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From that I guess you’ve not been in a TF factory or manufacturer ...?? Construction of mainstream TF isn’t glamourous - it’s not all HufHaus and soya lattes ... Depending on what you are building then both have their merits although if 3 blokes turned up on my site in a tatty transit the first question would be where’s your CICS cards and PPE.... which means they have been on training thankfully which should hopefully save their lives ... I suppose it all depends on what you want as an end result ..?

About 3 years if you DIY it and have zero experience...

That makes me think that mischievous people could get ones like those fairground mirrors :-). Not awake yet, this morning .... I read that as ‘well-hung’. Imagining Clarkson with magnifying mirrors on the toes of his clown-shoes so he can see that Percy is still present.

Depends how you mean respected and by whom..?? In most medium to large architectural practises you will find a number of ATs doing the core drawing and draughting for major contracts and they are overseen by a senior architect or partner. They do a very good job and are highly skilled at what they do. Due to RIBA kicking off and making architecture a monopoly for them under the AoP, they command a premium in a lot of instances and usually cite insurance costs, qualifications, etc as the reason. ATs have less of these overheads and therefore can charge less. Its horses for courses really - I’ve seen stunning designs from ATs for £2,000 and utter dross from architects who have charged 10 times that. You pays your money etc etc

An update - photos speak for themselves........

I used an architect. She took our design brief and produced hand drawn conceptual drawings which we tweaked, once we were happy with the concept she passed the drawings to an architectural technician who produced the planning and building control drawings. We neve4 saw her again! If I were doing it again I’d go to a good Architectural Technician and save a lot of money.

All of the above can be applied to a timber frame house. Foundations can be exactly the same if not smaller than those for a masonry construction. Timber frames are about as traditional as you can get and certainly don't need to cost a huge amount.

My brief view. A competent AT should do a good job. A competent architect should add a measure of inspiration. A client using an AT probably needs to supply that inspiration A client using an architect needs to direct and ground the Architect's inspiration. As Peter says, you pays your money and... hopefully after taking the time to learn your role in the dance with whoever you choose, and to have learnt to choose the right partner in the first place. A lot of spadework first makes for a better tree later! F

To me it sounds like one of Maureen Lipman's 'Ologies' from the 80's

My parents bought the house in '79.... the woman who had it before us hadn't done anything to the house ever... I'm sure my Dad would have sorted it all anyway. But I will get a 2nd opinion on the back workshop roof... x

Probably not in lath and plaster walls I imagine. It was used extensively in the 50s, 60s, 70s so depends how old your house is too. I’m no expert however, just had a bad experience with asbestos tis all.

All that wood is going to give you more bridges than Amsterdam anyway.

My son is an architects technician - his view(obviously biased) is that architects dream up wonderful schemes and it is the technician that has to make it work. Having said that I only found out at the end that my architect wasn't a full architect but a technician and she was rubbish.

I don't think that's unfair. If you know exactly what you want, why pay a premium?

If you get formers which don't need to be fully supported then the ones over timber will be an hour or two a piece to install dry. Give a fitter time to unpack, eat and pack away, but expect two of the timber ones done in a day with the wastes connected and tested and the proprietary sealing of the trays done too. A good bit of reading here... and here.... and ?loads here. Ill add a bit more on the UTH ( under tile heating ) later ?

Yeah,the scenario you describe is a good one-system scaffolds have roses at every half metre on the standards for the ledgers & putlogs to clip to. So,when a lift goes up,you can have the inside two boards dropped down half a metre from the rest,putting you at nice height for your materials & you’re laying at somewhere around knee height. When you’ve come up a decent height,without stretching,you bring the inside two back up level & carry on the rest of the lift. Adaptions will be needed for the roofers so they’re only stepping up a little onto the roof,and on gables for the brickies. We used to have it up a metre sometimes just to finish off the peak.

Well ! Unsurprisingly though the odd email saying they would call me - nothing . Have emailed them to ask for their final stance on the situation; I did offer up a compromise could be made . Irrespective of who is wrong or right ; you expect some customer service when there’s a problem . Sysop ( aka admin ) am I allowed to name and shame ?

Aldi now sell bags of frozen cauliflower rice. I understand that frozen vegetables retain a much higher proportion of nutrients than fresh ones kept in the fridge for about a week.

+1 and maybe get a comparison cost from a system scaffold supplier. As long as your build is reasonably square it’s a great way to do it. Very easy to adapt for the roofers & renderers (if you have any.) When I worked in it we adapted it ourselves (though we shouldn’t have.) Once you’ve seen the guys doing it it’s pretty idiot proof.

