ToughButterCup

Pressure washer? Tame servant?

You say potato , I say potahto.

And have it round my knees ?

We have tilt and turn windows. And , in our wet room, if we put our wash basin under the window (just about the only place it'll go) the taps will prevent the full-opening of the window. @craig is crying - I can hear his gurning from Lancashire. Is there such a thing as a low-profile tap?

No. Not mad. It's more subtle than that. The Devil is in the the detail, and the approach. Circumstances forced DIY on us. Long story short, I'm starting to forgive myself for getting it wrong first , second and third times - I've settled on a general approach to reduce the likelihood of mess-ups. Research like mad > take notes > network > ask on BH > where sensible, do a trial / small exercise which uses the same skills > re-plan. Just Bloody Do It > get it wrong > re-plan > re-do Stop feeling guilty about not doing everything else > enjoy what I'm doing Leave it for a bit > come back to it a day later and re-assess. If necessary rip it all out and start again if possible. That takes a bit of guts and not a few swear words. Just Bloody Do It. Again. It works: takes seven times longer than I think it will take (not joking). And on a good day, I allow myself to take a bit of pride in it. Stupid I know, but thats the truth.

Mine is £600 ish for 146 m square: about right then given the size difference.....

Respect: Sid would have killed me

The guy makes me wince, but here's the first of two videos which will make for pleasant fire-side watching this evening.... A colour designer (family friend) says that if you are going to use white, pick an accent colour and echo it - sparingly - round the house.

Welcome to the Oh Sh!t Club. There's hardly anyone on BH who hasn't lost many nights sleep trying to square the circles in today's kaleidoscope. A read of the BH blogs is helpful. Look at JSH's for a good story of how even a very competent person can walk slap bang into a brick wall. (The water supply saga) I bet you almost all of us have had - or are working through - a real humdinger of a problem . Turn a few of your unknowns into the opposite. Keep networking locally. Compromise. Be persistent. Good luck.

The answer to your question is highly context-dependent. I suggest you take well-qualified , competent local advice. And network hard in relation to who is going to do the job. Using SPONS Architects' and Builders' Price Book (2016) CRC Press, - which mentions the construction of retaining walls in the context of building an affordable apartment block: Concrete retaining wall; temporary propping £510 per m² (Hourly wage rate £260) Excavation and disposal, including dewatering £5,250 m² (Hourly wage rate £56) Tie in slab edge to retaining wall £170m (Hourly wage rate £180) (Page 140) These figures are based on the 2016 rates and, as written, take no account of geology or other local factors - such as lack of access for example. In that respect, I would expect the first question to be - can we get a machine in to do the job - followed by a 16 tonner or 5 tonner - and what about access for the wagons / dumpers and other paraphernalia? Thus for us locally, the figure of £5250 / square meter looks very 'steep ' : Easy access, easy ground, good local contacts, 16 tonner (digger) and a farmer who needed the spoil and a plentiful supply of 20 tonners. Locally, that is not the case now. There is a major shortage of drivers. Good luck Ian

Part M Regs - care with space in the bathroom.... looks more than 'cosy ' to me

Don't worry Russ, I'm there for ya mate! I'll just get my cape and my tool bag. ?

