Ferdinand

Ideally I might be within 1m. Belt and braces :-0 . So I would still like one under 2.5m. F

The perimeter is nearly as important as the area as that/0.6 tells you very nearly how many tiles will need to be cut potentially.

I am planning to put a site office type portable unit at the side of a house just behind the line of the principal elevation, with a sheltering fence in front, within 1.2m of the boundary. I can rely upon the portability aspect if anyone complains and the council tries to enforce etc, butor could apply for planning. BUt I would be more comfortable being under the 2.5m height where PP is not required, to kill even the possibility of any challenges and remain Permitted Development. So... can anyone point me to portable buildings under 2.5m overall height from the ground. An alternative is to get a slightest higher one and put the legs in small holes, but Inwould prefer a lower one. The unit will be site official type with at least insulation and power, and perhaps windows in place. If I can get a sink unit already Ina swell that would be best. IF anyone has one I am in Notts/Derbys. Cheers Ferdinand

That for me? We have few problems.

At this point you could stick the remaining payment on a 36 month interest free credit card and pay off gradually until 2020 at almost zero extra cost. At the least the cash could be saved somewhere which would give you an extra 2k or so.

Clock? Neighbours love clocks.

Not that keen on inset shelves. Extra complication and my 80 year old mum would not be able to reach. We have a floorstanding unit like this that stands in a corner of the shower, about 90cm high. I quite like the glass cleaner mount, though I would probably have a suction book to the glass. Ferdinand

Interesting Headline: " Welcome to rabbit-hutch Britain, land of the ever-shrinking home " Paragraph 7: Paragraph 19: The data table prominently displayed is from the first - older - one of those two studies. They do not link to the report that seems to render the screeching headline untrue. I am not saying don't read it, but reinforcing my previous point about our media and accurate reporting. I have added a comment, but last time (the "acoustic guitars were designed in the shape of women's bodies" myth they simply deleted the request for factual information 4 times). Ferdinand

IIRC the Water Supplier has responsibility for shared pipes now which may change the evaluation if a new section of shared pipe is being created in private land. So creating new shared pipes may not be something they want to do. I wonder if one could covenent to pay the maintenance on the newly shared bit, or pay a commuted sum in advance? Ferdinand

I have one. There was a previous useful conversation somewhere. The key (!) was to put it somewhere where it is seen everytime someone comes in, so in the case above the locks can be changed expeditiously.

I had them asking a couple of years ago for proof of an inspection and maintenance regime on a tree from previous years, when the requirement for 3 yearly inspections only came in with a policy that had been in place for a week under which the claim was made. Denial of liability was threatened. Eventually I lost patience and ignored them (not necessarily a good idea), and they have not come back. Ferdinand

Do insurance companies place requirements on outside key safes? And if a key safe is nto xyz compliant will that be a possible reason for rejection of a breakin claim where the keysafe was not used to provide the means of entry? (Yes, I bet they would argue that...). F

Following up this, I see that eg Network Rail use postsavers as a default on their posts ... as standard they use either a post boot or bitumen dip. Ferdinand

I have had medical emergencies requiring action that rapid ... specifically one or two acute asthma attacks with unexpected triggers. One was inkjet ink fumes. On one occasion I went into respiratory arrest when the hospital made me immediately blow the tester. But the OP was about while on holiday, so perhaps an occupied house is a different circumstance. In that case they could just hold a kitchen knife to someone's neck .. give us the keys or else. For a holiday solution it could be as simple as a half inch bar bolted across the garage door or from drive to lintel, or an electric gate with a padlock or three. Or the key properly concealed or held by a third party. Or a wheel clamp if you have no garage. Ferdinand

And do not forget that even non-existent risk must be mitigated. That was the key point in an H&S Educational (ahem) video I posted recently. More seriously, don't you just need a letter from your Ecologist, or yourself, to summarise "no action required" in slightly more words, written in Council-ese?

Here you go. Ferdinand

One way would be to treat it as two volumes with 2 separate calculations at the same internal temperature. Or have you tried the Heatloss Spreadsheet and U Value calculator from @JSHarris. The most complex calculation you would need to do yourself seems to be an area-weighted average u-value for your walls. For each type of wall, that is u-value of section of wall * area of that section of wall, and add them all up to give a weighted value and divide by total area for an average u-value. I think that is right. I am sure we can pitch in and help. My initial thought is that if it is half just solid walls with no extra insulation in an end terrace then no ufh system on earth would deliver enough but it will be worth the calculation to check it and help identify options if necessary. Even boarding out to building regs standards may not be enough, based on my own experience. Ferdinand

That is interesting. I thought the 'high end' fashion was for grid switches in single housings above the worktop. F

Just watching it. Car crash TV . OK - the unvarnished verdict. The programme is being massively dodgy by not including loss of income in their "returns" and ignoring transaction costs, then not mentioning it. HUTH at least always says "before taxes and expenses". The 325k one now has a rental which is losing her money. Rental £895 pcm minus 13% if managed. Will have spent 500-1k finding a tenant. Gross rental return = about 3%. Monthly costs are quoted as £800. Given that it is her second house and seems to be mortgaged she will likely have paid 16k stamp duty (definitely next time) plus perhaps another 4k costs on the way in. Identified by the programme? And she will have to refresh it before she sells - 3k? Plus sales legal and EA costs of 3-8k. Possible small profit due to inexperience, unless the buying price or rising prices saves her. Risk of tenant wrecking it. IMO the best decision she made was to buy a wreck in a good street. The 49k one has spent months of time for a 17k profit. But may have dodged the 3% 2nd property Stamp Duty if she is in rental (unless before 31/3/2016 which is moot now), and saved expenses by funding with cash. If it is a separate development property she will have paid 1.5k stamp duty on the way in. Plus perhaps 1k other costs. Plus 1-2k sales costs. If the programme did not identify transactional costs her profit is actually about 11k, which fits nicely with the CGT allowance. The second one shows promise after a rough start. The first one is "angels rush in..". "Dada rail" indeed, when it was a picture rail anyway :-) . I'd say the "don't own your own house and be a serial developer with one property" may be a viable model if you can flip quickly, especially if in a couple and buying alternately (6 a year would be possible) or perhaps one owning your home and the other the development properties one at a time, or larger scale where the costs can be mitigated. But it has been crippled by transaction taxes. I wonder if either of them insulated to Building Regs requirements for those elements they renovated? Will be fun TV.

Comment on wrong thread. Deleted.

Is the Handbags for Barbie (or Ken) factory set up yet?

It looks like a good cost shaver in the appropriate circs. Thanks all.

Two questions: 1 - Is that in-CU timer also an MCB? Or does need a second slot? 2 - I am not familiar with a 4 or 6 star energy rating. Can anyone advise? With the talk of Building Warrants, is it perhaps another differently Scottish thing?

Off-topic? Us? An outrageous slander ! @MrsB The further thing I would say is be prepared to take a lot of time (as in elapsed time) - if you are going the "build two and sell one" route, there are a lot pf wrinkles around developer or not, tax efficiency and so on. Ferdinand

"Hang on the wall" electric flame effect fires are also surprisingly good. F