Ferdinand

So now it is the Cadbury Chocolate Wrapper competition. Solve this puzzle using your skill and judgement, using as little time and money as possible.

I think that if it is anything heavier than featheredge the panels are unlikely to be up to the job of supporting it for any significant period of time.

I think if you drill into the concrete posts you may be OK, but having taken a couple of hours drilling a mere *two* such posts myself I had discounted it due to practicality. Good luck. F

If you have to go on the existing posts then you are into long screws through the arris rails to mount vertical "ties" to put your planks on, or screw the planks directly to the verticals. I suppose you could also strap wooden posts to the existing posts. I think that in any of these cases, you will be redoing it before too long. The other option is to buy premade horizontal-plank panels and save your wood for something else.

When my site-for-sale was surveyed we had about 4 hedges and fences in one section. Their surveyor decided the one he wanted to survey was the one on my side (we kept some land).

Current wife? Are you Henry VIII?

There are some decent US sites about this type of fence. Where are you on your boundary? Can you move forward a few cm. Drilling concrete posts is like demolishing the Atlantic Wall (which is why it is still partly there :-), so I would be inclined to go in between them - either in front of the existing panels or after removing the existing panels. You need posts with pre-drilled holes, so i would use concrete (always for longevity) 1.2m repair spurs, such as these from Travis Perkins: https://www.travisperkins.co.uk/Supreme-Concrete-Fencing-Repair-Spur-100x100x1200mm/p/700248 and then bolt a 1.8m or 2m fencepost to the holes they contain. Then fix the horizontals to that. If you do not like the vertical expansion gaps between planks, then you can put a cosmetic vertical strip in line with each post. Alternatively you could find your local post manufacturer and get them to make you some concrete posts with boltholes ... they just need to insert a bit of plastic tube in the right spot before adding the concrete. Ferdinand

It depends :-). They can be "boundary features"; a concrete post obviously put in in the 1950s, wartime railings, or the corner of a 100 year old house will be given more weight than eg a Wickes post put in last week. A surveyor would make a judgement call based on all the information, giving much more weight to significant features. It is like scholars looking at 28 scrolls and fragments to find the original text of a bit of the Bible - they look at everything the give a weight to each source of 'authority'. We hope that there a small number of features which nail it down quickly. The easiest way is to be on good terms with the person the other side of the fence, and be able to have a conversation. As I am about to do with our new neighbours about their tree and the crack in my wall it is leaning on. I think the answer to your question is "your boundaries are what you accept for several years", because at that stage it becomes too much touble to fix. So check and measure against solid features - developers get things wrong from time to time. If you have lived with a boundary in the wrong place for some time you have not really lost (or gained) anything except an opportunity, unless you have a towering sense of theoretical injustice. My view is that life is generally too short to chase such things, unless there is a very important reason in the particular case. Instead take the trouble to get it right first time. Ferdinand

You should take a look at Jeremy's self-build Walk in Wardrobe article before you buy one in, even though the orientation is different. Potential to save 5k there. It was discussed on this Ebuild thread and I hope @JSHarris can point out a version with pictures. http://www.ebuild.co.uk/topic/14367-building-a-thin-partition-wall-how-thin-can-i-go/ Ferdinand

+1 I don't think there is much more I can add here. You have to decide whether you are going to play and endless game of Planning Poker check and check, or calll their bluff and see their hand. Pfaffing will cost you more than planting a hedge, and the only thing enforcement will likely do is to make you apply for retrospective Planning Permission. That is what nearly always happens when something is not catastrophically unacceptable. The stuff about 90cm (or is it 60cm?) for a hedge being too narrow is baloney.

Cover for an outside tap to stop it freezing.

There are. If you wish you can drill a 25mm hold in the EPS and fill it with expanding foam, which is tougher than EPS, then screw your plastic screw into that. Chatter here: http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=8514

Also the 100% funding (if so) is unusual. Here ECO was 2/3 of the first 6k iirc. Good luck to them, however. Ferdinand

Various means. eg long screws into plastic sockets. Ferdinand

I thought that if you renovated whole thermal elements then it has to meet building regs(?) eg https://ewistore.co.uk/does-external-wall-insulation-comply-with-building-regulations/

