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Pictures, please..... ?

If my words are not typing proper;y it;s brcause of all the tee I just spreyed all over my keyvoard.

"Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them so much."

Some day for it. Today was one of those special days where suddenly years of work starts to come together in front of your eyes. No machinery here just elbow grease. It was all going so well until the building inspector turned up. A few internal load bearing walls to be finished and then on Monday we have the telehander coming to stay for a couple of weeks, followed by the delivery of the attic trusses on Tuesday.

Treated myself to a decent pair of work trousers from local work-wear shop. At last my knee pads stay where they are put. (The Aldi version of the trousers allows the pads to float free: kneeling meant swearing ☹️ ) Up on the scaffolding, while screwing it onto the gun, a tube of foam decides to dump it's contents on my lap and the scaffolding boards. I slip on the wet foam , and sit in it. OK, calm down at the back now please. Anyone know how to get dried foam out of my knickers, my watch strap, my hands, my watch face, my work boots, my socks, my trousers. From now on... if foaming, I'm changing to the Aldi trousers. Never mind my knees.

What a site. This is a great phase - enjoy it.

#£&(7(*5£#%/;’j Apple auto-typo not-keyboards. iPad came from Sydney, so it thinks it is upside down. Indeed, carefully.

Hi all, Last year, after many years searching, we found our dream project i.e. right location, friendly neighbours, right price etc. We sold our house in the mid welsh borders in July 17 and completed the purchase on our new plot, also in the welsh borders, in Nov 17. The site is an old commercial timber yard set in 1.5 acres and we bought it with planning to convert the main steel portal frame workshop into the principle house and one of the sheds into ancillary accommodation. A soon as we purchased we put in for some variations to the planning conditions and were promptly rewarded with no objections and permission granted end of Jan 18. We are currently going through the painful process of getting the SE to provide a scheme/calculations that meets our design brief and thus allows the architect to proceed with dwgs to BC. In the meantime we've being clearing the site which has been more or less abandoned for 10yrs, and demolishing some redundant buildings. I've felt like an extra in Day of the Triffids what with cutting down 20ft high brambles! Guess that's enough about me for now so look forward to sharing our experiences with you all over the coming months (years?). Toot toot.

I was changing vans at work one time, I also happened to be renovating our first house though we weren't living there. It seemed logical to dump the van contents in the empty front room so it was empty for the lease company. I'd been working in the front room so some of my own diy gear was there as well. As I left the house and slammed the door a precariously leant Workmate I'd left against the lounge wall fell onto a half used can of foam... A bit of a mess when I came back...

Don't forget a fire blanket for the kitchen and CO2 detector if you have a stove / gas appliance etc. Know where the main water, gas and electricity breakers/cut offs are. Place trampoline under master bedroom window etc....(!)

I use small dry powder one as you can hoover it up when you accidentally set it off ... Also works with every fire type.

Never apologise for adding information to a thread To make this crystal clear, the 2 burners comment is not a reference to any one boiler having two burners inside it. The lower kW range of boilers utilises one type of burner at the point of manufacture, and the higher kW range utilises the other. The lower range burner will drop down to 6-7kW at maximum modulation iirc, and the higher range burner does around 9kW. Maximum Modulation = lowest heat that the gas valve / burner can output when full output is not required / necessary.

I have no advice, but thanks for the laugh to start the morning. What's that old joke about asking a farmer for directions and being told "Well I wouldn't start from here..."

Evening chaps - thanks for the replies. N current project although i'm sort of researching the possibility of one at the moment, vague though that sounds. And I live in Manchester, although if either of you are pedantic Mancunians, I live in Salford.

You’re putting all the timber into compression which is it’s strongest a long as you don’t compromise the structure by drilling too many holes in it. 1300kg is nothing - you could stand that on a 4x4 fence post at each corner and it wouldn’t move ... until you pushed it ..!! The structure below the cabin needs to be braced to stop it racking or twisting. Quickest and cheapest way is coach bolt 4x2 timbers into a cross between each leg. Slightly more expensive but just as effective is to use wire and strainers. 8mm Stainless steel wire is more than up to the job and easy to install - it’s also less conspicuous than timber too. The trick is to create triangles and then work out how to retain each corner and you will build in the strength.

What a good looking build. Builders have a rough Highland look too, beardy and relaxed...can't wait to see the next floor/ truss go in

iPad - says it all

@Ferdinand We checked this with the council and we're exempt thankfully.

