ToughButterCup

@Charles Ebden might well be a private planner, @Oz07, and so have no influence at all on the process. Welcome @Charles Ebden : good luck with the dissertation. A few of us here are retired Senior / Principal lecturers. I for one would be happy to read drafts of your work as an interested, critical friend. Plus I'm bloody nosey. Ian

My insurance renewal will be an interesting exercise because of the little local difficulty, not to say fight, I had with ours. Here's the back story (with a quick summary) I should add a small counterpoint to the somewhat churlish attitude demonstrated at that time. As a direct result of the delay caused by that disaster, we have had to store our windows. I am told they are in store in a storage warehouse in Birmingham. I rang our insurers to tell them the windows were in store. After a quick check, the same company that gave us so much grief earlier have agreed to insure the windows while in store for free.

Welcome Matthew. You're clearly one of the more discerning types.... most of us here are so worn down by the Hell of self-building, we're just glad to get stuff at a sensible price. So your post is the more valuable for lifting our sights a little. I take it you meant us to understand 'valve' as the bit of plastic that sits on and in the wall at each MVHR inlet and outlet vent? Care is needed because the word valve actuates the brain cells of our resident Welsh Plumber, who is still drunk after the rugby this weekend. Perhaps invisibility has something to say for itself where inlet and outlets are concerned? Anyway, you're most welcome. Ian

If I had my time all over again I'd have......

Reassuringly badly (that is seriously out of date ) designed website: often indicates sensible prices.... not to say that in general, I generalise too much

Being an Admin doesn't get any tougher mate!

Lads, I'm just guessing here, but you have no technique for contacting an oft-uncontactable tradesperson then, have you?

I have 14 square meters to cover. Using this calculator (there are many others) I can obtain number of slates required per square meters tile batten gauge for slate total linear run of tile batten in meters It sounds to me, reading between the lines that you might like to get yourself a copy of SPONS: expensive, but since there's an online version of it sold with each copy, invaluable in the long term

Well 'ee needs a kick up the Bryn Glass then dun 'ee?

Que?

This place is brilliant at helping anyone think calmly about a disaster. If you don't believe me read this Remove the rush: store the door. Look for the opportunities provided by the problem. The mere process of doing that softens the blow. You have a good trade network it seems: tap in to that expertise You aren't dealing with an impossibly difficult problem Stagger costs by phasing the work: all trades folk understand the need to work to a budget Post some images: try to imagine what we will need to see if we are to give high quality advice We've most of us felt as sick as you do now. Just grit yer teeth and keep talking to us.

Paying for the faults of others is more painful than paying for your own. As the article which has @nod refers to , suggests Social Media can be a useful means of protest.

Post GFT and after a few hours flying together (around 200 hours flying), Debbie bought me a copy of the book The Death Zone. It's message bears out your point completely. You need experience to fly really well. Not long after reading it , we flew into a small farmer's strip: taxiing up to the house for a coffee, she clapped me on the shoulder and congratulated me on avoiding the electricity wires. "Which wires?" The hair still rises on the nape of my neck when I remember that. @MikeSharp01, my information (research reading) was entirely focussed on competence in a professional context,

.... and you can talk to people on the basis of evidence. And that helps a good deal, if your experience is going to be anything like ours, with some of the more random nonsense talked by those who should know better.

I'll dig out the research references to 50k hours sometime. The number was not conjured up out of thin air.

Thats the same in any walk of life. Professional credibility only truly shows itself for what it is when things go wrong. Beyond mere licensed competence exists expertise by experience. And generally that occurs after about 50,000 hours. Even if you have no formal qualification. I have a very loooooong way to go with this building lark. Another 45000 hours. I mean, I can't even manage to ring a tradesperson.

Phhhhh.

A very warm welcome. It is particularly pleasing to see contributions based on research gathered by the person posting. I bet there is no 'common' or preferred way: but I hope to be proved wrong by those here that have built more roofs than we have had hot dinners. There might well be a more efficient way in terms of cost, and then again in terms of cost of ownership. Now that will be interesting to read about because I have to build a flat roof in the next couple of weeks, so I will read this thread with interest. Thanks for the question. Ian

How wide is a wheelchair? There is a wealth of guidance on accessibility and wheelchairs, one instance is here.

First rule of doctoral-level study: Learn how to supervise your supervisor. They don't need a doctorate, you do.

I'm the first to admit to colleagues like @SteamyTea, @Construction Channel, and @Nickfromwales, that customers can and do behave badly. They do so in all sectors of commerce, not just building work. The point I want to make is that trades folk are just as elitist as the so-called 'elites' we associate with the Rollo's of this world in so far as they can make themselves unreachable by their customers. Want your loo unblocking on a Sunday afternoon? Want your property securing when there's been storm damage? Don't pi$$ a trades person off.

Reference? ANGUS JAMES DAWSON (1994) Professional Codes of Practice and Ethical Conduct

TOPS ! I loathe social media stuff, and try really hard not to use it. BUT.....

Friday night tradition in our household demands attendance at our local, the Unwashed Self-Builders Arms - a pub until recently owned by HM the Queen. A pub so well designed that anyone using the carpark gets treated to a ringside view of the shake, bob and tuck routines (some more extravagant than others) performed by occupants of the men's loo. But hey this is West Lancashire. By the fireside we chatter about the week gone by, and plans for the next. We’ve been going to this pub for many years now. Time enough to notice patterns of behaviour, and be able to read the car park accurately enough to see who’s in and who isn’t. One thing that unites trades folk in this pub is their tendency to gaggle at one end of the bar. A phenomenon that I have seen for years, but not really noticed. Until recently. Trades people are an elite. They have wealth far beyond the more common understanding of the term. It is at least in part an earned elitism. First, most have expertise if not by formal qualification, then by experience: sometimes both. Many of those same experts are fantastically adept at avoiding communication. In exactly the same way as formally qualified, licensed professionals make themselves invisible, incommunicado behind layers of secretarial support, trades folk have a simpler but just as effective modus operandum. Don't answer the phone. Let their voicemail inbox fill up, Or maybe switch the ringtone off. Then they are also an elite because of the professional networks they construct. The one slight difference about their professional networks is that they started building it in primary school. How many doctors, teachers, dentists, work daily with their best mates from their school days? So many times in the last couple of years I have heard and watched trades people contacting a series of other tradesmen by phone. Each phone call was answered instantly. Each conversation came up with the resolution to a problem we needed to solve jointly. (well at least the promise of one). And how many BuildHubbershave that high a strike rate? I’ll tell you: every single trades person on this forum. And none of the rest of us. I made a huge mistake: I assumed that trades people would always communicate efficiently, or at least as efficiently as I had to in my professional career. How naive, how smoked could I be? I now use four phones, not just one. Why? I’m certain that trades people will almost always answer a call from a new phone number. It's a self-limiting tactic, though. How do you contact an uncontactable tradesperson?

We'll need a good deal more detail, please. Roof covering Age Roof condition Timber survey Research done before making your first post Indulge us with a little effort, please.