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Um I slipped and fell on it...

Good luck man. I REALLY hope you get the desired outcome, I don’t think I could cope with another disaster on this thread...... it’s not even my roof and I am nervous ?

1. take a hammer, gently tap wall until note changes, take 1 nail approx 50mm wire, hit nail gently into wall where you think stud is. if it doesnt hit timber move nail to side where stud is thought to be, repeat previous step until stud found. 2. to other side of stud repeat above until edge is found, mark midddle of stud. 3. repeat as necessary along wall. costs - minimal, accuracy - quite high. works on pipes and cables but results are more interesting.?

Thanks @Ed Davies I ran your code at 9600 and deduced my Ardiono Nano has a buffer of 64 bytes. Beyond that I start seeing big delays up to about 20mS So baud rate now up to 250000 (the fastest the serial monitor will run at) and I am down to 1-2 mS for my 100 character message Until you mentioned this I had never considered that writing a few messages to the screen might have messed up my timings.

If your timber frame is wrapped in Tyvek or similar, and is going to be clad with blockwork, then go round and stick down EVERY joint. At our last house we didn't, and there was obviously a loose flap of tyvek, and when the wind blows in a certain direction you can hear this loose end flapping. It sounds like the house is farting.

There are thermal &/or financial costs to any deviation from an ideal form factor with minimal glazing. Budget, plot, planning policy and personal taste determine where each individuals 'sweet spot' is. We are going for an over glazed, cantilevered reverse level house, we accept that it will cost more and be less efficient, but to us, in our specific case, we think it is worth it. As a result the square meterage is less than it might have been & I am doing all I can to minimise the penalties..... Managing the thermal bridges from the steels and overheating are two of the things I am keenest to get on top of. I am hoping for clever ideas from the frame designer & architect to help with the former and relying on external shading of the south facing Windows and rooflights for the latter. If you are going for the cantilever for practical rather than aesthetic reasons you could consider supporting it with posts, that would be cheaper, and more efficient, but less dramatic.

Use the PVGIS site to calculate the incident average kWh energy on your windows. You will see that (depending on shading) that thermal cooling to mitigate excess solar gain in spring and autumn is going to be as much of a challenge as heating in the 2-3 peak winter months. External shutters are effective but can be unsightly and are expensive. A combination of reflective film, internal blinds, always circulating UFH (which redistributes heat from the in -sun hot spots around the entire slab), and boost MVHR can mitigate the overheating to an acceptable level. I have yet to come across an example of a member's architect who really understands these issues.

On our last build, Peter built a wooden box with a hinged lid. The lid was oversized and covered in roofing felt. His carpentry skills leave a lot to be desired so it was not a pretty box but it was very functional. It moved on to our next door neighbour once we had a letter box who were also building. it worked well and cost nothing.

Very effective these are if you have toilets prone to blockage. We had one of them in the old house we knocked down, and after demolition it ended up on a pile of stuff to be skipped. During a break, I came out with load of cups of tea to find the builders sitting near the pile, with one of them idly playing with the plunger (including holding it at the "operative" end - and it had certainly never been properly cleaned before disposal). "Do you know what that is?", I asked. He stopped, looked at it, and about 5 seconds later said "It's a toilet plunger, isn't it". Oh how we laughed.

Another eBay 20% off code including a handful of 'house' related sellers. New eBay code PAYDAYFEB gives 20% off selected sellers. Min spend is £25 and maximum discount is £75, limit of one redemption. The code will run until 23:59 on 28th February 2019 Link to sellers and terms and conditions

No, you've definitely got a second free go. You've paid two fees you've got two free resubmissions

I had a free go when I applied for planning for a loft conversion and was refused. I was told at the time that as long as the free go is broadly the same thing as the original then it counts. However I would never take a planners word for anything in the future having dealt with some total bar stewRds down my way, get in in writing first.

my wife gets the blame as well

I don't think it's been mentioned but if installing a new CU all the existing circuits will have to be tested, therefore you can expect the electrician to be all over the house taking reading as well as a lot of testing of the circuits at the new CU location. A new cert will have to be issued and the work is under part P regs.

Now that’s not a chipper.... This is a chipper ...!! Tracked diesel Linddana TP 160 ... the 160 refers to the maximum branch size, this is it chewing an 8m tall Leyllandi... 2A9ADDBA-1B43-4005-9907-A307845A795C.MOV

Get him to asses your likely total load. 60A will probably be quite adequate unless you have some seriously big loads.

Reminds me of the sex toy or dog toy quiz that was doing the rounds at some point. The links to that are too crude for this family friendly forum lol (google is all yours if you want something more graphic) so I’ll just put the dog toys here Dog Toys

https://www.wickes.co.uk/Spax-Chipboard-Flooring-Screws---4-5-x-60mm-Pack-of-300/p/140812 These screws really are the rolls Royce of flooring screws, but you can get away with something a bit cheaper

This is blatant click bait by @pocster what fun!

