Well I'm certainly glad my home insurance covered neighbour disputes. There's no way I would have been prepared to gamble £ 60k on costs to reach a solution to the problem Marcus, long live home insurance that's what I say.

Some development here on the proposed chimney alterations. Our expert witness has said he is "reasonably" happy that the 1080 increase will solve the problem (no guarantees there then). However, he would be happy to roll with the 1350 increase if I feel it would be more beneficial. So it looks like he's thrown the ball back in my court to make a decision on the height of the flu opening. Erm, bit higher please ....

I've taken on board all the comments about the consequences of signing the Tomlin order and have thought about contacting the barrister that works for my insurers to see if the wording in the order can be altered in a way that will give us some rights if the alterations to the chimney fail to work.

Well said Tony

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Is that for the flue/chimney extention?

Are they still allowed to burn the dodgy timber, or was that stopped?

'That was stopped steamy .''

Burning dodgy timber, or burning at all?

If the latter then the Planners can delay as long as they like!

Perhaps a situation where you *don't* want the Planning system to work fast, then!

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Plans have been passed here !!

Increase the brickwork of the chimney by 1 metre and chuck the flat top terminal in the wheelie bin.

I would be a little suspicious about Sadiq Khan's claim that 30% of London's PM2.5s come from wood burning stoves.

I am not sure how they calculate their figures but I know that Defra's calculations for road vehicles when apportioning pollution to different vehicle types is way off. Until very recently Defra used 'test data' - the same test data which caused the VW scandal, which is now accepted to be a factor of 5 to 10 times out. In the last year to counteract criticism Defra moved to using 'real-world' data derived from speed dependent 'real-world' monitoring. Unfortunately, as O'Driscoll et al, in their paper "A portable emissions measurement system (PEMS) study of NOx and primary NO2 emissions from Euro 6 diesel passenger cars and comparison with COPERT emission factors" point out this is still a factor of 2.5 too low Defra assume cars travel at constant speed and don't accelerate.

I have googled around but can't immediately find Sadiq's source for his claims and whether they use a similar methodology to Defra for apportionment. If they do then there is a good chance the 30% might also be overstated by perhaps a factor of 3 in London - so less of an issue than claimed.

However, wood burning stoves are not great for the health of occupants of a home. I live rurally, and use a cheap Chinese particulate monitor to ensure good levels of air quality within the room in my home with a wood burner. My general tips would be 1. only open the door for very brief periods of time (max 10 seconds) 2. if the air intake is room fed, open internal doors during the initial lighting phase 3. light the stove with a gas burner (I use a weed killer stick, takes under 30 seconds) rather than using kindling and some blowing - all 3 of these techniques generally keep the max internal PM levels below 10ug/m3. I have tried using a top specification air filter and ioniser but have found it doesn't make that much difference, I think because it causes a lot of churn of the air in the room which can make PM levels worse.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: MarkyP</cite>what's the situation with the Tomlin

We've been asked for our consent by the defendants solicitor to allow them to chuck a metre of brickwork on top of the existing joint stack. Unfortunately that is about 350 mm shorter than what the expert witnesses recommended. I've had a look at the stack this week and the mortar is in very poor condition between the bricks and the feathers. I'm going to request a report from a structural engineer, either pre design or to be included in their construction phase plan as per CDM regs 2015.

Once again, I think you have to find a wording that agrees to let them try it out, but makes it abundantly clear that you do not agree that, if the nuisance persists, this is the last act. One would have hoped that your solicitor would have provided or assisted with a form of words.