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Not sure if this is a useful tip or not, but I chose to completely floor our kitchen before even taking delivery of the units. Instead of fitting skirting boards where the units were to go, I bonded on 50mm x 50mm white PVC internal angle, with neutral cure silicone. This effectively sealed the stone floor from the walls all around, so if there's a leak water can't get to the plaster or under the stone (I hope!). It also makes for a very clean area under the kitchen units (I know you can't see under there..........) and hopefully it won't become a haven for woodlice, spiders etc. In the utility room, where the non-built in washing machine fitted next to a unit that had a side panel that went down to the floor, I did the same trick and lined the floor to wall/panel area where the machine slides in with the same 50mm x 50mm white PVC angle, again so that any water that leaks can't get at the walls or unit.

Not quite.. two thinner wedges banged in. One on each side!

If your doing a big area and have uneven gaps get an extra gun and cut the caulking tubes at different lengths, one in each gun. So that one gives a nice fine line for close fitting areas and one cut well back for getting a good thick line for filling bigger gaps. Oh and cut the tube at an angle like a hypodermic needle...all the better for a neat finish.

People......if you have to do more than my suggestion, sack the chuffing plasterer. ??

good point, probably best to put a sacrificial bit of wood between the wedges and the skirting

Is there a design that involves enough bits of wood to require an Octopus to hold them all in place?

i'm fairly sure this is what he means viewed from above as this is pertty much the definition of "folding" wedges. I would add this will only work if you are working on an unfinished floor e.g will be carpeted. if you are painting the skirting personally I would just screw it to the wall wherever you have got a big gap TBH Nick's way would work fine as long as you put your foot against it while you put the screw in

My god how bad are the walls you lot are fixing to! I've got some acrow props you can use between walls if they're that bad

I used vertical screws and square wedges ... wedging the piece against the screw, or holding it against the skirting to keep it in place, and placing the screw to keep it tight. That also worked for me. Interesting skirting profile, @Nickfromwales. I christen that a Mr Magoo !

@Onoff I bought these for the last job. One went vertically mounted in the shower, selecting rose or handset, and one horizontally over the bath selecting overflow filler and pull out handset. Excellent flow rates and cheaper than shoplifting. Tres bien. Flow to the relative outlet at each end and temp dial in the middle. Get the round ones or your OCD will take up the rest of your life getting them realigned after each use

Pre insert a screw as shown with the point just hidden Sit the wedge against the floor, push it against the skirting until your snug, then send the screw home. Don't let it go right through the floor in case of pipes or cables.

We've just finished our Howdens kitchen and the OH, who fitted, it was impressed by the quaility and ease of installation. much better since the last one we did a few years ago. I thiink you can acheive a lovely kitchen by using fairly standard carcasses then use better quality worktops and appliances. Its was only a small kitchen for our renovation house but came in at around £4k. That was units, appliances, handles and oak worktops, a; from Howdens, in their Oct sale.

That's a black surface mould, that's very common and more often found on stored timber ordecking. As there is no antifungal treatment applied, and the thermal treatment process has no effect at all on the surface resistance to mould growth like this, then this is exactly what I'd expect to see on a timber like ash that has no natural antifungal resins etc that would tend to prevent it. The mould not going cause rot in the timber, but will stay on the surface, because the thermal treatment makes the internal structure of the timber resistant to the growth of mould beyond the surface. It will tend to proliferate on any surface that stays slightly wetter, or cooler, than any another, and the change in grain structure between adjacent panels will be more than enough to cause the surface moisture or temperature difference needed in order to cause the effect you're seeing. The black mould species is probably very similar to the types found growing on cool, damp, bathroom surfaces, and the patterning where the battens are is most probably due to slight surface temperature variations in those areas It should wash off fairly easily, but may leave some staining, and will be a recurring problem, as thermally treated non-durable timber has no inherent resistance to surface mould growth at all, it needs some form of surface treatment to prevent this. I think you may have been mislead as to the properties of this material, most probably by a sales person. There's nothing that I can find anywhere in the company literature that suggests there is any resistance to surface mould growth, but there do briefly mention that customers may wish to consider some form of surface treatment or stain, which sort of skates around the problem that they know that surface mould may be an issue in some climates. Ash is a non-durable timber, with virtually no inherent resistance to rot. In it's untreated form it's durability rating is 5, as poor as you can get, about the same as balsa wood; many softwoods are a great deal more durable. The thermal treatment improves the durability rating to 1, but has no effect at all on the surface properties. There are no resins or mould-resistant compounds within ash, so even thermally treated it is still going to attract surface mould growth, much the same as the way softwood decking does. You can try and fight the supplier, and the advice that @Ferdinand has given is about as good as any I can think of, or you can clean the surface up and treat it with something like Sioox, as already suggested. My personal opinion is that you've been misled as to the difference between durability and surface appearance, but proving that could be a significant challenge.

Well if you have used their battens and plastic fixings what are they claiming you have done wrong.