Beau

I can imagine how gutting it was but still going to laugh at your misfortune. So accepting I need to take a whole pile of slates off would you look to go into the stack behind the slates or drop down to near ground level behind the lead and break in there? Less hight for dropping hole saws and easier access for what I imagine is a tricky join. If its a boss with a strap I'm going to be digging holes in the wall to get behind the pipe as it looks like it was rendered after the pipe was fitted so partially set into the wall. The advice is much appreciated even if I dont like whats involved haha

We are slowly renovating my late parents farmhouse. We are looking to put in a small bathroom where currently we just have a toilet. There is a cast iron downpipe behind the lead flashing on the slate hanging, and the blue line marks the height a shower drain should come out through the wall. I am loathed to take off all the slates, so I’m hoping there is a discreet alternative I haven't thought of. The room below is nice and I would rather take lots of slates off than drop a waste pipe through it. The wall has EWI behind the slates, and I think the buildup is 3x2 battens with 60mm PIR set between them, then batten and slates. If I do have to remove lots of slates, should I just bite the bullet and replace the cast downpipe with plastic while I'm at it? Thanks

I've been pleased with this which has bonded insulated plasterboard to some dodgy old lime plastered walls successfully. Cheapest I found was an ebay seller which worked out around £6.50 a can https://www.soudal.co.uk/diy/products/adhesives/foam-adhesives/soudabond-plasterboard-gun

Black stove paint is widely available. Our local farm shop even stocks it (least they used to) and they have a branch in Liskeard which might be close to you? Mole Valley Farmers

Fill the hole with silcon and mount a shower shelf to cover it?

You are right to plan for problems. We have a similar room and I did not consider acoustics. When I finally set up my prized hifi in there my better half said it was the closest she had have seen me to crying. It's better now with lots of furnishings and pictures up on the wall but the fancy hifi got sold as it was totally unsuited to such a bright sounding space.

I would make up a 30 degree wooden wedge and use that to guide a handsaw at the angle.

I often hear people say dehumidifiers are cheap to run but are they? Our old condensing Ebac uses 360 Watts and our Meaco (desiccant type) I think is near 600 watts when on full. We do dry using a dehumidifier but have never thought of them as a cheap option

We moved into my late parents old place that had no central heating and just an LPG AGA and wood burners (no mains gas available). The AGA was using over 2k of bulk LPG a year and only heated a couple of rooms, hot water and cooking. Having had a heat pump in the form of a GSHP for 18 years in our previous barn we were comfortable a well designed heat pump system would work well enough. We didn't cost up a FF heating system and just went straight for the heat pump as we could afford it, it shouldn't be more expensive to run and has environmental benefits. A year in its managed an SCOP of over 4 and cost around £850 a year to run. The heat pump grant combined with getting the VAT back on all the radiator work made this all a lot less painful than it might have been. Edit. We went for air source over ground source as I couldn't face the chaotic mess of the trenches for a GSHP which would have to go through our yard which is our main farm access and has lots of drains and water supplies in it.

Used to swear by Balcotan but that's discontinued . The Soudal is as close I can get now Another option is Collano Semperoc which is recommended for marine use but its lighter in colour than most PUs and shows up more on furniture which is generally what I use these glues for

Thanks for the suggestions so far. No problems with door clearance as for whatever reason the inner door is set up as you can see in the picture. The floor under the carpet tiles is suspended so no problems setting it in when I replace the existing, non water resistant, no T&G chipboard. Really like the idea of two mats and rotating them in between cleans

Morning all. We are plugging away at our farmhouse renovation and doing a bit of work on our internal entrance room. We need a really good mat (suggestions welcome) and are thinking of setting it into a mat well to contain any dry grit and mud that might try to escape. We have a tiled, unheated outer porch for dumping filthy farm coats and boots, but then we are often coming in from the yard in shoes after shopping, etc., and removing shoes in the warm entrance room. This is a working farm and we are not looking at Grand Designs perfection, more a good practical utility solution. Thanks

"I don't get how it can get away without having some sort of measure of the internal temperature" I dont know how your system works but I know our GSHP monitors flow and return temps on the heating circuit so I guess it can extrapolate from that. We have no internal thermostat influence on our GSHP or ASHP systems and they both keep the buildings at very steady temps once you get the curve right.

In my experience, kiln-dried constructional timber is not dried to the same extent as hardwoods. I’m a furniture maker, log seller, and miller by trade, and when buying in hardwoods for furniture they are dried to around 8–10%, which is close to what they will sit at in an average home. When I’ve tested construction softwoods, they’re normally in the 16–20% range, so they will shrink and warp more if used inside the heated envelope, but are fine for external use as is. Worth noting that even though it’s a pain buying in timber that’s been soaked by the rain, it will quickly dry back to its kiln-dried moisture content, as this water is not bound in the cells of the wood. Getting it from 16–20% down to 8–10% for the home can be a slow process, but softwoods dry more quickly than hardwoods. As mentioned, the wood in the DIY sheds is often much drier due to its storage environment, but also much more warped and twisted, as it’s dried beyond what you get at the builders’ merchants.

We are only half a mile from the open moor so no temptation for anyone to camp in our fields. They can legally camp on Dartmoor, well most of it anyway.