scottishjohn

Iwould avoid a horizontal clyinder if possible --will make bleeding from system al ot harder and if you must have one make sure its not exactly hoorizontal --have a high end so air will go to it and hopefully not get trapped

are you putting in stud walls up there as well ? noreasonwhy you should not use theties already ther to attach your foam backed plasterboard to them and additons as needed to match up the PB sheet lengths your roof is adold one so make sure it has plenty of ventilation getting at eaves so you don,t cause a moisture problem

I might have been tempted to bring the walls into get serious insulation+water proofing and make it into a window seat

Ok then attach cement board to insulation ,then render I was only commenting on what I saw locally on some new houses maybe they sheeted them and rendered so quickly I never saw what was done when passing them

all i would say is check carefully all over the floor with a 6ft level before making any decision

slight change of subject there are some new houses near me that they built the TF then fixed 12" slabs of polystreyne insulation to exterior then rendered it so no messing with voids and tricky bits thought it was quite clever

your picture shows brick work is this covered with cladding ? if so then 2 concrete ones will do as the edge of them will not be seen or if totally internal then concrete will do

If you do not want the lintel to show on outside brickwork then you use a "catnic" lintel and conctrete one for inside https://catnic.com/products/lintels there are many suppliers but this will show you how they fit and work

I must be out of touch £600 for a day and the trip was not far away if they were back in an hour $600 cash is really about £800 if they paid tax + ni etc -- so it would have been a no at the start from me - or certainlt no pay till job was done + no a;terations world is full of chancers these days

whats going on top of your block =beam floor ? UFH ? If so you will have plastic sheeting ,then insulation , then screed that sheeting will come up above finished floor level and can join to air tight membrane on stud walls I am guessing sleepr walls come to to where you start stud walls , so ne big black plastic sheet across beams and up the sleeper walls and under the stud walls ,then insulatrion UFH piping and screed your finished floor will be at top of sleeper walls

If it is and has been tracking water in for some time it will take a lot more than a month to dry out once you have sorted the problem ask anybody who has had the house flooded how long it takes for it to dry out

mortar too soft? dpc too slippy do you really need a dpc there is lintels are galvanised? you would not use one with concrete lintel

6" is minimum you want the ends of your lintel to sit on-more the better picture shows that one is not on enough as its only on half a brick ,which is not 6" same goes for others inpicture --not long enough I can,t see how you going to get a full mortar bed above the lintel as it is at present as it was never fitted right to start with --too tight a hole and you can see bricks have sagged in middle over time as lintel bent + bricks above the lintel at left end have joint in wrong place -nearly sraught line down lintel end or it was not fitted right way up most have an upside marked on them probaly fine .but not correct never understand why you would fit short lintels --they not expensive anyway

does anybody NOT fit counter battons? my present house was built with just one set -horizontally and caused a mass gather up of dust and crap behind them and casued rot at lower 4 corners of the roof Ibut yes i know inenglend these used to just use one set of battons with saggy tar pper between them and trusses but never in scotland we always went for sarking boards ,but yes some went for just the one row of battons,like my house -- to save maybe £100 on a roof is silly. but then alot of houses here use slates do all you get is breather membrane then slates nailed on -no battons I suppose the condenstaionis only going to happen if you have a badly vented cold roof - and a warm roof shouldn,t get that anyway

surely if first battons are vertical this will not happen as any condensation will run down the sides of them and not gather up ?

so you must have detailed plans if you have live planning -- which has a time limit -----otherwise its just outline planning which means you do not know what restrictions or requirements will be from planning is there mains water and power mains sewage to site of course not forgetting open reach ducting for telphones and fibre broadband all these need to put in before or at same time road goes in --so lots of money before you staert building first house I got my power cable in -within 3 months of asking --but still been waiting 4months + for a meter -- do not underestimate the time and expense of these things

do not underestimate the cost of retaining walls as a guide look at cost of concrete "lego blocks "--and work out how many you would need with right foundations they are quick to build with a digger --- you say large what is large --how high + how long and what sort of ground is it on-- do you have rock that needs to be removed -- how is the ground behind going to be drained and where to sewage system for whole site ? that will need to be a serious system lanscaping costs? this project needs to be looked at as one job including roads and all services ,even if it is to be done in sections maybe a talk with a larger developer to see if they are interested in buying the site the number they come with will tell you if its viable sites like that are always being sort after by larger developers 600tons of "soil" to be removed thats not alot for the size of your site and probavly could be spread about ? and have you thought about how much soil you need to move to build your road? alot of work to do before you do anything more

and there is the problem you can recycle nearly everything -but as long as its cheaper not to -then it won,t happen lithium batteries are the latest instance we dig more raw lithium ,rather than recyling ,cos it is cheaper same goes for grp turbine blades -the cost to grind them down to recyle them into usable grp again is too expensive - so they go to landfill you need a government to insist on this ,but it will never happen due to vested interests we should be promoting hydro and tidal power ,but the return takes too long for the money men ,so we end up with wind trubines with a fixed life span and a waste problem look at any hydro scheme and the life span --most are still going nearly 100 years from when they were built we got 3 on the river dee here in s/w scotland -uses the same water 3 times --and now that is the way to do it built in1936 and still going we are forecast to have a warmer wetter climate and the tides come in and out twice a day --every day and the beauty of hydro is you decide when you want the power -- the dam is the biggest battery ever most rivers could accomadate some sot of hydro scheme- or arcemedes screw if smaller river with decent flow but not great height drop and it would also help eleviate the flooding problems ,by smoothing water flow If they think that beavers are the solution to flash flooding in a lot of places ,then why not a proper dam and generate electric at same time I know a few farmers that would love to harness the water on thier farms ,but the rate they get for the electric + the planning problems + grid pproblems means it does not happen the money men rule every goverment there has or ever will be no one takes a long enough view on these things -

ladders are not for that job and cotinuops working at height and reaching out on--use a hop-up or small scaffolding it will be bettter ,safwer and probably quicker in the long run Iknow about pains being an old age builder and first thing is proper work boots easy to end up with a life long problem iif your not careful

Iwould only do that if it does not end as a shared access with all the futre problems that go along qwith a shared access been there on both private and commercial property and would never do it again ,as them an you give to may not be the person you have a problem with in the future ,no matter how you construct the deal onshared access

how many coats do you need with k rend acrylic I ask cos i was suprised when they did 3 coats+ bond coat on my covered car porch/arch way through to rear of house base was cement borad on ceiling and one side and block on other and took alot of time to do as coats looked very thin trowelling it on ,then rubbing it up after it stood for some time

yuo got a picture of the installation? moore liley to be the edge flashing and its running under the expasnion joints and showing away from actual leak point

rebar not needed in uk --not much chance of earthquake and if you are happy building with blocks --why not just use blocks it will be cheaper and you can stop start as you like and if you want to insulate you can do that inside the blocks ? or is this garage going to be a granny flat at sometime if so put in drains etc while doing the floor ,and cap them off v if weight of blocks is a consideration --use thermolite ones is your drive /ground solid enough to take a 32ton concrete truck

NO VOLTS X AMPS =WATTS 240 X 16=3640WATTS -- so that can,t be right and as iwill have 100amps per phase that would give 24kw but limited to 16 kw time will tell anyway -they could change the rules anyway and at current pice structure you and me do not want to be selling it back to grid --it don,t work out viable if your our 50

i was in same postion and I could have demolished --If i proved it was uneconomic to rebuild it you could try that angle -but maybe its down to local planning if they allow that so many differences from one planning area to another real minefield