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We’ve had an awful lot of success over the years by building relationships by using the same peeps repeatedly and once we feel we can trust said dudes we get a feel from them of the scale of the job but then go with day/hourly rates. We’ve found that if one always insists on fixed priced arrangements unless as mentioned above, it’s bog standard stuff then to be safe the person quoting needs to allow for the possible googlies awaiting them. If you look at it from the other end of the contract they may well think ‘I don’t know you or how much of a pain in the bum/slow payer you are so I’m gonna build in contingency’. Kerr-ching. Might be worth an hourly rate discussion with both. I’d certainly investigate further as the £1.6k sounds a bit too good to be true. Oh, and might be worth ensuring that both quotes include necessary disbursements.

I would guess those struts stop the wall falling in or out. It looks like a single block wall with no visible pillars, and I think of such as being very weak. The sort of gable truss that forms the top half of that wall is just sat on top. There is no strength in the wall to stop it bulging in or out and that would result in the gable wall failing. I think. No doubt a grown up will be along soon to clarify.

It was just a big agricultural metal door there which I removed a few years ago, the struts predate that and were probably there on construction of the building. Only thing I can think is that this building used to house a rotary milking parlour making it a special building in that regard but I still can't understand what the struts are for or why a building built to house a rotary milking parlour would need these struts in the roof.

Wot he said. lol Except I’m a total whimp. I would shut off the feeds to the taps ‘just in case’. I’d expect to be using a fair bit of force and if a tap shifts… who knows. Technically though Welsh Nick is correct, there should be no need to isolate.

Why are you insulating the garage walls? Is it heated?

Has the doorway been moved? Looks like there is no significant lintel/support over the opening, so perhaps those struts are to stop any movement of the vertical steels around the opening.

I'm looking to turn this part of an old cattle shed into a workshop extension for building shepherds huts and the like, but what are these metal struts for? And can I remove them? Two of them come down quite low and would totally get in the way of what I would be making. Can I remove them? I've never seen them in this type of construction before.

Just keep the taps turned off, no need to isolate the supplies.

very interesting chimney . the rustic construction would be great to retain for interest but will need a lot of attention. Doable though. are these stone flag floors? on second looks... perhaps old timber planks and some infill modern stuff? Yes SE as you say... pardon me in advance because this will happen al the time. SE EPS PIR x 100. Foundations. Can you ask why the modern building had deep founds? on perfect ground you would be 900mm deep. deeper means that the ground is soft or there are trees nearby. BUT 200 years ago they would scrape out as little as possible, topsoil really, and build stone straight onto that. That construction rises and falls annually, while the new bit stays put. Hence I suggest checking how much asap (sorry abbreviations again). My prejudice perhaps but importantly... however good an SE , not all have expertise in old stone. Ask. They will very likely be straight forward and decline if they think someone else will know better.. Unlike Architects who mostly take on anything and the problems arise later. Ditto builder. ("subject to Engineer's inspection" becomes your risk later. whereas the issues should be addressed early and influence the whole design.

If your digging the floors out, are you doing UFH? Would be a simple and pretty cheap way to add heating downstairs. If so, the more insulation the better. Not a fan of your hot water solution. Electric showers are just rubbish after having a unvented cylinder. Make room for a small/medium cylinder heating via immersion. Add a decent shower mixer. Your going to be running cold pipes anyway an additional pipe is easy while your at it any way.

Thanks for reading and following up. Your questions and things to look out for are very helpful. I'd say yes but am not sure I understand what "enclosed" means here. I believe it is dressed mudstone, and mortared. As for the quality of this [mmm], pic: That's the chimney breast in the loft room. The wall opposite is solid brick while the walls below that brick are also stone, with some small patches of brick repairs. The plan will be to lower the higher floor of the stone building to match those either side increasing the door height, but we'll see how that goes. [nervous laugh] I note the earlier point about depth which was already on my mind. Our builder has done extension and conversion work of old and new properties nearby (the latter a c. 2,000 semi next door) so knows the ground well. He had to dig much deeper than planned there, for a garage conversion and rear extension to a modern building. So it's something I'll be following closely but trust him to approach sensibly. From what I can see and know, our neighbour has separate chimney and is a later build (solid brick construction). I'm also sure it hasn't been modernised but will note your concerns and raise these possibilities (thanks, they are really helpful things to check). Assuming SE = Structural Engineering, yes. Or builder plans a structural survey soon. So far we've been lucky with no sign of that running out... yet! Thanks again for your thoughts. I really appreciate them.