Absolutely. But if you're sending at less than about 100 kbaud and the (not-yet-known) transmit buffer size for the Arduino Nano is noticeably shorter than your message then your code could still be delayed beyond the end of the current 10ms time slot potentially causing a blip in your PWM code or whatever. Here's the Arduino code I was using on the ESP32 to test the buffer size: char str[200]; void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); for (unsigned i = 0; i < sizeof(str); i++) str[i] = '0' + (i % 10); str[sizeof(str)-1] = '\0'; } void loop() { unsigned long start = millis(); Serial.println(str); unsigned long end = millis(); Serial.print("Start: "); Serial.print(start); Serial.print(", end: "); Serial.print(end); Serial.print(", length: "); Serial.println(end - start); sleep(1); } Just tweak the size of str, declared on the first line, to try different buffer lengths until the operations start and end at the same time (“length: 0”).

Or if you can get it cheap enough, Egger Protect is very good. It is coated both sides, easy to clean and you can tile onto it.

You forgot gloves. And isopropyl for when you forget your gloves and d4 glue gets entwined in your dna. If the short join is in between joists that's fine, doesn't have to land on a joist. It will be glued so the board on the run before and after that join will it hold up.

It's just run-of-the-mill stuff for most frame companies, and they should just include whatever structural stuff is needed in their design, including steels, if needed. You just need to watch the thermal detailing carefully, as it can be tricky to reduce thermal bridging where you have steels poking out from the main structure.

...again???

I bought the Screfix one three weeks ago. Last weekend spent 5 hours over 2 days shredding up to the 4cm odd limit branches and it coped admirably, I was scared to put thicker ones in, but it seemed like it will cope with anything up to the thickness of the hole that you can push them into. First time I had ever used such a device. The only drawback of a smaller chipper seems to be that you have to cut branches off any wider bushier examples that you have.

Either that or your hand in a tesco bag. I know what one I'm picking.

You bought one spare no doubt. A&E trip later is it?

I fitted one of these: https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/CGMSF100.html with an 80 A fuse, so if there is a major fault that fuse will (hopefully) blow before the 100 A DNO fuse (I hope it never does!).

Well! Got it working but not sure how/why. After messing around I finally removed the main devolo plug from the extension lead. As it can't be plugged directly into the socket (the socket is installed up side down) I plugged it into ANOTHER extension lead on it's own. WORKS! (I think ).

OK - this is not difficult in terms of what needs to be done, but may prove difficult in execution depending on age of your house and the way it is wired. If it was me, and I was doing this in my property or indeed specifying how these works were to be done, I would first create a new sub-main, so from meter tails, into a 100A switchfuse at the meter end, then out on a new cable to another isolator (so you can isolate whole CU locally) before your CU. The sub-main cable would ideally be a appropriately sized split concentric cable (LSZH - low smoke zero halogen is best for internal use like this), probably a 16mm² or 25mm² (depends on your supply rating) or SWA (they end up bigger overall diameter) - however, you could use T&E or even meter tails in conduit - with all cable options except split you really need to have a separate 16mm earth cable - check your split concentric spec, it should have 16mm² on 25mm². You cannot rely on steel armouring for your earth. Depending on route and protection you would really need to protect the whole sub-main with an RCD which is not ideal so I would look into a suitable route and almost certainly use split concentric - that is what the DNO would run. Then to the final circuits, ideally I would want to pull in new cables from the first and last socket on each ring and new feeds to the lighting, cooker, shower radials, this way you do not end up with a junction box to extend all the cables back to your new CU - that is just messy and can impact circuit suitability.

Okay if you are happy to keep the meter in it's box on the outside wall, you do not have to move it, You can keep it there, and your electrician can run a new submain via a switch fuse to the new consumer unit location. My previous comment was made on the assumption the meter was on the wall inside the garage. That new submain will have to be something like steel wire armoured cable to avoid the need for having to rcd protect that run.

The only points I would make are 1 - Have a master off switch inserted on the supply side of your CU, such that it can be worked on more safely and you can switch everything off should you need. 2 - Think carefully about future expansion possibilities. The extra cost will not be that much. Though you are perhaps doing both anyway. F

(Just before anyone asks - Jeremy and his village got bonfires banned). I had a thread on this 2 years ago, where I ended up with a Qualcast Electric one from Argos. The Qualcast was a rebrand of what seemed to be a standard mechanism in a lot of them. It has proved satisfactory for what I do across a couple of renovation projects and my own garden. The reason I went for that was that it was £90 whilst the others with the same mechanism were up to £150-200. It does not do substantial branches (yes, I know - a definition on wheels), but they can go for somebody's log burner outside your valley, especially where you are. It does not cope brilliantly with very green branches, but is acceptable to me OK. What it does do is compress the stuff about fourfold to fit in the garden dustbin. I think you have 2 options - go for something that is petrol driven and a heavy duty shredder; or go for something more like mine that is more a compressor and crusher. Bosch, for example, have some electric ones at more like £300-400. I would suggest going for a decent electric on the best deal, which is cheapo enough to give away or throw if you hate it, and consider something bigger if you turn out to need it. I would say borrow mine for a day, but it is rather a long way and I am not due down there in the next month. Bosch: https://www.garden4less.co.uk/bosch-quiet-garden-shredder-2500W-axt-25-tc.asp What seens to be the current version of mine at Argos: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/7501935 F ---------------------------------------------- So .. bought one of the 2.8kw electric ones this morning for just around £90 (Qualcast / Argos), and it was happy to shred probably 80% of all the stuff. Shredded some of the stuff already in the skip, which made enough space that the shredded remainder (except obvious fire wood) would fit in the space created thereby. @recoveringacademic will be keeping a couple of bulk bags full back so that I have some available if I need any. The shredder is adequate for branches up to about 40mm, and just needs not to be driven too hard. I can see me having this, and a secondhand lower end petrol powered one able to do things up to about 3-4" - and not one of the middle sized ones. Thanks for all the help. Ferdinand

