jack

I run mine at 15 degrees and it works brilliantly. Only wish we'd installed UFH upstairs so we could cool the bedrooms in the same way!

I used a high-build epoxy paint product. Can recommend the guys at Promain - excellent advice. If you're going to spend a lot on epoxy (and it's way more expensive than regular floor paint), you need to make sure you get the prep right. We had really bad spalling in places, so I rented a floor grinder. It was very expensive due to the amount of wear I put on the diamond pads, and that was without taking it all the way back to perfectly smooth. I doubt I'd take that approach if I were doing it again. I really liked the idea of one of the epoxy self-levelling products to build up a thicker coat, but it was expensive, and I was worried about having to mix and lay it while keeping a wet edge (etc). Given how much the grinding cost, however, I think it might actually have been cheaper to go this way, and the result would almost certainly have been better. While the high build product I used did iron out the finer imperfections, it doesn't really do much for deeper marks. You can still clearly see tamp marks in places where I wasn't able to grind them completely off, for example.

I subscribe to Dog & Hat. Every month, I get a box with four different bags of coffee. They can be from artisan roasteries anywhere in the UK - occasionally we even get one from Europe or North America. It's a long way from the cheapest way to buy coffee, but I really enjoy my coffee, and I don't have any other expensive habits.

Building plots simply don't exist in the suburb where I live, so buying what was possibly the worst and maybe the smallest house within a mile was the best we could manage. We bought a tiny - less than 90m2 - 1950s bungalow that was in terrible condition. We lived in it for two years while we got planning, then rented locally for a year while we demolished and rebuilt. The new house is just over three times the floor area of the old one. We bought in 2012. Looking at prices locally now, I'd be far less comfortable doing something like this in the current environment. There have been quite a few knock-downs in the area since we did ours, and I think the market is now factoring that into the prices of small run-down houses on good plots.

I know exactly how you feel. Five years after moving in, there are still things I look at every day - several times a day, most days - that annoy me due to how poorly they've been done. My wife doesn't see them, and to be honest I'd much rather be like her. I think that if I were doing this again, I'd short-circuit this issue by choosing more rustic finishes as far as possible. For example, rather than a smooth skim finish, I'd probably go for a rougher bagged finish. Instead of a sharp modern kitchen, I'd probably go for something quirky and recycled (eg, old teak lab bench instead of Corian), so that it's imperfect from the start.

Sounds similar to what I read when I bought a plunge saw a while ago. I believe you want the depth to be such that the cutting edge of the tooth doesn't leave the lower surface of what you're cutting. For a typical blade, I guess that means you want the tooth tip to extend about 3 or 4 mm below the bottom surface. Have a look at Peter Millard's YouTube videos on plunge saws. He really knows what he's talking about.

I planted a few as part of an edible hedge a couple of years ago. Its position on the plot means it didn't get the water it probably needed during the worst of the hot periods we've had over the last two summers, so I daren't show you how unhappy they currently look!

I'm sure others have suggested that they don't need to be in date order.

I think in general that's right, but in our case, 90% of the problems were caused by the experienced installers failing to appreciate a couple of important construction details shown on the drawings they were given. Unfortunately, their oversights weren't noticed until it was far too late, and we had to go back and bodge solutions on the fly.

Exactly the same experience we had. What is it with window fitters? I thought "oh my god, the windows!" just happened on Grand Designs, but it happened to us, and has happened time and again to others I know on this site and elsewhere.

Doesn't help you much given your marble is a lot whiter than ours, but here's ours in (from memory!) Mapei smoke grey. It doesn't look quite as dark as this in real life.

I definitely wouldn't go white - you're bound to end up with a slight mismatch in whiteness, and that never looks right. Can you lay some tiles out on the floor with some coloured strips of paper taking the part of the grout? Might at least give you an idea of how a darker grout might sit (and whether white will look right).

Welcome to BuildHub Ken. Sorry to hear about the health situation that's impacting your lives at the moment. If you're comfortable sharing photos, we're always nosey interested in seeing what people are up to.

Wow, that's amazing. I do wonder whether something's been lost in translation. We don't really do "direct" in this country, and it's like a kick in the guts whenever people put things bluntly.

I'd pay good money for an excuse to miss those. Really not my thing.

At minimum I'd be sure to put ducts in place. Fibre to the premises will come down in price over time, and it'd be good to make it as easy to install as possible if and when it comes down to whatever price you think is reasonable. Last week, we had a neighbour cut the wire going up the pole that supplies us and several nearby properties with our phone lines (trimming his hedge!) For three days I was cursing our refusal to spend a couple of grand taking the line under the road from the base of the pole five years ago!

Looking good. As ProDave says, you have to let us know about the interesting find!

I haven't gotten around to doing anything with this yet, although it's only one or two tasks away at the moment. Currently, I think I'll use plastic tiles like what you've done, but still pondering how to get an outward slope to the slab. I've thought of a few ways, but none of them is perfect.

Read the sheet again. This product contains one specific glyphosate salt (glyphosate isopropylammonium) and various salts of a different chemical: 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid. Edited to add: these two herbicides are widely used in combination: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlist_Weed_Control_System

I'm going to try a third time before I go out in the garden and do something more productive. I'm not sure why you keep answering as though I'm asking why glyphosate is sold as a salt. I'm asking why a product containing glyphosate IPA salt 27.9 % (w/w) ***AND THAT ALSO CONTAINS*** 32.0 % (w/w) of 2,4-D DMA derivate salts is: Hence why I've twice now said:

I'm asking out of genuine ignorance: how does that statement relate to:

That data sheet says that there's a significant amount of other ingredients beyond glyphosate: (By mass, there's actually more of the other active ingredients than gylphosate.) I have no idea whether those additional ingredients warrant the higher price, but on the face of it they don't look like the same product.

I looked into this extensively, and would have gone for these if I'd had the budget. The tiles themselves aren't massively expensive per square metre, but add in decent adhesive and labour and it starts adding up!

We used Hilliard too, and he was great when dealing with building control's questions.

What does Eggar say? I seem to recall that for at least one flooring system, the preferred approach for minimal noise was nails (or was it screws?) at one end, and glue-only on the remaining edges.