Ferdinand

If I buy a small field,will you try and put planning on it for me?

Thanks @Alphonsox Can you point me to something shorter e.g. One page which will help me find out which system I have in place? eg do I look in the meter box and trace it back visually until I find an earthing point? Cheers F

On another thread @Steptoe commented on my electrical setup: I have had a look around and my RCBOs are to BSEN 61009-1, and I think that it is OK if not quite latest best practice. GIven that the setup meets regs circa 2014 I think I am reasonably happy. A few questions if I may: What is a TT system and a TN system? What are the differences and how can I tell which one I have in place? This is my consumer unit. Ferdinand

Here's one I prepared last week. An example of a couple of types I talked about above. 1 - Knocked in posts and fence panels on their third use, 2 - fairly dense ranch-style fencing, 3 - post and rail with 2 rails and wire dog-mesh plus strainer wires. 2 and 3 have been in 5 years. 1 went in last Thursday. The one in the background is the same length run as yours and took 2 of us a short morning. A detail of attaching panels to knocked in posts - alternating side to allow space to attach to the post and to allow a little adjustment. I would strongly argue against postcreteing in wooden posts, as they will rot more quickly and the stuff will be a pain to get out, and an even bigger pain to repair when a single post goes - you will have to dismantle it and dig out the concrete, or insert a repair spur and use a big block to bridge the concrete plus bolt right through. Either knock in wooden posts like a farmer or postcrete in something concrete that will outlast your friend. From the conversation, I think for the security aspect you perhaps want a properly done 2m paid-for fence (prob £700 or so), and then add trellis to the top after a couple of months and perhaps some pyracanthas on the inside side. Also, anything horizontal will provide footholds. F

The Observer has published a correction: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/jan/22/brexit-hutting-china-train-observer-corrections Is the correction correct?

Let me try some pertinent questions that may I hope help. What is the cost per metre of your solution? What is the required height? How long must it last? What job is the fence to do? What are the ground conditions? Can it be seethrough? Have you built a test panel and did it stand up? What size gabions are you aiming for? I would expect scaffold planks to be hellishly heavy to support and for it to perhaps blow over unless you use large gabions. Small gabions seem to start at £15 each. I use three types of garden fence myself plus hedges. One is hammered in 8ft 4" or 5" round tantalised posts, for which I pay about £3 each, and leave at 6ft high, and join them by decent closeboard 6'x6' fence panels at about £25 each wedged one brick off the ground and screwed using Wickes green outdoor screws. This will last 5-10 years and can be shelter while a hedge is established, or a building site next door is being built. Materials are about £13-15 per metre, and can usually be reused two or three times for panels, twice for the posts. The second is substantial concrete slotted posts at perhaps 3m postcreted in and using a 6" or 12" gravel board and the similar panels. This should last 15-20 years, and the posts and gravel boards should last 40 years. This is approx £25-30 per metre for materials. The best place for Postcrete is nearly always Wickes. The third is using 3" round posts at 5'6" or 1.6m long, which cost me about £1.50 each. These are hammered in and joined by anything from a single or two strands of wire to half rounds to make a ranch style fence. WIth two layers of half rounds and posts at 2m this will cost about £4-5 per metre in materials. Type one and type 3 could also be used to supported chain link or sheep mesh or dog mesh. And postrammers are worth their weight in caviar. Perhaps scaffold planks could slide into slotted concrete posts but they will need to be treated and kept off the ground. If I need something elegant I would use wrought iron Estate Fencing or posher panels such as Hit and Miss or palisade. Or a hedge. For a hedge I would use hawthorn laid properly every generation, or privet or perhaps holly .. or gorse or myrtle if really exposed to sea winds. Or beech or hornbeam for a semi evergreen or semi evergreen for a heavy soil. Or a mixture. WIth the occasional bush allowed to reach 4m for birds to roost. I think you are probably flogging a dead horse with gabions and scaffold planks and stone unless one or two of them comes for free. Of course I could be wrong. Everything is tanellised, and apart from the panels I buy at an agricultural supplier. Farmers usually know best how to get value for money. You may be stiffed for delivery costs - collect or negotiate if you can. OTOH 15m is a nice short fence! A young friend who has just moved in to his first house has just discovered that properly fencing in a 50m garden all round to be dog proof and attractive easily costs more than a new central heating system :-). Anyhoo, write down your options and add up the costs. For that length it may be worth paying someone unless you want the fun of building it. HTH Ferdinand

I bet I have one of those as well, as I normally try and get one done immediately my side of the meter.

I will start up that other thread ... but yes it is double decker.

