ToughButterCup

Now, why so heavy ?

My toes on Saturday. The bridge of my foot is still painful. Mending a broken sledge hammer shaft: the head fell off after I had ' mended ' it.

OK Dad.

Yes: I winced a bit but..... I can hardly feel them - lighter than a normal shoe: already managed to drop a sledgehammer hammer head off the workbench on to them. And my annoyingly old hip has stopped hurting since I started wearing these.

Yes, been there, got the annoying T shirt. Thats why I have a pair of these... Debbie can't get me out of them: too comfortable

Our 7 meter Glulam is only some 160 kilos in weight. The original plan was to get a crane and pop it in that way. But 160 kilos, I mean .... 160... that's just a bit heavier than me after I have had a serious curry. So, thinking about a telehandler or pulleys or something. Thinking Out Of The Box anyway. Yes, I know, thinking's dangerous. But 160 kilos for Gods sake. 'S nowt.

'Smells' to me like a missing 'path', as in footpath.

And I bet ours won't be able to tell the difference between French and British oak (for our shakes) In fact, neither would I in a 'blind tasting' as it were.

Hmmm. Anyone tested this? By buying a 'non-mandated' or 'unacceptable' product? As in you only know what you can't do when you try it on. Just like we all do all the time.

Simple professional concern. I'll sell it as '... belt and braces approach.... ' If that approach works for @Nickfromwales, it'll work for us. Thanks. Slightly easier night's sleep ahead, methinks. Ian

Yes @StructuralEngineer.... my finger-tips tell me you are likely to be correct. And more to the point, your point needs careful consideration because of the evidence you bring to the discussion. I sense a delicately worded conversation with the SE coming on. Could you bear posting a few references that are accessible online , please? That way I can pretend that I found them for myself and start a professional conversation. Whats needed here is a blend of your idea with the one that our SE has proposed. And that shouldn't be too hard now should it?

Hmmm, @StructuralEngineer This is the sketch our SE gave us ( posted here as an annonymised image), and the steel erection company appears to have followed that.... and this is (verbatim) the email from our SE '... The spacings between the 4 holes appears to be 50mm from the photograph, where 48mm is the minimum requirement, so it’s ok in that respect. The top hole is the only questionable one, where again, 48mm is the min. required distance between the centre of the hole and the top of the glulam beam. So, it all depends on where the top of the glulam beam is relative to the top hole. It’s hard to judge this from the photo. Perhaps, the glulam can be located slightly higher up than the plate to ensure this 48mm distance is achieved? If not, then the plate could be cut off and relocated further downwards. So overall, the plate is fine, but it may have to be repositioned in order to achieve the required distance between the top hole and the top of the glulam beam. ...' As written, I conclude that the key issue is the distance from the top of the Glulam to the center of the first hole. So, I will double-check that when the rain stops, and post the result. Your post, @StructuralEngineer is interesting. The idea you cite seems to me to be analogous to a joist hanger. The single glulam (270 by 140) covers two spans one just under 3 meters to a central concrete pillar, and then a further 4 meters or so to the other edge of the ridge. To be clear, I am not asking you for a professional opinion. I am also aware (from direct experience in this build) that SEs faced with the same building problem come up with different answers. It seems I have a choice now. Interesting this self-build lark innit?

... and photograph it before and after. Posts like yours keep me coming back to BH. Thanks very much indeed. Ian

Right. That'll do for me. Thanks @dpmiller When the rain stops, I'll go and photograph the other side and post below. Everyone who knows anything about welding - and who has commented - has had nothing good to say about the quality of many welds on this job. The apex weld (the one shown above) was done in the workshop. How does someone like me (a beginning, infrequent hobby stick welder - famously dubbed by @Declan52 a 'braille welder') judge the quality of a weld? Or more accurately, when should I reject a weld? I am aware of the arguments about Domestic Customer and so on... But the issue comes down to, for something as minor as this (we aren't talking about welding in a jet engine) '... Who should check this weld to ascertain that it is of a sufficiently high quality to do the job?..... That said, I have seen some beautiful welds (since I started dabbling) To an extent, I think I can recognise excellence - on the surface of a weld at least.

Yes, @MikeSharp01, that had not escaped my notice either. There are other welds that are similarly poor. Me being the expert welder an' all ! For those in the North West of Lancashire who might need some steel work done, PM me for the name of the company to avoid. This isn't the place, but I wouldn't want any others on BH to be similarly disappointed.

