Lincolnshire Ian

I love the capital NOT 😊. We'll just leave it.

Hi We are dismantling the scaffolding next week and are a little worried that we will be charged a "cleaning free". This hasn't been mentioned anywhere in our agreement with the scaffolding company, but our renderers have left a residue on many of the boards. We will do our best to clean the boards ourselves, but we don't want to get too vigorous and splash our lovely new render. If I get a fee, fair everything, but just wondering whether anyone else has encountered this. Thanks

Absolutely. I was fuming when the guy who put in the fascia, soffit and guttering used random screws he had in his pockets rather than the stainless steel screws of various sizes we supplied. Too lazy to walk down the scaffolding to replenish his supply. We had to check and swap every mild steel screw! Needless to say, he won't be doing the downpipes!

Hi folks We are in the unfortunate position of rendering during January. It's being done my a company that only renders and they are using K Rend Monocouche silicon render, so despite being sub-optimal timing hopefully we will be OK. Post render we are hoping to get the guttering downpipes installed whilst the scaffolding is in place. How long should we leave the render before we drill the wall to install downpipes? Many thanks

Price isn't necessarily (within reason) a major consideration. Could you point me towards a brand please?

Around 65mm. Picture for context.

This sort of lintel. With hindsight we should have raised the lintel course enough to make room for render boards - we didn't, so we want to make the best possible job of painting the lintel.

Hi folks We need to paint the steel lintels above our windows. My go-to for painting external metal would usually be hammerite, but I have been using this stuff for decades and thinking there could be a better alternative now. We are looking for a good finish, but just as importantly durability so that it doesn't need repainting too often. Thanks

Thanks everyone

three

Hi everyone The plasterboard is starting to go up and I have been thinking about the gap we need to leave to accommodate the shower tray. I am thinking that from plastered wall to plastered wall we need the width of the shower tray + 10mm at either end to allow for manoeuvring the tray into place. This gap will then be filled by the width of our tiles which will sit on the tray. Does this logic work or am I missing something? Thanks

Thank you everyone

Hi everyone As we near the end of the house build project I am starting to think about budgeting for bathrooms we won't use and landscaping etc. Our VAT reclaim would be very useful in helping to pay some of the things we consider to be "nice to have", rather than essential. We would like to leave some two bathrooms (we will have a finished shower room) and the landscaping unfinished when we apply for completion. Is this possible? Are there any other bits we could leave? Is it at the discretion of BC? Any help would be great. Thanks

Thanks everyone, very useful 👍

Hi everyone I asked about spray painting the inside of the house a few days ago, I've had some great responses and decided to go down the brush and roller route. We want to make it as painless as possible to paint the inside of the house and will be using platforms, rollers with extendable handles, good quality masking tape etc. Does anyone have a "hack" which made their painting easier. Maybe it's a brilliantly simple tool, but really effective, maybe a type of paint that made your life easier etc,etc. Many thanks

Thanks everyone, really useful feedback. I think we will look into getting someone else to spray paint the house.

We are progressing nicely with the build and have just booked the plasterer. This is making me start to think about the monumental task of painting the place! Spray painting looks to be a potential route, but I am a bit nervous about forking out lots of money for decent kit and then making a pigs ear of it! Any guidance reference spray painting or other "faster" ways of painting, rather than brush and roller, would be much appreciated. Thanks

The staircase can be adjusted to fit the gap.

Hi all We have underfloor heating downstairs and want to tile the entire ground floor. Should I tile and then put in the stairs or stairs first. It makes sense to me to do the tiling first, but I have made a few school-boy errors during the build and want to sense-check. I don't need the stairs for access and, yes, I have a detailed plan for the location of the UFH pipes 🙂 Thanks everyone.

I need to use pink fire rated unfortunately.

Hiya I have a chicken and egg conundrum. We have a garage without doors, we want to install the doors, but the garage ceiling will need plasterboarding and plastering before we install the garage door. The garage door is on a six week delivery time. Would I be OK to plasterboard and plaster the ceiling on a garage without the door, and if I did this how long can I leave the garage without a door. Many thanks

Thanks everyone. Very helpful.

Hi all We have the electrician on site in a couple of days to start the first-fix. He is a super-polite guy, and I want to make his job as easy as possible. Our stud walls are up, but I don't have any plasterboard fixed (some walls are strengthened with OSB board, but not all). Do electricians usually do first-fix in stud partition walls which already have plasterboard on one side, and maybe noggins to support the back box? Or, is it normal for electricians to lay first-fix with just the partition stud-work in place? Just wondering how much humble pie I will need to eat Thanks

Hi folks We are looking for composite cladding and finding it really difficult to find someone who stocks material for delivery this side of Christmas. We have spoken to Cladco - 10-12 weeks lead time for our preferred design. The same for Ecoscape and Neotimber have something which will be OK, but they don't have colour-coded screws! We aren't looking for anything funky - just an oak-type finish. Absolute nightmare. Can anyone recommend a composite cladding supplier who has stock on the shelf available for delivery. Thanks

Hiya We have started designing our kitchen and have faultered at the design of the hob extractor. We have a MVHR system, but want a supplimentary hob extractor. The kitchen has a vaulted ceiling which means a "traditional" design over-hob extractor can't butt up against the ceiling for a clean design. We also aren't planning to have any wall cupboards so an extractor built into an over-hob cupboard wouldn't work either. We have looked at venting hobs but are worried that they won't have enough umphh to control the steam and are massively overpriced. Any help would be appreciated particularly with over-hob extractors which look nice "free-standing" on a wall with no cabinets or vented hobs. Thanks