eros_poli

Hi Alan, Yes as a by product of a wonky old house and an angled extension they’re not the same angles. Joe

Stand down; I've found a local fabricator who'll make the bracket for £200 with angles/measurements. If anyone's interested, it's Toomers in Salisbury.

Hi people. What I need is best shown on the Simpson Strong Tie US website, but it's not available in the UK (I've checked with Simpson UK) https://www.strongtie.com/topflangehangers_engineeredwoodconnectors/msc_hanger/p/msc It's basically to join two glulam ridge beams, and two glulam valley beams, at one point. It's been specced by the SE. See drawing of location attached for reference. Any recommendations of an off the shelf (albeit custom order) part would be great, failing that a steel fabricator who can whip one up at a reasonable cost with drawings of course. Thanks in advance! Joe

Something a local sales rep for Rationel has brought up, against Nordvest. Any thoughts? - they have been unable to supply any testing certification to confirm compliance with PAS24:2014 or equivalent testing standard which is a requirement for Part Q. I appreciate that you don’t necessarily need to have this, and a Building Inspector may still sign-off on the windows if their construction and hardware is sufficiently robust, but it may be trickier for insurance and building warranty purposes where they often take a less nuanced view.

Thanks for all the comments! Rationel (as of today) can't come anywhere close to Nordvest's cost, 6k vs 9k for our project. Nordan have matched Nordvest, which I was surprised at. Haven't considered Norrsken since the very beginning as they were very pricey, but I'll go back to them again and see what they come up with. Thanks, Joe

I'm currently trying to decide between Nordvest and Nordan. After lots of good conversations with Nordvest and meeting them at the build it show we were all but set. Nordan comes back out of the blue and offers to beat Nordvest's price, Rationel have always been costlier for some reason... It’s frustrating that most reviews online for each supplier are either "best windows ever" or "avoid!" 😆 I guess it's like anything, if you're happy with the price and the customer service and you get a good product it doesn't matter. Joe

Nice one, thanks Dave.

Hi, I'm about to install a Glapor Geocell floor, provided by Mike Wye. On their guidance it recommends a compactor of between 85-120kg in weight (among other specs). The only compactors I can find for hire around me are 50kg in weight. Does anyone have any experience of compacting geocell with a lighter whacker plate? Ideally it’s electric as I don't want the house to stink of fumes for months..... Do I just need to use it for longer/slower to get the same compaction ratio? Or do I have to use a heavier unit? Here's the lighter weight electric one https://brandonhirestation.com/electric-plate-compactor-hire Thanks! J

Thanks for the only reply that's actually answered the question!

Hi, Struggling to find any sage advice out there on the thickness of the mortar bed to use when laying limestone slabs. This is internal, and we're thinking of using 15mm Travertine slabs. These will be laid on a Mike Wye-supplied Geocell/Limecrete floor, which will be finished with nhl5 lime slab. I assume it would be best to also use NHL5 as the bed for the slabs, and am guesstimating that 20mm would be a good thickness to aim for. Should it be thinner...? Need to know for the excavations working backwards from finished floor level. Cheers! Joe

We're at planning/building regs stage for an extension, and I'm hunting for a good installer for our heat pump. I won't go into too much detail on system design etc, but wanted to know if anyone had had a good or bad British Gas ASHP install? I've been reading up on Heat Geek certified installers, and seen some bad reviews for BG installs - however SOME say there are some great BG engineers out there who know what they're talking about. I'm not an expert, but the variety of information and recommendations I get when speaking to a handful of installers is concerning. Any advice welcome! I'm in Wiltshire, if that helps. So far I've narrowed down the install to a Cardiff based company, and a heat pump engineer based in Bristol. Thanks Joe

Hi all, Just become a member, as I've been reading up a lot on this forum over the past months. I'm a 1850’s cottage-owner in Warminster, dealing with a lot of old-property things and putting right some wrongs (be-gone gyspum!) We're also embarking on a self build extension in the future, using a timber frame method. We helped build a house on the West cost of Scotland a few years ago and got bit by the self build bug. That was a Flemming Homes kit, and a family/friend build project. Great fun. So far I'm built a 3d model of our extension on Sketchup, have a pretty solid plan and costings schedule, and and nailing down a few details. I'll probably be asking about alternative insulation options to get decent U-values (PIR is gross) without spending a fortune (wood fibre £££....), and also have some general queries about marrying a timber frame to a stone cottage. Thanks for being here! Joe