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Today my custom folded window Cills turned up, all folded at different depths to match the external cladding. Is it unusual that after I did a trial fit that I did a little dance around the garden whooping like a kid at Christmas, I don’t get out much anymore so I’m easily pleased. Glad the wife didn’t see or I would be off to the loony bin. ???

Hi ashp, mvhr, pv, ev and duct water coils. I am just starting to bring all the above elements together in our bungalow and wanted to run the works on a blog on Buildhub. In order to show my appreciation of this site I have funded buildhub and PMed @newhome as requested. I have also PMed @BuildHub to ask about setting up a blog. I hope that the volenteers on buildhub will be able to help find the time so I can document what I'm doing. Also as I go I hope that feed back from the members will help me when I struggle. Here's where I am at present: Marvin

Can't comment specifically on laurels, but I planted 250 hornbeam bare root plants. Setting out to do the best possible job, half of them were planted in a dug-over trench, but because it took forever, the other half were planted in slots with a spade. There's was never any visible difference in development, so I've probably put in another 250 mixed native hedging in using the slot method since, with less than 5% losses. Watering next year is probably going to be the most important factor. Top tip: get a few extra and pot them up, in case you need to replace a few in the first season.

I just gave the toolbox I made at 16 a quick dunk in a citric acid bath and then etch primed it. Has more than a few pin holes but it had been neglected. The knurling tool and drill clamp I made are likely recoverable, not do sure about the surface gauge. A bit gutted I let them get in this state but in the intervening 40 years, "life" happened. Amazing to think I made all the nuts and bolts!

Cavity closers are not load baring, even the bigblok cavity closers. Do not sit your windows on cavity closers, you’re asking for problems. If need be, outer skin or inner skin or even better, create an 18mm marine ply liner.

Hi Temp. Just to take a step back. When you are doing the panel drawings for a joiner to work to for a timber frame you look at what off cuts you are going to generate. Now a standard length of timber is 4.8m and you can end up with say a few handy offcuts that you can use. Now although you may have a 3 ply 150 "lintel" on paper it may be that it is not carrying any significant load. If you you are using 145mm studs for the walls then this is an easy way of using the offcuts to build out the thickness of the wall over a doorway / window. The actual width of a C16 timber is 45mm so 3*45 gives 135mm, often the OSB board on the kit is 9.0 or 11.0mm so the joiner just needs to put a ripping on the inside of the lintel and this allows the plaster board to plane through with the 145mm studs ( we cut ourselves a bit of slack on 1.0mm). It's the simple stupid approach but economic practical design. If the 3 ply lintel is carrying some load then rather than trying to find a hanger then you can often support the end of the lintel using a couple of vertical studs and these you fix to the wall. Have a look to see what your 3 ply timbers are doing and look for the simple easy options?

Hi @mike2020 Sounds like a great project, and I see from your other posts that you've had some good advice from experts on old buildings and I admire your enthusiasm. I spent 10 years or so renovating a listed building, and I'd just suggest that you need to decide where you want to be on the spectrum from 'historical purist' to 'financially viable renovation'. That will help you decide whether you're going to try to replace a ceiling with lath and lime plaster full of horse hair, or take a more pragmatic view using modern materials. Your house: your balance! Good luck!

I planted 60m of hedge in our paddock. I purchased "whips" online and planted them by pushing a spade in to cut an L in the grass. Lifted the turf in the corner of the L, inserted the whip and pressed the turf back down with a heel. Probably took longer to fit a cane and rabbit spiral. Think I planted 250 over 2-3 days. Only about 5 or 6 failed to grow.

