Radian

Sounds unlikely for a Flexicom? I don't think WC is available on the mainboard. d.2 is certainly worth increasing. Espc. if you've got an energy efficient pump.

But wouldn't the small test hole that filled with water dissipate into the larger hole and disappear? Sharp sand (grit sand, rendering sand) mixes quite well with soils and improves drainage. But I agree that if all this is contained in clay, it will saturate eventually without some escape route.

still £20 if you know where to look... Cheers!

Has unistrut recently become stupidly expensive? Used to be around £20 for a 3m length of 41mm square - now I see it's over £40 or even as high as £70 (from RS)

I agree and I'm very open to change, it's just that I've been staring at it for weeks trying to innovate towards something better and exciting but I'm drawing a blank. While it seems like a good suggestion to break it all into two with planting in the middle, I highly value the tidy edge it gives to the lawn, set at right angles to the sleeper retainers on the return. Primarily I think it's because I used cheap softwood decking from B&Q. The Douglass Fir planks in the same location are 10 years older and are still in perfect condition. Being critical of my own work the airflow beneath the deck where it comes close to ground level at the top of the slope could have been better. I should have dug it out deeper below the joists. And I should have put ventilation holes in the solid plywood panels at the front. But the Douglas Fir deck under the treehouse is even closer to the ground. The supports for the frame are just 100mm fence posts set in concrete and have mostly fared OK. One did suffer when ants built up a pile of soil behind the front panel:

It's a sad day for us but time's up for our garden deck. How it used to look: And now: The trapezoidal cut out with the rotten planks dumped in it is me just playing with ideas. The deck has been completed in three phases. Phase one was the 'treehouse' built for our lad some 20 yeas ago. It was made using decent timber - mostly Douglass fir and is still solid today. It's the tall watchtower with a pitch roof in the right hand corner. It used to have a slide coming down from an opening panel upper right. Now it just houses the cushions for the deck furniture. The second phase was extending the base of the treehouse (a 2m square deck) with three more identical 'bays' making a 6m long raised platform. This is the most rotten part. Finally, about 10 years ago I extended again by another couple of meters to create a hexagonal pad for a metal framed gazebo. All three completed platforms are visible in the topmost photo. The question is what to do now? The gazebo and treehouse ends are OK(ish) but the middle bit is totally rotten. I wish I'd used Douglas Fir deck planks - some of which I have here on another deck are 25 years old and are still perfect. I cut out the trapezoid to demo an idea we had to make it into a flower bed or shallow pond - keeping a walkway along the front to maintain the horizontal deck line. Another suggestion is to demolish the lot and build a 10m long covered shelter. We only want the functionality of shade for a seating area after all. Any other ideas?

Sorry to hear about your enforced bed rest! Hope you make a full recovery soon. What I'd like to add here is that your 20K quote is probably not unreasonable. Bear that figure in mind when approaching the job as a DIY task: It gives you permission to invest in a few essential tools - such as a... Cement mixer. A couple of hundred quid gets you a new one in the back of your car from a local tool shed. You can save money by buying materials wisely - e.g. get all materials delivered loose, not bagged. You'll need to mix up concrete (to make good the footings) as well as mortar for whatever you build up. I honestly still think random walling stone is the way to go.

Don't put people off! 🤣 I'm kind of dreading a repeat of last year. At first it seemed almost exciting having temperatures in the 30's (I knw that's the wrong attitude - and we got off lightly here!) but after a while I did feel quite odd. Difficult to put a finger on exactly but it was a bit like being squeezed. Missus definitely suffered more, but she has had issues with ear canals in the past & got quite dizzy. Was definitely scary not being able to escape the heat. That was a bit panic inducing in itself. The next time this happens we're better prepared as we've got A/C installed and can run it guilt-free from solar. We put all this kit in at the end of last year partly in response to the summer experience. It also turned out to be the most cost effective way to heat our new building over winter. As covered in the podcast, fire is also a concern around here. We're surrounded by trees, grassland and hedgerows. I've got a decent fire break on one side of the plot but I worry about a narrow strip of wasteland that abuts one corner of my garage. It doesn't seem to belong to anybody and other people whos gardens back on to it just use it as a dumping site. Loads of garden waste, old bits of timber and other flamable junk gets deposited among the unmaintained trees that line it. Some of those are rotten Elms that have been there for ages. Fortunately we can't see any of it without going through a gate at the back of the garage (where I store my wheelbarrows and cement mixer out of view) but if a fire came through it would easily get into the eaves of the garage at the boundary and be a bugger to get to with a fire hose.

No easy way out for sure. Just today our tenant was told we're not going to fix the shower attachment on the bath tap which has stopped working. To fix it would require removing the bath to change the tap. I know because in 2014 I installed the bath with the tap pre-installed at the back. Always knew it'd come back and bite me on the bum some day. 😬

It's like Russian Roulette. We had a tenant just like @pocster describes 🙄 Current tenant is fine but I'd really like to sell up and get out of the game - just incase they go and we get a repeat of the previous lot. CG tax means this would be too big a shot in the foot though.

That's a fair amount of gain for sure. Reflective backed blackout blinds can help to an extent - which was my first step in combating our problem. Solar gain through the glazing will also drive up the temperature of the inner blocks and add to the problem if it's allowed into the interior. All the masonry is then absorbing and re-emitting the thermal energy at a maximum probably right when you least want it - when you're trying to get some sleep. Our problem has also got noticeably worse this year since we had the cavities filled with EPS. Seems I picked a bad time to go overboard with cutting back the creeper.

Transpiration should be the principle process here. The fact that the air can flow freely behind the leaves as well as them shading the wall makes them an ideal sunshade.

What do we think? It looks pretty sound to me. But is the bit in the photo representative of the entire run? Were there any cracks in the blocks or in their joints? I should mention that the cropped stone for my wall came in at £150/ton delivered from a local quarry and covered 4.5m2. That was just before Covid mind.

Just pointed an IR thermometer at a bit of wall behind the creeper and at the cleared area directly above... currently 5oC cooler behind the creeper. Now charging the FLIR attachment for my phone to try getting a full image (it's ALWAYS flat when I go to use it). I'm not sure if it will be so representative as the emissivity of the stone will be different to the foliage.

Grow a virginia creeper on the wall. It won't take long to establish itself. It's self supporting on little suckers so no need for trellis. I grow one up a south facing wall to keep the inside cool in summer. Seems to work. Once in a while I cut it down at the top to stop it going over the roof. Overdid that a bit last time. Also trying a new look letting it go over the chimney!