Been bugging me for a while. Whilst the terrain is good it's not good enough (for me). REALLY want to ray march , notoriously difficult and gpu expensive. Doing ok ish. But we have no cliffs, valleys etc - because erosion makes them. So we need to simulate erosion accelerated and 'carve' through the landscape. Decided to compromise with realtime procedural infinite world and go finite (but loops), still procedurally generated of course. Trying Opus 5 as yesterday with 4.8 all attempts at erosion and looking realistic failed. Changed from webgl to webgpu aswell - means everything previous is no compatible. So a big re-write is due at some point. But this is difficult. Everytime we attempt erosion we get some weird mess on a world (doesn't take many spins at random to find one). So I've set Claude up to render them itself, do a top down view and not talk to me until its gone through 50 seeds (pre determined for testing) and 50 random and they all look realistic. Either it will do it or I'll run out of tokens!

So the original has been rxtended, not enclosed? Is the stonework dressed or rubble? Mortared in place, pointed? It might help dampness to leave some exposed. You need to find how deep the footings are. The steading was only about 300 below ground in total. You can't excavate much below that. The inglenook may be supporting the building. This is SE work. Esp at a party wall as there may be a shared chimney AND you don't know what the neighbours have done. It is scarily common for people to remove a chimney at GF leaving the chimney hanging. Understood re photos but some closeups perhaps? Another important issue is door heights. If you raise the floor can you get through without ducking?

Timber needs lots of heat and lots of oxygen, which doesn't happen at even a faulty socket.

I used some kerbs laid flat and concreted up to them.

Aha thanks Nick. I'm on board! So assuming universal thread diameter for this whole section, I should maybe just buy a new one. If I do that, I guess just a Q then, of whether I need turn off house water. My old friend.. won't want me doing that you see (even telling him I built my own bathroom with electric shower! I'm not a "qualified tradesmen" you see in his pov!). Grateful for that- fab BH help as always. Zh

I assumed - it's a timber frame and so it seemed like a good idea, I guess I should read up and see what's what. I have it all done in fireline board so it feels wrong to fit a bare plastic back boxes although I guess you could assume the fascia will do the job?

That little chrome tower will unscrew and come out of the bath filler spout, and the brass bits are captive inside it. It'll look a bit like this: https://www.notjusttaps.co.uk/bath-mixer-diverters.html?srsltid=AfmBOooConE86lzVQygWRuBY6irx9Jr3MXuk9E_xTTKGo_XLBUAOv-nM

If also using electric hot water taps, it eliminates the need for a tank, hot water plumbing and any questions about heat pumps wrt hot water. Also I expect more reliability and lower maintenance than alternatives. Unless you use a lot of hot water (we won't) I think it's a good option for us. Yes, and we await the visit from a structural engineer. There's lots of damp, some decay but I'm optimistic based on the reaction of two builders and the original survey. My wife has removed a lot of the plaster and we can see cracks and past repairs which hasn't yet alarmed our builder or architect, but I expect we'll have strengthening and support work to do in more than one area. I couldn't believe what was holding up the gable end two story stone wall above a two meter gap made to create a snug with window to the garden: a single plank of thickness one to two inches. We sleep better with an Accro prop in there now! (Not that we sleep in the building). We plan to dig out, insulate and level the mismatched, damp concrete floors throughout. More info: Yes, a two story stone 200+ yr old one up one down with an old loft conversion. On the front has been added another smaller bungalow with loft conversion which was a separate semi detached dwelling (1800's we think, solid brick walls). On the side of that, and the opposite side of the stone building are 1980's single story extensions (block work, no cavity we think). Everything is rendered outside and a 50yr (?) old concrete tile roof which is structurally sound but leaks where the valleys meet our neighbour's roof each side of the old buildings. I know photos would help but am reluctant to post such. Ground floor: main entrance (from N facing open garden on a bend) to Kitchen/Shower room (1980's ext), door Living Room 1 (Inglenook), door Living Room 2 (second chimney), wide sliding door to Study (1980's ext) with exit to garden. We want some more space downstairs, so will extend the gable end of the stone building. The kitchen/shower room will be made into one larger kitchen with patio doors to a small courtyard - the only wall that gets sun most of the day. The living room is dark and has large Inglenook (bricked up for support due to broken beam). Too large for the room, so we will restore, and extend into the N facing garden: awaiting designs for an oak framed Garden Room with lots of glass, pitched roof matching the gable end from which it will extend. The "study" will have doors to the adjacent Living Room 2, and the Garden Room, making it a GF bath+shower room for when we can't get upstairs. First floor: three rooms, the central one to be a smaller bath+shower room/ensuite to one of the upstairs bedrooms. Above this is a loft room. At this level the stone of the Gable End becomes solid brick, with a window with tremendous view, so we plan a Juliet balcony here. (Noone is overlooked, so the architect thinks the only likely planning issues will be with the extension because this is visible from the road - our whole garden is exposed though as we're on a bend and don't have any space behind on our quadrant shaped plot. We plan a high Yew hedge and internal fences/trellis to make it private.) My main concerns are about combining meeting our needs now and as we grow old, with maintaining it's quirky character (three staircases, old floorboards and wooden doors etc) while ensuring it will be a home long after we're gone. Affordably obviously! We're considering leaving some of the stone walls in Living Room 1 exposed: around the Inglenook is a party wall, and between living room and extension - so not external walls. We're also considering removing outside render from the stone gable end, perhaps rendering only over the brick of the loft room wall. Decisions for later. Sucking of teeth welcome if accompanied by explanations . We're completely new to this but have the luxury of not being under time pressure and able to live nearby for some time. Thanks if you read all this!

