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Well, folks, that's it. The last nail in the last joist. Its been hammered in HARD. Here's why. For reasons only known to the inexperienced self-builder, I put the floor joists up working from both ends of the room to the middle. 400 centers. That makes a gap between joists of about 328ml. The middle three joist are longer than the others - they had to be inserted closer than the others: 310ish. Tight. Well tight if you are my size. Arms and head above the top chord of the joist - beer gut wedged firmly between the POSIs, but swinging the hammer now like a demon (900 nails down and just a few more to go - all because of you @Pete). Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy. Well yeah, until it came to turning round to reach that sodding wedge to help nudge the top chord a mil or two higher. Christ this is tight. Turned a few degrees. Couldn't reach the wedge. Bugger - - Hand in my pocket - - maybe there's a spare wedge in there? Nope. By this time there is a semi painful wedgie though.? Dropped the hammer. "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo" Stumped, and firmly wedged, I realise I am going to have to wriggle out of this. Up? No way Jose. Not strong enough to overcome the effects of the beer years. Starting to sweat a bit now. More from annoyance than anything. Down? No choice. Only way . Now, those of us whose work trousers 'need' braces because our trousers have half a ton of tools hanging off them (all lies girls, just lies) will realise that descending through a really tight space has an inevitable effect on your braces. That partially painful wedgie now got worse. A lot worse. You see the back clip of my braces caught fast on the bottom chord of the joist. The front of my work trousers started to pull hard. My eyes started to water I think. By this time, my hands were in the air, and my head altogether too close to the gap between the joists. And suddenly with one bound (as it were) I was free. PING - THUMP The clip of the braces parted company with the waist band - shot up inside my clothing and hit the bottom of my shoulder. No wedgie pain now, just shoulder pain instead. All of this was happening dear reader at the same time as my T shirt, gillet and windproof were slowly making their way past my beer gut on the way to my my head. Couldn't see a thing. But sure as Hell, I could feel my shoulder. A few seconds later, there I was topless on the scaffold boards. Cold? No. Furiously hot. Just a matter now of jumping down to the floor. Yep, I suspect you are ahead of me......... The jump was elegant. Feet and knees together (just like I wuz taught) Thump. I stopped. My trousers didn't. Normally that wouldn't matter. No need to fuss over a small thing like that. Standing in the doorway way my best friends wife with a grin from ear to ear. I wouldn't have minded but her dog went mad.

Like this?

The lecturer taking us for the 18th was a dour Yorkshireman. He kept on about the prices of things (beer etc) "down South". He was pretty good and could spout the regulations off the top off of his head so we were hanging on his every word and dutifully making notes. He then recounted how a lad on a previous course was talking to him about kitchens and how this guy said his had cost £140K. Incredulous at the cost even for "down South", he said: "By Christ, how big is your house?" "Just a 3 bed semi" the chap said. Still reeling the lecturer pressed on and asked how in the Hell a kitchen in a 3 bed semi could cost that much. "Well, the missus ran off with the kitchen fitter!"

Good luck Nick

I did the flat machined bits - scrub them well first. Flexi tile adhesive to stick it down - feels totally solid.

Hi Russell, I have no technical knowledge on this but we are using closed cell spray foam as our topmost insulation layer in a ventilated build up under a metal (Tata) roof. One of the reasons we decided to use foam is to assist in getting an airtight seal around the roof plate as we will have an MVHR system. Airtightness seems to be one of the main reasons closed cell spray foam is so popular in new builds. We did use a breather membrane above the rafters (under the battens) partly because you need something to spray against from underneath and OSB is not acceptable from a condensation calcs perspective. BASF can provide some evidence by way of test results that the heat from the spray foam will not damage the breather membrane (I think the test results are for open cell foam but they say the heat impact is equivalent). I wanted to spray against PIR fixed above the rafters (not foil backed) but, illogically to my mind, this threw out the conensation calcs. I believe there is an argument that you would not need a VCL under closed cell spray foam insulation but BASF does say the foam will allow vapour transfer, albeit at a very slow rate. One point to note is that it is easier to spray thinner layers of insulation (we are using 154mm) rather than the thicker layer we would need to achieve our target U values. Spray foam is also more expensive than most alternatives. Accordingly, we are going to have semi rigid batts under the spray foam and PIR under the rafters, with a VCL under that.

In all honesty I don't really like them - I am a old school, if it was my house I would but for my garage considering I can hop up onto the roof to maintain it going forward I am not too fussed. I used a flexible dyed mortar from Instarmac which should remain in good nick for many many years. However, I did use dry verge! I know the benefits of the dry ridge, the installation benefits and the longevity of the system, I am just being a Luddite. I can be like this some times. I still prefer CAT5 and a cable from a socket than Wifi yet I like ICF's! Go figure!

I had exactly this problem when I first installed our ASHP. The problem was that I didn't read the installation manual properly... The manual stipulated that the flow and return pipes from the ASHP had to be at least 1m long large bore, insulated, flexible hoses, run in a loop, to decouple the vibration from the ASHP from the house. I'd fitted short (around 300mm long) flexible pipes and they were coupling vibration directly into the house. It was surprisingly noisy, noisy enough that I ordered new pipes, drained the system down and fitted things as per the instructions. Once I'd done that it was completely silent inside the house, the only way to tell the thing is on is to look at the wall display.

