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Thinking of doing a blog. Anybody interested ? does anybody read them ?

Sort of... Doing this lot of samples herself!

I finally conjured up the enthusiasm to do something this morning so started applying the tanking tape around the bath. SWMBO wanders in... "Now last night the silver grey looked darker.....the white's too white. Go with the silver grey if you've bought it..." Guess who's now en route to Rochester to get CHARCOAL grout?

I think you are spot on we think the top slab was just over kill and someone with a mate who could get cheap concrete but the footings underneath we think may have had some sort of plant machinery sat on top. Maybe a conveyor belt or something similar.

The phrase "patented" when used by a UK-based company does not mean "there were patents, but they were in other countries, were in the names of another entity, and lapsed over 10 years ago". Patents are by definition public documents, and anyone saying they have a patent while refusing to give details is either lying or woefully ignorant about what having a patent actually means.

We had settled on a freestanding bath for our main bathroom A touchstone from Bathstore £1150 more than we wanted to pay I thought I’d have one last look on eBay Found the exact same one for &690 new but no original packaging at a clearence warehouse ten miles from we’re we live Though it took four of us to lift it upstairs

That wall socket's too close to the bath...

I was going to say they look shit but I could hear the jokes coming,, i will go out on a limb here and risk major embarrassment by saying that I sit down for a wee a lot of the time. Why you ask, are you weird answer. It saves splashing (happy wife) I can check my phone while sitting for a minute.

The whole point of a urinal is to avoid the lid up / down argument, so why get one with a lid? I was told I can have one. In the garage.

I have a ladder phobia too but did manage to overcome it once so that I could go up and ensure that I liked the bathroom layouts. Going up wasn’t as bad as I thought but it took me an age to pluck up the courage to go down. Did manage it eventually.

Innocent!!! Equally guilty you mean. The 2 of you are as bad as each other!!

It’s not easy They could have cleaned it with water had they done it right away We get this problem in winter when it rains while we are rubing the render down Brick acid sounds harsh But a small amount on a sponge will move it Tge longer it’s on the harder it is to shift Don’t forget to wear a rubber glove Another option is grout remover Less harsh

Guilty m'lud,,,

The Makita LXT 18v strimmer is good - light and doesn’t chew through a 3Ah battery every 5 minutes either.

Do you already have Makita / DeWalt / other cordless tools and chargers? If so, buy one naked ( do NOT go the the shop with the wang out !! ) which uses the batteries you have. If not, the big tool players all do one. Saw a guy next door to here with a beast of a DeWalt one that I think takes 2x batteries.(?). Probably the Flex-volt.

Good excuse to get the IPA in ?.

Oach They should have covered the slate The only way to clean it is brick acid on a sponge Carefully clean each slate being careful not to get any on the render When you hose down keep the hose directed onto the render for ten minutes The renderers will tell you it will weather off It won’t But the bits under the slates will Hope this helps

What is it with blokes? Work hard to get the right outcome and feck it up at the final hurdle. Use the silver. Put all thoughts out of your mind re introducing a new variable / colour and autonomously deciding that it’s the way forward. Take the small victory, be happy with the silver that looks absolutely fine, and keep quiet about it being a victory or you’ll never hear the end of it! You know it makes sense! Trust me on this one!!

Yay! Victory - just don't tell her! Bugger - just seen the charcoal comment. NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Stick to grey - you have agreement. Charcoal - there be fire breathing dragons. The ones that turn you into burned toast.

If you want. Two rods a coupler and a box: https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/TLER58.html EDIT: Rods are 4' btw. Only way to know how good it is is by testing then periodic testing.

I used the "four rod method" to test mine, really just as an exercise in refreshing my memory as to how to do it. In our case the ground is very definitely wetter under the workshop slab than adjacent to it, because that slab sits over a spring that runs down to the stream. Also, the ground next to it which is the only place I could put an external rod is a steep bank, which is bound to be dry for the top half a metre or so in summer. I went for two rods screwed together just as belt and braces, really, but it does make sure that most of the rod is in contact with damp soil.

The bit about the proper kit is true but.... One old school way of testing earth efficiency is with a "light bulb". Connect one side to Live and the other side to your earth rod. The brighter the bulb glows the better the earth! At the end of the day it's a great practical demo of Ohm's Law. DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!

