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Just clearing the site today and it occured to me as I filled the skip (last one?) I know what I paid for every bit of 'rubbish' I threw away ? The early evening sunset on the cladding knowing everything about a house knowing I can pull myself up from major disasters being grateful for all the friendship of the vast majority of (chatty) passers-by. the banter on BH knowing what some locals really think of the house, as opposed to what they say in public fora all the well-meaning advice from everyone who offered it the silence from those passers-by manage to read my non-verbal cues @SteamyTea, @PeterW, @Stones, @ProDave, @Dudda, @jack, @Moonshine, @scottishjohn, @pocster, @Onoff , @Jeremy Harris, @Construction Channel, @the_r_sole, @Crofter, @Ferdinand, @MikeSharp01, @newhome , @Declan52, the Mods, The Foundation Group (I've missed some I'm sure) , all people who have bothered to give me their time and thought my mates who come round and (mostly) help. If you buy a digger, they just want the keys. the ability to keep going under pressure: if I didn't have that pressure, I'd become a fat(ter) slob the knowledge that I'm probably over-priviledged: at least very very lucky. Retiring the day we got PP and done nowt else but this for the last 5 / 6 years. I've lost count of the passers by who stop and talk wistfully about their dream of being able to do what I have That gorgeous lass who jogs past the site in top to toe super-tight lycra, smiles widely, says Hi. She melts my withers every damn time. That do ya?

Yup. Set it up, fire it up, and start with the valve slightly open. Work slowly upwards turning up in 2.5 degrees increments every hour until you get the required / satisfactory flow temp

Thinking that (local) Planners care about your planning application Neighbourhood objections Listening to idiots on the Parish Council citing invalid objectings to your development. Waiting for a planning application Decision Notice Failure to plan in sufficient detail Architects designing what they want , not what you want Charlatan trades folk. Trades who do not answer the phone, or return your call in a timely manner Weather Changing your mind about important stuff after you have started building your 'dream' extension Any trade that does not do what it says it will do, - on time - on budget - on specification. Invoices with so little detail that even a saint would become suspicious Builders who charge VAT on a self-build supply and fit contract - and who will not be told that domestic clients are not charged VAT Not having a sense of humour Welcome by the way! That'll do for starters. Waste time on BH. Time well spent.

Hello, we are just at the very beginning of thinking about doing an extension, single storey, I am hoping for basically one big room added onto the back of our house. (We are a bit rural and back onto farmland so there are no houses around us). Has anyone got any advice regarding how the process works overall and how their experiences have been. Hubby is trying to prepare me for the extent of upheaval while it all happens. What are the worst bits? Our next step is to speak to some architects to see the type of thing they would recommend, so we are only at the very, very beginning of thinking about it. Would be grateful to hear your experiences. Many thanks.

It is a pain to work with, very expensive, heavy, not mould resistant, the FST skim is useless, your sparky and dry liners will hate you, but otherwise it is average.

Ground level raised above DPC will definitely encourage damp. Getting some underfloor ventilation going will certainly help and go a long way to getting rid of the musty smell but you really need to look at lowering the external floor level,

That's similar to what I have. My house was sat around 50% humidity iirc for a long time, went up to 60s/70s soni just ran the dehumidifiers for a couple of weeks until it dropped back down to the 50s. It looked dry after couple of days. The colour change over the course of a couple of weeks showed it wasn't truly dry. If you put a moisture resistant surface down on top the last thing you want to do is trap any residual moisture in between. I had plenty of stuff to do somleaving that for a couple of weeks didn't bother me - I felt better err on the side of caution.

undo the screw, pull knob and index straight off, re-fit in reverse order to your liking

Yes, we are about to reopen all the fish mines. And all the girls in Ilogan are as horny as Demelza, even allowing for her hip displacement

No the figures are not directly comparable. Each wall material will have a thermal conductivity (W/mK). The thermal conductivity is multiplied by the thickness and the inverse all of the thermal conductivity x thickness of the wall materials gives the U-value. A simple to use calculator is by Kingspan, but this is limited to their products. Gives you a good idea, though https://www.uvalue-calculator.co.uk/calculator/

it's only a sofa, people do move them...

Really don't know. There is nothing inherently wrong with using ply, as long as it is the correct sort. Sheets are usually marked up somewhere, so you should be able to find out what it is. https://www.trada.co.uk/publications/info-from-other-organisations/the-builders-guide-to-plywood/

2x38mm timber needs a longer screw than 50mm i would go 60 or 70 screw one on with your 50mm and see how easy it is to pry it of with a short bar. Always try the destruction test.

