Cpd

The building is just used as a workshop and storage at the moment. the walls have no DPM and because they are sealed on the outside but vented into the rubble centre they are very dry. My floor build up is ground - volcanic rotten rock joining shale ……, the sub floor angles in to the centre of the building where there is a central drainage channel / french drain to the outside. 150mm of aprox 20-70mm clean (no fines)compacted rock that is fully permeable. 50mm concrete cap on top of this rock terminating 70mm away from the wall edge Doubled up DPM for reassurance…. That goes up the side of the stone walls on the inside to just above the final floor level and links into the breather membrane. 100mm Concrete slab terminating 70mm from the edge of the walls the 70mm gap around the slab is filled with pee gravel so that any water that makes it’s way in from the bace of the wall will filter down to the drainage layer below the slab. Insulation (not done yet ) 22mm chipboard flooring (not done yet) final floor (not done yet ) Unlike you with your Sandy soils i have two different sub bases meeting each other and in extreme wet weather water springs up below the building, this is why the whole floor area acts as a massive french drain. The design works extremely well and the water never actually wells up as the french drains take it all away but I wanted to be absolutely sure. The perimeter drainage around the slab was to catch any water coming in from the outside as the ground level is higher than the inside sub floor level, again I over build this as in reality any outside water coming in is filtering straight down into the permeable layer very quickly as the bace of the walls in even extreme wet weather are bone dry. all in all it’s all working very well, if not a little bespoke for very specific ground conditions.

I am doing very similar to you, I have allowed the walls some ventilation to the rubble middle from the outside and have left enough ventilation between the inside stone and the stud work to keep the air moving but more restricted than the middle of the wall. I painted the outside and then sealed it with masonry paint as the stone was very fractured and would let a lot of water in if not sealed. It’s bone dry in the building and no problems in 10 years.

Love the stuff……

Sounds like a great project, I looked briefly at buying a straw bale house in australia when I lived there, I absolutely loved the look of it but the location was wrong for me. Have you been on the green building forum ? I think you might find some leads there. Best of luck.

No where near you as I’m in Argyll but slowly renovating two cottages and a steading. the youngest is 120 years old and the oldest is very old….. just doing it really slowly as time, energy and money permit.

I have not read this whole thread in detail but I HAVE seen this happen. I have an unheated workshop and I have every type of timber in there, hundreds of bits from OSB to shower board, from mahogany to soft pine and the ONLY thing that goes mouldy is certain types (most types actually) of ply board, NOTHING else goes mouldy. I have seen this happen over the years and now just steer clear of ply. OSB EVERY time now and never a problem. I made the grave mistake of using ply in another shed rather than sarking or OSB and your shed looks exactly as what happened to me, my shed was very well ventilated but it still went mouldy…… I was / am still so frustrated that I went down this route. I treated it with neat thin bleach, sprayed it on with a kitchen spray bottle and it’s been very effective, i wore a full body protection, eye protection and a gas mask with carbon filter. I tried other bleaches - thin bleach from tesco and they did NOTHING !!!!! I have warned a few friends about ply going mouldy and some of then ignored this only to suffer the same fate…… https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00COM84IM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 this is the stuff I used with great effect, I even bought a few bottles as back up just in case I needed to re- apply but so far so good. if your concerned about mould I would rip it out and replace with osb, I am still sitting on the fence about ripping mine as it’s a big cost and a lot of work. I see the price has gone through the roof since 2019 but I would still recommend this type.

I had this mysterious mark show up on my velux a few days ago, it’s been in for years but I have never seen this before….. there has been noting put on the window or anything different done. It was gone when the weather got better but still a mystery.

Thanks @PeterW just what I need. ✅

Hay folks, I have the sparky lined up to come and wire in a new supply that Spurs of the main 100Amp supply I want to put a dedicated meter on this supply to monitor usage, I have been on the screwfix website but don’t seem to be using the right terminology…… is this something simple or am I barking up the wrong tree @ProDave ? ….. thanks

Second this, no point straining yourselves, just ask your strongest friends to come help. If you really want to do it yourself then you can move it around on its edge with wooden rollers ( just buy a bit of round wood from homebace etc and cut it up) protect the edge of the sheet by sticking cardboard on it. You will then need to build a wooden ramp to slide it up and into place. It’s all possible but so much quicker just lifting it into plabe

May not work for you but I have added kingspan to many of the doors on my property, I put 50mm on some doors but usually just add 25mm and then put a sheet of ply over it, if I am being fancy I put edging strips on to hide the kingspan but mostly I just seal the edges with tape. The door in the photo is to my heated shower room in my cabin, it’s got 27mm if larch on the outside, 50mm of kingspan and 10mm ply on the inside with edging. It’s all very rustic and not for everyone but I like knowing I am not loosing loads of heat from this room.

I brought a Karcher pro series 10 years ago and it’s still going strong without any problems, would recommend the pro line.

@nod Is this on non domestic property? From what I can gather felt is pretty mandatory on domestic installations.

Rushing out of the door but you MUST have felt under the roof if this is a habitable / heated space. Others will be along shortly to advise.