I would say look to get a proper SE report/survey that is going to give you thorough worthwhile information and the opportunity to sue the inspector/report writer/SE if they say it is ok but turns out to be a major problem. I believe many 'house buyer' type surveys are designed to minimise cost and often have their content based on a minimal cosmetic viewing. All comments then end up being heavily caveated with multiple get out statements and clauses. So if you buy the house and it falls down you cannot take any action against the surveyor. Any offers can and should be made subject to survey. Surveys are frequently used to renogotiate offers downwards of course so that the seller effectively pays for remediation work. Ask the vendor/owner explicit questions (these should also be covered by any conveyencers questionnaire too) - when did these cracks appear ? when did you last decorate this room/area ? Are these cracks getting larger ? Show me your evidence - prior photos etc ? Have you had this looked at by an SE and if so do you have a report ? Have you repointed and repaired external cracks ? Can you show me prior photographs ? Knock on the neighbours door(s) and ask them if they have any cracking ? Caveat emptor - I'd say it should probably be a buyers market at present but who knows.

Hi G&J, Assuming you removed a section to do this soaking, could you possibly explain exactly which part you removed? And how? Can you see I have done step 1, & unscrewed the chrome cap. This reveals a brass section, onto which, the cal was screwed onto: the brass section has a thread on it. The brass section, surely then, is the section that is meant to move up-down, within the stationary chrome surround base section (this section Nick points to, but I have no idea what this flat spot spanner area is for). thx Zoot

Hi Nick, apologies I'm not understanding which bit yiu are referring to, to unscrew. Not being able to get to the house for a while too. I am 110m away. Of course I see your flat spot. But this seems to be the lower section, & the part that doesn't move, of the uppy-downy brass section.. which seems to be the section that is meant to move, & is stuck, within it. I have unscrewed the 'cap' to reveal the brass bit: with the cap on (& so far as I recall with these) the cap/ knob is supposed to be pulled UP, to divert water to the hose (& up to the shower head). Is this right. I can only guess this to be logical, bc with the cap screwed back on, it's then in the 'down' position, & is flush with the surrounding large tap "chassis" section. And the water is currently coming out of the two taps. Christ it's difficult to explain typing words in a box. Almost exhausting. Thanks, zoot

The Spain/Portugal blackout last year comes up as an example of why renewables are dangerous.quite often. Nice explainer video of what happened. TLDR: 1. The Spanish grid regulations did not use the capability of renewables to stabilise the grid. This made them reliant on fossil fuel plants for grid control 2. Earlier oscillations in the grid caused the grid operator to demand higher voltages to dampen them (as is normal practice) 3. One of the 10 fossil fuel plants had a fire and had to shut down leaving even less grid control. 4. Some of those fossil fuel plants didn't it comply with the procedures so the voltage rose more than desired but still below the threshold 5. Some PV plants had been misconfigured to shutdown at a lower voltage than they should have and tripped out. So the main takeaway was the Spanish grid was not well managed. It also makes the point that the model the Spanish used (relying on fossil fuel plants for stability alone) is not followed in the UK where the renewables are configured to contribute to grid stability

I used the Scholmore ones as the client insisted on "metal back boxes" and I did not want the additional work to fit dwangs to screw conventional metal boxes to. I agree the Scholmore ones have a habit of the springs jumping out and are fiddly to re assemble and I did not use them again. As above though, why do you think you need fire rated back boxes?

Welcome. Neither are we until we know more. Eventually we will get there. What size? Number of rooms? In approx terms does it feel ample in size? The stone centre: is that an original building that has been encased in new? There may be construction and damp challenges.