Ferdinand

If it is not especially important in the character of the listed building, and it sounds not if you can drive over it, then it should imo be straightforward. Personally I would just crack on. If somebody wants to complain, let them do so afterwards. If you change nothing physically, then I would not worry. If things on the land are mentioned in the listing, then I might be more cautious - as imo the obligations will run with the land and you will pick them up. Perhaps get a written confirmation from your solicitor that there are no problems. If there are common interests be clear on the new relationship. Check this: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/listed-buildings-and-curtilage-advice-note-10/heag125-listed-buildings-and-curtilage/ Ferdinand

This looks slightly interesting. It is claimed to also reflect IR.

I like toast. (Tip: Turning off Javascript seems to break that particular bit of the Economist ferewall.)

It's gibberish. --------------------- The fuel involved is usually natural gas. This is burned in a central boiler in order to heat water that flows to radiators elsewhere in the building. Britain's government would like to change this. From 2025 gas-fired boilers will be banned in newly built homes. By the mid-2030s installing new gas boilers in existing houses will be banned, too. The question is what will replace them. Unlike electricity generation, where renewables are proving popular, or cars, where battery-powered vehicles are rapidly becoming established, the market for green heating is anyone's to play for. The usual suspects (assuming any electricity supplied is generated using appropriately carbon-free means) include electric immersion heaters, heat pumps (devices that work a bit like refrigerators in reverse, in that they extract heat from a building’s surroundings and then pump it into that building), and burning hydrogen instead of natural gas. Engineers at a small British company called Heat Wayv, though, think they have another contender: microwaves. The principle is the same as in a microwave oven. Many molecules, water included, are electrically dipolar. This means they have a positive charge at one end and a negative one at the other. They will therefore rotate to align themselves with a strong electromagnetic field. If that field is oscillating, as is the case with electromagnetic radiation such as microwaves, then the molecules themselves will oscillate too—bumping and jostling their neighbours as they do so, and thus creating heat. But there is more to building a microwave boiler than simply repurposing the parts used for an oven, says Phil Stevens, one of Heat Wayv's founders. Most microwave ovens employ magnetrons—chunky devices built by surrounding a cathode with a carefully shaped anode that is designed to produce electromagnetic radiation of a specific frequency. With the help of a pair of big chipmakers, Heat Wayv has come up with a solid-state device that performs the same job, but which fits on a 10-square-centimetre silicon chip. Arrays of these devices beam microwaves into water in a boiler, heating it up. The pipes that carry the water are also made of microwave-sensitive materials, as is the insulation that lags them. And a heat exchanger recycles residual waste warmth. The upshot, says Mr Stevens, is a boiler that is about 96% efficient. The best existing gas boilers rarely exceed 90%. Efficiency matters, because the move away from gas may mean higher heating bills. Electricity generated from fossil fuels is necessarily more expensive than the fuels themselves. In Britain, at the moment, a given amount of energy delivered as electricity costs three or four times as much as the same amount delivered by natural gas. Switching to renewables is unlikely to change that much. Though the “fuel” involved (wind or sunlight) is free, other costs are often higher than for conventional power stations. Forced by law to switch from gas, then, customers will surely have their eyes on the cost. Heat Wayv argues its technology offers advantages over rival methods. Immersion heaters must run continuously to deliver water at a suitable temperature. That often warms water which is never used. By contrast, and like existing gas boilers, microwaves heat water quickly enough to provide it only when it is needed. Heat pumps, too, have drawbacks. Their efficiency plummets on cold days, when they are needed most. They are also bulky. And they generate water that is warm rather than hot, often requiring the retrofitting of bigger radiators or underfloor heating. Hydrogen, meanwhile, must either be extracted from natural gas or created by running electrical currents through water. Both processes are inherently inefficient and the former is hardly green. Also, the infrastructure needed to produce and deliver hydrogen in quantity does not yet (and may never) exist. Heat Wayv hopes to be producing microwave boilers for sale by 2024, in time for the first stage of the government’s ban. Mr Stevens says the idea has attracted interest from most of Britain’s big housebuilders. Soon, perhaps, microwaves may heat people’s water as well as their food.

Thought we did this. https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/19819-microwave-boiler-early-april-fool/?tab=comments#comment-319637

Do you have a business case? Who would want to visit? >But that’s not allowed anymore. How's the Black Eye?

I have one Eucalyptus, and that is enough for me.

Welcome to the site, @fiaraziqbal. I just rewatched the Joe90 titles. Imagine the fluff that would ensue now if a children's programme had a pistol in a 9-year old's schoolbag.

Certainly on some systems you can cut blocks, and presumably you can cut the plastic formers too. So I don't see why not. But if it works with whole blocks, why do it?

What a good post to link to @PeterW. This is the diagram, though it was also aimed at how to grow a high hedge quickly.

I'd guess that they want to preserve as a building plot with no limitations.

This is fun. A video from BBC archive about a neighbour dispute in 1971. https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/eyesore-the-law-of-ancient-light/zfjrscw

I read the title as "Symphonic", which seems more appropriate. (Gets coat)

I believe there are also various kinds of mat products that you can lay down on top.

