jayc89

The crunch point was at the other end of the wall, where the distance between the brick and door frame was only 15mm, however the problem is the other end of the wall, near the corner which will be hidden by units, so perhaps not a massive issue, I'd expect a decent plasterer to get a reasonable level to it as there's no limiting factors (and is exactly why I didn't attempt it myself ) SWMBO mentioned he was using a small piece of timber to level off so perhaps that was part of the issue, if he'd used something nearer to the full length of the room he'd be able to get something nearer to level. Says the arm-chair plasterer.

We have a pretty wonky wall in what will become our utility. There's approx 15mm from the brick face to the existing door frame, so not much room to play with. I had it plastered last week, the guy used Hardwall as a backing, followed by multi-finish. I was away with work last week so only got to see it earlier this week... Towards the bottom of the wall it's now bellied outwards by approx 15mm, 20mm at its worse, so it's going to make tiling, or fitting skirting to it a real PITA. I know the wall was wonky, and the plasterer said he wouldn't be able to get it spot on level, but I was expecting better than that. Was I wrong to?

SWMBO and I managed 10m2 @ 70mm of S&C screed in an afternoon. Never fancy that job again.

Had 2x external walls skimmed onto new boards, at the internal corners where they join the existing walls the skim is rough. I'll probably need to fill and sand, what's the best process for that, before or after mist coat?

Came across a guy on Facebook claiming Celotex shrinkage is pretty bad and then posted this; Never seen anything like it

There are properties on the East coast that are no longer mortgageable. Every couple of years there are local news articles about people being forced to leave their homes due to the area becoming so unsafe.

Came across a plot for sale at John o' Groats. It was quite appealing to be fair...

Housing is a big starting point, it has to include things like solar, rain water harvesting (and enforced use of, for hose pipes, toilets etc) and attenuation. We generally already eat pretty local, mainly because it's as cheap as the supermarkets these days - we can get a fruit/veg box delivered every week from a local farm for roughly the same price as it would cost to buy the same products from Aldi, yet it's fresher, tastier and lasts longer. The problem is, people want strawberries during winter - everyone needs to get used to eating seasonally again. Cereal/grain is probably the only thing we eat regularly now which I suspect is imported.

I've had some pretty terrible roofers work on our houses in the past. If you're otherwise happy with this work, I really wouldn't be overly concerned.

There's been a mass of houses built in our sub-area recently with even more planned, pretty much wiping out a corridor of agricultural land. So unfortunately I don't think that's an option for us. Seems it only really benefits the big housing developers. "Sorry Sir, you can't build your own house, but have you seen these lovely Barratt properties?"

I suspect the sustainability condition can't be met when proposing just a single plot. I've found a Planning Consultant who is currently taking an application to appeal on the basis of insufficient self-build plots elsewhere in the sub-area, different LPA though, so I'm going to keep an eye on how well that goes.

Flood Risk Zone 3, plot just outside the Adopted Policies map boundary. An exception test will almost certainly need to be included in the Flood Risk Assessment. Has anyone had any success getting planning permission in such a scenario?

I want to build in ICF, it's something I'd be confident attempting myself, after I've been on the manufacturer's training course. The ground floor has been spec'd in brick, first floor in render. TF would be an obvious option, but it's expensive (as I won't need to pay labour with ICF) and first floor noise is a concern, we live near a busy-ish road, and we like our bedroom very quiet (150mm concrete + 250mm EPS should hopefully help with that!)

Brilliant, thanks. These beers are adding up!

Very similar to cars and HP vs PCP/Lease. Most salesmen look at you in disgust if you want to pay by any other means than PCP.

Trying to figure this out again as I'd like to get it sorted over the weekend ready to finish off this part of the house next week. I think I need something like this; But I'm not sure how to connect the Lever Valve to the 40mm (solvent weld) waste. I can get a 40mm to 21.5mm reducer typically for condensate pipes etc, can I somehow join a length of 21.5mm solvent weld pipe to the other end of a 22mm lever valve? Any ideas @Nickfromwales?

Looking at options for our new double garage. South facing, ideal for PV, but most of the kit builds I've seen all have the doors on the gable end, which wouldn't work for our set up as we need both the doors and the PV facing the same way (south) Anyone seen any kit builds that have the garage doors on the eaves side of the building?

He's certainly a teacher, think he's actually some sort of lecturer in his spare time. Our house is pretty old and when he's been around he can stand chatting for hours about random building facts, last time was brick bonds,

I had an old school builder and his lackies come do some work for us. He must be in his late 50s and the rest were pretty young 20-30. The job was done over a couple of days and whenever I was around he was the only guy doing any of the work! They'd dumped a load of left over cement onto our existing rubble pile and on the last day I found him breaking it up so it's easier for us to get rid of. Proper top bloke, but think he needs to learn to delegate more 🤣

The problem is borrowing has been pretty much free for the last 10 years. A generation has been raised on that principle. A large number of fixed rate deals will come to an end over the next 6 months which is when I suspect we'll see things really bite.

I suspect we'll end up with a hung parliament and 5 years of total gridlock. Give me John Major and his straight talking "if the policy's not hurting, it's not working" over the dross we have in power now, any day of the week. All too scared to say the wrong thing and offend someone. Like them or loathe them, the Tories are a shadow of their former self and similarly, like them of loathe them, Labour's policies make not fiscal sense whatsoever.

Thanks everyone, the ideas have certainly given me food for thought. Moving the wall between the existing bedroom and wardrobe/ensuite isn't really a goer as it's 330mm thick and supporting the roof (the room is in the corner of the old house, wardrobe/ensuite in an extension). I do like the idea of swapping them around, so the bedroom gets the larger overall space.

Typo, clean out between different types of mixes

I've had a mixer on all day for a screed floor, no time to clean in between mixes. No problem. Clean out between mixes and after the last mix.