Recent content by pieman

Planning and Building Control are separate offices, and very often developments will require separate approvals from both. They usually act entirely independantly. Planning should only be concerned with issues like the size, materials, character, access, overlooking, etc. not 'aesthetics'...

I'm really interested to hear the replies to this. I'm no electrician, but I'm happy to do a simple power or lighting circuit. As I understand it, existing qualifications mean zip - you have to be observed by one of about half a dozen 'recognized' companies in the U.K. (easily identified by...

a quick search for 'interstitial condensation software dewpoint' brought up http://www.rusfa.com/dew.htm I've not looked at it yet. the demo is a 1.9mB download. and a bunch of other stuff. See also part L of the approved documents. If you have done the leg work to get R values for...

Now, that's cleared something up for me - I was under the impression that his neighbours were at number 664 and 668; and number 665 was over the road from the Smokey House. So it sounds like its a pretty fancy neighbourhood then - big detached five bed places set in half acre gardens at...

very good - all knowledge base stuff is hugely useful - 'hints and tips/techniques', F.A.Qs, etc. any chance of a 'useful links' section too? For example, I've found myself posting the full building regs site a lot in replies...

The approved documents are very specific about the area and thickness of non combustible material to form a hearth, and they make it pretty difficult to have combustible material underneath. if you put 'building regulations approved documents' into google you can get the whole lot, up to...

personally, I'd go for at least 200mm depth of a mineralfibre insulation. More if you are intorested in serious energy saVing, but then you need to look at the house as A whole - walls, roof. windows. doors, even floor. And draughts as well as insulation. Theses no point in stuffing 400 mm Of...

From www.villagehatshop.com A ten gallon hat is often thought to be large enough to hold ten gallons of water. This is not true (unless you have an exceptionally large head). The gallon in "ten gallon hat" derives from the Spanish galón meaning braid. So a ten-gallon hat is a hat with a...

one litre of water weighs one kilogram.

there's a long stop on enforcement for planning. I can't remember what it is, but I'm pretty sure that if it was 35 years ago, you are ok. (Ah, looks like the longstop for single dwellings is 4 years, see http://www.willowbrookcentre.org.uk/factsheets/factsht9.htm ) Is there actually a...

beautiful bathroom, but eeuuw! what's that grotesque thing in the mirror? looks like its holding a camera... :lol:

Hi Stebed My situation is a bit weird - I'm doing a church conversion and I have a whole new floor that is a couple of feet above an existing floor, giving me the floor void. I built short studwork off the old floor, under each joint in the ply, and laid firrings ontop of the stud to make the...

The sound absorption is good if you are in the same room as the problem noise source - like in the ear test, or maybe in a concert hall, where the thing you are listening too can bounce around or echo between the walls, and these reverberations cover the clear original sound. The sound absorbing...

I think this is to do with absorbing sound within the room rather than to do with sound transmission between rooms - it helps stop particularly higher frequences, reverberating, bouncing around between flat, hard surfaced walls, So the sensitive ear testing isn't interfered with. Smaller...

If you've not started on this yet, and you want really high performance, then you could try this. use 4 inch studs with 6 inch plates top and bottom. double the number of studs, but stagger them, so every other one is on face A of the plates, and the alternates on face B. that way, you can...