epsilonGreedy

Ho hmm limited progress. All three clips are off following much pain. The fan motor is now more mobile but does not retract fully as hoped for because the main fan inside the exhaust duct holds the main motor spindle captive, I should have anticipated this. I cannot work out how to hold the rear nuts in place while bolting the armature and motor coil back together. Even if everything could be reassembled I doubt the fan will work because I aligned everything while wearing a rubber glove and switched the boiler mains supply back on, the fan motor buzzed at 50hz but did not turn as per the start of the malfunction this morning.

I have removed one by twisting and pulling. Think my fingertips will be undergoing cellular regeneration for the next week.

Our static caravan boiler would not fire up this morning, this was half expected because yesterday the extractor fan was making abnormal noises while spinning. This morning I started dismantling the boiler to understand how to inspect or remove the fan for replacement. The fan was probably stuck because the motor coil was hot and buzzing but the fan was not turning. My usual heating plumber is off sick and advised that a few squirts of WD40 on the fan bearings might help the central heating work until he can replace the fan. The problem is I dismantled the fan armature a bolt too far and then a captive nut fell off the back the motor assembly so now I need to dismount the whole fan motor off its rubber flexi mounts (blue) before I can reassemble everything. How can I remove the three one-way push fit spring washers photoed?

I tried that before = lots of ash for little heat output!

When discussing loading with my truss designer I expressed my disappoint with the low kg figure and replied "no that is your allowance for floor material weight per m2". He then quoted another larger number for storage load per m2. His final comment was that in practice it is archived paperwork stored in attics that concern him the most.

I have enough ceiling height on the ground floor to adopt the counter baton idea but upstairs things are a bit tight. Upstairs joist to floorboard is 2353mm from which I need to subtract 15mm for plasterboard, another 18mm for the wooden floor and now another 25mm for the counter batons = 58mm. Is 2295mm head height ok for upstairs? It feels low at the moment without any room stud walls to visually partition the whole space upstairs.

Ah so for the loss of just 25mm of ceiling height this creates a nice wide 75mm target to aim the pasterboard fixing screws at? "Counter baton" means fixed at 90 degrees to the line of the roof trusses I assume?

My roof design includes many metal joist hangers due to the hipped roof shape. This week's task is to fill in the hip corners with ceiling joists and this requires adding metal hangers to the non wallplate end of the infill joists. The concern I have is with the fitted height of these hangers, the options are: Position the hanger a couple of mm below the bottom of a truss so that as the wooden joist is supported by the cup of the hanger the joist meets the truss at exactly the same level or... Position the height of the hanger so that the bottom of the metal hanger cup is flush with the bottom of the roof truss with the result that the ceiling joist meets the truss a few mm to high. Option 1 seems technically correct but will this result in bumps in the finished plasterboard as the protruding hanger cups distort the plasterboard?

To be competitive truss designers spec to minimum industry standards. You could always challenge them and say for an extra £200 which part of the design would you re-spec to the next timber size up.

Thanks chaps. I just have just locked & loaded my pulse driver with a fresh battery and going outside.

This is my situation. Today I was going to add more longitudinal stiffener to my roof trusses, then it rained for 30 minutes. The stiffener battens are rough sawn with a 22mm x 100mm cross section and seem to soak up water. I store the battens in a dry space but the first batten of the day was positioned yesterday afternoon ready for fixing. Should I delay fixing for a couple of hours post rain?

No. He wanted me to buy the clout nails before he arrived for the job. The clouts were for the metal Z clips.

I have discovered tradesmen don't know the sizes of the materials they use. At the BM trade counter they must say "and two bags of the usual clouts Bill". My floor guy got irritated when I asked him what length of clout nails I should buy, in the end he guessed wrong.

How far apart are the external MVHR intake and exhaust? Have you tried leaving the bedroom door open or ajar overnight? Have you tried placing the co2 monitor elsewhere in the house?

