Leaderboard

Slates are a natural material, do it properly and spend some time researching how it is important to cut them so they feather at the edges. How and where you tail a slate at a valley / verge say. Why not buy say twenty slates and a slating axe, I have a left handed one so you can get these too. Once you have done your research and had a play with a few samples then you are well on your way to a good job. Don't use a grinder or other gizmos.. you are inviting trouble.. your roof will not last as long. I have copied below some of a previous post which may help give an over view. Don't bother with a slate cutter. To get you started, buy a slating axe. I have a left handed one.. I use an off cut of a steel I beam over which I dress the slates. You need to grade the slates. The thicker and wider ones go at the bottom near the eaves. I grade second hand slates ( you need to do this with new slate too to make a proper job) into three piles. You can do four but you may lose the will to live. Grading the slates basically helps you keep the roof tight and flat. Have a look at an old slated roof and you will see thicker wider slates at the bottom, thinner narrower ones at the top. When you get to the verge or a valley you need to turn the slate and trim it the other way. What you are doing here is to encourage the water to move back into the roof in the case of a verge.. so it does not drip down the gable walls. In the case of a valley you are trying to stop constant dripping on to the lead valley and making a hole over the years. You try and channel the water down to the gutter so it drips here and this is where you often have a thicker lead piece. You call this "tailing" of the slate. This can't really be done with a machine..it's a craft. In Scotland it rains a lot, much is light rain.. so it drips a lot. In England say you tend to have much more intense rain.. thus the flash flooding but more dry spells and less of that constant dripping. The new home warranty providers and a lot of the slate providers require that all slates are double nailed at the head. Great if your poviding a 10 year warranty, eg if a slate cracks you often don't see it as it does not fall out like a single nailed slate. But a good well maintained roof should last for at least 80 years? For the roof pro's.. repairing a double nailed / every slate roof is hard going? You can fix the slate but the slate ripper causes more damage that is hidden? Yes there are repair type clips and so on but.. A common traditional method of slating in Scotland is to single nail each slate in the main part of the roof. Every third course you cheek nail a row of the slates, these slates now have three nails and stop the ones below from lifting off in the wind. This way when you want to maintain the roof you can get into turn the slates and easily extract the broken one without damaging the felt / membrane underneath. It's worth I think trying to master this skill, it can be very rewarding. I have left this out but make sure you choose the slate nails carefully depending on whether you are near the sea or not. You'll have a bit of wastage until you get the hang of it. Use the trimmings / wastage as decorative material for paths etc? What is worth while doing is investing in a slate holing machine. You turn the slate upside down. The punch makes a concave hole in the top side of the slate and the nail head sits nicely inside so it does not tip up the slate on top..helps get the " tight roof". You can hole the slates by hand but I would suggest getting a feel for cutting / shaping / tailing them first.

Can it be done with the other services? I just got a refund from UK power because they shared the dig and road closure with the water people.

Be honest and offer him cash on a daily/weekly basis, he may prefer it that way.

Time was when I could lift as well as move paving slabs with a bit of muscle, a maccho attitude and a sore back. Yoof, wasted on the young innit? But time also flies. And I'm not even going to pretend I can do that now. And @epsilonGreedy-like, this is DIY MAX. So a two man slablifter is off the menu. One of these bad-boys is what I want, what I really really want . But notice the cheeky little pop-up at the top of the webpage... Bastard. Lifting tongs won't cut it too small, suction cups: two-man. Whats needed here is a combination of @Onoff's creativity and attention to detail, @Construction Channel's what-could-go-wrong attitude and @pocster's fookitImdoingitanywayism and @Temp's extensive knowledge of Internet content to come up with a simple design which allows me - on my own - to SAFELY pick up a proper big-boy paving slab move it across the site lay it in almost the right spot supply the correct dose of Parcetamol after a session of slab laying. What could go wrong, Ed. ?

