to the replacement of a single detached bungalow (which was the proposal that had been talked about) by a pair of semis - that is quite suitable for the area. But I will insist that Planning Policy be followed. At present I am a little surprised it was even validated: 1 - I cannot find the bit of the App form which says if it is Outline or Detailed. I can't decide which it is. Some stuff for detailed is missing eg tech spec of walls, dimensions. 2 - There are a couple of slightly fast ones being pulled - eg "previous use unknown" - even the sales particulars describe two butchers' shops. In fact there was also a small slaughterhouse (equipment still there but collapsed when I viewed it 2 years ago) - all there for a century. No "land which is known to be contaminated". IMO it needs a Phase 2 Soil Test from the slaughterhouse. Surface water to be disposed of to existing sewer (!!) I think the land area quoted is too high. 3 - Parking spaces and amenity space are both below that required by policy. 4 - I cannot tell whether the space indicated on the floor plans will fit within the block indicated on the site plan as there are no dimensions. The drawings say "do not scale", but relevant dimensions are not included to allow an evaluation to be made. I would welcome any comments - I am not clear about the best way of objecting to a possibly oversized development for a site where the plans do not contain dimensions on closeness to the boundary or dimensions of the site. PS Note the superb redaction by my LPA. Block out the name at the top. Leave the name where the bloke signed it at the bottom. Cheers Ferdinand (I will probably ask the admins to remove this thread after a couple of days to avoid triggering Google on the particular P.App). Block-Plans.pdf

Also in LibreOffice, which can edit PDFs.

I supplied materials for my recent one, and the surprise was the cost of smoke etc alarms, which came to about £200-250 for a 3 bed - - each room smoke plus heat for the kitchen and C0 for the boiler. I went with the Aico hard wired units with Li backup batteries but no radio links. F

In that case I see a market developing in Charge at My House to match Park at My House. The capacity will exist. I think where people wait to charge depends on what services are there to keep you occupied and whether you can get a ten minute top up and if that is on offer and worthwhile. It also needs booksble charge points.

Some levels cations are perhaps obvious. Current petrol stationss. Hand car washes. McDonalds etc. Little Chef. Supermarkets. Gastropubs. Out of Town shopping. etc.

Speculating, something's have moved as it fried out fully, and perhaps they pushed ahead too quickly. Suggest view the detail of the pp to see if there is anything which gives you useful info about your house. Check with neighbours to locate similar problems. Then it may be talk to the nhbc or whoever and get it fixed or snagged. At this range IMO you should still gave comeback against the developer ... though watch out for them closing down the ltd company that built it which may have been separate. Do not delay very much. Or go for the simpler options suggested. F

Are you in a position to put a double socket in back-to-back with one in another room. That works quite well.

As it happens, I have a BT line still installed :-)/ I would be quite happy to get the Sky wiring in place too, in addition to the Virgin fibre installed a couple of years ago. My issue with Freesat might be whether the TV interface is easy to drive for my 80 year old parent. Ferdinand

Well done.

I am looking for a new TV / Broadband / Phone setup. Currently I am on a Virgin package with lots of TV, theoretically very High Speed Broadband, and inclusive weekend / evening phone calls. We are generally happy with our mobile phone setup. Currently I am with Virgin and could price-match them into taking a few ££ off, but really the performance is poor and intermittent, and I want to move. Our requirements are: decent Internet, Freeview type selection of TV channels, and phone with inclusive weekend / evening calls. We cannot get a good signal for Freeview (tried that first). However, following the neighbour's removal of a couple of trees, we can now have a satellite dish. Suggestions, and also comments on Now-TV, would be welcome. Ferdinand

Heh. Will have to try that.

I see no reason why not, except for the annoyance of recharging etc. Look up boat items? What is the requirement - eg nightlight, low-luminance light to leave on etc? But you are about to get 27 alternative suggestions. Here are my three 1 - Replace ceiling light with one with two directable spots. 2 - Use a low voltage one plugged in in an adjacent room, and run the small cable under a rug or carpet. 3 - Put a person detecting bulb in the ceiling light, so that it switches when someone walks in.

How thin do you think you can make those walls?

Welcome. It will interesting to hear your contributions as a real world PH architect. On solid vs glass perhaps arrange some weekends away in modern Landmark Trust buildings and AirBNBs with views to see what you like if you have not both lived in it before. This one in Devon? Slope, modern, views, office-with-a-view etc. https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/anderton-house-4644 We like people who use tags. Ferdinand

As an alternative, my microwave has now come out onto the worktop, and the hole is being turned into a 600x600 worktop space using a single porcelain mottled-grey big floor tile trimmed on one side. Seems to work OK, and will have painted MDF liner inserted.

