Ferdinand

Yes. One of the issues is finding wood burners (if you are going that route) that are small enough. People have to look at burners designed for caravans or small boats.

You also need to be able to cool it; when if it is designed to keep heat in, it can be tough to get out. This is a particular problem in autumn and spring with low sun.. That is things like solar shading via various techniques, some abilty to expell hot air, perhaps the ability to create a secure stack effect with windows (ie one bring in shaded air downstairs and one to take it out of the rofo), something to move heat around the slab is done by some members. Ferdinand

One good idea is to always think of the cost of running the building for 10 or 20 or 30 years as part of your budget and include it in your spreadsheet models. Even people in normal (ie subnormal) houses can do it using the crude numbers from the EPC - though here we are very rude about EPCs. You may not be there for that long, but it will help you to get the principles right and avoid eg complex things that will need mending. There can be things for using things that are complicated or really cheap and requiring replacement, but each case needs to be justified. KISS is right 99% of the time. Ferdinand

May you have an issue with Fire Engines? It looks more than 45m from the road and I am nto sure than drive is over 2.75m wide or that there is space for an appliance to turn around inside.

Here are the large and small scale plans that Badger sent me. Have sightly anonymised, but @Badger posted the full location information previously so not much point. F

Welcome. It would be useful if you could post an introduction in the Introduce Yourself forum here: http://forum.buildhub.org.uk/ipb/forum/1-buildhub-guide-information-about-the-site-introduce-yourself/ Does your floor have a damp-proof course?

If it came to it, you could even purchase land from your parents to park on, have a foot pathway through to your plot, and be using *their* entrance. So there are ways, but it is all contextual.

Also STC and optic fibres, and remarkable science in the Plessey company eg Gallium Arsenide chips - but these were perhaps industrial establishment rather than government? I think a criteria should be that Government support should remove constraints from potential achievers, and insist on success, rather than impose direction. That is a similar model to high performing athletes getting 70-100% of average salary but for 2-3 years at a time.

@Badger We need that location plan , otherwise you are about to get 137 ideas about your bungalow, of which at least 3 will be completely relevant . F

I think we have successful models. Can anyone comment on the success of spin-off companies from our Universities as a possible successful precedent for winners picked by the public sector? One key seems to be to keep politicians and their dirigisme *out* of the programme; another is that the people involved have a personal stake in the success or failure. Imperial College, for example, has a significant portfolio of such companies spun off from research with University seed-funding and/or support). See Imperial Innovations (a support programme) and these lists of eg Engineering and BioTech spin-offs. (This is a different thing to Graduates eg MBAs starting up companies, and again a different thing to City types who know their sector starting up companies - one example of this last is Big Yellow Storage started up by four City Types in their 30s and 40s in the 1990s, with whom I had a job interview in 2001 with one of the founders.) What we don't have is a culture of routine growth from large end of small/medium (say 20-40m) -> either Mittelstand (ie dominant sector specialist) or medium/large (say 250-500 million turnover). And unfortunately we have a political culture of hatred of successful people (though a lot of that is politicians who can't find any other way to promote their bankrupt ideas), while tolerating people leveraging their establishment positions for a few million of personal wealth. Ferdinand

That looks like something that *may* need professional advice, but post here so we have a little look. There are concepts such as (iirc) *internal* splays - depending on the width of your access and how far you can see if you drive up the middle. F

Did you mean manege? The extra traffic excuse sounds spurious but common, Two to three traffiv movements a day will not block up anything as far as I can see. You probably need to look at providing appropriate visibility splays, depending on the type of road it is. Posting a scale site location plan may help us comment - but remove the identifying information. Depending on layouts, that could mean redesigning your entrance. Perhaps go back to your architect / planning consultant and see what they say, or have a phone conversation with the Planning Officer. I believe you get a second free go, or an Appeal, now that you have been refused. F

The Government have notional CO2 targets to reach by 2050 of course, so slight exaggerations in 30 year forecasts would not be a surprise ! Wearing my cynical head, I see that the chap who was on the TV boosting the revolutionary scheme as a talking head was the same one who's battery company features in the report as a case study. However, I am not convinced that a Challenge Fund will necessarily fail. Have past ones failed on this model? Ferdinand

Presumably the 40bn is also 1bn a year for 40 years.

Quickstep Vinyl Tiles @ £20 per sqm at B&Q. Here: http://www.diy.com/departments/quick-step-paso-natural-chestnut-effect-matt-waterproof-luxury-vinyl-tile-2105-m/1354904_BQ.prd However they only have one style reduced, the Natural Chestnut Effect. The reduction is 37.5%, from £67.36 for a 2.105sqm pack to £42.10, which is the best price I have seen for these. I think I will have that for the hallway, bathroom and kitchen floating floor at the Little Brown Bungalow unless it is an awful look. If anyone is doing it, you may get another 10% off by taking a 60+ person with you on a Wednesday and joining the B&Q Diamond Club, and some more if you have one of their reloadable cashcards. I would not expect a Trade Discount on this, however. 26/7 Add: Now all seem to say "out of stock" Ferdinand