Welcome. Have you posted an introduction in the Introduce Yorself forum -- always appreciate ! My first point of contact would be Building Control; they may even come and visit now that we are on the way out of lockdown. Areas you need to be sure about are light, as you say, and fire escape. For fire escape, I think you will need a "protected escape route" (that is, a sealed way out which will endure x minutes of fire, not through another room especially the kitchen), or an alternative such as a fitted sprinkler system if you do *not* have a protected escape route. I think clerestory windows are likely to be OK, but they do make it more limited as a room - so you will need to design carefully. Another Question to consider: will you be able to let it out in the future with just clerestory windows (my view: probably, but rules vary). This may not matter but you may wish to keep it as an investment when you move. For your plan I think you your best route would be to have a firedoor between the hall and the lounge-kitchen, so that your escape route from that bedroom goes to the front exit through just the hall. Suggest drawing up some draft project plans, reading the relevant Building Regs Doc, then talking to Building Control. Ferdinand

I used black gloss £11 600x600 porcelain floortiles.

I would hope that "every few years" is more than seven.

There is a reason that Swale Dale is so floody.

@pocster does not believe in minimising grief. He does it the most difficult way to prove that he can. Deranged. On the Macerator he will be installing a special fan to have the stuff land on when it leaks.

If you have access to a thermal camera it is early enough in the year to spot leaky insulation from outside on a cool day using a thermal photo. Also, remember that new houses can also take some time to dry out. Perhaps up to a year to really stabilise. That does not mean do not investigate, however.

I'd investigate cladding one, and doing a half height veranda on the other with short metal drainpipes running down to the top of the veranda roof.

No but he was very good at tunnels ?.

Is your middle name Thorin?

Right. Have lunch taken. There are a number of potential ways to skin this cat. You will also need comments from others on the individual merits, but I can lay out some approaches. Feel free to ask any questions. As it is such a big question I have not defined everything to a T. First, however: 1 - You are likely to need to reconsider partially the aesthetic of your house, if you want it to look like your changes were "intended". 2 - This could swallow a decent chunk of your contingency. To do it well you are going to be looking at up to £30-60 per sqm of wall. But you save on the render ?. 3 - Inexpensive is possible, but to get it to look (as I say) intended, it will be a fair amount of work. 4 - In my opinion, you are going to want some design advice from a pro of some sort on this. 5 - You may want different approaches on the 2 facades - the one photographed looks easier than the other. 6 - Consider alternative shapes of drainpipes eg 61mm square or alu or copper. 7 - You will need to do some careful thinking and sketching, perhaps samples. 8 - I think you want a mix, and you need to do some really careful playing with piccies and models to get it right. 9 - You may need to reconsider your roof thresholds and window surrounds. Now get some gin. If you are sitting comfortably, let us begin with the problem statement: House designed and built to ready-for-external-finish stage with a number of mansard windows in 2 facades, which contain a side-to-side "through gutter" in the framework of each window. The problem is that a design for the overall guttering has not been considered, and now appears to require drainpipes between each pair of windows, which will disturb the desired appearance. How can water drainage from roof to ground be implemented without so many obvious downpipes? There are different approaches - eg you could camouflage your downpipes, cover them, make them look intended, or find another route for the water. It is an advantage that your wall finish is not .. er .. finished. 1 - The simplest of all - make the downpipes the same colour as the render. Will be better, but not much imo. 2 - Cancel the downpipes. a - Let the water run down the surface of the wall. I have never seen this, though it is perhaps possible eg if you clad with a vertically textured material such as black corrugated oriented up and down. Equally you could try and detail an appropriate render eg with vertical channels for your water. It is quite common to do details where water will concentrate on concrete surfaces - eg vertical striations down from the end of windowsills on a concrete wall, which will disguise staining. b - Do a traditional "secret" or "hidden" gutter joining up all the built in gutters across the windows, and a drainpipe at the end. That is a gutter on top of the wall with flashing underneath, or behind a slightly taller wall, with some adjustment to the bottom one or two rows of tiles and the structure. May be possible to retrofit, but to me looks a tough project to do and a long-term nightmare to maintain. 3 - Hide the downpipes a - Clad the wall with a suitable material say 3-4 inches out, so the pipes can go behind it. That could be wood cladding (vertical or horizontal orientation), tile hung, or any other. Even brick slips. b - Put them in and grow evergreen climbers, with over the whole wall or over sections. c - Create some feature sections on the wall to hide them or make them look OK. (Example of cladding - dimensions right and the drainpipes can be behind). 4 - Make the downpipes look intended. a - Can be done with cladding, eg vertical format edge-on-then-flat 4x2s (that will give a "finned" feel with gaps between fins where your piped can go), perhaps black or metal pipes with scorched larch (https://shousugiban.co.uk/range/charred-larch-cladding/) or similar. Or an artificial material. The texture / pattern will disguise downpipes. b - Decorative as ButterCup says above. Or you could try that simply with bold copper etc pipes and lay them out to look attractive. c - You could even go for metal slats at right angles to the wall, as used on offices sometimes as sun-shades. 5 - Veranda / brieze soleil a - Put in a one or two storey veranda to hide most of the run. Perhaps something you can sit under. Would be a nice addition to those French Doors. b - Make one of those wooden brieze soleil things and hide them behind it. 6 - Put PV or solar thermal panels on it and put the pipes behind them. My take. Ferdinand

No, there isn't. BH (or at least my bit of it) is "husk-off". Though I admit I have just come from debating Ursula VDL with certain Brussels based journos who seem to view themselves as (very) amateur press officers for the institution of the EU, and are trying to blame everything on anybody else - specifically us. So it has been robust ?. And that may have stuck to me. Yes, ve can vork it through. F