Crofter

We currently have bare floorboard as our kitchen floor. Sounds lovely, but they're softwood from the 1970s, 19mm T&G. Very draughty (suspended floor), prone to damage and ingrained dirt, and full of badly cut hatches made by previous owner. It needs to go! Original plan was to lay hardboard, to hide the gaps between the planks, and then vinyl on top. Hoped this would be cheap and cheerful. But I'm starting to wonder if hardboard under a kitchen floor is a bad idea, and anyway the stuff isn't actually all that cheap. Finished cost would be something like £19/m2 including fitting and wastage (got an old chimney breast to work round). I could upgrade from hardboard to ply, but that's a significant extra cost, taking me up to something like £26/m2. Or I could rip out all the existing T&G boards and lay P5... it's hardly any more expensive than hardboard... and reuse the old boards flooring my loft. Would solve all the problems with old hatches etc, lets me do a really thorough job of insulating under the floor, cost comes to £21/m2 but holy crap that sounds like a lot of work, especially where the existing flooring flies under partition walls. Probably a non starter for that reason alone. At these sorts of prices, vinyl no longer looks like the cheap and easy option. I did the cottage with bamboo at £20/m2 plus adhesive, although that was four years ago and prices will obviously have risen. So maybe I should be looking into laminate or bamboo, perhaps uni-click to avoid the need for adhesive... in which case I think I need underlay? And how are these finishes likely to fair when laid on slightly cupped old floorboards? Just curious to know what other people would do in this situation.

Just to update, we got fed up and plumped for DIY in the end. They had the fastest lead time and the greatest choice of unit sizes. We're paying £250 in delivery but despite that they're coming in a little under the rest, and I won't have to build the units.

The DIY Cento is a very strong contender at this point. One of the big attractions with DIY is that they do a much wider range of unit sizes than IKEA.

On worktops again... Ikea's 'solid wood' ones are actually only a 3mm layer on the top, a bit like engineered flooring I suppose. How do these hold up in practice? I'd imagine your only get a couple of goes at sanding out damage, and it's conceivable that a deep cut could go right through. I know laminates have an even thinner top layer but it's tougher, and they're less than half the price.

Oh I see! I didn't realise the partitions were already in place. Yes, I guess you'd better get your wallet out and buy some rolls of tape. It ain't cheap ??

I would just continue the VCL around the whole exterior wall, and put the partition walls on top of that. My partitions met up with a stud in the TF so I just screwed through in to that. There's plenty of space in the top and bottom rails of the partition to fire in as many fixings as you want, anyway.

Apologies if this hijacks the thread... I'm about to swap out a plain vanilla vented direct cylinder for its unvented cousin. I'd assumed that I could just plumb it in as-was. But reading through this thread, I realise that it's not as simple as that! Current setup is 22mm from stopcock at kitchen sink, heading off to the bathroom. The first tee is a 15mm to the kitchen (sink, dw, outside tap), the next tee is a 15mm to the existing cylinder, and then the bathroom is at the end. If I need to give the tank priority, that means a big loop up there straight after the stopcock, and then back down again. Or put the tank somewhere else. Not a deal-breaker, just something to think about. Glad I spotted this! I'm planning on getting a plumber to do the essential hookup of the UVC itself but wanted to do all the prep myself, so I'm sure he would have picked me up on this.

You could always raise the bed up by the depth of the skirting... if you didn't want to make any permanent alterations to the legs.

Doesn't the further away bed leg also clash with the skirting? If not, either the bed or the room is out of square...

Hard water is pretty rare in these parts. The cylinders I have seen secondhand are all direct only, mostly sold by people upgrading their heating system, so pretty genuine reason for sale. Of course in a few years time it might be me who is upgrading... but that's another story.

Last time I checked, I could get electricity from Bulb, amongst others, at a flat rate 24/7 cheaper than the "cheap rate from SSE. THTC has no advantages with pricing like that. You have normal priced electricity available on one meter, and super expensive (22p I think) from the other. Everything except space and water heating is supposed to be run from the expensive meter, so the bills fairly rack up.

@newhome no, the changing of supplier is yet another part of my to-do list that I have never got to. My plan is/was to stay with SSE but switch to E7, then shop around for a new supplier. I can't remember if I ever worked out what happens with the physical wiring in the house, with the second CU running the cheap rate stuff.

We're now getting stuck in to renovating our house, working on a very tight budget. Planning to fit a direct UVC (we are all electric, no boiler). I've previously had a cylinder from Telford, good piece of kit, and that would be my go-to option. But it's a fair chunk of the budget at nearly £500 for the sort of size I think I need (two bedrooms, one bathroom, so I',thinking 200-250l). You do occasionally see cylinders come up secondhand, at a pretty hefty discount. Is there anything I should consider when looking at one? Or too much of a potential headache?

Welcome aboard. What plans have you got for the place?

Welcome aboard. Are you going for a turnkey design and install package, or DIY, or somewhere inbetween? Lots of experience of MVHR here on the forum... ask away!

Sample doors from DIY arrived today- quite impressed with them, very thick and chunky, and even the foil ones feel a million times better than the cheap rubbish we have at the moment. It really does go to show how important it is to see things in the flesh. We've both agreed that shaker probably isn't the way to go after all.

Thanks for that. We had a second quote from Howdens which dropped the price by about 15%, still a lot higher than IKEA. Have also ordered some sample doors from DIY Kitchens. There are seemingly hundreds of other options out there, it's a bit bewildering, I'm seeing cupboard doors in my sleep now...

I'm looking for a pair of approx 300w panels, I'd prefer half cut but will take whatever is available easily. I know the likes of Bimble Solar can supply them at around £100 a panel, but they are right down on the south coast and I could end up spending more on delivery than on the panels themselves.

Will there be anything to stop a homeowner doing this themselves, or will it fall within the existing 'competent person' rule?

Presumably these can be powered from a lighting circuit? Seems like the easiest way.

We've got a Draper one at work, 1800w, seems to do a good job with plenty of power and they only cost around £50. I just bought myself a little 1000w vac, some unranded rubbish off eBay for £30 but it's actually been very good so far. And I can run it from my little generator which is surprisingly useful, it beats the socks off my previous cordless Dyson...

For those who have done tape and fill, did you get an acceptable final finish just using paint?

It cost me about £1000 to add a small stove to my new build- admittedly that was on a DIY basis. Includes hearth, flue, cement board to replace PB where necessary, etc etc. Stove itself was £600.

Don't bother with blockwork. Use steel flue pipe. You can use single wall vitreous enamel pipe for the first section, but you'll need sufficient clearance to any combustible material. Then switch to twin wall insulated where it passed through the ceiling.

Well after a bit of digging around I was able to get everything I needed in Hep2O. £140 on something that I hadn't even budgeted for, hey ho. It's quite easy to say "oh we'll just move that" when your new kitchen layout means putting the sink on a different wall. Hadn't realised how knackered all the existing plumbing was. A right mixture of copper and unbranded push fit, some of which had been installed without inserts, so a history of slow leaks and a fair bit of damage to the flooring as a result. But the new setup will be much more rational with shorter legs, better falls on the drains, and- fingers crossed- no more leaks.