Leaderboard

With the rough casting having completed its two month cleansing period, I was keen to get painting. I started with a roller but found it to be ineffective in getting into all the nooks and crannies, therefore this was going to be a brush job. Most of the time was spend dealing with the edges near windows, cladding and soffits. The use of insulation sheets provided a good screen to any paint gone in the wind. I concentrated on the gables first and was able to use trestles to paint the rest. A good few weekends, evenings and days off later we were able to take down the remaining scaffolding. I have a bit more to do but will have the levels brought up around the house first. Tiring but satisfying work and it was good to see how the white contrasts with the cladding and windows. The next external job will be fitting the treatment plant and bringing up the levels. A separate entry will deal with our progress inside.

... for our visiting hedgehogs ?

Just been reading up on this and according to thehedgehog.co.uk "We also used to suggest chopped peanuts, but recent research shows that hedgehogs eating larger quantities of these, can suffer from brittle bones as the calcium gets leaked out of the system by eating too many." Cat food, particularly chicken flavour, appears popular so may give that a try, but bacon is another no no - presumably they turn into Porkupines ?

Ref fitting the screen to the floor, @Nickfromwales says: I would add, again on Nick's advice, to leave the CT1 to set for 72 hrs. Saying that only on the basis of when I did my wall hung WC and I've CT1 there behind the pan, backing up the securing bolts.

We've got some great footage of the hedgehogs in our garden. We put peanuts out for them and we've filmed them fighting, mating etc. We've also caught on video voles and a pair of mice that pinch some of the peanuts before the hedgehogs come. I'm hoping to have time to make a hedgehog house for them to hibernate in this winter.

The sparkie had done his bit and we were now waiting on the plumber. Not much to see here just your standard first fix plumbing. We had a couple of dust sheets removed before the scaffold went down. It was great to have our kitchen view back it had been almost a year. Moving onto the ducting I had previously ordered. A 45 degree bend was deemed easier to fit so now I got to get that ordered. We also had our brickie complete the stove blockwork. We were keen to incorporate some meaty concrete blocks around the stove. Next up is plasterboarding and the end of first fix.

I’ve been putting off updating my “actual costs” spreadsheet and have accumulated around six months invoices and receipts. It’s taken me five hours to print them all off, enter the details into my VAT reclaim spreadsheet and to then file them in date order. The good thing is, I’m on target to finish the whole build at around £1150 per metre square. All I need to do now is get a local estate agent to value the place to see if it’s been worth the effort so far and if it’s worth upping the internal specification a tad to maximise final value, not that I’m gone to sell, just interested !?

I will visit the DIY Kitchens showroom up in Pontefract next Friday. I will be stopping off on my way from my current home (Hampshire) on my way to my holiday in Scotland. It will be first visit to their showroom and the first time seeing their full range of kitchens. Given it may be only visit before I specify my kitchen for my forthcoming build, and, given how far away the showroom is from where I live down South, it may possibly be my only visit to the showroom, does anyone have any advice on how best to use the visit to best effect?

You'll need to upscale the dimensions of that plan if you want to house Buffalo in it! ?

Samples are huge - basically you buy a door that is about 350x250mm for £5..! Lots of free drinks and cake - can make it a 2-3 hour trip easily. Not the easiest place to find as the showroom is to the right hand side of the main factory. Take lots and lots of photos - some of the detail around the end cabinets and some of the infill stuff is very clever and it’s all done with standard components.

There's a straight flight sitting in the front garden of a house in Dornoch that I am working at, removed as they have reversed the stairs and fitted a new set. A long way to come for you to collect them.

Basic plans available here - https://littlesilverhedgehog.com/2016/01/26/build-a-hedgehog-house/

We need to know the cost per square metre of this new house.

Yes you will get air ingress through the conduit. I used 25mm conduit for various cables from bedrooms and lounge through loft and used rubber stoppas by pro clima both ends and I still had condensation build up at the top of the conduit in the loft so moist air from the house was still getting through. I ended up following advice on here from jsharris to use amalgamated tape

you register when you arrive and are then free to go around yourself. Staff are about and will offer some help & guidance. They also have pc's running their design software so take dimensions with you. You can pick up colour samples of both doors and cabinets.

we went there last Wednesday - you need 2 - 3 hrs there for a good look around. Interesting.

They love our Hosta plants. Perhaps I'll plant a few around the 'house'.

Ask them if they have sorted through the issues with their spray shop and lead times

You have to send approved plans so I sent the plans signed off by building control. Depends if there are other plans that sit alongside the PP that are suitable I guess.

Not sure - you make an assumption that they communicate but I will find out and see if that makes any difference, thanks.

