Nickfromwales

Ah. Ok. Makes the 1st point moot then. My chap would have come out in the new year, but is due on site with us 17th next month, and is fully booked until the fat fella in the red suit attacks my wallet.

That’s for tape and joint, not for full wet plastering. Don’t use this.

Get a bit of the wall / angle metal and cut about 100mm long. Cut out the red bit, bending along the red dotted line. Cut the green line, and bend that along the green dotted line by 90° to make an end return. Fix the bracket to the stairs sloping wall, then screw up through the flat section (that you don’t want to slope) into the tab created by the green fold. 3 of them, 2 of 200mm in from each side and one centred, will take out any twang. Red dotted line should have been parallel with the green one. Prob quicker if I fold 3 and post them to you lol.

Snowman’s bone? lol. All you need is a good spread. Where about are you in the world?

You just cut small off cuts and snip the middle, to make little ‘angle-adjustable’ brackets, to hold this firm. Fit it horizontal / flat from the right hand wall to the wall that returns to the side of the stairs, then install 3 or 4 of your home made brackets to take any wiggle up. Quicker and easier than fecking about shaping wood.

Everyone, “news flash!!”. It’s a tiny cupboard.

Those two walls will act as buttresses to themselves, so once boarded they would stand alone with ease. I would firstly fly the ceiling (cyan lines) into the z shaped wall, purple, so you have more structure meeting the staircase and side wall to the door.

I’m afraid it’s suck it and see. If it works, as it does with silicone, it’s a total game changer and makes the job a doddle.

Where you’re painting, yes, but tbh I’d not go for oil based paints. Decorators caulk should only really be used for areas where paint meets paint, and nowhere else. If you need a more robust option, then clear / white CT1 sealant can be overpainted as it’s not a silicone, as silicone cannot be painted, but anything you’re thinking of painting gloss over should not be a sealant tbh. There are some very good water based ‘gloss’ products, and they don’t yellow. The bath will be fine, as long as you don’t go hard with the mechanical removal. Use the spray and time / effort there.

Could also do this with a resin.

Does this get routinely driven on, or just foot traffic. Making this up in layers, with slc for eg, will not survive imo. Better off one section of concrete, anchored with horizontal fixings for purchase, and some small stainless / galv mesh. Small patches are the biggest pita.

@gavztheouch https://www.cableglandsuk.com/products/dafa-renovation-grommet-airtight-sealing-for-passivhaus?_pos=1&_sid=a43c395d4&_ss=r&variant=46767281373408

160mm insulated is 250mm finished, external dia, as above. Not a 250mm duct

Beer and Toblerone is my Xmas staple tbh. “Get out of my head!! 👉”. lol. If this has worked for 20 years do you really want to spend on a full overhaul? I would never fit an arrangement where the manufacturer has the pump pumping downhill, instant “no” for me. Most pump manufacturers will show this in the installation instructions with a big ❌. I fit the Ivar setups from underfloor heating parts. Entirely up to you, but these are far superior and have never given me a moments trouble, and the TRV head and capillary feed thermostatic blending valve is way better (smoother) than the standard TMV’s afaic. Your call.

Mechanically removing the worst of it is the 1st step, eg a Stanley blade / scraper, and a plastic removal tool (Amazon jobby) will get you so far. Then you’ll need to try Multisolve from CT1 which you spray on and leave for a while, then rub more into the sealant to remove it; it emulsifies silicone etc and cleans the remnants off pretty well ahead of new works. Use a traditional cotton dish cloth for the cleaning phase. Good luck, it’s a pig of a job.

Amen. My tired thumbs were NOT looking forward to typing out similar. Beers on me. 🍻

A 20 year old pump has certainly served you well, so I’d defo say it’s time for you to treat your heating setup to a heart transplant! This would also be the next item in the process of elimination anyways, so if you’re summoning a plumber to site then you may as well max out on the value of that visit. So yes, get the pump and the AAV’s done in one hit. Should be max 2 hrs physical work, and prob another hour on site firing it back up and demonstrating / commissions the system before they depart. Re a good fitter near you, that’s simply down to legwork, so get the legs moving . You’re over 5 hrs from me, so I’d be crazy expensive if I called out, so get on the phone and keep ringing around, but if you keep drawing a blank PM me and I’ll see if I know someone nearer you. When you / they drain down, you need to be sure they don’t introduce air into the loops, so don’t choose a nugget or you may inherit issues from their ineptness.

Not exactly life or death tbf? And it’s not caused an issue to date… It’s upside down, pumping the water down instead of up, which gripes me as much as that cable gripes you, however the effects of having the pump ‘the wrong way around’ are more consequential, air wants to sit in the pump, when low flow rates cannot purge the air downwards when fighting over it wanting to rise upwards. The air does rise and settle when the pump is off, but sits there without an automatic air vent to let it out, which is why I always bin the manual vents and fit 3rd party AAV’s eg so these do a bit of self maintenance/bleeding. Doubt bleeding the pump is an issue, more the fact it is in a constant battle trying to pull any trapped air downwards, through, and out; it can then only be released by being pushed through the loops to get back to the highest part of the manifold, where the whole damn cycle started again! Get some AAV’s fitted asap here plz!! @MorganP 3 lpm flow rate on the 12mm pipe is not too shabby tbh, and if the pump was zooted you’d not even have that. How old is the pump? Is it noisy? We need air vents fitted as the first steps in the process of elimination, before changing anything more (imo).

I’m coming to your house and I’m confiscating all of your foil.

Carry on then squire. “so B it” lol.

Mortar at the sides is pretty much cosmetic, the RSJ is doing the work here The structural engineer would have stated how / if any connection was detailed, so best to see that first, and let us know, vs just assume there’s anything wrong here.

My PH design guy says 1000mm apart is absolutely fine, and that is fortified in my opinion when you see combination vents doing both the 'inny' and the 'outy'. No need for 2m afaic, and I have fitted a lot of MVHR systems successfully in the last decade+ with excellent results and feedback from clients who have then moved in and are living with the systems.

A semi-dry concrete mix, with 10mm aggregate, should be fine, and won't self-level. You can lay this good enough to take the micro-cement, if you take your time and do a good job of levelling off the surface with a straight edge (like a spirit level for eg). Once the concrete has been left a good few hours it can be 'blocked' to further improve the surface finish, by rubbing it over with a common brick (like a coarse sanding block). Plenty of fast-setting cement products out there such as Ardex A38 etc, but the details from the MC manufacturer will dictate when you can lay/apply it. The semi-dry concrete mix will have far less water, so would be the fastest 'drying' solution imho.

No issues there afaic. The foam's just been used instead of mortar to close the gaps, I assume to get your friend weather/vermin tight. The RSJ will likely now get nogged out with timbers, faces with OSB3 with Expamet, and get rendered to complete the job. Usual detail would then be to have the web filled with rockwool on the interior; a decent builder would add some EPS to the external web and foam that in for a bit of finesse, but not really critical as the external steel and brickwork are 'equally cold' and don't contact the internal leaf.

No, it doesn't. If the invert (drop from one end to the other) is <1300mm then you don't even need and AAV (air admittance valve, aka a "Durgo"), so all I would do is make the 90 bend an inspection bend LINK so you can rod down the 8-9m run, and back into the 1m run for self-maintenance.