One Mr Livingstone did something similar in Camden in the 1970s, by compulsorily purchasing a lot of people's houses. Built some decent very well designed flats I think, but ended up with costs ludicrously out of control - they had at least one development costing more than 80k per unit to construct in the early 1980s. I do not see them getting that sort of behaviour through now. As it happens I saw a bulldozer for the first time today on the Housing Estate site that I sold to a developer 18 months ago with outline pp and a full set of reports including a Phase II ground and gas monitoring. Original project to obtain PP started in Spring 2013. This was quick, and anyone saying they will get significant numbers of Council Houses built within a single 5 year term without reinventing us as Cuba is being a little optimistic imo. (Edit: I see that Supermac abolished Planning Fees :-) ). The Council next door has some good land for Council Houses, since no one buy it with PP at fire sale prices.

@Tennentslager I think this should be relatively straightforward, but there needs to be a little careful research. I think that 590x455 is a standard (plus or minus a few mm) size - my built in microwave with a warming draw beneath is in exactly such a hole. And minor adjustments (say +10mm in height or -5mm each side in width should be allowable for (eg trim the wooden top panel and paint the edge or fix a couple of strips of dark timber down the edges). So 1 - My previous setup was microwave mounted on rail kit on the shelf with cosmetic alu or stainless surround panel. I found one sufficiently the right size to fit the existing panel and even the mounts by taking some measurements and taking the surround panel and a tape measure into my local Curry's and measuring all the freestanding microwaves until I found an acceptable one that fitted closely enough. I might have had to move one mounting rail 10mm but that was about it. 2 - Equally you may find that if you talk to the shop or manufacturer they may well have panels to fit all of their built-in microwaves that match your standard size hole for £10 or £25. 3 - It is quite fruitful putting "built-in microwave 590mm 455mm" into Google. 4 - Some of the bigger online sites have filters for different values of height and width. eg Appliance World Direct http://www.appliance-world.co.uk/microwaves?sort=na&perpage=12&price_slider=£68+-+£13439&opt[]=22_3858&opt[]=23_3859 My local superstore does not offer this filter but just their microwave page suggests at least 2 or 3 close to your requirements from the first page of results. https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/st/integrated-microwave-ovens So you have several options. Ferdinand

Three Grand Designs episodes which may be useful to rewatch: 1 - The house in the Cotswold built *under* an old barn - called Underhill House. 1st UK Certified Passivehaus. 2 - The one in Bath where a couple of Doctors spent £300k+ on their excavations. 3 - The one in Penzance where the young Interior Designer such a double garage underground at the bottom of her garden. 4 - Wasn't there also an early strange one in Cheltenham built below ground in the back garden of an elegant terrace? 5 - The one in the Lake District built into an old quarry where they skimped on light-tubes and ended up with indoor gloaming. Ferdinand (Edit: Item 4 added. Aelf-build projects always expand beyond the design) (Edit: and item 5)

Fog Cutter Construction Cocktail recommended. If you use the full Fog Cutter, you may not surface until after the PP verdict. Ferdinand

Sleepless nights? Or the joys of pre-scheduled publishing? Nice piece. Could you link to that light fitting, please. Make sure you pay Howdens on time. I forgot to this summer .. and it became "interesting". They escalate quickly.

I am not the world's best plasterboarder or plasterer (I have done areas up to the size of say a chimney breast), but I think he should perhaps be using plasterboard boxes (the push-in type with grippy side flaps) not wall mount boxes if those are sections where there are service voids and space behind. On skimming plaster - yes they should be doing contiguous areas in one go up to boundary elements to avoid joins. Plastering is not exactly slow to do - a large room a day is perfectly doable by one plasterer. As they do it it will be in sections, but aiui they always plaster up to an existing wet edge and then spend a lot of time polishing the surface. People on here know more than me and will explain things I have wrong. Three Weetabix for Breakfast today! Ferdinand

Thanks. In the end I went with some warm white non-dimmable LAP ones from Screwfix - not quite as high output or perhaps quality, but still 5.3W and came in packs of 10 so give me some spares. Here - review at 5* by 70 reviewers. https://www.screwfix.com/p/lap-gu10-led-light-bulb-345lm-5-3w-10-pack/8140k Ferdinand