Russell griffiths

I wasn't happy about using the word never as sometimes you do seal the inside but leave a gap. But typed it quickly, so in effect you can seal but must leave an exit point.

Nick is spot on you never seal the inside always need a way for water to find its way out, as it will always find its way in.

With regards the water, if you know where the meter is then this is all you need as you will probably run a new pipe from the meter into the new house, so no need to actually find the old pipe, just its origin.

Very neat and tidy. ? The only thing i would would say is stop the 11 hour days. It's a marathon not a sprint. If you rush around doing the ground work to get it ready for the slab, you bet you will rush around doing the slab ready for the frame and so on. Our last house I said to myself I would not be on site before 7.30 and would always be away by 5 and only do research and have a tidy up on weekends. At the end of it I had enjoyed every day on site and would do it again in a heartbeat.

Whoooo there dobin. Slow down BATS to be removed. Have you looked into this it's not just a case of stuff them in a bird cage and move them off to some hollow tree. I think you need some some better advice here and also get all your facts correct so you can pass on the correct information. We have just spent thousands having an ecology survey done and we made sure that there where no bats whatsoever. I will Let the experts take over.

I'm sure someone with far more knowledge than me can answer. But what is your rush, you could get the house down and the site cleared in next to no time. I would be very scared to knock something down without having the planning you want. Just to to let you know we used to get a pair of semis down in a day including pulling out the footings. Second day load it all up and scrape the site off.

You can do it like this but I have found that one central fixing is just not enough,and allows cupping of the lining. I would much rather have two fixings and more filing.

This is very true.

Are we talking about a timber frame house or brick built. If timberframe go and buy that second fix nailer today you will not regret it. I think you are talking about three different jobs here. Door lining. Architrave. skirting. Doorlining. Screws and filler architrave. Second fix nailgun. Skirting. Second fix nail gun. I cant imagine screwing the skirting and filling all those holes.

Get the bloody bathroom finished and she will probably agree to anything. Upstairs for thinking,downstairs for dancing. Happy wife happy life.

Or a drop of red diesel.

Still readily available your not allowed to buy them as a householder. No problem for agriculture or as a contractor. So I can buy them and use them on your land, but you can't buy them and use yourself. Beggers belief really the rules we have to deal with. I use them regularly but didn't know where to find the regulations for near a water course. I have a neighbour who wants me to do a job for him but is scared the ea will come and tell us off.

This is a bit irrelevant to house building but I always find some very informative answers on here so I thought I'd have an ask. Fence posts treated with creosote the good old fashioned cold tar stuff , would anybody know if there is a rule as to how close they can be used next to a waterbody, lake to be precise. I know that the creosote is harmful to the aquatic environment but where can I find out how close I can bang a post in the ground near the lake. I have 355 posts to put in and to be told afterwards by the ea that I have to change them would be painful. Just as an offshoot a large section of the lakebank was unsuccessfuly shored up with the use of railway sleepers around 30 years ago this certainly doesn't seem to have harmed anything. The nearest post to the lake will be aprox 20m away. Cheers russ.

You have missed the planting season this year, could you wait until October ? If not it will cost you considerable more as you will most likely have to go container grown. You will also have to look after them very carefully throughout the summer. Whereabouts in the country are you.

I would think so.

Soakers are normally aluminium, they cost pennies to buy and you can bend the corner over to stop them moving.

You need to consider getting architrave around the frame and a nice gap around that also, I would consider a door that only opens 90 degrees to be inadequate, but it seems to be standard practice I have spent ages altering our architects drawings to allow a larger reveal at the sides. 10mm of frame showing, 75mm architrave 75mm of nice border to frame the opening, so 160 door lining to corner.

Why not use an Alpex type pipe ? This is like a polyplumb type thing with an aluminium core, our gas was done with this no joins at all. comes on a coil in a sort of stiffish configuration would need straightening out to push through the ducting. One conection at the metre and one at the boiler.

If you have an old sheet of ply or plasterboard do some test passes to get the distance correct and fan spread. Do you have different length tubes ? Mine came with a long and short to save having to use a hop up, could reach a 2.4 ceiling from the floor.

The last house I built was in Australia, so materials may be different all bare plasterboard, plaster was sprayed using a board sealer, it's basically an acrylic base coat just like a thin watered down emulsion. Im sure any plasterboard sealer would do the same. The top 2 coats where standard semi flat ceiling paint that was rollered as it was being sprayed. The reason as I was told for the back rolling is to actually make the finish worse. The spray finish is so good that if you ever have to do a repair and a touch up you can never do it without having to re spray the whole ceiling. I do do have hundreds of photos, but they are all stored on an old laptop that has decided it doesn't want to turn on ?

I sprayed our last house inside and out, we backrolled the last two coats. House was 360m and it took no time at all. We are positively stuck in the dark ages in this country. Sprayed all ceilings, walls and interior woodwork. Including doors. Even spayed all the facia as we couldn't get the colour we wanted. Advice for @JSHarris buy lots of masking tape and brown paper, I guarantee the bit you don't mask will get overspray on it. Who said if if you have 8 hours to cut a tree down spend 6 sharpening your axe. This is so true for this spraying lark you will spend 3/4 of the job time in prep and a 1/4 chucking the paint about.

Why is everybody against having a block outer skin with render. The amount of agro and cost to use a batten and board with all the taping and cutting. Our last house was timber frame with a common brick outer that was then rendered with an acrylic render with a texture finish. I personally believe the risk of movement with a sheet substrate as opposed to a block skin is fairly large.

Instead of the one thick batten can you not use a vertical counter batten and then your horizontal. To make up the 75mm should you not have a counter batten any way, what way is the slope on the battens going to go ? If you slope it inwards water could run towards the house, if you slope it out it will run to the back of the cladding. Surely with a counter batten you provide a gap for it to run off and drop out of the vent gap at the bottom.

I really hate to be the bad bloke here. But I really think you need to get some expert help on your side, I understand the want,need to have a go yourself but what you are attempting could lead on to a multitude of fcuk up that will continue to haunt you throughout the rest of the build. How about this find a local brickie who is willing to come to site for two days and help you do the layout, hire a laser level and get all your levels transferred around the build, get the brickie to show you how to work out the bond. Cost brickie two days £350 laser £40 return on your investment fcuking priceless, cock this up now and pay for it in the rest of the build. You have said your blockwork sits sits on a row of brackets, this is not uncommon and I have done plenty of jobs where the outer skin sits on a steel ledge. so why is this steel not level ? If you don't fix this level problem you will be chasing it for ages. Sorry but get some proper advice with someone on site. Russ.

Didn't know where to put this so it's here. Just had an e.mail telling me that ice energy has gone into liquidation. Just in case anybody has an order placed with them.