by the way, EWI can seem a bit daunting but is in my view a superior approach where it is feasible. I have 100mm of graphite EPS EWI with a render finish and it has made a huge difference. It is a bit of a project though and cant' be done a room at a time like IWI so I can understand you being put off. There are sometimes external detailing headaches as well so it's not always ideal. And there may be conservation reasons which rule it out. But, these issues aside, it does remove all the condensation and cold bridge headaches. There are now lime render products for EWI for heritage applications as an existing rendered period house would look wrong with a modern render such moncouche or thin coat over EWI. But you can float finish pre-coloured lime over EWI or apply a mineral paint over a lime base, both look lovely.

I can't find a citation but recall reading about the use of breathable systems to mitigate the risk of interstitial condensation. If I recall correctly a higher (i.e. less insulating) u-value was designed (and accepted by BC) such that sufficient heat would move into the uninsulated wall to reduce or prevent formation of condensation in any void between the insulation and the old internal wall. I guess this would drive the dew point further out into inte fabric of the solid wall where it would form and evaporate harmlessly (assuming outward vapour open wall build up to allow diurnal/seasonal flux). The system here was wood fibre and lime plaster, vapour open, no VCL. Another approach would be to use an insulating plaster. There are various products on the market using cork, perlite and other additives typically to a lime based plaster. These are not such good insulators so a much greater thicknesses is required to achieve a given u-value. However, the nice thing here is there is no interstitial void so any condensation that forms would do so in the outer fabric of the wall. It might be that cost, the removed condensation risk, and desire to not lose too much internal space, would mean BC might accept an improved u-value that didn't meet the normal target. just as an example, the manufacturer of Bauwer light claims a u-value of 0.5 when applied @ 80mm over a 600mm solid stone wall. in these examples the u-value was traded off against mitigation of condensation in the interstitial void in the void by heat transfer or removing the void entirely. In either case, a u value of 0.5 I think would make for a dramatic improvement over a solid stone wall.

There are 2 parts to this. Firstly you need an electrician to move the consumer unit, which almost certainly means replace it with a new one in the process. There will usually be a lot of cables to re route so don't underestimate the amount of work and disruption to the building., Then you need to get the DNO to move the supply head to the new location. The cost for that will not be cheap, and again there is the disruption to the building to get the new supply cable in to the new location. A half way house is leave the supply head where it is and feed via a switch fuse to the new consumer unit, but if the object is to get all the stuff out of the garage then that does not really achieve that.

He means TT, TN-S or TN-C-S earthing.

what kind of supply/ earthing do you have?

One of my favourite jobs when it's going well. I even used up the scraps to gain some brownie points when I was doing my step flashings.

Stick built means from lengths of timber on site, nailed and cut to size. Usually make them to fit openings etc, clad in OSB and then put into place. Measure and do the next...

Taclife dms05 seems to get better ratings than the Bosch . In the final photo it has a bloke holding it on the ceiling and it says “ceiling detector “ ; f’ing clever that !

My misses thought I was up to no good when I told her I was looking for a “stud finder” ... ?

I've quoted recently for 48m2 worth of windows and the prices range from £356 to £485 per m2. You can see a chart of them below: PM if you want the breakdowns in excel! Edit: X axis is the area averaged U value of the whole window (glass and frame combined)

I used to lay hedges For a living before moving onto stone, at the end of one arduous day after cleaning up the brash and rounding up the fires I was walking back to the tractor, there was a small log about 100mm x 200mm long and without thinking I thought it would be good to kick it really hard to get it to hit the fire that was some ways off....... stupid stupid stupid. It was a blackthorn and what I did not see was a large spike (they are poisonous and that’s why @JSHarris suffered inflammation) the spike went through the top of by wellington boot and a serious amount went directly into the top of my foot. I was in the middle of some remote field in Lincolnshire with an ancient tractor and a long drive to the nearest A&E, this was before mobiles. Unable to walk out and incapable of driving the tractor with this spike still in my foot and still sticking through the boot I tried to pull it out and it snapped of leaving a good chunk in my foot. A&E tried for a long time to dig it out by cutting in as far as they dared but without major foot surgery they could not get at it and sent me away with antibiotics, it took 3 courses of pills as each time I thought it was better I would then knock my foot and the poison would set of another major inflammation....... I guess at some point my body just absorbed all the bad stuff as after a few months of problems it cleared up for good. Anyway seriously off topic........ but don’t feck around with blackthorn!