All Activity

I prefer to get the pipes out by the shortest runs , and with minimum complexity. That makes more pipework outside in your case, but reduces risk. It often results in the outside drains starting higher so the outside trenching isn't so deep. So your utility drain would go straight out, perhaps combined with the bath , and your wc another line by the direct route. I see a note for a wc next to the bath, but don't see what it is for.

Personally I would not combine the utility and bathroom run, instead I would have a separate run straight out from the utility room and an extra IC along the top as shown in this plan.

It's just that I did a search and that came up, showing it is common. I'm pretty sure we sourced ours through a paint merchant, and it was not a mass market make.

This is stunning. Great inspiration. Very much like the resin-bound path. 👏🏻

Leaves me wondering why the 10th and 11th are of no interest. Something very simple perhaps.

Absolutely. As it was, I did all my planning and documents the old way before discovering the utility of AI for adding things like this. I would absolutely take this approach in the future with similar tasks.

The first thing i would do in any circumstance like this if i had to do it today would be CoPilot Researcher mode. Or Claude. I am more impressed each day with what AI can do for us. This week, and in relation to my lease enfranchisement i asked it to look for any precedent of a 500 year old lease from the 16th century with a lost Freeholder. 15 minutes thinking and bingo a house in Leeds. It gave me names, dates, Court transcripts of the decision and strategies how to weave the relevant points into my own case. Apologies thats going off topic a little too far. You get the point though.

I need to collect some more data to draw any conclusions for my property. For humidity, it is a toss-up between letting the background rate deal with it, vs boosting, especially right now where the outside air is holding a lot of moisture - in that situation, I was finding that the boost could cause whole-house humidity levels to rise more than if I just let the background extract deal with the shower spike. I think the biggest limitation of CO2 sensors is how they handle baselining of the data, and their also long-term reliability. All my CO2 sensors are "true" sensors using NDIR, but because of how they baseline based on the lowest measurements they take, you never know if they are reporting close to the actual CO2 levels or levels with a big offset. I don't know what the solution is to this, it seems they all rely on rooms being unoccupied some of the day, and supply of fresh air good enough to ensure that levels do fall to close to outside air levels. I also had one sensor fail with ridiculously high readings (measuring 2000ppm+ indoors, and 900ppm when sat on a window sill outside).

Ah sorry, no, my post was not very clear. It's 10 invoices in total: the largest 9 by value and the 12th largest by value. When I spoke to the agent he said they were halfway through processing submissions from 20th July (our additional information was submitted on 21st July). If your submission was before the 21st July, I would definitely give them a call.

If its a proper screed, nice and flat, then if you just want to stop dust, just use a densifier. Its clear like water and just soaks in. Cheapish, and dead easy to apply. If you paint, you are appying a coating. Again, if its completely smooth, and with proper prep, a single pack product will work up to a point. However, not all single pack products are equal. Id certainly not be buying from B&Q. Ive found Promain very helpful if you ring (an actual telephone call, madness i know!) and explain what you are doing. For me, if painting, its 2k epoxy every time now. But i prefer to tile. Did my last garage with tiles and its absolutely the best solution long term. Good epoxy is expensive. Tiles more so, but the difference if you do it yourself not that big. Depending on the tiles of course!

Hi, I'm a first-time self builder currently at groundworks stage. My home has two internal rest bends, one will be within a solid floor (foam glass insulation below limecrete slab) and the other will be in the void under a suspended timber floor. My architect said that having internal soil pipes + rest bends is standard on modern houses - my previous house was an old cottage and this was external. But now I'm at the point of building the drainage system, it's dawned on me how inaccessible both of these bends will be. Is this normal/acceptable? Are there any steps I should take to increase accessibility to these rest bends? I know that damage is unlikely, but if either do crack and leak with age it'll 1) take me a long time to work out where the smell/fluid is coming from 2) be expensive and extremely bothersome to dig the internal floor up to replace them. All advice welcomed, as simple as possible please as I'm new to this!

And also you are there for any questions arising. Usually they have a suggestion and usually it's sensible., but you will be part of the process. And you can nip to the BM to get what will sort it. Btw I'm relating a fraction of what goes wrong / causes other issues.

That will be so annoying but I agree with the above advice. Also consider that there will be furniture and other distractions. Anyone else walking in there now won't notice and perhaps wouldn't anyway, and when it's furnished, even less so. But overall, you either micromanage totally or you don't. You've done all you can and it would have been more extreme without. Mostly, remember it's just you and me who are bothered by this. Otherwise the manufacturers would be using bigger patterns and fewer features. Do something elsewhere today.

I'm only saying what I did. This was a new commercial car garage with hoist. It worked nicely and our client saved many thousands. I'm guessing, but 12 cars a day? In other garages we used v expensive resins and they worked too, with a downside of being thick and difficult to seal at edges.....and expensive.

@Alan Ambrose , to the point as ever. @flanagaj hints at the trauma suffered by self-builders when the trust-building exercise faulters: they suddenly 'go-dark' , lay bricks with a muck-spreader. Pulling the project back on course when stuff goes wrong - now that's an art form.

Any form of garage or workshop only do 2 part Epoxy resin/paint. The normal single tin garage floor paint can be extremely weak, with warm tyres simply peeling it off. Once you've made that mistakes the effort of removing it to enable a proper replacement is massive. Having made the mistake myself, it took nearly a dozen hours with a floor grinder to remove it all. Since then, I swear by 2 part Epoxy paint, and over 2 garages, daily used by two cars I've found it extremely resilient.

@Conor Can you share a link please? I did a quick search but nothing obvious came up - some brands have a ‘click’ model it seems. Just interested to see the power ratings as I’d done a bunch of searches before posting this but hadn’t come across that one.