@Temp is such a nice bloke. Straight as an arrow. Here's what actually happens in real life in West Lancashire. Adapted from my blog Let me take you with me on my first steps on the road to cynicism in the building sector. For some reason (sewage smells?) many people appear to delay attention to the soft and smelly until it’s either too late or until they’ve backed themselves into the smallest room in the house; and then, trousers round their ankles, they allow someone to lock the door from the outside. Evidence? Use the search terms refusal and percolation on our LPA website. ‘Refused pending percolation test results’ is all too common. Imagine then my incredulity when, on the recommendation of a colleague, a company turns up to do a ‘PERK test (mate)’ for a drainage field on our land. Just a bit of context…. we live in sight of what was a clay quarry, within cricket ball throwing distance in fact So, there might just be a bit of clay around “Yeah, that looks fine (mate) you’ll get a drainage field on here no bother” he says without so much as lifting a shovel. “Tickety boo ” I say. “Gonna do the percolation test then?” “Aye… I’ll get ‘t shovel from ‘t van” “Where’s your machine then?” I ask. “ No need for one (mate)” “I’ll get the tea on then” . Tea duly made…. yer man’s gone A square foot of the turf has been gently disturbed in one spot, and carefully replaced. An alarm bell sounds in the dim, dark recesses of my brain. And instantly switches off. Time for the pub. Friday is International Party Night in our place. Monday – Here are verbatim copy and past unedited (anonymised) passages from the written report; …I can confrm [sic!] that we have carried out a porosity test to determine the suitability of the sub soil. The percolation results indicate that an excavation area of 23m2 for the sub surface irrigation system is required…. …Condition of soil: Loam soil to the base of the excavation…. …Number of excavations: No.3 trail [sic!] pits to a depth of 550mm…. …Percolation values: Pit 1 – 16 secs/mm. Pit 2 – 20 secs/mm. Pit 3 – 19 secs/mm. Average percolation value: 19 secs/mm…. (Condition of soil: Loam soil to the base of the excavation.) The briefest look at H2 Drainage Fields and drainage mounds page 31 to 33 shows the requirement for hole to be dug to 300mm below the intended invert (para 1.33 page 32). In our case that would be a two meter deep hole at least. ( See @Temp's comment above) So, trying to be fair, I suggest to the company that I pay for a properly constituted percolation test. Here’s part of the emailed response from the company . ..However [our report] would be based on the procedure we carried out [reported in the quotation above] to confirm the first report which we have done 100’s of times and never been questioned by Building Control/Planners once. Talking to a different company rep about the matter and he grins disarmingly. And tells the story of a completely built house in Newcastle which had neither access to off mains drainage or a sewer. Or in the rep's unforgettable phrase - Get this wrong and get your own back.

I am one. Did the course, passed with flying colours........✔️

@Russell griffiths, even I fitted one of my windows. I mean, come on......

Yes, folks: thanks. Scolmore don't exactly go out of their way to make it easy for customers do they? My God they're as bad as Geberit. There are no fewer than 6 brands to get your head round and some really masticated, bumptious sales waffle. Scolmore products might be about simplicity, but the marketing is the polar (oooops, sorry, that's one of their Brands) opposite. Add to that, they employ common words as their Brand names: Click, Polar, Mode, Define, Smart. Really stupid. The minute you do an Internet search for, say, 'Polar' you get thousands of irrelevant results. I'd better not say anything about their website - well, dreadful will do. Grrr.

I am just waking up to the potential that Click Mode switches offer. I think I understand how they allow users to switch a variety of electrical resources from the same switch plate. Knowing that the Commentariat will have a much more sophisticated overview of what they can do, would you care to share how you have used them in your build, please? Thanks

You have us all puzzled. What motivates you to separate 125 mm of insulation in such a way that it would be likely to both cause condensation problems and reduce the effectiveness of the insulation ?

Grow some moss on the roof?

What grounds did they give for preventing you enter? And, if their answer was reasonable - under their T+Cs - isn't the answer: jump in your car, wait a bit, and drop your stuff in the container?

Having just built some temporary stairs - one tread of which creaked - I venture to suggest that you are going to have to expose the hidden under-stair area. Then the answer is likely to be contained in one or more of these videos

Thats a but too far I'm afraid. Why? Piles, sand, rock, slope, hidden services to name but several. Globally, £1350 ish per square meter for a complete build should be a very rough guide. Not true in Sandbanks, or Westminster and a little steep for the far North East .

I was going to cobble something together based on an amalgam of the simplest ideas here .... The issue isn't so much the grease trap: it's how to reduce the amount of grease 'thrown away' what do you do with the fat ball once you've got it how on earth do you get the damn thing out of the trap? I'll sit back and watch you struggle with it first though.... ?

Eh up lad, you're a pair of grafters aren't you? It's not as if you don't both work at demanding jobs as well. You may have a Sarsaparilla on me at your local tonight..... Preston - home of Temperance and all that eh?

By chance I know a little bit about that particular build. Looking that GD episode up, and paying special attention to the issue of the cantilever will repay the effort many times over. The lesson I took away from viewing that episode and talking to some of the people directly involved in the build is - get an SE who knows both the material involved in the build and has substantial experience with cantilevers.