I would specify (independent scaffold) this is basically a scaffold that has two rows of standards so can stand on its own, so independently from the building.

The phase change will occur at a temperature lower than the fridge uses so will not store/release energy.

Yep. The idea is that you lay berries or herbs out on a shallow shelf to freeze without squash, and you then transfer them to the freezer drawer and they don't stick together. You thaw them similarly - spread out on a tray. You and me clearly need to discover the Waitrose lifestyle. Currently experimenting with Aldi frozen berries, which are a fraction of the price of Aldi fresh berries - to see how they come out. I have some thawing between 2 dinner plates as I write. I still need to learn about the "Pull-out BioFresh safes mounted on telescopic rails with flexible humidity control for use as DrySafes or HydroSafes for longer freshness of fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy products", which comes with the £4.5k Liebherr. Apparently it doubles the fridge-life of fresh veg, which is why everybody is trying currently to sell counter-top food dehumidifiers. And there was me thinking that Bavarians kept their sausages in meatsafes with a flyscreen and a frustrated sheepdog. Perhaps @le-cerveau has one ?. F

Except coolbox packs aren't normally 1.2kg right?! (For obvious reasons). ?

This point warrants more emphasis, the problem with timber frame is that more of your cash is handed out to middle class yappers and clipboard huggers. The very mention of a factory creating a bespoke manufactured item triggers all sorts of additional costs, lurking at the factory's HQ will be the Vice President of gender equal opportunities, HR managers, the director of social media reputation, the senior director of Microsoft Power Point corporate standards and don't forget the posse of H&S managers. The erection of a timber frame seems efficient but you are also paying hotel costs, for the secretary who booked the rooms and for the maintenance of an HGV vehicle fleet. What can be more efficient than 3 blokes who have never attended a 3 day workshop on gender sensitivity training, turning up in a tatty transit van to lay bricks in good weather?

Isn't that just a fancy name for a coolbox pack?

Way over the top 10-15% of that would be fine.

Only hijacking @vivienz's thread as it's recent on the subject. So I'm DIY'ing my own version of this. The Geberit system I have being too old to have it incorporated. So far I've CT1'd an elbow into the top of the cistern: Then taken a 32mm pipe in solvent weld up into the loft: In terms of a fan unit I've found this in the stash of "that'll come in handy one day" parts and a suitable 24vdc power supply is no problem. It'll probably be triggered by some short range proximity sensor + timer when you sit on / stand next to the loo. Spec for the fan is: DC Fans Tubeaxial, 60x25mm 24VDC, 27.1CFM, Ball I'm thinking to either fit this in an adaptable box or square section ducting. Is the 27.1CFM adequate for the application do we think? Cheers

I think his Mrs was wanting a black gloss one rather than chrome ?

You already seen the reflection ?

You asked for more photos of my DIY insulated foundations so her we go. The first layer going in there ver the sand blinding layer. The fitst 100mm thick layer of EPS 300 in place. The rebar. The finished job ready for concrete on Friday.

We are 99% sure there isn't any..... Wouldn't be any in the lath and plaster would there? I've asked Mother and she says no lead paints and no asbestos anywhere...

I use the thicker gas PTFE and put six turns on. First time I ever put it on I wound it on the wrong way and proceeded to unwind the tape as I did it up! Numpty

They will look at mechanical ventilation, smoke detectors, opening windows, 100mm gaps to stairs and want to have access to Gas, Electric, EPC / air tests and will often want to witness an air test of the waste system. Sometimes they can just get a couple of things that everyone gets caught on - like locks on escape windows or thumb turns on escape doors or spy holes.

Personally I think it's like an MOT. Leave some simple "fault" for them to find that is easy to rectify so they stop looking too hard once they have found the fault. Drain pressure test is something they seem very hot on up here. and electrical and gas cerificates.

Wait till it comes down & the empty perps are filled in a rush cos the scaffs are screaming at the brickie to get finished so they can carry on striking... i can spot where putlog scaffold’s been used for years afterwards sometimes for this reason alone.

I'm wondering if they weren't very careful when they took the scaffolding down. I imagine it would be easy not to pull them out straight or leave them in the slot unsupported.

timber kit every time, fast erection time and don't bother with brick skin it's an expensive rain screen. i beams for larger insulation space. see touchwood system. as been mentioned before cold bridging needs careful consideration.

And you still stop to fix the mower ! ?

...numerous times!

Prints out in 25cm high bright red letters. Sticks on wall.