I wish you all the best with your windows. For all. One great thing about BH is that if you give a bit you'll get lots of ideas. Some may not suit (some you may think are .. ? ) you but good design often involves looking at other's designs critically and how they interface with your own home / wall construction... often ruling things out is a great way of reaching an informed decision. Once you get into the 3g (triple glazed) world of windows and aluminium frames with wide wall cavities you have two basic choices. Do we try and transfer the weight of the window to the inner skin or do we look to see if we can use the outer skin to support the weight of the window. Now if you have a wide cavity and aim to use the inner skin to support the window then we need say brackets / a box type liner that are going to resist the cantilevering effect. We need to look very carefully at the fixings and how they will perform long term. In general anything that is cantilevered tends to move a bit more. Windows over time need adjusted / maintained as the glass moves about in the frames and the seals slacken over time. Couple this with cantillevered brackets and you have introduced more potential movement.. and these windows are expensive! If we use the outer skin then we also have potential rotational forces as the outside of the frame only has potentially / commonly a 15.0 - 20.0 mm rest on the outer leaf and.. we have issues about not breaching the water seal on the cill below as you need to fix the cill to the base of the window frame. We need for example to make sure we keep the drain channel at the bottom of the glass clear.. to prevent the sealed units from resting in standing water etc. But if you have a wide cavity then in some cases you can use the outer skin to support the window, you can remove a lot of the cold bridging effects and rotational / cantilever effects.. much will depend on your wall construction but it's worth exploring to see if it suits you or if you can get some mileage out of it. You can see on BH much discussion about bifiold doors and the options regarding top and bottom supported doors.. imagine your window is a bit the same.. do we bottom support it or try and support it up the sides / bottom with some cantilevered structure? To finish.. BH is also about having a home / extension / DIY project that no one else has! Not just on the outside but also under the bonnet.. the guts of the structure. Don't be afraid to post up a sketch, just draw it on A4 paper, take a photo and post it.. you are not entering a drawing competition. No one here will judge you on your drawing skills. Have fun exploring..

Well it has been some time since I posted about the cladding, well finally we are making progress. Attached is the latest photo

We only have AAVs in our 4 WC house. I was all set to put in a SVP but BC said it wasn't necessary as, given our neighbours all had SVPs, the sewer system would be well enough ventilated. Saved what could have been an awkward penetration on a flat roof and a cold bridge on our passive house.

Yes I have space under my stairs. This is a house for life so I will be living in it for the next 40 years at least. In your opinion will I have to rip out any Gas boiler I would be fitting within that 40 year time frame? My theory is yes I will have to rip it out and replace it with ASHP within my life time. So my thought was to get it over with now rather than worry about it down the line.

It's da romance ova fyaaa innit .... Friday night, few beers with the mates, a giggle with the girls, home, cook her a lovely meal, nice bottle of vino collapso, and fall asleep on the .... - erm.... can't remember where. It the intention that counts innit?

Flat roofs should always be done with 18mm thick wood. If I ever turned up to a job and it wasn't done with 18mm I would walk away.

Just re read the post, so the OSB isn’t sitting straight onto the 6x2’s ?? And you are packing off the 6x2’s to create the slope? In this case you have created a hell of a lot of extra work and materials and my last post isn’t right, unsupported 11mm OSB will sag and fail

I think you need 18mm all over. I bought a couple of sheets from Wickes yesterday at £47 each, so I feel your pain.

If you have enough 18mm to do half then you only need half the amount to cover the whole thing in 18mm, no step. You cocked it up once by trying to skimp, don’t repeat this. Cover the lot in 18mm, then go underneath and add in as many noggins as you can pushing them up tight under the boards. If you dont , it will sag and you will get puddles.

2.75m span will be fine with 6x2 timbers. 11mm OSB is no good for walking on. Snow loads are distributed so no problem.

I would make it level with the outside but leave a gap filled with pebbles or similar as a water break

We've done the opposite and although this place is warm and dry the energy consumption compared to our PH is amazing. I much prefer living in a PH but you can't have everything, perhaps I'll win the premium bonds.

Looking at the design with heave protection to inner face. I suspect there are or were trees in close proximity for this? Installing this heave protection is not a safe operation. I would refuse to install this heave protection and observe others do same. Unless heave is very likely Deep trenchfill foundation are quite common. I have seen some even deeper but I understand around 4m is point where piles become economical. Just dig and pour dry lean mix concrete as you go. Pack down lean mix with digger and it will shore up excavation. Cast a reinforced concrete foundation on top. Be sure to excavate plumb and best widen trench out to at least 900mm to allow for inaccuracies. NO ONE IS EXPECTED TO ENTER TRENCH WITH THIS TECHNIQUE FOR FEAR OF COLLAPSE. Engineers assume a level knowledge and competence in design. As this is a well established practice they obviously didn’t feel the need to provide a risk assessment. no not do it like this lolol use LEAN MIX DIG AND POUR

We moved out of a 16th Century house to build a near-passivhaus because of the exact same problems you face. I say moved ... 30 meters. There is no painless resolution to your problem. None. Sorry. I spent years working the issue through from first principles to planning and building our current home. I will add my voice to those who say - wait - . . Measure building's performance. While thats happening, research. Go for the easy wins first, and while you're doing that waste time on BH. It will repay the effort. Good luck Ian

Just to update this topic, we had many quotes to clean up and sign off the work, from £90 up to £500. We ended up paying £400 and got it all sorted...

A car is limited to 74 dB, so something don't seem right.