The 150 DPC rule is to help prevent the bottom of the wall becoming saturated from rain splashing up. If it is only a small section and it is not facing the prevailing wind you should be OK. Sometimes you can just have shingle up to the wall to reduce spashing

When expanding foam first came out I decided to fill a large hole with it . Needlless to say I squirted almost the entire canister in there .... As it spewed out like an alien I didn’t want it all over the floor . So naturally/ stupidly I grabbed it and pushed it with my bare hands ? I think to this day my hands are still ‘crunchy’ ...

Good for sniffing regardless of state of mind . As good as the xylene or whatever in marker pens.

https://www.ironmongerydirect.co.uk/product/dry-powder-fire-extinguisher-1kg-145652

Ooooooohhhhh hooooo, Ahhhm on ma way hen!

You need to check with the specific insurer but most will cover solar 'panels' for damage etc. however they were installed (as in they don't ask). Mine says this: Buildings - The structure of your home including its fixtures, fittings and services, garden walls, gates, fences, hedges, paths, drives, patios, tennis courts, wind turbines, fixed solar panels and permanent swimming pools, saunas, hot tubs all within the grounds of your home and for which you are legally responsible. All of the above are covered for all normal insurance events such as fire, storm, floods etc. Only hedges, storms and fences are specifically excluded from storm damage. They don't ask who installed any of those structures. It won't cover events where the equipment ceases to function however unless it has been damaged by one of the covered events. If you are fitting an in-roof system I would check that this is covered by the term 'fixed solar panels'. I would say yes but I would get the customer to declare the make of panel to the insurance company for the avoidance of doubt.

A decent Combi plus a good, robust shower in the ensuite, and simply enjoy. If you go for a 28kW Combi it'll get two people wet in two showers but not with any force that you'd brag about. Probably would be the equivalent of two crap electric showers running, which for some is what they're used to anyway.

Yeah, well, I didn't expect sympathy. But even a smidge would have been nice. Photo? Its all in the washing machine: but the scaff is full of it.

Not quite mastered the art of being in two places at one time yet. ... and when I do I guess at least one of me will have something better to do ?

I remember a few years ago I decided to fill some holes that were letting draughts through in my parents' house with foam. Next thing I know I was throwing out the work shirt I was wearing whilst doing it. Lesson of the story is don't wear anything you don't want to ruin whilst using foam, I don't think it cleans off.

A likely story. Come on admit it you were trying to design the male equivalent of a padded bra.

They can be your new thermal trousers. ?

"Say NO to drugs" .

You probably know already, but planting Japanese Knotweed is a specific offence. The devil would be proving it of course. http://www.knotweed-uk.com/Knotweed-and-The-Law.htm

When you’ve laid the first block. Most TF (not all) need a wider inner skin so sit on a 140mm block with a 50mm cavity and a 100mm outer skin. This means the sole plate isn’t hanging into the cavity. Others build up off the ground floor so your GF construction has to be wider all round to leave a smaller cavity - again, it’s down to choice of supplier. There are a vast number of TF suppliers and an equal number of good and bad stories on here so don’t just take one and think it’s the norm.

There's an old saying that has the ring of truth about it: "Good fences make good neighbours" They set boundaries, not just physical ones, but territorial ones, that people, even awkward people, tend to respect.

And there was me hoping it was OneOff with a typo, in the vain hope that there weren’t Two or Three of them .. ?.

That’s interesting. I thought TS were focusing away from consumers these days, and referred cases to Citizens Advice. Scotland different, or Ferdinand mistaken? Hoping the latter.

Welcome. I think you need a rapid check as to your CIL exemption status, if your area does CIL. If it is not in place, then you could lose it if someone decides you have started.

The smaller green one that originally had the cover missing and the wires exposed. That's the HRC pump. The one in the pic is the pump that's heats the PHE so it can produce hot water. Without that pump the PHE would stay cold and you'd get no heat into the cold water going into it. The PHE is an instant water heater but needs heat passing through the primary side of it first so it can pass that heat indirectly to the secondary side.

Im off to do the chicken wire browsing tmrw.. I want electric barbed wire with embedded wolf's musk on the spikes, but I dont think they do that. Anyway, cheers all for helping me out on this thread, the weird turn & path it lead down. I'll gently bring it to a stop now (unless it all kicks off then I'll come back & spill the beans). I feel a renewed confidence after the CPO visit, he did a very good job (& your replies have helped too); they've definitely looked more sheepish since & the provocation has stopped.. for now. zoot

Definition of Man Flu: An illness that causes the male of the species to be sicker and more helpless than any other member of the family. In females - a cold

Please see the thread in Barn Conversions. I'm happy (ecstatic in fact!) to say that Croydon Planning have granted exemption for my conversion.

