scottishjohn

to be fiar it could have been the floor spec when we built it we wanted same spec floor as they used for heavy earth moving workshop ,so it would not even chip if you hit it with a big hammer laid then polished for hours with ,if i remember correctly addition like a resin substance that they polished in to it with the ride on flymo things

mine was 750sqm and was not so thick as to chip easily probably what was specified by the franchise --and they never look at things right I have had 4 dealerships in my time and they used to spend my money like water if you did not chalenge them they would suddenly send you 15k of advertising stands for showroom -no option and bill your parts accounts same with special tools ,at least 90 % of which you would never use ,or in alot cases even know what it is for or for a model you did not get in uk one maker wanted tiled workshop floor -they were told to go whistle and you wonder why main dealer labouur rates are so high

I totally agree you start adding up what it costs to renovate an old old to modern sppec and flatten and rebuild could be cheaper so it comes back to the value of the serviced plot its location as the starting point which is where istarted wioth my renovation ,but asit went on it seemd wrong to destroy the old ruin of a house which was basically very sound in walls etc the value of the plot and its outlook amde both options possible and on one hand if ihad gone for flatten and put something new of there ,samller than it is it might have been right choice too late now

the only thing to use i used it in my garage biz and most of it was still there 35years later, you neeed to sort out the dusty layer ir anything will just stick to the dust and not the concrete maybe a deep penetrating sealer .then the two pack your one pack garage floor paints are not brake fluid proof or even some oils --so thats why we didi not go for the cheap option which would have worked out over the years much more expensive

Iwould agrue the one I have rebuilt with its postion is jsut as worthy as the other ,but am very glad they did not

you tell me the reason why one is listed and one not first one is not listed the second is

I agree we need to upinsulate alot of houses and external is the preference but that bumps into a raft of issues itself. Fire safety is obviously top of a lot of minds but also damp prevention especially when the roof overhangs are less than the cladding thickness. Then there is the biggie - appearance. External insulation will change the appearance of buildings. In places. Like the cotswolds this is going to be unacceptable. Nationally we need to reach a consensus about priorities, climate change or olde worlde cottages. yes you might have to extend the roof line and as for exterior appearnce ,whilst it would not be cheap you could still apply cotswold stone slips to outside and keep it looking like it did its a money not a tehcnical problem maybe the rates need to go up on badly insulated properties to make people do it .a bit like the window tax of the 1700,s there certainly will be little chance of grants the way the economy is and maybbe a better defintionn of what should have listed status - a lot really should not have it

having had some expeerience of archeologists and listed buidling entranglement iwould suggest you contct them with a poutline plan of some sort and then await their comments and requiirements befor proceeding much furhter have all the artguments and get a plan of action they are happy with ,then start to do things example theo ther house that was on my ground that isold was blisted -and inthe original reasons for listing it only mentioned the front facade of the house and thigns once the man who bought got into it with them it totally changed now this was acomplete hosue and they were insisting that he replaced all the sllates with welsh when he pointed out it was amix of welsh ,scottish and northumbrealnd and he was going to remove and replace them as it has been done 100yeyars ago that started the arguments in the ned he qwon but not a quick thing and if he had removed them all before agreement he was pretty sure they would have ibnsisted on welsh all over so be ware listed buidling dept and get agreement on everything if you can before you start taking it down

this discussion It depends what we are really talking about the savings from insulating all houses properly would drop energy consumption so much and it is needed for any system to be effiecent , that that is the way it should go first as a country just chucking heat into to leaky houses is never going to be a good solution to the base problem alot of houses are not big enough to do the obvious of internal insulation , like stud walls etc ,especially the older ones so massive exterior insulation must be the way for those dwellings. non of this is cheap -but insulation is a once only cost

If i had the option for mains gas ,then iwold have gone that way ,but still with UFH and the same insulation that ihave put in the house now , powering ny solar and expensive batteries wouldd not work out with associated costs -not in my life time with the pitiful fed intariffs you get if you send excess back to grid If it comes back to 20p a unit then i might consider it to just change to ASHP on a house without the insulation would not work in most cases It did work for me on present house as it was LPG

so it should be at least 2ft thick sounds like old age dry stone dykes fall down with age when they are not used as a retaining wall If it were me and its not i would tell him to just dig it out his side and get a dry stone dyker to rebuild it a days hire with a mini digger and couple of days for a dyker to rebuld it ly would no way class as a retaining wall in the true sense just relying on weight of stone to do the job and iam guessing its not leaning back tohelp the stone stay in situ should be at least a 6degree lean in at top if it was built as a retaining wall