According to their own material it fades, Page 20 of the pdf I ave linked to below. https://www.ribaproductselector.com/Docs/1/26501/external/COL712751.pdf We’re in the early stages of planning a new build and will likely want some form of cladding for the first floor. I have zero interest in something that will need maintenance/treatment to maintain its appearance. We had a Juliet balcony on a previous home which was a contemporary addition to the back of a Victorian house...was made of teak and looked great but needed regular treatment. That was a pain and tiny compared to the area of a whole house. The expense of maintaining/treating wood cladding is a non starter!

The sun came out yesterday and at mid day with the low winter sun we were generating 1KW So everything seems to be working and both strings performing equally at mid day. A summary of costings: PV panels £813 Generation and export meters £25 Inverter £255 DC cable £44 Unistrut £192 Nuts and bolts £50 Timber £163 Total £1542 As a bonus, I get a shed, just for the cost of the timber to board in the sides.

Don't panic! The area needs cleared a lot the top is very heavy going so it will get the top 300mm taken of over a fairly big area, after that its pretty easy going by hand as its good soil!

This is a cut string. It is a more traditional look. I don't think it would work with your glass infill.

A cut string is where the top part of the string between the underside of the tread and the riser is cut out for the tread to sit on, instead of it being routed out. It is an aesthetic thing mostly and it works well where the outside of the string is visible (not for stairs built in between 2 walls).

If you can buy them cheap enough and install them relatively cheap and use the excess to heat your water tank or use all the power generated then yes. So it depends on how much you can buy them for.

im build one hes doing the other, yes two seperate vat reclaims we will be doing, and both building at the same time

Google found this place in Sussex.. https://www.jbarch.co.uk/3d-printing

If you have old style ball valve and float (the screw on ball) then your need to Change the venturi, they come in high pressure and low pressure and cost about 50p. You will need an h/p one That will sort out the toilet. Very easy to change over especially on brass ball vales, if you have plastic then I'd just change the whole valve.

https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200130/common_projects/43/outbuildings/2 If the floor area of the building is between 15 square metres and 30 square metres, you will not normally be required to apply for building regulations approval providing that the building contains NO sleeping accommodation and is either at least one metre from any boundary or it is constructed substantially of non-combustible materials. Our garage is Timber Frame with insulation and is right on the boundary with neighbour, but as it is slate roof and cement board rendered, this was considered sufficient to exempt it from Building regs.

Just go with this and build the garage after the house is signed off. If you want you can use a private Building Inspector for the garage but there should not be any issues.

Hi and welcome from a fellow Welshman

I did a few rough calculations about the impact of drinking softened water (I've been on a low sodium diet for years) and concluded that much of what's been written in the past about the apparent risk of drinking softened water is almost certainly scaremongering for most areas in the UK. Harvey have a couple of sections of their website that deal with this, that's worth a read: https://www.harveywatersofteners.co.uk/blog/health-effects-drinking-softened-water and also here: https://www.harveywatersofteners.co.uk/water-softener/faqs/why-it-considered-drinking-softened-water-could-be-detrimental-health . To put this into perspective, it seems important to maintain a balance between sodium intake and potassium intake, from all I've read. If you have a diet that's very low in potassium, or have a water supply that is very hard, then there may be a slightly elevated risk. I asked some questions as to whether it was OK to use softened water in our boiling water tap (an Itho, which isn't sold under that label in the UK any more) and at first was told that it wasn't OK. I then tracked down the original manufacturer of the softening filter and obtained the specification for it from them (not easy, the thing had been re-badged twice). What I found was that the softening cartridge filter that was supplied with the tap was in fact a sodium ion exchange resin cartridge that was pre-charged with sodium, so was giving out softened water that was much the same as that which comes out of our ion exchange softener (which is a Harvey unit). I went back to the tap manufacturer and asked again about using softened water, highlighting that the specification of the softening filter they supplied with the installation kit was actually a ordinary sodium ion exchange resin unit, and they wrote back saying that there was no problem using softened water with their tap at all. I was left with the feeling that their original insistence on using their (very expensive to replace) filter, and not connecting a softened water supply directly to the tap was probably a marketing ruse so that customers would feel obliged to carrying on buying very expensive, custom branded, replacement softening filters from them every six months. As far as taste goes, then I find that tea made with softened water and the boiling water tap tastes better, and doesn't have the nasty scum, than tea made using a kettle and our local fairly hard water. I suppose it's a matter of taste, but we lived in Cornwall for many years, then South West Scotland for a few years, so we're very used to the taste of tea made with very soft water, and found the taste of the hard water when we moved down here pretty unpleasant.

Four kids in a motorhome for a year would send any sane person over the edge.

This looks terrific @D Walter. Is this a self build or main contractor? All looks very professional. I like the blue bricks on the curved retaining wall. With the reinforced concrete walls and floors it will feel bomb proof! Did you look at doing a blog, as I had to switch between this topic and this one If you did this as a blog it keeps the thing together and the comments appear at the bottom of each blog entry.

Forget sand and cement, its the worst advice given by far Ideally you should be gluing and screwing at least a 6mm layer of plywood down and then sticking the trays down into a bed of flexible tile adhesive. Wet / prime the ply first and then it'll stick like shit to a blanket.

We used Pear Stairs. Very good service and at the time, the best price we could get for solid oak with 10mm thick glass panels. They do custom designs via an online service, and send you a link to a 3D model of your stairs so you can see what they will look like before you commit to the order.

I find that if I stop, I take a long time to start again. Therefore I cannot stop, every night i'm out there doing something for minimum 3 hours it is difficult with 3 kids under 6, to balance work, build and supporting the wife, but If I don't do it, no one else will...