There are some strange economic theories being expressed here. The notion that a 8 to 10 year old static caravan has done most of its depreciation and should then hold its value is false. The life expectancy of a static is 2 to 3 times longer than a car hence when a static is sold off from a first division park site at 8 years the better analogy is a car lease-hire disposal at 3 years. Yes the market for statics is tiny once they are not resales within a park but there is a market as proven by this forum. Another market is young people choosing to live mortgage, we know of one young lady who lives in her parent's back garden. I am assuming 10% to 15% depreciation per year. As to my self build choices, two years into my self build I could not imagine not living on site. I could not calculate how much time would have been wasted waiting for deliveries if living elsewhere. Our static cost about a years rental of a small property so we are ahead ££ already. We splashed out more than many here on a wide 13.5' x 37' static, life is comfortable and the square footage is about the same as a 1 bedroom flat. I cannot imagine what we will do with the extra 1100 sq ft of space once the house is complete. Things that my persuade me to recommend a property rental instead of a static are: Big budget self build with a main builder contracted for a turn key whole development with a move-in date a year hence. All ducks lined up pre plot purchase for a quick timber frame kit development. Difficult country lane access. A static is far bigger than a large HGV. Unresolved questions about establishing main services on site. Small site. At 0.22 of an acre I was surprised how quickly I ran out of space for the house footprint plus a 3m working boundary, car parking, tradesman parking, 26 packs of bricks, plus sand pile, cement mixing station and finally the static. Multiple kids. Wife who does not do anything less than Thomson 5 star holidays.

There is an engineering fit and aesthetic fit, quite different. Is your brickie allowing for an extra 220mm width reduction should you finish the fireplace lining with old facing bricks?

I should think about this option again. I had previously ruled it out because I was concerned the nail holes left from the temporary battens might prevent secure fixing of the proper battens when the proper roof goes on. I suppose smaller clout nails could be used for the temporary battens?

Not a warm roof by design but as I look at a useful storage area I am starting to consider how it can be partitioned into a semi warm space. Just need to ensure I don't create temperate damp space.

Thanks and @joe90likes his. I might fit one as soon as the roof is slated. The extra ££ for the attic trusses is beginning to look like a wise investment, the space created is larger than I anticipated even though headroom room is 5ft.

I might try some 1000ga plastic membrane which is 25% the cost of heavy duty tarp and hope that in a winter gale it will rip before forming a sail that would try to tug the roof trusses off.

The idea came from watching a pro roofing team on YouTube, they used tarps to cover up large sections of a roof during a reslate job. Did your tarp wind event lead to damage to the roof truss structure?

I see your logic but with Scottish forum members warning about delamination of felt due to frost action after a couple of months I started looking for a different solution. Another problem is that the roofers will not batten until the fascia is on and same sample guttering is available. I am a few weeks away from that stage and now the nights are getting frosty the potential damage to the building is not just water getting to the edges of the first floor boards but also frost action on the blocks which soak up water during rain.

A top concern of mine also. I would not tie the tarp to the rafters, I would just throw it over the trusses and weigh it down with planks and blocks on the staging. I will check out eBay.

I am planning to cover my roof trusses with a whole roof tarpaulin to insure against the possibility that the slaters or slate deliveries might be delayed for a couple of months. The essential roof dimensions are 10.5m x 6.5m for the main block plus another 4.5m x 4.5m L extension at the roof same level. Can anyone recommend a tarpaulin supplier or material grade that will be up to this job? This caught my eye: https://www.tarpaulinsuk.uk/products/heavy-duty-brown-tarpaulin-240gsm-high-density-woven-polyethylene-tarp It is a 30 degree roof in a sheltered low-land village location.

I have been fitting the long bracing timbers into my roof structure today and before fully fixing the two trusses over the landing I thought it best to check I will be able to fit a loft ladder and slide an MVHR unit between the joists. The problem is that my attic trusses over the landing are a chunky 50mm thick. One truss is 5mm out of position hence spaced 605mm on centres resulting in a 55.5 cm gap for the frame of a loft ladder. Is this wide enough? If not I could slide one truss an extra 10mm over with a lump hammer to widen the gap, (yes I will re plumb the verticals of any moved truss).