No universal “table” or formula due to too many variables. type of timber, thickness, loads to be carried (tension, twisting, rotational, shear etc). location of fixings within the piece, close to edge, end grain etc. asyou say, always better To go from thin to thick and around 3/4 of way through the thick bit. You can always then complicate (or use what you have in your hand) by skew screwing at an angle to prevent going straight through and into your hand

ok thanks SteamyTea, i imagine it would be as the builder is good and came highly recommended.

I would take up one row of pavers and go down first with just a trench and see over winter if that dries it out. Perhaps incline the bottom slightly away from the house. For a membrane I would use something like Wickes heavy duty weed membrane. If it works you could just fill it with river pebbles, or move on to your French drain with a soakway.

Because of a very high water table where I have built I put a French drain 250mm below floor level around the house and piped it into a ditch nearby, works very well and have had no further damp issues within the soil. It might also be worth checking the rainwater drains run properly away from the house (no soakaway next to the walls).

It’s fine - as long as the manifold is above the loops the AAV works to remove the air

Cheap one does not have swivel jaws and they are very small and weak, £12 ones are much better. Larger one is a completely different animal. I quite like the £12 ones when kitchen fitting etc.

Yes it can be cranes into position and is small enough to fit on a lorry

The £6 one is a clamp only and the £12 is also a spreader, which you flip one of the jaws round. The £6 one has a fixed pin in it that doesn't allow the jaw to be flipped. I guess the £20 one is just a more robust version of the £6 one.

If you are in East Anglia then I cannot recommend Spartek https://www.spartek.co.uk/ more highly. The owner of the company, Lee, is a genius on electricity and all things solar powered. Because of this he is crazy busy carrying out contracts for London Boroughs etc. You are welcome to view our system which is nearly ready to go.

I could do it, and have the qualifications to back it up. But it is not worth doing it. Not as if I could charge you £1500 consultancy fee. what you need to do is break down the system into each element, then see what is the most efficient and the least efficient, then aggregate the lot and compare prices. It is what spreadsheets were made for.

There is a lot of seemingly conflicting guidance but unfortunately that's usually because 'it depends' In your case, you should be doing flexible block paving (assuming you are using those clay pavers pictured above) https://www.pavingexpert.com/blocks2 You need either a kerb / edging block / something solid to edge the perimeter of the block paving. These need to be haunched with a sand/cement mix, or a concrete mix. The inner blocks can be laid onto non-cementitious bedding sand. For bedding it needs to be sharp sand, ideally washed (so salt content is lower) . Jointing sand to fill the gaps between pavers.

I take it the pipe spacing is not to scale? Don't run ANY pipes through the Larder, take them around it. Are you seriously suggesting not putting pipes under the sofa's in the living room?

Do the pipes pulse like normal indicating it's trying to move?? Take the clip holding the bucket pin in and try and beat it through to the other side. Will take a lot of hammer so beat the tripe out of it. Will need to go back into the digger and try getting it as level as you can. Or Might need to remove the hydraulic pipe going to the close side, usually the bottom, release the nut and let some hydraulic fluid out. Then try and use a hammer and cold chisel to make it release. Might take a fair bit of persuasion. Or possibly both of these methods!!!

Yes just cheap chipboard furniture board from the orange DIY shop, in glorious pretend (plastic picture) Oak. The shoe and coat rails are standard chrome oval wardrobe rail and associated brackets.

Do you like the design? Unfinished MDF is drab. If it works for you and is reasonably well built then it can be finished and look amazing, much cheaper and easier than starting again.

No idea is stupid, not considering something is ... however what you are proposing could do more damage than good. As long as the roof and guttering is sound, the walls should not get soaked. Also, pointing helps to shed rain, is that in good condition? Are you sure the damp at basement level is not rising? What is the ground level outside compared the inside? Any signs of excessively wet ground (drainage issues)? Avoid waterproofing the brick wall outside, it is likely to trap moisture and potentially blow the brick face. This maybe what the paint has done. Are there any similar aged buildings nearby? They could give a clue if it is a common or isolated issue.