Earth rods are generally better external in "flower beds" etc than internally. As above the damper the soil the lower the resistance and under a slab can be dry. Soil resistance anyway varies massively; in Summer when the ground dries and shrink away from the rod, in Winter when the ground freezes. Most people bang in a 4' rod and think that's it. The thinner rods are obviously cheaper but go for the thicker ones and they're threaded so you can connect them together to go deeper. Or you can space multiple rods in a particular pattern. Another option is an earth plate. Again, if you have a "trench" you can lay a copper tape in horizontally even. Anything to get more copper in contact with the mass of earth. Soil acidity etc plays a part to in the life expectancy of the rod...most are copper clad steel. I was given a reel of copper bus bar tape which I intend laying in my water pipe trench (about 50m) and connecting to my earth rod. Should be interesting to see how much it brings things down by. Btw the connecting cable size on TT can be as small as 2.5mm2 if insulated AND mechanically protected. The only way to tell how good the earth connection is is by measurement with the proper kit.

I think blogs are a great contribution to this forum, they reveal more of the daily nitty gritty detail that is both important and interesting to other self builders and enthusiasts. I take my hat of to all who dedicate a little bit of there time to produce a blog and only wish that I could muster the extra energy to do so.....

Hi Russell, with your level of practical knowledge, I think that I for one would benefit hugely from reading your blog, particularly as you are doing almost everything yourself. And don't spare us the nitty gritty detail. And an occasional photo across your lovely lake would be a cherry on the cake.

The concrete almost certainly isn't conductive enough to make this work and meet the regs. I do have an earth rod (double length) that goes through a hold drilled inside my workshop slab and a couple of metres down into the ground beneath. I did this really as a way of protecting the earth rod connection a bit better. In my case it was easy, as I had a bit of duct coming up in the corner of the workshop with a run of 6mm² SWA bringing power in, and I wanted to box the incoming cable in for protection, extending up the wall to a wooden cabinet that houses the CU for the workshop. I fitted the earth rods adjacent to the incoming cable duct so I could put the earth connection and cable inside the boxed section for protection. Apart from protecting the earth rod connection, doing it this way also meant that the earth rod was down into soil that is probably always damp, because of the concrete slab above it. Not sure if that helped or not, but I doubt it did any harm.

Could the tubes be blinded, labelled only A and B with only Nick knowing which is which?

When Scottish water turned up to connect our water and make the road crossing, they cut through the tarmac and pulled that up, only to find a thick concrete road underneath. Much cursing and swearing and off to fetch a concrete breaker. Good job the road crossing was a fixed price.

If you are looking for a recommendation, we have Protect VP400, chosen by the builder as it can be left exposed for a long time. It was close on a year before the roof git tiled, and the walls of our sun room are still clad in this (with no outer covering) 3 years later with no problems.

Dead easy. I have a calibrated total hardness meter, pH meter and conductivity meter, plus test reagents as a back up, and it's literally 20 minutes work to check to see if two samples are the same or different with regard to hardness.

just found these, by accident, looks quite good if it comes true https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45132427

Steady boy....she will read this one day and you will be toast

Bribe the son and seal the deal!

Their Website claims that it does produce softer water Quotes from their Website Wake up to softer water!Your hard water solution is here.. really here! As it uses no chemicals, adds nothing and takes nothing away, our water conditioner is a completely natural way to soften your water. Your cleaning products and toiletries work better with softer water as there’s no limescale to kill the bubbles. Because of this you can use natural products as they’ll lather well. Cleaning is easier – even cleaning your car is a joy – and you won’t be left with unsightly spotting. Even your plants will thrive as they more easily absorb the mineral rich softer water you get with an Halcyan Water Conditioner.

The mods are discussing it, but for the moment there's something of value to our members in allowing the discussion to go on. If nothing else, any potential purchasers will hopefully have some questions to ask before buying (or can judge for themselves the quality and usefulness of the company's replies).

Leave white grout for a while and at best it will look like you piss in the shower (which I am sure you don't).

Don't have white grout please. It will likely go yellow if not grubby. Silver grey much better.

Most people seem to think our windows are aluminium anyway. The windows and sills have the same looking finish and it all goes together well.

Someone @Alexphd1 asked for more photos of my DIY insulated foundations, so here you are. This is the basement complete with ICF steel reinforced retaining walls. Here is a photo of the lounge. This sits at the elevated ground level at the far corner of the basement, just to the right of the pile of white insulation in the above phot.

Pucker and then some. I've seen them.

So having a wooden cabin on our site I had Presumed it would be sitting on probably 100mm thick concrete slab wrong. So 350mm thick seems to be the requirement around here to put a glorified shed on. I have been in the heavy side of the landscaping industry for 30 years and I should have known to expect the unexpected. for anybody out there embarking on a new project be aware of things like this if I had been doing this for a client I have estimated it would have been an extra £4000 to remove it all.

You missed the point above. @pocster wanted a threesome. Maybe they have plans to include you in their ménage à trois ? ???