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Timber frame started arriving today from PYC. Frame up this week and probably into early next week. Windows from Green Building Store installed by the PYC team next week so, all going well, watertight in a couple of weeks. At last, it's finally happening!

Just leave a robo mower on the roof?

Just wanted to come back to this, we have been in touch with our CC supplier and they are apparently no longer allowed to refuse CC facilities on that “risk” factor. They are no longer allowed to hold the payment for a set period either. As long as credit checks etc. are OK, they can allow the terminal without a value restriction. At least our supplier can (worldpay). Obviously in the process of setting this up now with them.

We compromised on our stairs as we wanted oak and steel but have ̶E̶l̶e̶p̶h̶a̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶ Kids going up and down ours so chose to carpet all but the bottom step and use metal in spindles only. Pleased with how it turned out but really like the open oak risers as in post above.

The treads will be clad in 20mm thick oak, which will reduce the gap by 40mm. Here are a couple of photos from today.

Hello again - I posted some time ago about my small build garden plot with the tricky parking and am pleased that my new neighbours and I have similar ideas with regard to parking. We're hoping the planners will be in agreement when we submit for full planning though my architect is suggesting I might have to submit a whole new application as this plan differs quite a bit from the outline plan which has been approved. I'm currently working with the architect and this is our first draft. North is where the front door is. I'd prefer the kitchen area to be the opposite end of the living area - so that it is adjacent to the bathroom and I'd like patio doors on the west side and smaller patio doors where he's put the current bifolds. Any glaring omissions I might be unaware of?

My kitchen is about 12 by 8 and I use a 3W LED from pendant. Fine for me. Up in Scotland, when it gets cold, I am told people sit around the table lamp. When it gets really cold, they turn it on.

I wonder if that result takes into account that the pressure was at 60 Pa, rather than 50 Pa. Considering that just about every window cill had a leak, I think that is alright. There was also a leak by the WBS air inlet, forgot to mention that one. But as you are probably going to change the pipe, it is not really an issue.

I tend to release the sleeve slightly with both the Bosch and the Makita to make sure the bit is properly home. Quick check though is point it down and pull the trigger ... soon falls out, especially if you’re up a ladder ... ask me how I know ..!

Make the joists narrower as 18mm is “just” enough when you use it at 400mm centres. Go to 300mm and you will be fine. In your situation I think that only adds 2 joists so not a lot of extra cost. The big gain is glueing the floor to the joists with a D4 polyurethane glue which basically makes the whole floor and joist structure one solid piece.

I went ahead and bought a 20mm masonry bit from Screwfix for £13.49, it is an Erbauer which is a brand I now have more respect for having used my Erbauer sliding mitre saw for a couple of months. Anyhow back on subject, I loaded the new bit into the SDS Bosch chuck this evening which was my first encountered an SDS chuck. Am I correct in thinking an SDS chuck is not a finely engineered creation suitable for a NASA mission to repair a wonky satellite? There must be a few mm of wobble at the cutting end of the drill bit and the drill vibrates due to the bit wobble even with hammer mode switched off.

I hope I did, too. Some thoughts on the subject: https://edavies.me.uk/2012/12/sketchup-component-layers/ https://edavies.me.uk/2014/01/sketchup-components-and-groups/ My preference is to use components rather than groups, as explained in the second of those posts.

That photo was taken a few months ago, there is a wall on the other side.

Ok.. . thanks for that tip Christine... will do. ?

A lesson in what happens if an untrained person does some wiring, and the bloke in the shop does not advise him. I have lost count of how many times I have found inappropriate cables and loads just spurred off a 32A ring final with not other protection.

If you leave the 1.5mm² 'protected' by the larger fuse, then it can lead for example to your smaller wire burning out before the fuse itself - which (in addition to allowing a bigger current through, fire hazard etc) is a far more complex thing to mend afterwards. Apols if adding eggs to your aniseed balls to suck. F

The bloke's right. You need to either fit a fuse or fit a suitably rated MCB to protect the 1.5mm² lighting circuit, as the 2.5mm² (assuming it's a radial) will have a higher rated overload protective device. Often it makes sense to fit a "garage CU", so that the circuits in the shed can be split into a power circuit (with a 16 A or 20 A MCB) and a lighting circuit (usually with a 6 A MCB).

On BH, as soon as you say the magic word ' architect ' some of us (the nicer bunch ?) see your bank balance taking fire from a machine-gun. Others disagree. I wouldn't want your thread to be diverted into a common cul de sac. If you want an architect, get one. You might like to investigate what an Architectural Technician can do for you as well. Architects design - thats all (can you hear the howl from most architect's offices ?) . Doesn't matter all that much what the build system is. Yes, it would be just tickety boo if you got lucky and found an architect with both a sense of humility and humour who knew her way round an ICF block. Thing is, if she did, what would that change about the design? A little bit here and there maybe , but it wouldn't change the look, feel, essence, dare I say the soul of the place. At your stage of the planning phase I didn't know that architects rely heavily on Structural Engineers. They're the ones that do the hard sums - they are the ones who say whether its safe to (say) build a roof quite like the one you have always dreamed about, or how much rebar (reinforcement bars) the ICF needs. Hence the common sneer - architects are merely educated artists. Unjustified in my opinion. Here's the thing: our SE had no idea how much (in our case ; little) rebar our ICF (Dursiol) needs. However a specialist Dursiol SE did know. Result ; saved several thousand pounds. The original SE was brilliant at designing the foundations for our place - the Durisol SE had no idea how to design foundations. You know the design you want. Sure you need an architect? If bits of the design are ' interesting ' you'll need an SE. You may well find a hesitancy on the part of architects to merely rubber stamp your design. Here's a link to the official list of architects in the Abingdon area. Here's a checklist about briefing an architect Good luck! Ian

Your ICF supplier should be able to help. Most have in-house SE.

