epsilonGreedy

I have been following the British Restoration Couple video series in recent months and in one video (between 20 second to 40 seconds from the start) the guy runs a power tool along facia board to create a bevelled edge. The cutting bit is a spinning cone. Is this tool generally available, if so what is it called? Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp70IQSSowQ

Yes a static caravan is a floppy structure that can twist and distort quite a bit as it settles on its stacks. We self builders tend to abuse them by positioning them on soft ground whereas the holiday parks lay proper foundations for each site. After 6 months I added an OSB skirt based on 2" by 2" wooden frame which supports some of the overall weight of the van. This has made the whole structure rock solid in high winds though others should consider if their static should have any support under the outside perimeter.

I cannot offer practical advice but the politics apaul me. How big is the overall estate, how old are the properties and does the estate include a large proportion of houses still rented as council houses?

When talking about whole house 12V lighting one forum notable warned that DC current will burn light switch contacts. Has this problem been solved?

So what should an iPhone user who runs Windows on his two Apple Powerbook laptops and who dislikes Google's political censorship buy? Ryobi?

500mm to 600mm off the ground is normal and your block stacks are 600 to 800 but they are double width. I think it more likely that your wood sheet stack bases will rot over time and sag a bit. After some ground settlement I experienced the top wooden blocks blowing out of position in a gale and this provoked a disconcerting minor wobble. Keep an eye out for signs of stack settlement over the next few months and be prepared retrim the level to maintain a consistent weigh on the stacks, you might have 3/4 of a ton on each stack.

The french door width is about 2m which is beyond what even the most the dodgy of cowboy builders should chance without a lintel. Metal lintels are not expensive, about 1/4 of the daily labour rate of a brickie. I wonder if there is some fancy concealed lintel behind the two brick arches. Is that a cavity wall or an older two brick thick solid wall?

My roofer (30 years in the trade and nearing retirement) wants me to use a breather membrane plus the eggcrate breather roll at the eaves. He says the actual performance of "breather" membranes does not match expectations. Think I will follow his advice in the absence of a ventilated ridge.

Would they do that if the top course under the wall plate is solid concrete briquettes?

2.4m would be good, 1.8m seems to the longest normal spirit level available at Toolstation or Screwfix. This 2.4m screeding level from Amazon is of interest: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Faithfull-Screeding-Level-2400mm-Grips/dp/B000Y8HFJW After posting I tried using a string line to project and extend beyond the installed truss tops to the hip corner. This worked well and after taking another 11mm bite out of the birdsmouth my a sight across the hip rafter and across the top of the installed trusses suggested the string method works. I will still find a use for a long level later in the build, I have a 1.2m level at the moment.

I am inclined to buy a 240v multi tool on the assumption if I need to hack, shave or sand something down, the process might take time. Could battery capacity been a limiting factor? Unlike a cordless driver I don't imagine I will be hopping here and there enough with a multi tool to benefit from cordless mobility.

How can I cheat, a wood shim under the seat?

@PeterWpointed me towards Sark-It in another thread, not bituminous but matt black, no writing or shiny laminate layer on the underside.

Some say max 1/4 of rafter depth, others say 1/3 and an official sounding site states minimum 1/4 and max of 1/2. My truss designer also added minimum wall plate seat in the cut should be 50% of wall plate width though that was for infill jack rafters along the hip rafter. I Googled for a prior BuildHub question on this

I discovered the need for this cut on my first trial offer up then spent a few minutes puzzled why the hip would not seat down fully until I heard the clonk of wooden hip against facing brick on the outside corner. The brickie did ask how high I wanted the last course of facing bricks, the truss rafter eave overhangs clear the facing bricks by 10mm but not so at the corner. The main roof before the hip end is formed from ready made trusses hence no need for birds mouths there. I did my initial desk calcs based on the height of the truss above wall plate on the inside edge, hopefully this produced a similar result and hence uniform height.

She was easy, cutting off the corner off the facing bricks was harder. I was not happy using the 9" disk cutter at hip height, much safer cutting bricks and blocks on the ground. Think I might hack the other corner with the smaller angle grinder. Anyhow my late lunch is over, time to experiment with the line to judge how much lower the hip seat at the wall plate should to. My desk based trigonometry indicated the birds mouth needed to be 15mm deeper but I took a cautious approach with the first cut.

I cut my first birdsmouth today in a hip rafter and now I need to fine tune the height alignment of the hip rafter before fixing it in position. What is the longest metal straight edge I can buy on less than a 48 hour lead time? It does not need to be a spirit level. Alternatively I could resort to string strung across 3 trusses and then extend the string out to meet the hip rafter. As I type this message I realise than when I fit the hips to the 4m span of the bedroom it will be 2m from the last truss to the lower end of the hip plus another 1.2m to extend over the next two trusses to get a reliable projection of roof height, so this straight edge needs to be 3.2m long to be useful on both the small and mid sized roof.

My concern about D4 is that it will bubble up and will result is the set brace being misaligned. I have only used D4 before doing floors. I do have many bottles of D4 left over!

Not that effective in a gap filling or exterior role apparently according to this mega wood glue test. The data is in this Google spreadsheet though quite a few of the products sound unfamiliar so probably difficult to source this side of the Atlantic. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GAZrhrtJPi8-iqPRVfqgOgf7RTg8Vqmen6OKJ4Ae6_I/edit#gid=84891670 If interested check out the "Overall" spreadsheet tab.

This stuff was offered to me when I enquired about 2-pot epoxy glue. Back down in the Solent getting hold of a non trivial quantity of epoxy glue was easy but in Lincolnshire they looked confused at my local builders merchant and suggested I might find something in the selection of toothpaste tube sized exotic glues. I have a vague recollection Cascamite was used in boat building before 2-pot glues became standard. The job for this glue is to firmly bed down a cross brace of thick plywood across the corners of my wall plate. The plywood will be screwed into the 100mm wide wall plate and the epoxy/Cascamite idea is to just beef up the job. Once the corner piece is bedded down I will "dragon" tie between the hip rafter end and the cross brace to prevent any tendency of the hip rafter to slip outwards at the wall plate.

It is a regional thing, best practice in the wetter parts of the UK is to maintain a cavity. Check that your brickies are ok with this. Mine wrinkled his nose at the firmer consistency of U32 cavity batts and said "I will have to open the cavity another 5mm if you want those".

Packs of bricks do sweat in their polly wrappings, mine were stored on doubled up pallets on well grass but they also pull up moisture when sitting on hardcore. If you go ahead I reckon the solution is not to wrap the packs up tight in plastic but instead have a simple cover to shed direct rainfall but encourage ventilation around the sides of the pack so they can shed the moisture they draw up. After handling 10,000 bricks this summer I could feel which bricks suffered a bit of frost damage at the edge of a pack.

This is correct. Building internal walls in 19kg blocks is unusual for a regular house.

Swmbo asked the very same question about a CO alarm 10 minutes ago. I shall go and check the colour of the burn, test CO alarm and exhaust airflow in a few minutes.

Follow-up. After finally extracting the whole fan unit it was obvious the unit was a rusting mess, hence the mechanical protests the day before the boiler failed. A 2.5 hour trip to pick up the only compatible replacement in Lincolnshire and now the radiators are warming up. The whole boiler sounds whisper new,.