There has been much discussion on the short supply of materials etc on the forum, so I'm not repeating it here. Suffice to say, the progress on the house itself is best described as "hurry up and wait". The upstairs windows are all installed, the downstairs are due to go in when the scaffolding finally goes away (any day now?), and the cladding is completed as far as is possible while waiting for the MVHR and air conditioning equipment. The sewage treatment plant arrives very shortly (thankfully no shortage here) so we have taken the opportunity to find out what is in the garden in order to install the plant and dig an attenuation pond for drainage. We would also like to be able to get to the end of the garden to see what is there! The view from the road of the house illuminated by floodlights during a late evening of activity while working on the cladding. Our snowdrops seem to scale themselves to fit their surroundings. We get a good crop every year, possibly because we leave them alone. Maybe I should be wary of breeding Triffids? They aren't supposed to be on the Isle of Wight! Last year's clearance efforts are still more or less clear. The primroses have taken over somewhat, but that's far better than nettles and brambles. The stunted pear tree is finally coming good two seasons after removing the Eucalyptus that was overshadowing it. We'll get around to trimming the dead wood at the appropriate time since we missed the opportunity this year. We're hoping for more than two pears this year. The entrance to the wilderness. We are aiming to clear at least a path to the bottom of the garden established before the growing season fills the place with the usual collection of nettles, brambles, blackthorn and willow. Based on the current growth, we don't have that much time left! We have a pathway extending at least 50 metres into the garden. This took us three days with a chainsaw, a strimmer multi-tool and a lot of wheelbarrowing. The sheer amount of dead wood is really not helping the trees - they are spreading past each other and fighting for every scrap of light until the branches get so heavy they break. We are aiming to remove only the dead wood this year so the trees can grow more sensibly and we can see exactly what we have left to work with. There is still a long way to go! Now to find something to do with the 30 barrowloads of wood. Maybe some charcoal making? Unfortunately this didn't work as well as we would have liked when the bottom of the barrel perforated in the heat, and we made a lot of ash. Oh well... time for a new plan. Finally, we are getting near the bottom of the garden. Well, at least within 30 metres. I didn't know we had all these oak trees. They are a bit too close together unfortunately so I doubt they will all stay long term. We did however find two mature oaks that are nicely spaced in another part of the garden. We can't quite get to them yet because of a thicket of blackthorn in the way. That's next week's problem unless house parts start turning up.

Boundary box- good name https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/-/media/ScottishWater/Document-Hub/Business-and-Developers/Metering-Services/200718appendicesV23April14.pdf

I have cut thousands of slates with a slaters axe and it is not hard to master, I have taught half a dozen people how to do it and it takes no more than an hour or two before they have got into the swing of it. It’s really the best way and gives a fantastic finish.

Run the pipe down the driveway and then in to either the plant room or kitchen. Wherever is a sensible place to have the internal stopcock. You normally run the pipe straight with no bends / joins etc until it's inside the building and above the floor slab. Use ducting then bringing the pipe though the footings and slab.

Ebay £500 for 10off 245 Watt panels plus rails.

On the footpath, where it says footpath on your drawing. The boxes are always installed in the public realm unless the closestain is already in private land.

What does your water Co say? Usually the water meter is in the underground Toby (stopcock) box where it enters your land.

This makes sense - yes, and I wouldn’t class that at as a retrospective policy. I think the definition of retrospective refers to exactly what you mention at the end - not being involved and then just paying for a warranty. I would strongly advise against doing the latter as it seems to be almost impossible to get financing for (at least through the traditional lender route). So as a seller you may become restricted. Thanks!

A former member who built an entirely timber clad timber framed house used these people for his insurance https://gsi-insurance.com/get-a-quote/household-insurance/#gf_10 I will be trying this in a few weeks as we are so near to completion I want to move away from the site insurance.

These are the links our MVHR guy sent us: https://www.holyoake.com/product-details/LDO-T_item.html https://www.koolair.com/en/catalogue/unidades-de-transferencia-de-aire-acustica-kat/#guia_seleccion https://www.specifiedby.com/waterloo-air-products-plc/dsr-acoustic-air-transfer-grilles

Best tenant I ever had was a bankrupt builder, had CCJs against him etc. Genuine guy, down on his luck through circumstances. The huge cash advance he waived was a factor... ? Saying that, thereafter paid on the dot and did all repairs needed as his way of saying thanks for giving him a second chance.

You are looking at this the wrong way. You don' fill in the ditch and build on it. You dig the foundations, e.g. strip foundations into the present ground at it's present height. You then build up the walls from that. The foundations will be deep with respect to finished raised ground level, but probably not especially deep with respect to existing ground level. Then you infill the area inside the garage with hard inert infill compacted in layers and pour the concrete slab on that. the ground outside the garage area if you want to raise that as well can be infilled with anything, e.g all the soil you stripped off the build area and what you dug out for the foundation trenches.

I wish!

