MikeSharp01

Not sure I like the new name. Will their nuclear reactors and trains get rebranded as well I wonder. I am reminded of the 'not the nine o'clock news' "okikoki cabouki 2000'.

Ratoons thow hast spotted the flaw in my discourse. I will send myself back to go without collecting £200 or using it to make a planning application.

Me thinks the dragon snoozeth@

Don't worry, if some people get their way, we will soon be a very different country and then it will be a free for all, well not quite free but nonetheless open to those who can pay to oil wheels.

I appreciate that it is no help to you but my wife's got one of those but I still find ways of leaving the jobs around the house un done.???

It is hard to be omni competent though so sometimes you have to rely on others. Although on reflection I allow other people to run the country and I recon they would give even the most awful tradesperson a run for your money against the criteria you describe.

Amazing. We need more ideas. Love the screw pile concept, when you move out you unscrew the piles and it's as if it were never there. Now just imagine a power grid you could connect to with a screw pile and water to.....

Ours is just over a year old now and it is looking good. The two or three tiny imperfections on the floor described above have all but disappeared and they don't show up unless you are looking for them. We have no white coating like you describe. Ours is usually coated in mud, as we use the space as a site hut, but when it dries I just brush it off and it looks as good as it did a few days after the pour. MOH is happy with the finish so we will do the same for the main house only this time densify / seal as you suggest to get the shinyer surface. Ours is RC25/30 so no more waterproof than that. Not sure I can be of any more help about the white stuff still emerging from your slab. One thing I have noticed is how optimistic I was about timing. "A few months behind" - my eyes how nieve was / am I.

Here are a couple of snaps of our block house before we demolished the old house. The front has gas an electric meters and the back has electric distribution (to the house / garden room / garden / lighting and car charger point) and the comm cabinet with the phone line in with wired router and alarm system.

Will share a photo when I get back home tonight. You will have to pay a standing charge unless you disconnect the gas. Which you could do once it is moved as all they do I believe is seal it so no gas is available and then you won't pay the standing charge but if anyone wants it back they will have to pay a connection fee. Also if your gas only comes to the block house anybody wanting the gas to the house will have to run the gas pipe into the house which might not be simple.

By way of ways forward what we did was build a simple block structure at the front of the plot, by the road, and we got all the services diverted to there and then we have full control of ducting to the main house and the garden room. We have all four connections there in their own boxes.

If you get a neighbor, or other dog walker, to help you might be able to, sort of, roll it up and that will make it easier to handle. Long handle bolt cutters are the best thing, and safest if you cannot get it taken away via the ad.

technically they were breaking the law if they claimed they were architects as the word 'Architect'(s) is a professionally reserved word and you cannot call yourself one unless you are registered with an appropriate professional body.

You will need a demolition order before you start, its paperwork from the council and is designed to make sure you are staying within the rules, you can imaging a self builder tackling a twenty story tower block armed only with the education gained from watching some footage from the Fred Dibnah archive. BEWARE though that we applied for a demolition order and in our councils (Canterbury) workflow this triggers a commencement of the build which then led them to put a stop order on us as we had not discharged one of the planning conditions, we had a bit of time sorting it all out. You can get around this by either discharging the planning condition(s) or just telling them not to trigger a commencement as the demolition work you are doing is just site preparation and not the main build.

I may have confused DPM with DPC where the DPM is below the slap concrete while the DPC is below the sole plate or up a few bricks. Diagram might help as the DPM must go up and somewhat over the EPS upstand so on the inside of the upstand the pipes would go through the DPM in our design.

15 M. The guys at Trac pipe worked out the size needed for me given the boiler, vaillent Eco tec 35 working flat out, with 2 x 90 degree bends and a 15m run so as to keep the pressure drop within reasonable bounds. I will put the trac pipe into the duct before I Bury the duct so I don't have to pull / push it through and that way I xan check I can move it backwards and forwards as the duct gets covered in pea shingle and then type 1.

I looked at that but it specifically says: "Safe to use with most cable types except low-density polyethylene ..." I don't know if the trac pipe sleeving is 'low density' polyethylene (polyethlene it is) but given it is soft it might well be so I had sort of knocked yellow 77 out of my list of possibles. That looks like it might be a goer. I will get some, thanks Nick.

We are installing trac pipe from our utilities centre along a duct and into the house. The TRAC pipe will be in a flexible ducting and will be put in the ducting before it is laid. As part of the process we need to pull the pipe back about 300mm down into the duct, which will then be capped off to allow the slab to be power floated over the duct top seals. We will then need to push it back out again. To make this easier, its is 28mm diameter in a 63mm duct, I / we (includes the gas safe guy I have overseeing the install) want to lubricate the the duct / pipe surfaces and was / were wondering what might be the best lubricant to use that won't harden or evaporate over the couple of days while the slab cures and won't attack the Polyethylene Jacket of the pipe or the lining of the duct over time. I have found a 3M product that looks like it will do it but I wonder if there is any better solution. In reading round the problem I did find that washing up liquid is depreciated in this role as it drys and a can attack some polymers over time (which I find hard to believe as it is so kind to your hands!) Any thoughts anyone?

MIxed advice then, I think I will go with the wrapping idea as the slab designer seems to think its not a bad idea and we will see how we get on. The base of the drain slopes so the general flow will be down hill to the ditch and with lick it will get into the pipe somehow, I believe capillary action should do something as for clay it goes on on an on climbing.

Hi Jack. Did you have to go through the DPM. I have looked at ducting it / using duo insulated duct but have concluded its a non starter as the turns would be difficult if I come in through the slab former side then through the DPC and along in the EPS layer then up I think it should work.

If you have the email confirming 2 sliders and 1 fixed then you look to be on solid ground, did you pay by credit card, if so you can gt your money back that way if they refuse to play ball. Personally, provided you can get bifolds that meet the regs - they are an air tightness nightmare, and your requirements they are probably the best way to go even at a little higher cost a few extra pounds now will be worth it to roll away the whole window when you want to connect the inside with the outside.

Everywhere more like and I am sure there are loads of circular references in there and mostly they are impenetrable, not written in lay persons language as they expect the reader to be an expert in the subject. I am a little lucky in that the University subscribes to some, not many in construction, but I can pop along to the British Library and access them for the cost of a zone 6 travel card. (£11 off peak) Some councils have them in their libraries, I found this: https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/about-bsi/uk-national-standards-body/Library-Access-to-Standards/ and https://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/The-Digital-Library/ which gives some access by the looks of it.

Tomorrow I will be installing the land drain round our slab base and was wondering if I need to wrap the perforated land drain pipe (solid 110mm pipe with a seam of drilled holes) with geotextile or not? The slab design does not call for it but given we are on clay it may stop the silt from getting into the pipe but will it clog up the holes. I will bed the pipe in pea shingle but again this is not called for in the slab design as the whole thing is encased in type 1. Any thoughts anyone?

Just to be clear are you talking about digging 25 years ago and imagining her while digging or digging today and imagining her as she was 25 years ago. Either way the holding it bit is way out of order and the imagining bit is probably exploitation although the general populace was not as clear on that 25 years ago as they are today.

Yes. Given above advice I will run the problem past the BC chap and prepare to use type 1.