Incredibly helpful thank you. That's completely altered how I'd (incorrectly) understood VAT and barn conversions. I thought 5% was payable and that part was never refundable. But now I see I can claim for not just the eligible products I buy myself at 20% but all invoices for supply and fit at 5%. We're probably going main contractor route as never done this before, not enough experience nor time to do the build ourselves, so presumably he will charge 5% on all invoices and I then claim that back after the conversion is done. Although cash flow will be stretched, that's some extra wonga I thought I'd never see again - result!

We have a bath of a similar design but a different make. The manufacturers way of dealing with the waste is to supply you with a flexible waste hose fitting. you stand the bath up off the floor slightly on blocks, connect the flexi waste, then remove the blocks lower the bath onto the floor and slide it into it's mounting clips. I hated that idea. So No 1 decision was avoid any need for the bath to ever need to come out. So that meant floor standing bath filler (as in your link) and a pop up top access waste fitting that can be serviced and cleaned from above. AVOID any kind of waste that has a mechanism to raise the waste by rotating the overflow. Such a mechanism is prone to failure and would give you a reason to have to lift the bath out to fix it. So having made the bath a "one time" fit. I then attached a stub of solid 40mm waste to the trap with a suitable hole already cut in the floor, and lowered the bath into it's surround. then connected that stub of solid waste from below which happens to be in the utility room. That room is plasterboarded and painted now but very worst case I could cut a trap in the ceiling if my plan fails and some unforeseen reason means I do have to remove the bath in the future.

Agreed.

Sigma3 are a kitchen manufacturer. They wont install. Bouncing in a drawer is an old trick salesmen used to do. But it still they still do it. Its very easy- A typical set of runners will have about 10 fixing points but only 3 are ever fixed. More are provided for flexibility. 'Watch the look in their eyes' drawers get screwed in through every available fixing into the carcase. Then the sales jumps in it for a few months after which the drawers eventually sag and are swapped for a new pair when no one is watching. Most runners for wide pan drawers are rated at between 65-75 kg by the likes of Blum, Grass, Hettich, all large manufacturers. If they could take the impact loading of a 70kg bouncing salesman without problems they would rate them at 300kg. What you have seen is the equivalent of a 7.5 tonner loaded to 20 tonnes. It wont break but its wont last

Give Chris Dewhirst a call Of Dewhirst’s estates He still does all the valuations

Use the expensive (eg Sika or Dow Corning or similar) where things get wet eg shower screens, inside shower, bottom of multipanels etc, but you may well be OK with cheaper stuff elsewhere. Personally I would not go below say Everbuild. Multipanel make you use theirs. Use one of those gummi-bear kits to make your sealant beads neat - they work. Use chemical reaction grout in bags that you self-mix not the tubs. Do not make the shower gap thinner than you will be in 20 years :-). For a lot of teh standard stuff ebay is your friend. eg Shower screens under £100. Also ikea can be surprising. I did a detailed series on my recent shower room, including full costs. Links listed here. F

Some left over OSB and EPDM (from roofing the shed), a few screws and stainless staples and, voila, one weatherproof home. Awaiting EPC and building regs sign-off, but with luck the new occupants can move in very soon. Tomorrow's job is to position an Arlo camera in the hope of getting some video footage of our spiky friends ?

The main contractor will pay 20% VAT on the materials, but assuming he is VAT registered he will then reclaim that 20% from the government. He will then charge you 5% VAT, which he will pay on to the government. (This isn't a special process BTW, it's the same thing that happens if buying and selling at 20%. In practice once a quarter he will be adding up all the VAT on purchases and sales and just paying/reclaiming the difference). Therefore overall it won't make a difference to the main contractor's figures. However he may be out of pocket for a short period. That will depend on when you pay him, when he has to pay the supplier, and how those two dates fit with the timing of his quarterly VAT returns. If the main contractor is not VAT registered (fairly unlikely unless a tiny firm) then he won't charge you VAT at all. However he will have paid 20% VAT on the materials, which neither he nor you will be able to reclaim - so in that case you would definitely be better getting them yourself.

When I asked for cement fibre backer board (and gave a few brand names like Aquapanel, Hardie) the guys at the BMs just looked at me blankly. Eventually the manager was summoned, he scratched his head, and then went and found some in the racking at the back of the shop. So clearly the vast majority of builders aren't using the stuff, and must be using PB instead.

Most roof trusses are about 50mm thick. Most posi joists are nearer 100mm thick. I cannot immediately see an easy way to stamp a bottom chord of a posi joist to the rest of the structure of an attic truss that is much thinner.

Hello all...back from the wilderness of BT broadband...or rather lack of it. It was their problem all along. A cabinet miles away with fibre head issues. Taken them an age to get it sorted, half the village has been off. 2 engineers here telling me all was OK when clearly not, the only way they pursued further was because I showed them the village facebook page with dozens of people with the same problem. That defaulting to 4g hotspot on imac really confused the issue for me for a few days. Thanks for all your help guys.