I went with Munster/baskil and have had no issues. I went for their 3g future proof uPVC windows. Coming up on 6 years and I have had only 1 seal go which they replaced quick enough. At the time I put mine in they where a good few thousand cheaper than anyone else for similar spec Windows. Like most window companies it really depends on the fitters. They supply the vast majority of the house builders here and what they put in for them ain't great but the builders are paying peanuts for these windows so they are threw in as the fitters need to do a few houses a day to cover the wages. Get all the companies out and then compare everything and make your choice.

@MP1 Sounds like you're already committed there! Roof If you look at span tables linked a 4 metre span wants 195 mm deep beams @ 600 centres. Or 145 mm beams @ 600 centres that are a little bendy but hey who cares if there's enough fall to avoid ponding or on closer centres if you really want the roof to be more rigid. You've already got the 150x47s. Those on 400 or 450 centres with the 18 mm ply will be sturdy. Could have used 145x45s on 600 centres and 12 mm OSB if being cheap about it. Set the roof beams with a fall, put your air barrier/vapour retarder on the bottom of the beams, drop your insulation in between the beams (which is not as thick as the beams; say 100 mm or even 120 mm), then pop your roof deck ply / OSB on top of that. The space above the insulation becomes your ventilation and your buildup is perhaps 175 mm (5 mm membrane, 12 mm OSB/ply, 145 mm beams, ball hair of membrane, 12.5 mm plasterboard) Only if you wanted to drop to 95 mm beams, or wanted to use Kinsgpan type panels, to give more headroom under some height limit, would you need any support in the middle. Wall £ for £ (or mm for mm) the timber walls with 225 mm (or even just 145 mm) of mineral wool would be warmer than the block walls with 75 mm of insulation and I think faster / easier to finish. Given where you are already it'll be your final finish (render? cladding?) that dictates what you do here more than anything else. Floor IMO: Get a few samples. First thing I did was dropped them on the ground, stabbed them with kitchen knives, scraped a brick across them, then hit them with a hammer. Fancy finishes...look screwed. Brushed finishes...look much the same afterwards. Some brands had supporting ply made of cheese. Others offered good support to the veneer and were unmarked. You'll likely end up with random lengths if buying cheap. Unpack them, sort by size (and rejects), let them acclimatise. Plan your joints to ensure that you have lots of overlap. It's difficult if they give you a pack of short bits. You'll want a 3 mm notch trowel and MS polymer adhesive. Don't get it on the face of the boards or in your hair. That includes kneeling in it. Lay your boards, bed them, and don't walk on them until it has cured. When done scuff the boards up and use a commercial duty two pack satin lacquer over the whole lot to add protection for the surface and avoid the inevitable red wine spills staining the edges by sealing it all up. If a labrador does a "cartoon dog on ice" impression the lacquer will scratch. Magic sponges (slightly abrasive melamine sponges) polish this out and leave a similar finish to a satin lacquer. The finished item gives more of a "dull thud" than a solid piece of timber on joists. It has some compliance but it's not the "laminate laid on some sponge on top of a solid floor" type feel. Difficult to describe but not unwelcome. @Nickfromwales Logic on the fatter 'service cavity' rather than fatter wall studs for achieving a given level of insulation was: - Easier to raise the (lighter) 145 walls with 70 mm service cavity added later than say a 175 mm wall with 45 mm cavity or 195 mm wall with a 25 mm service cavity. - You can order all the insulation @ 70 mm thickness rather than having to order mixed thicknesses It isn't for fat services per se; though 204 x 60 rectangular ducting fits for ventilation at low velocities, rainwater pipe for ducting mini-spilt AC lines fits, and ; you're never short on depth for shower mixers, wall hung taps etc The vapour retarder / air barrier winds up a little closer to the middle of a wall that's likely to be heated (wants vapour retarder inside) as much as it's going to be air conditioned (want vapour retarder outside) too. 45 mm works, and has the advantage that you can rip down leftover x by 45 mm timber from building the walls/roof to use as the internal battening. 25 mm works too until you want waste pipes buried without having to have half in the service cavity and half "eaten into the plasterboard" or shoved into the structural wall a bit. The 70 suggestion was for maximising the performance per £ / mm within the "150 mm thermalite plus 75 mm" kinda thickness outlined. You could use diagonal 25x50 mm strapping on the outside for shat strength if you wanted to. For the purposes of a garden room / shed...sat on a raft...with a big roof diaphragm on top...and gets horizontal cladding to the outside of the studs...double plasterboard is more than just decorative and gives useful thermal mass. OSB behind plasterboard (attached to the battens attached to the studs) is more useful to you than OSB on the outside or OSB between the studs and the service risers...because you can then woodscrew things anywhere you like on that internal wall. It's there for screwing things to wall convenience in the same way as you might ply line parts of a wooden shed. Not really needed in that structure. For a pukka house that's not short and squat and it's be a different story. In this case it's all block anyway. Oodles of shear stiffness for the size. But more laborious to build/finish and not as well insulated once done.

