ToughButterCup

A very reassuring post Russ. Very.

As luck would have it, we are on made ground over glacial till; clay. And we have ground heave precautions . Thats code for a French drain all the way round the house. Placed about 400mm below the surface, bedded in some stone. In all about 100 meters. Cost? Can't remember . But it took half a day (tops) 15 tonnes of stone , 100 meters of pipe, two blokes, ie one person day. £200. Stone £300, pipe £100, machine £200, mark up £100. Say £1000. Because our site slopes, and the heave protection pipe discharges 10 meters down our garden, I persuaded our BCO to allow us to duct our rainwater from the roof into that piping in order to supply extra water to our attenuation 'bog' (or GCN factory - a shallow marshy bit where theres already a small spring) as part of our ecology and SUDS program. I've been digging that pipe line today (£280 pw for a 3 tonner). Saved spending a cople of thousand on plastic crates and stuff. Overall our heave protection paid for itself.

Really? I mean really?

Phone call time? Or Yellow Pages?

I feel for you. I have come to understand professionals' reluctance to take over someone else's work... It's a bit like being handed blocks of JavaScript written by someone else and being asked to sort the 'issue' out. Q. What's the issue? A. It doesn't work. It takes longer to unpick the error than to rewrite it ab initio. Might something analogous be happening here? PS. Some interesting reading in your OP for me this evening. Thanks. Can't understand it yet, but....

I would consider offering to pay him what he asks for minus the cost of putting it right. Or he puts it right. Ask him to show you one other roof - anywhere - with gaps that size between the ridge tiles. Frankly, the work is shockingly poor. I mean its not even hidden from view is it?

Phhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Lets look at the good bits: I measured carefully I made a plan I got SWMBO to check my plans the plasterer kindly tied string to loops of wire (his suggestion) I stuck to the plan I marked out the ceiling to the mm with string and I bought those Bosch (natch) hole saws - the ones that eject the cut out ; bit like using a pump action shotgun innit I used a DADE (thanks for the tip @Mr Punter) - my armpits are not longer full of plaster dust I said my prayers this morning like mummy told me And still I screw up. 16 holes to cut and I still screw up. Twice. They're going to have to put me in a home. Well, my surname is Simpson.

I really hope you haven't paid.......

Morning..... Welcome. Have you thought of starting a blog on BH? I ask because a blog is a good place to collate all your notes, learning, links, videos. Member comments on that are an excellent source valuable information, not to mention helpful in saving unecessary expense. In relation to young families, we have a couple of very young grandchildren - they are being trained in good on site practice - and very useful for sorting recycled screws: helps with their maths

They (Klokow) are probably the cheapest, @Onoff . I needed 4000+ stainless steel screws for our cladding. Less than half the Screwfix price - including the shipping. 2 full days order lead time. @dnb, you'll need to be really unlucky to have a BCO who goes through your roof construction in quite so much detail. ... or in other words @Russell griffiths is right. As usual. ?

Bloody Bosch stuff, always overpriced. ?

Wanna pain-free day? Ask @PeterStarck. Ta Peter!

Your retaining wall has drains that vent to the outside of the wall, yes? My instinct would be to wait and see how much water is produced by the wall after a large amount of rain. If you are worried by that volume of water, a quick, simple French drain is all you'll need I suspect.... Just link the French drain to your soak away.

Bingo! Time for Tea and Medals . In each case the wire was too far from the hole for my curled-over hands to reach, and so near to the hole that it was easy to overlook using the camera. Anyway, panic over. Lesson learned. Keep what's left of yer hands to yourself DADE ordered. Thanks @Mr Punter

Ah, that's what 3 year olds are for...... I know exactly where the damn thing is because the glassfiber cable on the camera is fairly rigid: so I know direction and distance from the hole. Its just that my hand is permanently bent (post-operative contraction of the scar tissue) and I can feel the wire with the back of my fingers (when the hand's in there) and cant straighten my fingers enough to grab it. Just had a brain-wave: tape a hook shaped welding rod to the inspection camera probe ..... Ha! Thanks lads.

In ceiling LED downlighters.... Followed all the advice. Took care to note the places where my downlighters should be. Marked the ceiling accordingly Drilled the holes. 70mm. Filled my face, ears and armpits with plaster dust. Fetch face mask. Spat a lot. Pull the wire through in most holes. Except in two places. Thought this would happen, got a strategy: a Bosch (natch) inspection camera - you know the sort where, in private, you look to see what's in your ears or your ...... Set LED illumination at 100% Pop it in the hole... There the little bugger sits leering at me. Some of you will know I have had both little fingers amputated (mis-spent youth): easy I thought : get yer hand in fish it out. Four fingered self builders are at an advantage here: wa hay! Got my hand in could NOT reach it and spent 10 full minutes trying to get my hand out. Felt like half an hour . Christ it hurt. Still hurts Got a right cob on now Wire 'fish tool' Nada, nichts, rien, nothing Dropped the fishing wire in ceiling space. Fook. Welding rod, bent to shape - poked in and - you guessed it - dropped. Fookety Fook. Artery forceps - not long enough I know that I cannot be the first guy who has had this problem. Short of taking the floor above up....... Help, please!

I agree with you @DevilDamo. Not sure about the term retrospectively invalidated though. I feel for you @Moonshine. Many of us here have had our fair share of planning delays - indeed delays in general. The only positive thing I can offer is that the stress that delay causes can be harnessed and turned into something useful - like increasingly detailed preparation. Have you heard of the WayBack Machine ? It's an Internet archive. Your data may be available there. Worth a try .....

Then give Tanners a ring; competent, straight sensibly priced.

An SE for which aspect of ICF? As I understand it the ICF suppliers have their own SEs, so that would be a good starting place. Ours, Tanners, was excellent. We built with Durisol.

Probably. Does the work done cope with the water delivered to that area of your house ? If so, bingo! Tea, medals. Peaceful sleep. If not, (... should be...) then come back here and describe the problem in some detail. Relax we'll all pitch in to help. We love a challenge.

Bought a Stihl blower. Use it every day, almost, to ; sweep out the house (open the down wind doors and blow) Sweep the workshop Clean off the crosscut saw at the end of each session Ditto the table saw Chase the sodding chickens out of the winter garden Sweep out the piggery Sweep the bin store. Blow (...) out of the dog pens Clear the lane up after the hedges are trimmed / slashed by the farmer If it broke down I would be down the repair shop that day. Saves me hours of work. Never used for leaf blowing - ever.

The term Professional is often either mis-applied or misunderstood or both. It can mean; The oldest profession in the world: the job gets done for money. Take pot luck in terms of standards. The job gets done to a set of recognised standards: whose standards? She's a joiners joiner: she's highly respected among joiners. He's a perfectionist: he works to his own standards. Money need not be a consideration. I have a feeling that @ReX may be talking about the last two.

Then you are privileged indeed.

The stuff I do for our build is almost always less than perfect. Made a window cill this morning. But the reveals and header need to be made too, before (....) can be done. And we need to be 'in' by January 1st. It's the same with everything. It can always be done better. Any home is a million compromises assembled, jointed and glued in one place Tempus fugit.

@Ralph, reading this thread a bit more carefully, I note that the quote from the SE appears to assume you could be a client under CDM2015. I mention this out of caution. You might be a Domestic Client, in which case the rules are different.