If it was me I would clean up the area around the door with a pressure washer and then carefully point all the bits not coming out. I would then prop up the roof from the inside and then proceed to remove the stones in the door area starting at the top, when I got to a stone that was protruding I would either pop it out if possible or just use a diamond tipped stone saw to cut it out / cut it back and then continue downwards.. there is a lot of labour involved but if your wanting to preserve the stonework then it’s the least intrusive way, will cost more to knock the whole wall down, it’s very easy to start knocking stuff down as it is all so easy and quick and feels great but I have found that sometimes you need to ask - what is the minimum I can do to get the result I want - when it comes to these sort of renovations. I have a petrol stone saw and a petrol diamond core drill as I am working on similar build and they have paid for themselves and will continue to be of great use as my build continues. (I am a stone mason so I already know how to use them?) photos just internet grab.

I’m in the makita camp but @Declan52 says it comes down to what colour you like, each make has such a huge range of tools to meet different budgets. If I was starting new I would start by working out what you want - brushless / brushes, power, additional gimmicks and then just go with whatever was the best deal on the day.

Thanks all. @markc it’s called a man shed but it’s very “multi functional” and used by volunteers and workers as a bit of a bace camp so cooking, washing, heating etc etc with an extension planned in the future so wanting to put something in to cope with future ideas…. @billt thanks I think I will go with the next size up of the one you recommended @ProDave thanks for steering me away from MK…. I had one in my basket ! @Nickfromwales Thanks I will buy some 16mm SWA and get it installed ready for my spark to connect and ask him about the earth. right time to place the order.

So I have a man shed that’s fed by a few extension cables….. its bad and I am now ready to upgrade. the shed is very close to the main house and from the 100A mains in feed the house it’s a 17 meter max total cable run including trench / up and down walls. I will get my electrician in to connect to the house feed and connect to the consumer unit in the shed. I want to future proof this by laying a decent size armoured cable and an 8 way or 10 way consumer unit with rcbo throughout. (Will buy as needed when I know what hat need is) I have spent hours trying to find an unpopulated consumer unit and it’s very hard with my limited knowledge. I have read various threads on the topic and as usual there I just get more confused! I was hoping to put an order in with screwfix within the next day to get the 10% discount as I also am buying other bits and bobs from them. do I just pick a consumer unit or is there something I should know ! any pointers would be great. would like to have everything ready for the spark to limit the time he is on site as he will be fitting this job in between others. thanks for any help. cpd.

I would not put a dedicated air duct in for sub 5kw stove as in an old house you will have plenty of leakage already and sticking a bloody great hole in the wall behind the stove will just make the house even colder during the times the stove is not burning. In my 130 year old farm house I find that when the 5kw stove is on in winter the RH really drops in that room considerably and is very pleasant, I have just added 70mm of internal wall insulation this year so it will be interesting to see how it all performs. Unless you have a cheep supply of wood running 3 stoves will be an eye watering cost as seasoned wood is not cheap, also your going to be forever taking ash out etc etc. What insulation do you have and how good is it ? I have done the insulation in my house as I want to decommission 2 fire places as it’s just a bloody pain and often as not electric fires get used instead which cost a fortune to run.

Have sent you a pm. is your roof open / vaulted in the inside or is it a cold roof with insulation on the flat ceilings ? If it’s a cold roof then you can probably get away with a lot less timber but if it’s a vaulted ceiling then you need to think about all the additional weight such as insulation and plasterboard as well as the extra work / wood around the windows. I needed sarking as my location is very exposed and it was part of what made the whole roof more rigid, also due to the serious exposure I wanted the roof membrane to be sitting on a solid deck rather than draped between rafters.

That’s like saying the word “thermal mass” on this site !

Up here on the west coast of Scotland I can get as many pallets as I want for nothing from various suppliers like electrical wholesalers, garden centres, builders merchants, etc etc. You just need to drive round and have a chat with them or put an advert on a face book page.

This picture put it into context, gabions will be perfect ! pictures speak a thousand words and all that…..

I would second this, it looks like where you have already cut the bank back it’s already greening up which is a good sign it’s fairly stable, obviously I can’t see in detail but the solution your looking at seems a bit over the top. I have a very similar bank I cut back 10 years ago with the information of putting gabions in and it’s still not done and still not fallen down and it’s right behind my house ! I am just put of by the cost of the actual gabions….. and I cannot get more than 2 tons of stone at a time. I have still not come up with a cheap solution so can’t help on that front but I have moved hundreds if not thousands of tons of stone by hand over my life (stonemason) and it’s really a pig of a job when it’s a situation like your explaining. Just make sure you really do need to (or really want to) go down the gabion solution before committing! For another job I made my own out of fencing wire ! The volume of stone it took was catastrophic but it had up to 1m behind it fully filled with stone as well.

Yes this was my understanding…. The council use it to repair our roads which are no more than dirt tracks and when I can get a load I always fill in various holes on my own dirt track, nothing else works as well and I have 870m of private dirt track that I need to maintain at my own cost so a free load of planings every now and then seems like a good option to me.