Sleeveless muscle vest?

You can do it, Deeds.

can't help much, but make sure you stay on the case of the solicitor, and be aware of exactly what you are buying, and what bits you might not be buying... Be a nightmare to find out after that you thought the bit where you wanted to put your garage was excluded etc.. Good luck

This was who my last customer bought from. They’re all much of a muchness. Chinese things with crap instructions etc but was ok when built. I remember having to clear CT1 a few more junctions than they indicated to be watertight.

Dave! You! ? Bad Man. (Thank God)

Have some lights now

??? bra-(expletive deleted)ing-vo ??? this goes for lots of things. You don’t have to make your life difficult all of the time.

Good question, I just wandered round here and looked at our windows, double glazed and fitted in 1993 (close to 30 years), there are over 40 individual units and none of them are blown. I would have thought that modern manufacturing would get to 30 years MTBF for triple glazed without a problem although I cannot see any guarantees that go out that far.

Compost it. Or bury it. Shred it and take to local recycling centre. But don't set fire to it, that will just piss the neighbours off.

It is, but relatively minor. I don't think this would cause issues for building regulations or anything short of a passivhaus. The balance an architect needs to strike is the building regulations, what a builder can build (i.e. what are they used to), cost and what they know works. I've seen a lot worse and with 200mm PIR the average U-value of the wall will be very low. With an internal VCL I don't think condensation will be an issue. Question the architect, if I had to mitigate it with minimal changes I'd change what the sole plate is sitting on to a course of thermoblocks.

No it does not. Sheathing with OSB or plywood is recognised for racking strength. Plasterboard is friable and is not constructional, and is only mentioned as a beneficial reinforcement in most reference documents. A structure should stand on its own prior to internal 'decorative' finishes / laminations. The steam cabinets are free standing in every unit I've ever fitted, so you can go out of the wall to an external drain which is less complication.

You're at 4m wide, no need for such OTT measures. I'm currently specifying M&E for a 400m2 passive house which has between 25mm and 35mm service cavities for a family of 6. 70mm for what exactly?

I use four main types of discs. Thin discs with metal written on them for cutting metal. Fat discs with metal write on them for grinding metal. Diamond disc for cutting stone brick etc, zipped through a couple bits of plastic with it but not as a rule. Fat discs with stone marked on them (as in your pic I think) mostly for finishing edges on stone brick slate etc. For plastic pipe I tend to put in my chop saw, or I hacksaw or I use the plastic pipe shears.

Thought I would just throw in my pennies worth. I'll start by admitting I'm no expert, but the importance of keeping inputs to a minimum is key. When we looked at the building cost and energy consumption, I did very similar sums to your own. It depends on site orientation etc, but our build thermal input worked out at a theoretical 68w/per degree for the structure. So a 10 degree difference is 680 requires 680w input. We have quite a bit of glazing and doing it all triple glazed meant we did not require the cost of complexity of an ASHP significantly simplifying the build. A couple of small towel rails are all we need to heat the house. Looking at our gas use over the past two weeks the heating has only come on twice and our total gas use has been just 70kWh mainly for hot water.

50mm sand blinding could/will percolate into the hardcore leaving a void the patio door sill is an unmitigated cold bridge more worrying is the sole plate and bottom rail of the timber frame sat on a dpc, I suspect condensation may happen on top of the dpc and if it does it will soak into the wood. Even without that problem the double plate is definitely a cold bridge.