We went and bought two last week, still the same price they were last year

I have found during our self build that we have gone against the norm for what you would expect a new self build to contain. One area was how we would heat the house. The main concern I had as we entered the winter was whether we did the right thing in disregarding the need for underfloor heating and radiators. I have found that during the day we do not need to heat the house as having sufficient true south facing glazing provides the solar gains to heat the house during the day time. When you are outside and it's -5c wind chill it's a pleasant feeling to come into a house that is 20c with no heating. At night time the temperature would slowly drop without any form of heating. This is where our centrally placed stove surrounded by dense concrete block is used. Stoves in the self build community are loved by some and loathed by others. I feel if they are used in the right setting they can be a perfect addition to a self build project. For us it was a best choice as having access to wood, space to store and being willing to provide a little bit of hard work results in the heating bills being zero. When we designed the house having a centrally place stove was one of the first items on our list. For our stove we burn a trug load of home grown logs each evening in the winter. I would never have imagined how satisfying it can be to spend an hour on a Saturday morning splitting wood to keep my family warm. It's a great way to keep fit and can be an enjoyable hobby. Recently we cut back some alder and birch trees which will be left to season and will form next year's winter wood. Using coppicing as a woodland management will allow the trees with their established roots to regenerate quickly in the spring and perhaps be cut back again in ten years. It has been an interesting learning curve over the last few months regarding heating our house with wood. I have learnt a lot from my father-in law and also from this book which I would recommend. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wood-Fire-Handbook-complete-perfect/dp/1784726192/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+wood+fire+book&qid=1613167239&sr=8-1 The garden is currently a blank canvas and this will be the focus for the spring. One job that I am working on at the moment is sorting a load of old stone to build a dry stone wall. It's hard work but a perfect remedy after a long week of crunching numbers at a computer. Hope to provide an update in the Spring. Thanks for reading.

MCS says you will get around 25% max during the winter, so with a 5kWp you will really not be able to consider a battery as you'll be able to chafge it for free for only a few months of the year and it'll have around a 10-12 year useful life. Get your monies worth via 'free' hot water, which with a hot water cylinder and an immersion heater should be around 6+ months of the year.

Hi and welcome to BH. If you and @Onoff had a baby, we would have developed the ultimate weapon. He wants to move out of his damp house into a new dry garage. Change your MX5 to a Capri and we'd be stuck to distinguish between you. Stick around, you'll be a great feather in the cap

Pour went well and done very quickly (once the mixers arrived). It's the first time our builder has used it and he seemed really happy with how it went, certainly a lot less work than wheelbarrowing it in. Not sure of the exact cost as the floor was included in our builder's quote but he said it worked out about the same as standard concrete due to the time saving.

For my soalredge system, max string length is 100m.

If you move the tall unit to the wall then it's going to look much less bulky. It's a really nice entrance hall, plenty of space.

Double loft hatch for me, fully sealed on both, insulated to same standard as ceiling say 4 or 500mm quilt same u value for hatch arrangement more likely using some sheet insulation top loft hatch can flap upwards, mine has a bespoke counterbalance system

I've installed one of these and seems to do the job fine. https://www.laddersandscaffoldtowers.co.uk/acatalog/Wooden-Loft-Ladders.html

I installed one of these (or very similar), works well. https://www.diy.com/departments/3-section-12-tread-26mm-insulated-hatch-folding-loft-ladder-kit/3663602522492_BQ.prd

You should also check the temp markings actually match the temp flow. Mine was about 10c out and needed the knob taking off and moving round a couple of splines on the shaft.

@Vala Most mixing valves you can remove the marker and dial and rotate them through 180 degrees (without turning the mechanisim in the valve) so that the marker and temperture set can be read from the front if the valve. Pop a picture on here if it helps, can check it over.

I have always found it easier to start at the destination (entry to treatment plant for example) which will usually have a fixed depth, and then work that backwards towards the house, and see what sort of sensible fall you can achieve without the pipe getting too close to the surface.

You can pick your own hallucinogenic mushrooms for free. There may be some near a turbines base.

What? Climate change could be Mother Nature! Wash your mouth out with soap boy. How dare you question “the science” of sponging money and funding

99% of humans and 105% of scientists agree that the world is going to end in 3 or 12 years in a red hot fiery conflagration unless the CO2 level stops climbing, therefore I conclude an ice-age is not an immediate threat.

So that's just half a swivle clamp? No ....ing idea! I'm too stupid. Unless it's has a different purpose and a bolt head fits inside and the thread out, and good luck with that!

It’s happening everywhere The Brickie that came on here a couple of weeks back and hacked all the corners off his work Is back working for the same bricklaying contractor He caused 5k in damage For those old enough to remember Yozzer (Others google) It was remarkably similar to a scene from boys from the black stuff He turned up at 3 on a Friday after it had rained all day Site manager said “Bit late to be starting “ Hammer and bolster in hand He just replied I’m sorry La My work I haven’t been paid Then proceeded to knock all the face brick corners off on a four block Mumbling sorry as he went The only glimmers of hope was when the skip guy appeared and asked him to move his van Which he did Then carried on knocking the rest of the corners off Site manger called The police and was told to stop wasting there time Afterwards he went in the site office and said Yoozs are all good lads and treated me right I’m sorry Site manager said did you see the size of his arms I replied that I was more focused on the two pound lump hammer he was still holding