Investment Review - December 2020

Another year over, and here's the final quarterly investment review of 2020.   Let's start with the combined portfolio summary sheet, updated at the early market close on 31 December :-

Annual Spending Review - 2020

Well, 2020 is almost over.  Here's where all the money went, in what turned out to be a very unusual year for our spending patterns :-

click on the graphic for a larger image

See previous reviews for the 'Rules', e.g. the 2019 review ...

As usual, the graphic shows the highest spending categories for 2020 in descending order from the left, with the equivalent 2019 and 2018 percentages alongside.

Conservatory Design & Build - Part 4 - Finishing Works & Fit-out

With the building structurally complete and weathertight, finishing works could continue inside the conservatory at our leisure, and any remaining exterior jobs can be done as and when the weather permits.

Continuing with the diary from Part 3 ... 

laying carpet tiles on top of XPS insulation boards.  In this
picture, all the easy ones are down - the rest needed cutting to fit

Conservatory Design & Build - Part 3 - The Building Structure

The long-awaited doors and windows duly arrived, and on the scheduled date too, so it was time to assemble and erect the building.   

The delivery coincided with a short spell of fine weather, with no rain forecast for at least three days, so the intention was to complete the basic build and make the conservatory weathertight within this timescale.

The photo diary continues from Part 2 ...

the windows and door on the north face were pre-assembled
and in position within a few hours after delivery !

Investment Review - September 2020

Here's the regular quarterly update with valuations on 30 September :-

click on the graphic for a larger image ...

Conservatory Design & Build - Part 2 - Enabling Works

Following on directly from our Part 1 post, we've been continuing with the enabling works for the new conservatory.

The photo diary continues ...

the old guttering arrangement above my office door, 

also fed with a downpipe from the main roof

the new arrangement - a galvanised C-section purlin now carries the water to 

a tundish at the RH end. A second length of purlin below makes a face

 between them to add a board.   This board and the timber post structure on 

the right will provide a flat interface for the end of the conservatory to butt up against.

Conservatory Design & Build - Part 1 - Enabling Works

We'd previously thought about erecting a conservatory, but the difficulties to be overcome at our location seemed too complex to address without a lot of time to spare.

But we're currently spending much more time at home - I'm not sure if our usual autumn holiday will even be possible this year - and of course we also haven't been spending money on travelling, so now seems as good a time as any to look at a conservatory.

We began exploring options a month or so ago.  A DIY conservatory kit was first considered, but the companies I approached were not very responsive to non-standard layout queries and technical requirements.  So I very soon lost patience with them.

Design and Project Management is actually my business, so I decided that by designing and sourcing everything myself, we would get exactly what we wanted and it would likely be much less costly too, without a middleman taking a cut.

Anyway, finalising the required layout and design was the first objective.  We looked at several possibilities from a double-ended lean-to layout of just 3.5 metres length, then a similar arrangement at 5.0 metres, before finally electing to bring the new building right up against the face of the existing extension, making it single-ended and 7.4 metres long in total.   There are a few challenges in connecting the buildings together, as will be seen in the photo diary commencing below.

For the basic conservatory layout, we considered either dwarf walls or full height glass all around, but in the end I designed a hybrid version with a dwarf wall on the northern aspect that's visible to passers-by, and using full height glass for the long western elevation which can't be seen from anyone outside the garden, so privacy is not an issue here.

basic drawing of the design ...

We looked into the planning requirements and concluded that this design met all the criteria to be considered 'permitted development', e.g. additional side width not greater than half the width of the original house, nothing protruding forward of the principal elevation fronting the road, single-storey conservatory with total height < 4 metres, total built area less than 50% of the total curtilage, etc.

Unlike house extensions for which planning permission is required, conservatories are a special case and are exempt from having to use materials of a similar type, style and colour as the original house, although we'll try to make the front elevation blend in as sympathetically as possibe.  Additionally, Building Regulations are not applicable to conservatories provided a few very simple rules are followed.

But if you're looking to build something similar, then you'll need to do your own research on planning requirements and regulations depending on the design, location and size of the conservatory.