Cpd

Yup.... I have 4.66 acres of garden, starting from nothing but monocular sheep pasture, bog land and cliffs..... six years in and a lifetime to go. If anyone has a good recommendation for an app that I can use on my iPad for doing an overview design I would be very interested.

Digger envy !

I use a lot of second hand timber as I get it free....,. It’s free for a good reason....... it’s usually bent or damaged. I don’t have a budget so when something is free I just accept that my time is also free and take my time, grade it, cut it, plane it...... this is my forever home and rustic is the name of the game here. If I was building a new house and had a budget I would NOT bother with anything but quality straight timber...... but I do this for fun mostly and people keep giving me interesting things to work with ! BUY NEW if you can !

I use high quality dust mask when working near fine sawdust or anything dusty, I have a big box of pre filters and have two of these inserted before the main filter, when the front one is dirty I chuck it and put the one behind to the front and a new one at the back. The main filters last for years this way. When I one day get my mvhr built I will use the same principle of at least one good cheap pre filter before the main filter and maybe a set of tights to !

Depressing but to late, they probably all come out of the same factory.......

If it’s to be demolished And it was me I would shut of all the services and strip it out, take of the doors, remove windows and damage the roof beyond repair and put a cow in the garden. But it may not be your style......

As they should be if your not aware of how to prevent them from being dangerous, my first apprenticeship was as a forest worker and i received full training through the forestry commission, later in life I spent two years wielding them on a daily basis for six months at a go cutting everything from fully grown hardwoods to commercial felling. Seen a few nasty injuries but thankfully never injured myself. Can’t think of another common bit of machinery that is more dangerous.

Agree with this, unless you really want to be the go to guy with the local electric chainsaw....... but hay who am I to speak I just live buying tools, luckily I am very protective of my equipment so people know better than ask to borrow my gear........

Nasty job but well done..... kinda half inspired to deal with mine......but not just yet.

I lived in a lighthouse in Australia on and off for 4 years (up to six months a year) and the water was collected from the roof gutters and down into a holding tank in the back garden and then pumped back up to a header tank and gravity fed into the taps. It was completely untreated and everything that lands on the roof went into the holding tanks, bird shite, possum dung, leaves etc....... it was totally untreated! After a few years on one really hot summer I was sure I could taste something “off” in the water and organised to have it inspected we had a family living up there with a new born and a pregnant woman...... plus 5 workers, on the day of the inspection we lifted up the manhole cover to the massive storage tank and I shone a torch in there........ I was treated to one of the worst views in my life, and trust me I have lived In some pretty rough environments........ a possum had obviously died on the roof and had eventually got washed down the pipes...... it had been in the tank for a long time..... and looked like an eight foot jellyfish that was constantly dissolving into the water supply! They took a sample from the house and the results were off the charts ! They were beyond amazed that nobody was sick, the baby was born normal and healthy and the new born was strong ! We emptied the tanks out, got in with a jet blaster and then let them fill up as normal and carried on drinking it ! No one ever suggested a filter or UV ! Crazy times and that’s only about 7 years ago !

In the cabin I have an electric shower and the low water pressure light would come on and you had all the usual hot / cold that happens when things are just not working well ! I fitted a grunfos water pump that comes on to bring the pressure up to 2 bar it works seamlessly and you can have a shower as hot as you want with consistent pressure. It transformed the shower experience and our guests love the shower experience! It only comes on automatically when the shower is running and therefore you don’t notice the noise, it switches off as soon as you turn the shower off. Not sure if this is what your looking for or are you going for a full house pressure system. i am NOT on mains water but a private spring so I can do as I please !

Six years and counting without a mobile phone, when I need to make a call (very few phone boxes work) I just walk up to the nearest nice looking person and ask to use there phone, I do this about 3-4 times a year as it’s only in an emergency or time critical situation.