FYI, You might actually be better with a Architectural Technologist if you have your design sorted, and you just need someone to formalise it and make sure it goes together. Have a look here and you can contact them to see what their experience is of ICF https://ciat.org.uk/find-a-practice.html?q=&search_by=location

I know its just you in the house but.....don't do it, a washing machine on a internal timber floor will sound awful when it gets up to full spin.

I’ve just used Bostick grey flex from Wickes with black limestone and it looks good.

One O'Clock and only a couple of ground floor panels left to do. They're flying through it... All panels fully insulated with Warmcel, and lined with Smartply ProPassiv. No insulation to do (apart from the intermediate floor) and panel joints ready for airtightness taping.

bottom line has always been and always will be cheap drills don,t last --but if you only using big sizes once --then cheap is maybe ok you want drills to last --then slow down the speed ,lubricate the cut if possible and don,t let them get hot,cos that will blunt them quicker than anything "speeds and feeds" as my dad kept telling me he started work in whitworths in manchester ,then onto Gorton tank --they made steam locos and when you are using a clamp on hand powered drilling railway chassis to fasten bits on --you don,t want to be blunting drills to often you soon learn all about drill sharpening ,seems to be a dying art now and then machine tool company in the 30,s --

? https://www.screwfix.com/c/tools/drill-bits/cat12140001?drillbittype=masonry&productdiameter=25_mm#category=cat12140001&drillbittype=masonry&productdiameter=18_mm|20_mm|22_mm|25_mm Even I have a few of these. In my poor quality Titan SDS, the drill tip is like the Aussie Eurovision entry.

So far so good, nothing damaged and they have already started lifting the panels off the lawn and getting them in to place. I'm doing a Brinno time lapse of the build, so I'll post something up at the end. Even the dog is not stressed by this..... but then again, he's a retired guide dog and not much phases him!

In just 4 weeks it will be midsumers day and the nights will start to draw in.

What I do, 3 monthly billing, even though it costs more, which is annoying, I was on a direct debit, but after EDF tried to take £2500 out of my account, then a day later £2000 and then a day after that £1000, leaving me with bank charges of £90, which neither EDF or my bank would refund easily, I changed to back to cash/cheque method. As most of you know, I have my own energy monitor and keep a keen eye on my usage, yesterday was 6 kWh. It is useful having a display as it quickly picked up when my fridge when permanently on and was burning though an extra 3 kWh/day (the inside was not frozen so suspect gas had come out). I am sure there are some people that have had problems with billing when a smart meter is installed, but I suspect there are less of them compared to the older system. I also suspect that it is not the smart meter that is the problem, probably an admin problem.

I think that demolish and replace is a good option. I think that like cable systems being unreliable at the connections, there are loads of complications at the joint between the old and new in all the different spheres .. electric, leakage etc. And new build has huge tax and simplicity advantages. Ferdinand

Think it has finally done what it is meant to do. You have struggle to see the numbers.

As the guys say one or two Willis heaters will cost under a £100. We've got a decent spec 4 double bedroom house, and we keep it toasty over winter with one Willis heater, and as F say the advantage is that having this makes your ASHP non-critical in terms of maintenance: if it goes offline even for a month in the winter the incremental cost is in the £10s.

https://www.birdfood.co.uk/swallow-nest-box.html Why not fit a nest box on the wall, then they should leave the camera alone.

I think @PeterStarck has a modular staircase that he fitted himself which looked good. You don't necesarily have to go for steel. I was going down that path but out of the 3 that came to look/quote, none of them ended up giving me a quote (no reasons given, nada...pretty typical service down this way it seems). If it's a fairly straight forward design, then you may have more luck, but I guess many are concerned not only with the design itself but also the BRegs. Have you considered something like this in timber? Have decided to go for that design mysef now. Certainly cheaper than steel. Also think of the glass and all that cleaning if you have 'little hands' to deal with....

Funny story for you. I once helped fit out a canal boat for a senior engineer at what was then the Central Electricity Generating Board. This engineer established folk hero status in power generation circles during a winter storm back in the 1970's . He was a duty engineer at Oldbury and as the storm progressively knocked out supplies to Bristol the whole city became dependent on the output of the nuclear power station. They set up a TV in the control room and tuned it to ITV and coronation street, he then had to anticipate the advert breaks and crank up the output in anticipation of all those kettles being switched on.

I have a 55mm masonry bit and it’s 600mmm long ! One of my jackhammers has a drilling function..... it’s a beast and one of the more dangerous pieces of kit I own....... used it before I purchased a core drill for drilling holes in bedrock to secure metal fence posts.

Now you are scaring me ha ha... So here is what I am dealing with... This is my first reply from a local architect.. 'Dear Wendy, I suggest you contact Building Control at Vale of White Horse, as they will be the authority approving your extension. They will let you know if the product is suitable or not.'

Has anyone had trouble getting a video onto Youtube recently. Uploaded it OK, but it has been stuck in processing, so uploaded again, same thing, and did the same this morning