Looks like interesting circumstances. Target to be met by end of Financial Year? Does 80mm EPS on a solid wall meet building regs? If not, presumably somebody is turning a blind eye. When I have had detailed quotes, the supplier would build out all utility gubbins, but not satellite dish type things and posts which touched the ground. These would be down to me. Ferdinand

On a technical point - can planning conditions like this one actually be enforced against before the project is complete? Ferdinand

@Trw144 They don't usually make things be undone unless there is a real real real problem, so really this now comes down to your judgement call. I see very little point in going for 2ft or 5ft rather than 1ft bare root plants for horticultural reasons. Look after them well and they will be at 2ft or 5ft in a very short period of time anyway. Precedent sometimes exists and sometimes doesn't and it can be very much on a whim and dependent on circumstances. If they enforce you will be able to tie them up for months in bureaucracy if you wish. But if the complainant turns out to be a barnacle you may keep being approached. Do you feel lucky?

You probably need your hedge in by the end of March at the very latest, then it wants flood watering twice a week through the summer until autumn rains. Makes a huge difference. For native hedging plants try the RHS website or your commercial nursery. That is probably a small issue once they are in unless you try bananas or pomegranate or similar. I am not convinced that anyone ... including an enforcement officer ... trying to argue that a hedge is unacceptable because it has not grown enough has a leg to stand on; practice recognises that hedges and trees grow and take time and develop iirc a bit like cats or peacocks but not like dogs, which is also why you are not usually responsible for your tree demolishing next door's Porsche until it is proven that you know the tree has problems. It may be different if you are Planning Conditioned for initial hedge height, which would be nuts. Surely we do not have many of that sort of Little Hitler even in 2016? The complainants are burbling away about dots and tittles, and full stops that are allegedly upside down. I think that this may be a smaller problem than seems; really the problem is about the complainant treating your project like a toothache. I am not sure how you close it down in your circs, however. But my stance would say once I have decided my position, I would do it and tell them all to put up or shut up. Ferdinand

What are the requirements re your Heras fencing and rules as to where it goes? Can you just put that back along the boundary? Or put in a 1.2m post and rail with sheep netting stapled to it on the boundary? Wpuld be very quick to do and cheap. Does that affect Adjacent? Or you could just ignore them and aapeal the enforcement, which would give you time.

For an extreme case you can look at the recent Fracking controversy in Cumbria, there was a major national campaign of objections. Ferdinand

Since the Council are entirely and dedicatedly objective and fair minded it will make no difference anyway :-). Or .. what may happen is that T will not pass on notification to LL, so LL will not hear of it - depending on locality / dedication of LL. If you want to dialogue with LL, you can probably get it from the Contact on the Land Registry record for £3, or by asking the tenant. My recommendation would be not to try to go too far beyond the rules with a LL neighbour who may not be aware, or they may suddenly notice at an inconvenient moment and go ape. And some LLs have the capital and property / legal knowledge to make things difficult. If you are confident that your build is fine, then I think it may be a case to deliberately make the LL aware of your Application. Ferdinand

For some reason I get a "Door of the Week" offer from Mansfield Howdens, presumably I signed up it in a fit of inattention. Normally it is Landlord Specials, however this week it is Worcester Oak Doors in all Imperial Sizes for £89.95 + VAT, which may be of interest to some people. These are the doors: https://www.howdens.com/doors-joinery-collection/internal-doors/internal-hardwood-doors/worcester-oak-door/ This is the phone number: 01623 629631. TRADE ONLY, obviously, but a plan to actually buy something may help. No idea if this is other branches, or actually how competitive the price is but Howdens are usually OK. If you visit them on Tuesday morning 8-10 you get a free bacon cob, or decent coffee at other times. But no cocktails. Ferdinand

You do not know that they exist until they blow up the Bakewell Pudding Shop. The ones I worry about are the people from Stilton, who by dint of living in the wrong County are not allowed (quite properly) to make Stilton Cheese. Who knows what they might do if they get frustrated ... night raid on the Hartington Cheese Shop if it still exists? Provincial problems...

Hmmm. Off the wall, maybe but,,, Can you do anything with outside groundworks and eg trenches or hahas? Does ground sound transmit through a deep moat or a Leca or tyre-shreddings filled French Drain on that side around the foundations, or on the boundary? Depends on the sound path. I don't know the answer. Summary that focuses on above ground things in the garden. https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/noise/noise_compatible_planning/federal_approach/audible_landscape/al04.cfm Ferdinand