Sounds like you have a plan, I would second what @Temp says about ventilation, when I moved into my two up to down 120 year old house it had not been upgraded much at all, it still had open fires in every room, big gaps under doors etc. The windows had been upgraded in the 80s by the look of them but the gaps around the outside made the double glazing pointless. There was no sign of mould in the house. As soon as I sealed all the obvious gaps up, including two of the fires the place became very damp and mould became a problem. It was a real battle to get the ventilation balance right but when I did the house dried up. There was NO insulation anywhere. Fast forward 10 years (and a lot of BIG) heating bills and I have finally got the inside insulated. This winter will be the first with insulation and I will now need to work out the new ventilation requirements. I have not gone down the traditional route…….

The centre finder works a treat. Hold tight against the perimeter and scribe a line. Move around the perimeter and scribe another. Do a third. Where the lines intersect is your centre:

Now going toatlly a different way striping all the cement render and gypsum plaster off all the walls ....going with lime mortar lime render lime plaster and installing wall duct mounted dehumidifeirs upstairs and downstairs which work automatic to humidity rate..stripping all paint inside and outside including wood and using clay based paints only for walls and linseed oil based paints on all wood work. will use woodwool boards for insulation. After getting a paid surveyor visit from english heritage surveyor cost £900 (well worth the money) he explained to me modern building techniques do not work on older buildings and are infact very harmfull all modern paints now contain plastic which basically trap moister in old stone buildings. Cement render did not happen till the 1920,s (cheap)onward and also trap moisture gypsum plaster and gypsum plaster boards(cheap) are even more harmfull to older buildings the stone and the house needs to breathe. Also will not be using any plastic fillers on wood etc will be using oakum. Infact he said the whole damp proof industry in the uk is a rip off and does not exist in anyother first world country in the world.... For anyone else undertaking a similar project please read this article it's very educational. https://www.heritage-house.org/damp-and-condensation/managing-damp-in-old-buildings.html Fact traditional building methods pre 1920 work better than modern day methods on older stone buidings. ps plz forgive any diction or spelling mistakes as english not my first language.

Earlier I wrote.. I forgot to mention that enforcement action is suspended when you submit a planning application. So one option is to wait and see what happens. Meanwhile prepare a retrospective Planning Application so its ready to file if they actually initiate Enforcement action. If they haven't issued enforcement action within 4 years from completion you can apply for a Certificate of Lawful development on grounds that enforcement action cannot be initiated as time expired. Keep evidence of completion from Building Control. If they refuse your retrospective Planning Application then Appeal. If that fails the enforcement action will restart but you still have time to comply. By then two years may have passed and tiles might be available again. But I reckon they will grant it at Appeal. I've seen far worse.

Absolutely. Engage and stick to the facts. Difficult as it may be, emotion and thoughts of 'fairness' should be put to one side.

Only a court can convict. If a fixed penalty is issued it is a conditional offer - by paying this fixed penalty we will not report for prosecution. Ultimately, the purpose of an enforcement notice is to remedy the breach in planning control.

I have dug trenches that deep several times by booking inspector for lunch time and concreting them in the afternoon. DO NOT GO DOWN IN THE TRENCHES

I think you should stick to the relevant facts and not get into arguments that muddy the waters. State why you believe you have complied with permitted development which asks for similar, not identical materials. Showing other examples of dormers in the area may also help in this case. State the facts regarding the inability to source other materials and the fact that you did try to engage with the council re this but received no reply. Arguments re the environment, waste of everyone's time and money etc will be considered irrelevant. Hopefully this is enough for them to see sense.

Ok but it does sound similar to the situation of a motorist caught by a police speed trap complaining to the traffic officer roadside by saying why don'y you go and arrest some real criminals. An enforcement officer at a council will be painfully aware of how many cases were dropped due to insufficient legal or financial resources. Challenging them on the limited resources point risks provoking them.

Have a read of this thread He eventually got a meter fitted by EDF. The system does indeed seem broken at the moment. Best of luck.

Had a joiner in a couple of weeks ago who does a lot of new builds and extensions and he told us about one of his clients trying to get a meter installed, was told it would be January before it could be done and on further enquiries he was told the electricity companies are all focusing on potential black outs just now

I would avoid linking to the radiator return. HW return anywhere would be fine. I had a house once plumbed with the DHW and radiators sharing a common return and that would on occasions warm up a bedroom radiator by convection. It is a bad idea to share anything else with a radiator return.

Oh to be young again .

I've a new mate has a similar but rigid 2 year rule. Consequently I now have more tat!

All drawn on slate first? ?

British Gas are on 4 weeks (or were a month ago). The main players were quoting in months.