Kelvin

Is that not adverse possession?

Generally you aren’t allowed to build anything on amenity land. I know of someone that put some dog jumps up on their amenity land and got a letter from the council about it. We had some strict covenants on our field but were still able to have a large field shelter (because it was movable) which I put doors on. With amenity land attached to a dwelling they you can enjoy the use if it but they want buildings and garden stuff close to the house rather than spread out. Therefore change of use might be challenging but not impossible. I’d definitely take the land but don’t overpay for it as worst case you gain a bit of land that you can’t do much with. However, that doesn’t mean to say you couldn’t start using it as an extension of your garden. As long as no one complains the council are unlikely to find out and after 10 years they can’t do much about it. Just keep really good records of how you’ve used it.

Our SE took 11 weeks to return the designs. Told us 5. Never visited the site either but they had all the topographical data and ground investigation survey so didn’t need to.

Could easily be coded to automagically change it.

Also GSHPs are very expensive to install and probably similar running costs to an ASHP. In theory they ought to be more reliable over their lifetime than an ASHP. I briefly looked into it and it was going to cost circa £28,000 to fit one. There is little doubt that a poorly designed/installed ASHP that isn’t setup correctly is expensive and your average punter has no chance to understand any of what’s needed to fix it.

Old mine shafts re-purposed as gravity batteries

Can the design you have be adapted so that it buildable for reasonable money and still satisfy the planning application you have? It’s another huge expense in money and wasted time (which is also extra cost) to go through planning again. Post up your drawings removing any identifying information.

I did lots of tests of this in the previous house and came to the conclusion that heating up the whole floor with the occasional rooms setback a bit seemed to be the most efficient option. I did a spreadsheet tracking it that covered two years but can’t find it!

Sheesh. You’ve paid 35% of the estimated total fee. Is it clear what the 65% that’s left related to? My guess is he’ll respond with a proportion of this to account for his time spent on phone calls and drawings. He might well start at 65%. Did you sign a contract? Just re-read there’s no contract. He’s clearly a con man or desperate. What honest professional asks a client to lend another client money. And contact the ARB. He deserves to be ‘struck off’.

Cool. Very kind. I’ll contact my friends and see how they’re getting on with their heating.

It’s Gamlingay near the Cambs/Beds border.

Injecting foam into it will make next to no difference though. If you can figure out a way to insulate the back of it without taking it apart I’d do that. Improving the airtightness will be quite difficult though.

The car comparison is definitely valid especially with EVs. The dealers are really struggling with EV fault diagnosis for example. But this isn’t a new thing. I have a friend that is an expert in his field of electronics. When he was young he worked at a Renault dealership. He diagnosed all the electrical faults as most of the mechanics just couldn’t. This was many many years ago. It’s just become far worse. Nowadays they plug in the diagnostic computer and it tells them the component to replace. I had an RS4 which was unreliable pos. Audi really struggled trying to diagnose any electrical faults with the car. Fortunately it was all done under warranty.

Like every single trade, service, product in life there are good and bad no matter the cost. You just need to read the stuff on here relating to heating systems and especially ASHP to see that it’s relatively complex when there are problems.

Heating engineers that understand ASHP/UFH are in short supply though. The people we sold our house to 18 months ago have a fault with the heating. They managed to get one guy out three months ago. He seems to have made it worse and swapped a number of unnecessary parts and they can’t get anyone else. Three of their neighbours also have problems with their systems (all identical) and can’t get anyone out. We are going to struggle to mass adopt ASHPs if the industry can’t pick up the pace and re-train their people.

My architect is doing a detail for me so will share on here when I get it.

Energy in just about every form has been heavily subsidised by Governments around the World. Therefore, it has been historically cheap. The consequence of this is that little effort has been put into conserving it. This is less of a problem when it cleaner renewable energy sources but is a problem when it’s fossil fuel derived. But necessity is the mother of invention so the energy crisis might end up being a positive thing in the long run. I was reading the other day about gravity energy stores which look really interesting. If you don’t know what they are they use disused mine shafts where excess renewable energy is used pull a weight up the shaft and then when the energy is needed the weight is released that drives a turbine.

Rope in the ducting is the best way. I have a few long lengths of ducting with rope buried around the plot in readiness. Getting the rope through a long bit of ducting can be a challenge though. In my case I used the slope, gravity, and a socket. Tie it off at either end to a bit of wood. I used the cut up plastic advertising board that was advertising our plot for sale which was oddly satisfying. That combined data and power cable looks good. You could always phone an installer and ask them what they’d need. When it comes to electrical ducting my view is to put in more than you think you’ll need. Much harder to do it afterwards.

I’ve been googling for you and not having much luck within the regs. However several treatment plant companies quote over 2m from a neighbouring boundary e.g. https://proseptic.co.uk/useful-information/sewage-treatment-plant-regulations/

Our living room/dining room/kitchen is also one big room albeit quite a bit smaller than yours at 10.4m by 6.3m. The living room area is vaulted and the rest isn’t. I was a bit concerned about the big room too but because it’s rectangular it naturally splits into three areas. That said, we also have a separate family room which is 5.4mx3.7m. We think we’ll probably spend the daytime in the open plan bit and evenings in the family room. My other thinks we’ll never use it. 😂

I’ve tracked every single invoice/cost directly involved with the build and indirectly such as storage, moving, selling the previous place, rent in the current place I have two folders one with everything I can’t claim back and one with everything I can. I’m tracking this in my main spreadsheet.

Well done. Looks great.

It’s in case the soakaway fails at some point in the future and the concentration of the effluent builds up. If it’s 10m from the watercourse it won’t impact it. Of course the treatment plant could fail too but this is less likely. It’s also pragmatic as if they applied the guidelines rigidly and said no discharge to direct to watercourse and soakaway must be 10m away then this would make many viable building plot’s impossible to build on.

It’s written down in the Scottish Technical Handbook 2020. It’s to allow the owner of the adjacent land to enjoy the benefit of development of the land in the future. I can’t see why the English regs would be different albeit it might be of course.

It was originally the plan given we have the perfect slope for it…