I agree with all thats has been said and talking nicely is the way forward but surely first thing everyone needs to know is how was it constructed and by whom the general rule is the ground pressure exerted by a retaining wall or indeed any wall will load the gorund at a 45degree angle from the bottom of the wall so if if 45angle hits gound at a level which you have dug down too ,then it might have an effect by same token if it was constructed correctly there should be no load on ground outside their ownership eg bottom of wall is at least twice as thick as the top EG. if 2m high then bottom should be at least 1m then down to 0.5m and with drainage at bottom of wall if more then base needs to be even thicker how high is the wall do they have a drain behind it to stop retained soil turning into mud lots of questions with retaining walls some of which can only be answered by knowing how it was construucted in the first instance and what sort of ground was it constructed on how high and how thick is it and what is it made from to give you an idea look at a gabion basket site and see hoow they are constructed and remeber gabions do not have driange problems --and do not retain water not so with solid walls

and if it ever needs maintainence? no divert it aorund house although I would expect the water board will want to do it,and have rights to dig it up for maintaince if required

when i had solar thermal system 40thermoax tubes and 300litre tank which ran dhw and uderfloor heating to a degree with a vlave to block it off if water temp was too low for ufh I had a similar problem ,though hot as bad just fitted a valve with stat which stopped flow if panels were not hot enough to add to tank problem solved

you mention storage why not build the garage bigger where it is seems the simplest way to me and yes looks like a lot of window area cutting that down will save you big bucks

how do you know if the smart meter is communicating with supplier

looking for guidance my firepond is now going to be covered on outside with bits of granite like slips but uneven on the rear and textured most of them are not flat on the rear so what is the best stuff to use and how thick a bed can ican use vertical fixing of course

to me iwould extend back into the garden area not as though either house looks that small and keep an access to the rear with no RTL problems

don,t get me started on open reach ihave been trying to gat a new phone line and only after moths of chasing did they send a surveyor and that was after them telling me no way could thye put anew line in at this time the surveyor came and we agreed a way they fit new poles on to my land and i dig a trench to bury the ducting they would supply total distance 375 m the quote came £23939 and no mention of me doing any of the work and this is just for copper --fibre could only be done later as thats a different deptartment--wheres the sense in that so now we are back to square one andi have asked for another survey as the rate they charge for poles is £999 per pole so it would be cheaper just to put poles we will see where that goes

If it was a scottish roof there would be no battons the slates would nailed to the roofing wrap making it much tighter to the flashing modern roofers even do away with the second row at bottom and use a grp strip -about 300mm wide which makes it even tigher to the gutter they even put it down the side og my valleys beofre the lead what it won,t do is give the slight kick up at bottom of roof where the double layer of slates is on a normal roof

weather is so up and down been very hard to plan much this year ,with any certainy and at my age I don,t do wet days so now we getnearly 2 weeks of dry and me ,the wife and my man all get bad colds/flue everything aches --definatly couldn,t be lifting stone about

unless he has a laser level +hieght pole and receiver it will be a guesstimate

it is unlikely that it is not repairable --so I bet once its out --assuming its not wraped inconcrete another self builder will take it away and repair it with new pump and media balls --after a suitable power washing out by a septic tank emptying company it sounds very retrivable once the drainfield is sorted but i would not want to share septic system with another house if at all possible--thye could be flushing anything down it and causing problems

fit a new system and do it on your own gorund there is obviously no legal agreement on who pays for upkeep and repairs --big mistake

do you know how it was built ? maybe it was built with aircrete blocks and rendered -- and no expansion gaps - -thats why all modern builds have expansion gaps in the block or brick work and if the mortar was stronger than the very weak aircrete blocks it will just crack vertically where as brick houses usally crack along mortar joints --zig zag thend view looks like it has a mould problem in the render at top but again this is just a guess as without investigation -- without removing render its impossible to say what is going on or if it isa foundation problem and if it has stopped moving now it also looks like there have been alot of extensions to orginal house - was it a self build ? is it same as otyher houses next to it? all depends how cheap its going to be