@Spinny really sorry to hear about this. I realise you’ve put a huge amount of prep, thinking and planning in advance, but could you live with it? I realised that you may not be able to ‘unsee’ what they’ve done, buy just a suggestion before you throw it all in and start ripping elements up: 1. Have a friend/colleague (who doesn’t know about the issue) visit and give their opinion on the floor. Try not to lead the witness, but invite them to cast a critical eye over it as you’ve been so close to the detail it can be difficult to step back and see the wood for the trees. 2. Is it flat? 3. What are the edges like? 4. Are there ripples/other aspects separate to the sequence and configuration of the planks? Building a house definitely comes with a free pair of retrospective 20:20 vision specs and ‘I wish I I’d just done … differently’. I’ve had my own experience of these. Just trying to offer an alternative way of looking at the situation - you may only see these details, but how important are they to resolve *now*? Obviously this doesn’t detract from the frustration of having briefed someone, checked understanding and been on hand for any questions / points to check and then had them just go and do this: … @Nickfromwales Bit of a harsh opening line imho. We’re a way off floor being laid, and I could understand that a glue-down floor can’t have anyone else who may generate dust / in the vicinity, but why wouldn’t you have any other trade on the whole site if they’re working in a completely different area? I could have easily fallen foul of this (but have taken note 😁)

We've sockets with USB A and C ports in them through the entire house. It's wonderful, no longer need to faff around looking for a charger, or not having enough sockets. Ours are Click brand and we've not had a single failure 5 years in. The C ports are more powerful than the A ports and most of our plugin chargers.

Thank goodness I posted this. I have changed my mind! (A self-builder, changing their mind based on opinions counter to their starting position?!? It’ll never catch on). Well, firstly, @-rick-, I hadn’t been aware or considered this at all. Thanks. I hadn’t considered (though it’s obvious now I pause to think about it, but the ‘permanently on’ current draw of the USB ports is negligible in terms of cost, but adds a faff-factor. I could do without when it comes to electrical commissioning / testing etc. I can totally relate to this. Where I’ve ended up… I hadn’t paused to double-check the varying (and ever-increasing) power demands of even the simple phone. Having done a quick search for the power requirements of different devices to check what sockets would be required, it quickly points towards very high power consumption (45w may do a current laptop / tablet, but in a few years, it’ll probably want more to power a bigger battery / processing chip etc…). 65W sockets often get close to £70, plus you have to watch out for whether the claimed power rating is shared or per-socket (they often like to hide this little ‘gem’. So, given that we still have locations that will be primary/most frequent charging spots, I’m now looking at plug-in docking stations, some of which I may leave almost permanently in place (and as it’s early enough I could have the cabling hidden). This Anker 200W 6-port option (each USB-C port supports max 100W output - there are others that go up to 140W) comes in well below the cost of a Knightsbridge 65W integrated socket! Thanks all

If you want (need) to micro-manage at this level then the blame lands in your lap, sorry. You 1000% should NOT have had ANY other trade on site whilst the floor was being laid. You want things done in an extremely particular way, beyond the comprehension of most ‘typical’ trades, which means you need to engage in hand-holding; each plank laid down as you wish, then it gets drawn around with a sharpie, then each plank has a piece of masking tape applied so it is numbered, when lifted the number is written on the floor (inside the sharpie rectangle), and both are complimented with an arrow so the installer knows which way around to then fit each plank. Zero ambiguity, zero personal preference, zero chance of it going any other way. History keeps repeating itself here, so either change what you’re doing or don’t expect a different outcome. Sorry to be brutal, but without this info you won’t succeed. I am principal consultant on site currently and I take this approach with the trades that require direction from me. I explain that it may sound like I am teaching my father how to (expletive deleted), but that is how it is, take it positively or walk away. The good ones actually appreciate this as they can push back, stating that the additional quality etc will add time & money, which my client agrees to and accepts. Sometimes trades just need to know (be told) if it’s a sprint or a marathon.

@Alan Ambrose I used this company. https://www.air2heat.co.uk/mcs-umbrella-scheme. As you can see, they're based in Oswestry but they were happy to travel down to North Somerset for me. They did a first visit to chat about the design, then a second one to "commision" the system. I had a few queries on the way (should have taken notes!) which we handled by 'phone and email. As I did all the work myself I'd already got everything running by the final visit, so there wasn't much for him to do. I was a bit concerned about not having the fan coil connected when testing, but just having a volumiser was acceptable. I would have considered choosing a Panasonic rather than the Samsung, but they have an indoor "hydro" unit which I wanted to avoid if possible. And the Samsung's widely available at very good price!

British standards are the first step in understanding what good should look like… then you have NSSS for steel and NSCS for concrete (which both basically reflect relevant BS in a slightly easier to read format) or the Highways Specification Series for earthworks, surfacing etc. But, good luck if your run of the mill builder has ever read or understands the whys and wherefores of them. And that’s what you have to manage… Expectations and realities.

My bricklayer never saw them, my architect never saw them, I never saw them. Until I came here, then I SAW them. And I sold them the my bricklayer and my architect and I got what I wanted. It’s seriously tough when you don’t have the experience, but by being objective and listening to their needs you can usually find a way of communicating your needs. if you haven’t got detailed drawings, sketches or a written scope it’s hard for anyone to do anything on a price. Were marmox blocks clearly on the cards when they took the job?

Can't find the post quickly but @saveasteading suggested being on site as much as possible when people are there, even if you are just tidying, making tea etc, (but doing something) goes a very long way to building the relationship, as well as seeing what's happening. Difficult if you are not able to do that, even for a short while each day, as once it's happened and your seeing it after the event, it gives the resulting discussion more potential for getting fraught.