I can definitely say that PUR / calotex does eventually become waterlogged..... i get a lot of seconds given to me for nothing and some gets stored outside until I can find space inside...... recently I really needed a few sheets of 60mm and the only ones I had were at the bottom of a pile stored outside, they had been there for a few years...... the bottom one was like a sponge and even when I cut into its middle it was still wet. It’s the first time I have never seen this as normally water is only present in the first few mm with sheets that have been stored outside for short / medium periods of time. Just goes to show how important it is to use the right stuff and the proper systems for the materials being used.

And then some more ! Sounds fascinating and welcome!

Looks just fantastic. Well done

I have a dustbin full of short 200mmm wooden batten 50x25mm off cuts that I always use to hold the sheets in place as I go. These are screwed in about every 3- 400mm and are left on until the foam has fully sealed. Take them off, cut back the foam and re foam any gaps before taping. When I am over-sheeting the joists and foaming the back of the boards I use full lengths of battens to hold it all tight and space them out at about 3-400mm you can see the short stubby bits of wood holding the 50mm insulation that’s been inserted between the joists and the longer ones at the face of the joists holding in the 120mm insulation. I then put 25mm insulation sheets over the top using the long batten system.

I did not have the will to work it out @Onoff so thanks for that.

Portable twin cylinder pack with sufficient material to cover 600 board feet (60ft x 10ft x 1in depth). £ 620.40 (£ 517.00 excl VAT) each Apart from a very specific situation I think the cost Just makes this a no goer for large areas. Others on here have Used sprayed insulation with great results but it was not PUR

@Ferdinand thanks for your thoughtful contribution, it means a lot and I am greatful to all the people who spend the time to help others on this forum. Rather than clog up this thread I am going to take your advise on board and start a blog....... it will provide motivation as I will feel compelled to prove I am making progress! I really like your ideas and I think They will be a good starting point on the blog. I guess it will also be interesting to see how things change over time, I’m starting at a really bad stage so hopefully it will only get better ! As previously stated things have just slowly gotten out of hand and I have not been at the helm...... i now have at least one hand back on the wheel so Let’s get on with it. Ok will look into a blog....... thanks

As @Mr Punter says if it’s lime based mortar you would be wise to make sure you are replacing it with the same stuff or you could be in a world of problems. I have done extensive repointing but used a week mix 6/1/1 sand - hydrated lime - cement but my walls were stone 700-1000mm thick and had a rubble core as well as very fractured stone so plenty of ventilation and no chance of external moisture being driven in and trapped. Confirm what type of mortar is there, rake out to make sure that the new mortar can key into the bricks, go crazzy with a trowl and mortar board, let it go off a wee bit and brush it back with a semi stiff yard brush. Clean up and onto the next section. It’s all going to be covered so smearing the mortar mix over the bricks won’t be a problem, though you will need to get better at the finish when it comes to the outside if it’s not going to be painted.

What saw / blade were you using ? Being seriously ocd this sort of cut would drive me mad...... as Russell says it’s nothing to be concerned about........ but cuts like that on a regular basis would not pass muster on my site !

I’m interested to know why it’s dangerous, as stated before I like to sleep in a room about 15 degrees and if my kitchen gets over 18 I need to open a window ! Maybe because my buildings are do draughty it’s not a bad thing to live sub 18 degrees as it’s a very windy location on the coast and it’s good clean air ! Personally i love clean fresh air wafting over my face when I sleep. Yes a good insulated airtight house with mvhr would be far better but is it really a bad thing to live in a cold, well ventilated house ?

Nice, we have three roe dear that live within 500m but seem very well behaved and don’t venture into my garden !

I’m with proDave..... this just sounds like it could turn into another long thread on the same theme as the EPDM flat roof saga..... I don’t know if you, or anybody else wants to see you driven to the edge of madness trying to defy gravity with a turd as an example.........

No experience with this but it looks like you need some sort of metal flashing ? Is that wall going to be timber clad ?