OK. However, I have all RCBOs (albeit dodgy single ones ) *and* banks :-). F

@PeterW If you are on a dual board (ie two banks with individual "offs") then consider distributing your ring circuits, your two ovens and your showers across the two - so that you still have the ability to cook and use power when someone is working on the other half. Ferdinand

@PeterWI think @joe90 is relying on a different exemption, that the caravan is not his "sole or main residence". That used to be used by people with pied a terres near their offices, and I think landlords renting rooms in houses to travelling salesmen who had their main house somewhere else. It is now immensely more difficult to argue that one because there was a lot of flapping (much of it justified) about "second homes" and "empty homes" and Councils now have very considerable discretion to set the terms of their Council Tax on empty homes, and discounts available to people doing work on it etc. I now get clobbered if I take more than a month to renovate a house and get a tenant in - unless it is essentially gutted (back to brickwork, floors up). I am speaking about England and possibly Wales. Council Tax has many anomalies. One of the more interesting ones is that many Councils have taken to designating rooms with an ensuite shower in a shared house as a separate Band A Dwelling in order to extract 5 or 6 Council Taxes from one HMO, since it also gets them (but this abuse may have stopped) the Government New Homes Bonus incentive for "creating a new dwelling". This is to the extent that I am now formally advised not to create high end "all ensuite" shared houses, and not to put locks on bedroom doors, but rather to make tenants share. Ferdinand

Thanks. I will open a new thread to discuss that to avoid derailing this one. F

It is all upthread :-)

On the OP, this is my current setup (4 bed / 2 recep house) All RCBO, upgraded 3 years ago as we ran out of space to a double deck 10+10 model with 2 isolators. 100A fuse plus I think mains isolator. 6A Security Alarm. 6A Lights Upstairs. 6A Lights Ground Floor 1. 6A Lights Ground Floor 2. 6A Lights Ground Floor 3. 6A Smoke Alarms. 16A unlabelled (oops) 32A Upstairs Shower. 32A Oven. (replaced by range oven below.) 32A Downstairs Shower. 40A Range Cooker. 32A Sockets Upstairs. 32A Sockets Downstairs. 32A Sockets New (we added an extra double socket in the utility room). 40A Solar PV. (It is a 10 kWp array) 5 spares, and a box of spare RCBOs that came with the fusebox. Heating is a Combi Boiler and UFH, but with a couple of areas of Electric UFH which are take off the ring mains at those points. Cooking is Gas. The solar, and also a 7kW car charger, are on separate small consumer units. Not sure how the Car Charger is wired in without tracing it. The obvious things missing that would be added are an external socket, and electric gates. The Unit is a QFS-RRM24FLEXI 20-way from Control Gear, and seems quite solid. The upgrade was notably good value. http://www.controlgeardirect.co.uk/ Question for @PeterW - have you got several unused spares? You may need them. Ferdinand

I tend to agree. However...

There are some that can use 13A sockets. eg http://ao.com/product/oif22300x-beko-electric-single-oven-stainless-steel-16973-45.aspx

There is the title for the next Carry On film.

Let us know how long Council Services continue after it is up for demolition. I know of one where the collections continued for months after the demolition notice was served, used by the neighbour, but stopped within a month once it was an empty plot.

Any AGA should be worth money on EBay, and AGA specialists will turn up and collect it. It is a very finely tuned secondhand market. I think. As far as I know AGAs use Vermiculite insulation, and your assessor may be being cautious. Perhaps ask them. We got bang on £500 for a rust bucket 195x small coal burner AGA in 2012. They are designed to be moveable by one man. Find out what model it s and sell it, perhaps to a specialist service or as Buyer Collects no reserve. Even the latter will save you a day. Ferdinand

You will need their sig on the form.

You will need Building Control approval to take out structural and there may be something in your lease. You may also need to comply with Party Wall requirements. Probably no PP. In England we also have a Building Notice, where rather than asking Building Control for approval, you just tell them what you are doing. This might be appropriate here. The difference is that you do not get an external sanity check, so you take responsibility for not getting anything wrong. You proceed quickly, but bear that additional risk. Tends to be used for simple and clear cut situations and where people are experi need and confident. You could build a house under a Building Notice, but it gets expensive when you get it wrong and they tell you to add another 45cm to the bottom of the foundations you just built to ground level. Do they have Building Notices in Scotland? Not convinced that 70 sqm is especially large for a 3 bed, but financial return it may be very dependent on area. Run it past an estate agent? Ferdinand

I think you should be having an avatar demonstrating your healthy eating status by using a bag of Hula Hoops rather than a huge bag of crisps.

If it is a sycamore (check) that close and still that small I would want it out anyway - perhaps after the build having listened in above, provided the new foundations are specced to stand the potential heave, and insurance etc is in place. In due curse (deliberate typo!) it will possibly become a 60-80 ft weed which could be 50-60cm closer to your house, unless there is something severely restricting its growth. The difference in cost between removal now and in 15-20 years could be 300-500%. At the very least it will be a concern to any future purchaser, and may end up with a TPO if someone wants to put one on it. Replace with something interesting in a suitable place instead imo. Ferdinand

To me it seems to be a fairly limited application relating to basements under London terraces which has been a controversial area for a long time. eg Developers may be required to apply for PP for this type of operation. Judgement: http://www.landmarkchambers.co.uk/userfiles/documents/Eatherley Judgment.pdf and Summary from Landmark Chambers: http://www.landmarkchambers.co.uk/news.aspx?id=4483 Ferdinand

Perhaps we had better get back to topic...