Declan52

Was there weep vents put above the small window in the gable. Could be leaking out of these down the wall and out. Have you A ladder long enough to reach the roof directly above the window to see if there is a tile, felt or how the soffit is finished.

Take a pic of further back showing where the cladding meets the roof straight above the stains.

It seems that it would be a fairly easy fix to wrap the materials better than they are presently doing which would eliminate 50% of the issues discussed here.

Your best bet is to try and find out who had a stall at the last self build show and take it from there.

It used to get built into brick walls in most of the town centres here in NI when a guy wearing a mask would leave a large amount of fertilizer and a coded warning. Haven't seen it in years though and never on a house.

They both use a scratch coat for the base. Cost wise their wouldn't really be much difference. If you want it white or a different colour than cement grey then it will cost more to wet dash. If you want a nicer looking stone then it will cost more.

Wet dash , called slap dash in NI, is like wrapping the wall in iron. Once it's on it never comes off. It's the dirtiest job you would ever do. Stuff gets everywhere. Dry dash is nicer to look at. You can get different colour of stones which sparkle in the sun. I have some quartzite through mine which shines in the sun. But you couldn't really hose it down much or the stones will fall out after a few goes.

Explain how you can use Makita batteries on this. Is it all einhell tools or just this model.

She gets called worse.

I installed my own. It's basically a really heavy carpet. The important work is the base. Mine had 200mm of well compacted hardcore and then a level screed of sharp sand as the top. I used treated fence rail as the edging which meant I could screw it down to hold it in place. The edging also acts as your screed rails. Depending on how wide your area is you could need more rails to get it perfectly flat. It's not the easiest thing to join together. You have to cut in-between the stitching on both sides and then when you pull them together they both fit without any difference in the grass. It is very hard on Stanley knife blades for the cutting. They go blunt after a few metres of a cut.

Henry.

You just need to build it up with block to get you to whatever height you need. You will end up with a blockwall with a large hole in the middle into which you will backfill and then pour concrete to form your base. Road waste is often used as it's much cheaper than hardcore. With most building yards only opening in this past week or two nearly all the trades have been sitting at home not earning so they will pick the job that will keep the rust of the pan for the longest, that's why your guy has went to England. Your going to have to put some land drains in to divert any water from the area to a ditch/drain or it will always be wet. Where in NI are you.

I used plant pots for mine. You will need to notch out enough on the lip of the pot for the cables. I used silicone and some airtightness tape to fill in the hole in the bottom of the pot and then used silicone to stick the pot to the plasterboard. For the rest of the holes I used silicone and airtightness tape. Don't forget the conduit at every plug, light switch etc will also need sealed up. The easiest way to check what you have done is to light a candle and walk round the house watching to see if it flickers as you put it up to all the bits you have sealed up. Or you could use surface mounted led lights instead.

You look like you already a perfectly decent area to park enough cars on why go to all that expense and for something that size it will be a fairly big expense.

I connected mine to a roof tile vent.

Look down the length and Mark where it starts to twist and cut this section out. I don't see how any timber wouldn't end up like that during this spell of great weather.

Am looking at getting an impact driver like these. How are they holding up after a few months use. Any issues with the batteries as well.

If the house has a suspended floor then you might have to go down that route. You won't know until you dig the founds and let the BC have a look.

So you can either build another wall along your existing wall to hold the beams. More money. Or bust out holes in the wall and have them sit on the existing wall. More time Use a slab. Best option. What is the floor construction of the house. Is there any air bricks on the perimeter which would indicate a suspended floor, block and beam.

It's done all the time. Called building overhand. 50mm insulation is a bit light. It's as easy to build either type of insulation in. What are your drawings telling you i.e do you have extra insulation on the inside skin or is the 50mm all you are putting in.

They don't need to tie into your existing wall. You need to work out from the finished floor you have what depth of screed and insulation you intend to use for the extension. This will then give you the top of the beam. From that you can easily work out what height they need to sit on and thus how many courses of block/brick to get to this height and your finished concrete height of the foundations.

Why would you change from a slab to a beam and block set up???

If you do go down the route of marking it out yourself get someone else to check and re check every point. I marked mine all out using a few pegs and a steel tape but it wasn't my first so knew what I was doing. A few minutes with another pair of eyes could save you a lot of pain.

What you can do will depend on time and money. If you have plenty of time you can learn how to lay blocks, drive a digger etc. If you have plenty of money you can pay others to do it for you. Be realistic though just because you changed a plug once and put a shelf up won't make you ready for a self build. Also how physicaly fit you are will dictate what you can do.

Have you got your sap figures worked out so you have a better understanding of what your heat demand will be. After that it will be more how you intend to live in the house i.e will there be 5/6 people trying to get showered each morning.