Our Glulam needs to be joined to our steels using this plate. The Glulam needs a slot cutting in it and holes for the bolts, therefore. The plate is 8mm wide. Do the slot and the holes have to be made in the factory, or can I drill and cut the slot myself?

Not once, but twice. And it still works. Draining the heating header tank was the easy bit. Refilling it was a little fraught. You see, I didn't know the overflow was blocked. Water streamed through the floor and the ceiling below that. And as luck would have it came through the ceiling just above a fairly nice flat screen TV. Cue wailing and gnashing of teeth. TV buggered. Ah well, excuse for a new one then, eh? A few days later on our way out the door to Curries (to look not buy) I switched it on - one last chance as it were - . It worked. Smiles, jollification all round. Two weeks later the new (reliable) Polish plumber drains the system , changes the Grunfos pump, and refills the heating system. And the telly, and the handsets. SWMBO didn't even shout at me, or go silent, or any of the other things pissed off partners do. Two days later, the telly is fine, and so's the handset. The TV is cleaner than it has been for a while now.

Try washing my work clothes on less than 60.....

Exactly @Hecateh. A secondary School teacher taught me that, and it made me determined - where sensible - to know why I don't make the choices I might reasonably to have been expected to make. It reduces the level of regret for things I didn't do. For example, I know why we decided to build rather than sell the plot and move. It's useful to know because , frankly, in 2017, we really did wonder why we had started the build. But 2018 will be better. No collapses for a start.

It won't have escaped our collective conscience that recently it's been windy. Annoyingly so. Specially if , like me, you are scaffolding. Feeling extra sorry for myself at the end of the DIY working day ( I'd got it wrong' more often than normal ) I was mindlessly watching YT. And bumped into this video - Fred Dibnah. Scroll forward to 6:51 if you can bear it. Did me some good that. Put some lead back in my pencil. " Wind is the scaffolder's enemy ", said Fred. At least he had some justification for saying that.

Well, I wouldn't worry too much. Here's why. Ian

Yeah, that's all well and good. But with a screen name like yours, we all want to know what YOU think (We'll keep your answer private)

Licence Don't assume that NE work to the timetable published: they should, but they don't. Uniquely, they are (when I applied ) up front about the delay in processing applications. Ask your ecologist for an update on the application process. (Ecologists all know one another; they are a small tight-knit group and every single one I have known hisses and spits about their professional colleagues - and will publicly deny they do. ) Office I built one. Out of stillage cages. Trades folk use their van from a brew. If we need to meet under cover, we meet standing up under the tin roof of the stillage cages. Makes meetings short and sweet. Toilet Everyone uses our house loo. HERAS Locally sourced, £15 for one panel and one foot (99th hand I suspect). No need for clips: heavy zip ties just as good and twice as fast to open and do up. Cost - irrelevant difference between zips and clips.

Because it's a protected species, @MikeSharp01 Here's the guidance (Accessed March 2018) And here are the words ' ...You must consider how a development might affect protected species on or near a proposed development site when reviewing a planning application....' The irritant for me is that the GCN is really very common: it says so on the official database (see OP) . And demands very significant levels of expenditure . I personally don't mind making allowances for GCNs; we've done a huge amount more than the law requires to accommodate and further encourage them. But in policy terms, I think the time has come now to use RAMS statements rather than simple exclusion as standard.

Set within the Brexit narrative, the author of this article argues that the humble GCN (Great Crested Newt) is a good way of looking at UK Planning issues. I draw your attention to the article because it's not as Ya Boo Sucks as many about the GCN. The article is light on the planning context: it makes no attempt to square the circle - how do you build more houses and not put pressure on the local ecology (GCN or otherwise) ? My principal beef with the article is the reference to an ICUN Database entry and failing to draw attention to the following entry in the record on GCNs. The GCN is of least concern ' ... Listed as Least Concern in view of its wide distribution, tolerance of a degree of habitat modification, presumed large population, and because it is unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a more threatened category. Some subpopulations are threatened...' (Accessed 2st March 2018) The CGN is of '... least concern ... ' : I know that very well indeed. The damn (beautiful) things stomp across our living room carpet whenever it's warm enough - across our kitchen floor only to get growled at by our brave tomcat, and get squashed on the road outside our house every time there's heavy rain overnight. The GCN as political football.