+1 from me for air:air heat pump / air conditioner for an insulated outbuilding. Remember the condensate drain. Thinking out loud on build: I don't like the idea of trying to air-seal PIR foam to studs/joists using foil tape. It sounds like a monumental faff cutting and fitting and taping all that compared with using a dedicated air tightness/vapour retarder membrane on the inside then stuffing flexible insulation between the studs/joists. If you swap from block to timber frame then you've got 100+ mm extra depth available and won't need the high insulation values of the PIR. You probably want 195 mm joists for the roof for structural reasons so again don't need the high insulation values of the PIR. Walls Maybe don't build in blocks (slow, messy) then add a token amount of insulation externally. (and add a finish on top of that) Try: Inside: double plasterboard then horizontal battens to make 70 mm service cavity (lets you run cables, pipes inc waste pipes and A/C pipes, 205 x 60 mm ventilation ducts etc), mineral wool infill then an airtightness layer/vapour retarder membrane. (add extra horizontal battens where you want to attach really serious loads) Structure: 145x45 mm studs on 600 centres. 150 mm mineral wool infill. Outside: wind barrier membrane, vertical battens attached to studs, horizontal cladding The plasterboard provides your shear strength in this arrangement. Swap the airtightness layer/vapour retarder membrane for taped OSB if you need more shear strength. Or put an extra sheet of OSB behind single plasterboard to give shear strength and let you screw anything to any wall anywhere but note that this won't be an airtightness/vapour retarder due to all the socket holes etc. I'll be way faster, quite a bit warmer, and probably cheaper than building in block. A single storey frame that size goes up over a weekend with two blokes who know what they're doing. And when you realise that the bog drain is in the wrong place you've got enough room to sneak a bog pipe down through your wall at the expense of a little insulation. Sink drains run in the 70 mm service cavity. Roof If you do what you describe with the 6x2s, PIR, and plywood then your plywood is never going to dry. Why? Putting a sheet of plastic (air/vapour barrier) on top of grass gives you...moisture under the plastic from the moisture generating activities underneath. Do the same with your roof (EDPM or felt air/vapour barrier)...and it will rot. Your flat roof needs to be: - waterproof layer (EPDM better than felt) - support layer (OSB is fine) - VENTILATION gap - Insulated roof structure - Airtightness / vapour retarder It's fine to have an unventilated flat roof on a shed...because the entire shed is ventilated. It doesn't work for habitable buildings. For long life you probably want more like: - waterproof layer - 12 mm OSB (this is enough; go thicker if you'd like to spend more) - spacers (use 20x50 mm battens if you are creating the "fall" in the structure of the roof; use something fatter cut to an angle if you are laying the structure of the roof flat) - 195 mm C24 roof joists on 600 centres to span the full 4 metre width and avoid any beams inside (see span tables e.g. https://www.timberbeamcalculator.co.uk/span-table/flat-roof-joists?load=1&class=C16) - mineral wool between these - airtightness layer/vapour retarder (without holes through it) - plasterboard To save on height run all your cables and ventilation at high level in the walls, rather than in the ceiling. (anything that "crosses" joists should be run in the walls) Where they must go in the ceiling put them between the joists so that the plasterboard "pushes up" the membrane and the insulation slightly - fine for cables for lighting or alarms etc; don't try it for deep downlighters; and don't fit downlighters anyway wall washers will give you a nicer light) Alternative? Going for a shallower roof means a bigger fall (and letting it bend a lot) and/or internal structure (to support the shallower joists at midpoint). If you could tolerate a post where your "shelf wall" is, and making the partition wall between bathroom and gym structural, then you could have a "ridge beam" running from left to right and a very shallow dual-pitch roof with joists that are only 2 metre span. Then you're into C24 45x95s on 400 centres (or 600 centres if ok with it being bendy) rather than 45x195s. You could go with structural panels at that point; as they easily span 3 metres but are dubious at 4 metres unless you go for particularly fat ones. https://www.kingspan.com/gb/en-gb/products/insulated-panel-systems/insulated-wall-panels https://www.griffithsandson.co.uk/kingspan-insulated-seconds/66 They're fugly but if used in single pieces (no joints on the slope) you can go for a near flat roof that will outlast felt/EPDM, has U-value of between 0.15 and 0.5 (depending on which thickness you buy), and includes all the structure/airtightness that you need as part of the panel. Hide three sides from view by continuing your wall cladding up above the roofline. Either have the 4th side drain into a gutter on the non visible side or if you're braver build an EPDM box gutter on top of that 4th wall and again bring the wall cladding up to hide it. Sturctural Single sole plate and header plate on the walls. Line up your roof joists with the wall studs on 600 centres. Careful on BIG openings. You will need a structural header above the big door to carry the roof joists. Maybe 2x 195x45s in C24 - use something like this to check https://www.timberbeamcalculator.co.uk/) Push this to the TOP of the wall so that all the load is carried at high level by two pieces like this ||. Then have another piece of 145x45 mounted like this _ above your big door but don't put any vertical sticks between this and the roof. Why? These pieces || provide the roof strength. They will bend as the roof is loaded up. This piece _ provides the in/out strength for the door but has all the structure of we spaghetti in the vertical direction. By separating the loads you will avoid jamming the door or busting a window under a large opening in the timber frame. The other option is making a "solid" wall (with vertical sticks between your header and the the top of the window opening) then putting the window OUTSIDE the timber frame on an OSB or ply box. This way the wall can move under load, and the OSB/ply box will bend so that the window can stay the same size even as the size of the hole in the wall changes) (most fixed windows have 5; maybe 10 mm of movement between glass and frame before you run out of room and start loading up (breaking) the glass; most moving windows/doors can only allow 5 mm of outside frame movement before they stop opening/closing/sealing correctly; big timber frame openings will move more under load than you might expect; and not all window/door people that are used to selling to brick and steel constructions will give you the right mounting details for a timber frame) Floor If you have a raft already then gluing some foam and structure on top as nick suggests makes sense. If you're using an engineered wood finish (basically tongue and groove plywood with some veneer on top) and you glue this to 22 mm OSB (rather than gluing it to itself and floating it) then you have the equivalent of a 40 mm kitchen worktop to walk on. It won't move and saves the extra 22 mm OSB. Your bathroom might dictate otherwise. Are you going to have a drain in the floor there that you can hose down all the mud / sweat / human fur into? Does the steam shower need to drain into the floor rather than the wall?

