lizzie

Trying to use as much as we can of the bits and pieces to save on skip cost. 1 cannibalised gabion......some offcuts of blocks and rubble.......a pile of slate chips......some leftover cladding.........voila a bespoke garden bench!

If we had it it will have gone in the skip by now

Never heard of it but will google right now....

Thank you....yes still builders lurking - or disappearing without finishing jobs - but nicer aspects beginning to come in and I am going to enjoy them after the hell of the build.

Good luck @newhome I tried it once in hanging baskets but didn't notice any real benefit. Ive had a typical English garden and a tropical garden this one is going to be mediterranean...drought tolerant, wind tolerant and able to withstand baking sun which is more than can be said for me I am melting here!

Thats a good idea @Ian everything I have seen on line is toxic tar paint (blackjack type stuff). I really only need to line the sides the bottom is open to the ground and its the blocks I want to give some protection too..................no bog plants its hot as hades out there south facing. Lavender or some other dry hot tolerant plant.

I have had some planters built in block and am going to have them rendered (sand and cement) and then paint them with Masonry paint I think I should do some sort of waterproofing inside? Any suggestions for an easy to use non toxic substance, I will be doing it myself.

I am not going to get all that paint off now and I dont think epoxy goes over the top......does it?

We used a self leveller on the roughest bits, primer then garage floor paint from screwfix. Its marked easily think when the weather cools we will do the paint again.

OMG that is so scary! Lucky you were at home.

My plumber fitted the former and tiler did the tanking

is underway and he is doing such an amazing job cutting all the angles in I wanted to share it.?

I have level threshold sliders and external doors on an mbc slab. We have a french drain right around the perimiter and aco slot drains on all hard surfaced areas. I didnt want the gravel gap I wanted my tiles flush with threshold for the seamless look. To my untrained eye the way we have done it does the job. Bifolds would be similar I imagine. Both the BCO and build warranty inspector were happy with ours.

I had stud work over pipes someone must have cut the pipe down to get the timber half over it.

Park home....those static caravans that are on residential parks.

I'll start by saying I am not a fan of multipanel and would not have them myself. Some friends have had the tiled effect ones in latest house (they had the regular ones in last house) and I can't say I am impressed at all. Looks like a park home to me but what do I know LOL

Planning?

No mortgage for us but we still took a 10year build warranty in case we want to move etc Our construction insurance was via buildzone (nothing to do with build warranty). I found them the quickest and easiest to deal with having first asked my broker and weeks later they had still not found anything suitable. I would go with buildzone for ease and speed, they do this every day of the week so its easy with them.

My nephew had caravan in an old barn. Would have to have been a very large garage to accomodate it.......too tall, too wide etc. It was a large caravan though.

Great article. I remember a lot of the Rowheath stuff in the 80’s. I had come back from some years living in East Africa and being on the periphery of projects to harness sun and wind power to generate electricity for villages. Literally mud huts, no passive houses there LOL

Sadly I can only tell you what I remember which is light on technical detail. I dont beleive they made any findings public it was for their own housing stock. There is a development of 14 passive houses under way a few miles from me. They are social housing... waterloo housing development Wooton Wawen Warwks.

Welcome to the mad house! Bournville Trust in Birmingham were light years ahead on this. I worked with them nearly 30 years ago and they were building houses in experimental way then. They were stuffed full of monotoring equipment too. They were leaders in alternative energy research for residential use, I dont think the term passive house was in use here then but they were essentially building the first passive houses here and for social tenants too. I saw huge windows installed inward opening tilt and turn and triple glazed - unheard of in Uk in those days. The quaker legacy of the Cadbury family founded the Trust.

Go and talk to a local planning consultant see if they can get him to move on it.

I have been really lucky with my carpenter. Out of all of them he is the outstanding one, without him I dread to think where we would have been. Some of the others have just been total waste of spaces. I am still trying to get grout and adhesive off 180m of porcelain floor tiles where the tiler did not clean them off properly when he laid them. They were hidden for months under anti knox mats and by the time we saw the problem he was long gone...sacked for other reasons ......tiler no2 did an excellent job and he did not leave mess on the tiles.

@recoveringacademic and he told you in advance? Wow - he is a bit special, in my experience they just do not turn up and if you are lucky you get a text some hours after you were expecting them to say not coming today..............