Welcome to Buildhub. Not sure about nails, but what about a concealed beam hanger at each junction? More work, for sure, but likely a better result. Edited to add: there's also quite a lot of weight going to end up on the long beam where the left end of the short horizontal (in the pic) meets it. No idea if that's an issue given the size of the beams.

An economist is shooting at a target. The first shot is 3 feet to the left of it. The second shot if 3 feet to the right. The economist yells "bullseye!"

Spoken with the advantage of 20:20 hindsight. There was no sign of even a small reduction in prices when the FIT scheme was introduced; if there had been I wouldn't have spent an eye-watering amount of money on a system which was wholly unaffordable without the FIT. 3 years later prices plummeted in an unforeseeable way. Can't say I'm a fan of subsidies either; all the green subsidies have been ill-conceived and most subsidies benefit the relatively well off.

Just reading my comment back it is not 100% clear. WB had two main burners in the whole range. The round one(ri, I and si) made in the UK 12-30kw and the square one (cdi) made in Germany 25-42kw. Sorry to get off topic again.

Not their smartest ever move, IMHO. It seems that every time the government decide to introduce incentivisation schemes associated with renewables or energy reduction they screw up, often very badly indeed. It really annoys me that every scheme they introduce ends up being abused by installers who increase their charges in order to either collect the subsidy for themselves as extra profit, or to increase the price to consumers because the government have created a rigged market.

That assumes that if the government weren't paying me for this, they'd be doing something better with the money. Seems unlikely given their track record!

The "resolution" to this is on it's way. Literally. Firstly how did I persuade them to take the issue seriously? Well mainly thanks to another forum member, I found that the company I bought it from, and the brand name that it was sold under, are owned by a well know national company that owns amongst other things a builders merchant and a DIY chain (I did not know that at the time of my purchase) So I stopped talking to the monkey and went for the Organ Grinder in the form of the CEO of that parent company with my issue, keeping the message polite, factual and non threatening. I typed my message last Thursday and kept in in my draft folder reading and re reading it until I was sure everything was correct and finally sent it late Thursday evening. By mid Friday morning I had received a phone call with the offer of a resolution. They really don't want to repair this unit and then have to support it throughout the remainder of the warranty. So the resolution offered is they are sending a different make of heat pump, a more well known make and still a current model. I now have confirmation it is on a pallet en-route to me. There will be a small amount of re plumbing and a lot of rewiring when the new one gets here but lets hope this one is not another dud. At least I will be connecting and testing it quite quickly after it arrives. They don't want the old one back.

We all have our obsessions, but we need to be aware enough to take action if it starts to effect our mental health. Sometimes we can see that for ourselves and other times it needs someone else to help advise as we can be so immersed that we are too blind to see. A few years ago mine was work. I was running an IT site in SE England and I was obsessed with managing every small detail. I ended up working 70 hours a week to try to cover everything, plus I would lie awake for hours at night trying to work out how I was going to fix something of particular concern. When I moved to Scotland I changed role and resolved to do less hours, but it really took until my hubby got sick for me to learn not to sweat the small stuff because suddenly I was able to put things into perspective.

We don't really know the full story, but from what you've told us, I'm a little concerned about how much you're reading into at least some their actions (and I'm aware of this possibility because I know I personally over-analyse and worry about things). Regarding your previous comments about them aggressively calling for their cats off your land, cats are utterly unbiddable, so the cats are there by their own choice. I can't see how else you get a cat back into a house other than by calling it, so I'd be careful about reading too much into someone shouting a cat's name towards the general area where they know the cat is likely to be. Same with the poo in the planting area - cats love a planting area where someone's gone to the trouble of loosening up the soil for them to take a crap in. That's by far the more likely answer than someone coming and burying cat poo just below the surface. Re: the hedge, what do you mean by "eyeing up"? Unless they've said something, how can you conclude that they're planning criminal damage to it? The best piece of advice I've ever heard is that you can't control other people but you can control yourself. You may be angry or upset, and that's a perfectly rational first response when people behave like arses, but fundamentally the thing that's making you unhappy is your response to the situation. Your reaction to other people's actions is something you can learn to control. Work on how you respond, and your stress levels will reduce, for sure. All that said, I'm not sure how I'd cope being in your situation. I don't cope well with bad behaviour in others, and I don't understand why some people insist on being tits.