/there's a reason I went with cheap bar mixers...

need to make sure you leave 50mm gap from the top of the insulation to the underside of the breathable membrane under the tiles. Many make the mistake of pushing the insulation between the rafters as high as it will go which is wrong and can lead to issues.

Yep. Would vastly prefer a range of styles, some of which are out there and/or ugly. Much better than estates full of dull, cloned, pastiches of another era.

While some houses are ugly they're still far more interesting than an identikit volume developer house. I love the idea of having random designs, shapes and sizes in an Almere like fashion but it sounds a real pity that the development company are constraining supply in such a way that only a certain type of household can build and only a certain type of build will be possible to meet mortgage market valuation requirements.

Everything South of say Toddington seems to be incredibly expensive. I'd like to buy a plot for under £200k to build a 120sqm detached modern house with a small garden. Having no joy via PlotBrowser / Plot Finder / Rightmove / OnTheMarket et al and local Estate Agents who almost laugh down the phone when I tell them what I'm looking for. Graven Hill appears to be the only place with a drip fed supply of practical plots but yes very expensive for how small they are and I agree there is a danger of ending up with either something extremely dull or beyond whacky either side of you.

Few more leads: - https://www.baswaacoustic.co.uk/baswaphonclassicfine - https://www.acosorb.com/acoustic-plaster - https://www.oscar-acoustics.co.uk/acoustic-solutions/oscar-elite.asp Almost certainly all a lot more expensive that standard board and skim, but I'll try to call a few and get some ballpark prices..

Floor DPM, bearers, insulation and P5 chipboard

I've done some digging. For a 100m² slab you are talking in the region of £35m² for insulation forms, delivery and design. For your hardcore, binding, DPM/ tanking, mesh, rebar, concrete & floating, you are talking £75/m², excluding initial groundworks. Remember you'll have less excavation, disposal and concrete costs compared to traditional founds. And you've no need for a secondary screed layer. (Northern Ireland costs)

Yes, Jeremy's anecdote sprang to mind when I read the post above. But that ain't evidence. If there's one thing I've learnt in business, whenever money is involved: don't trust what people say they will do, look at what they actually do.

Thanks I am going to re read your post a few times before I properly understand. I have 3000 slates onsite and have graded 600, so have plenty of rejects to practice on. Your comment on traditional cut slates leading to a longer lasting roof is interesting. I have been wondering if the scissor like cutters or the guillotine put a twisting force on a slate leading to micro stress cracks? Is this a concern? I have concluded cutting all these slates is going to be messy.

Neighbours.....Great, aren't they ! Would have been no more money to have had him , "Taken out" [mod: deleted reference to citizens of a particular country]. The existing french door bit looks like it might be built up to the boundary, but Don't look like a party wall to me. If you are just joining up the french door bit to the other bit on the left, i don't see why you needed the party wall agreement at all....

Remove the word probably. We like to keep the forum factual

Weirdly, this is both terrible and wonderful in equal measure. I am looking forward to christening it in the log cabin.

the travellers leave cos they probably stole them when full to start with

safest not exporting the earth eh?