Been worrying at this one. As you say transport of 10,000l tanks is the difficult bit. I can buy one 100 miles from here for £749 for an above ground tank (you put eg trellis round it), but it will cost £200 to get here (never mind Aberdeen), and at 2.7m diameter it is 6 inches over the maximum limit that can be towed. If it was only a few miles cross-country I might chance that were I needing one. There are ones by eg Enduramaxx that are within the 2.55m, but again - you are back up to your £1000 plus carriage. However, so my last divergent thought anything suitable that is used by aquaculture or fish farming, given where you are? They must store the reserve fresh water for the indoor fish etc in *something*. Or any fish farming establishments going bust? Ferdinand

We currently have large water butts in both gardens, but may need to plan for more :-). F

Two quick questions. 1 - I have Severn Trent wanting to install a smart water meter. It is in the road not on my property - can I still refuse? 2 - Can a Smart Meter be removed after it has been installed? How long does that right last, and can it be done at switch time? Cheers F

A non-freezing outside tap, or two at each location ... one for a bucket and one for the hose. An off switch for the entire house water supply, that is convenient enough so you will not forget to use it when out for a day in winter. Master switch to switch off outside sockets. Socket and light in the loft. Sufficient bin storage (= at least 4 bins) which can be hosed down. Convenient bike storage. 0.5-2% spares of everything .. bricks, roof tiles, floor tiles etc.

Also things such as the switch from town to natural gas would have been tricky without government intervention, perhaps.

^ This. But it needs the government to encourage widespread adoption. Personally I think that solar pv was handled OK eventually ... once they got into reducing the subsidy to spread the same money across more people, however it was at the second or third bite. When I look at Spain or Germany it seems to have paid to wait. Perhaps here it will have something to do with genuine export metering. Ferdinand

The pipeline maps from the linked post. What the official drawing on the Approved Plans said: Where it actually turned out to be: Caveat Aedifex :-) They basically lost 8-12 ft off one side of a tight plot. (That's me done on this topic ... things to do).

On the pipeline, it is not that it was there, it was that the documentation said it was in the wrong place. They believed it was a known known where it was actually a known unknown. Our member @AliMcLeod came off alright when the pipeline wasn't where the plans said it was, but the neighbour had to move the corner of his house inwards by nearly 4m. I do not know how the neighbour identified and managed the risk of the pipeline plan being wrong, but he should have had a clause in the purchase contract for a holdover or a chargeback based on the lost value if the pipe was not as believed, or could alternatively have sat on his hands until the constraint had been properly identified by a survey. The most important thing I ever say on here (apart from about HOGs and construction cocktails, to which I need to add a Harvey Wallbanger to drink when a wall collapses), is the Risk vs Money vs Time tradeoff. When you choose not to spend adequate time now, you choose to spend more money later. Your job is to find all potential risks to your build, and eventually get to the point where you are confident that the money you are offering is an appropriate number vs the initial price given the risks you have identified, and your strategies that will manage those risks and the related cost. It is a very old principle that a risk or elephant trap not identified until one further stage in the project will cost perhaps an order of magnitude more money to fix. eg Has the existing building got asbestos? Is there a neighbour dispute, a covenant or a ransom strip? Do you have the right to drive out onto the road? What is past use and is the ground full of contamination (b****y expensive)? Are there trees with TPOs that will add 15k to your build costs? Are there birds, bees, bats or brown bears in the trees that will stop you removing some first? Are there any substations around - where do the wires go? You need to decide how much money and time you will spend on identifying risks, and eventually - just like those 10 word slogan competitions, use your skill and judgement to make your decision. You cannot negotiate the price wrt to something that you do not find until later. There was one on Homes Under the Hammer recently where some romantic people bought a site of a set of former Council Garages, and after purchase found about a dozen electricity supplies crossing where they wanted to build a house. Pricey to move - like 10k+ . Tip: as well as FOI-ing the entire planning file, also FOI any material talking about the potential sale. Who knows, a Planner may have warned to Head of Assets that PP was unlikely (or likely) on the record. F

@SjkIt was more services going elsewhere through your plot that I was warning about. There's a member here with a major oil pipeline going through .. but this is more stuff they might not have told you about such as sewers and electricity going to other people. Councils sometime have form here. That is about mitigating risk as far as you can before sinking money into a potential hole of indeterminate size. If they aren't out to screw you then they will relax the 7 days if asked when you have provided a reasoned justification. GIving you 4-6 months should be quicker than marching all the way back down the hill and up again. If they have sold off other similar plots then I would also consider going and knocking on a few doors and having a few candid but cautious conversations about the Council's approach. If there are people still in residence who bought the plots they will enjoy telling you how well they did or may take a grim satisfaction in telling their war stories. You may need to be circumspect about the particular plot, but it should be possible to find some things out. IF you find your local property professional and pay them for some advice they may well know some background; if the Council are acting aggressively the property grapevine will know - another reason for finding a HOG with deep local roots. That is also about identifying unknown unknowns.

if the seller is the Council,then I am left wpondering why they would do the 7 day thing, As such, they know the law and how long things take. Perhaps they are trying to force a cash sale. FOI them for the full planning history, including requesting details of any crossing services etc, and go and read the complete planning file. Hmmm.