ToughButterCup

Now show me a smear, please....... (in other words how does a non-brickie tell the difference betwen the two [a perp or a smear])

What's a Perp End please?

That looks a beautiful place to be. I'm wincing a bit about the roundtrip to Srewfix, but other than that .... no coronation, no BoJo or Truss. Wha's not ter like? You giving English lessons out there then ? 😉

My career in brief: Army > Sports administration and training > International trade (East / West Berlin) > Teaching (Y1, 2, 3, 4) > University Lecturer to train undergraduate and post graduate teachers and research ... The very best teachers I have ever met (and trained) have all been direct entrants to the job - maybe 30 or 40 individuals overall. After I retired the teaching recruitment system changed - no need for a degree anymore. Just a willingness to do what the Head teacher wants. Because the market knew best. Well, the market is now voting with its feet. Potential recruits go elsewhere.

Dead for how long?

Exactly right. In Germany, the training system whether technical or theoretical is based on the notion of" Parity of Esteem" between the sectors. Students can move from one sector to the other at the end of each academic year providing they pass that year's exams.

Okay, name one education minister who made any real difference to apprenticeships.

Education and Training policy has always been and will always be set by people who have no interest in either.

My instinct here is to say to you: just do it. And if anyone reports it to the council and they decide to take some kind of action, it'll only be retrospective planning permission. You could argue that it was to improve safety

They now live next door. @mr rusty, two Series 4 Bosch machines....

Ah Launceston! That's Charles Causley territory. Wonderful man.

Welcome. There's a job for you. If you go straight up the M6 junction 33 I'll be waiting there for you. You'll be as more busy than you've ever been

Silence in the first instance. CDM 2015 - the householder is a Doemstic Client? If so, it's nowt to do with the client. '... Any insurance ....' ? contents, house, car, Who contracted the chippy?

First of all welcome to Buildhub. BH, .....Internationally famous and well known as the Fifth Emergency Service - or is it the sixth - after the Coastguard? As @Dave Jones says above, crack on. Do you have proof of the Party Wall Agreement? If so, pop a copy through their letterbox. Communication is a tricky art: I bet that 99.99 percent (I'll need to check that stat with @SteamyTea) of all problems aired on this Forum would disappear if people could talk to one another over a cuppa, hubba, or haggis or whatever.

Optimism bias is standard for self-builders. What you really need is a network of experienced builders / building professionals around you. Build a team of generalists around you then ... network, network, network. Buildhub is a good start.

I've told this story before on BH, can't find it so here's a shortened version .... A neighbour of mine is sometimes employed to do what he calls The Sunday Morning Chop. Arrives on site at or just after dawn, cuts down the trees concerned. It's 10:30 before anyone 'twigs' (no, I'm not sorry at all), and Monday morning before anyone can get a TPO. Mostly he's off site by 11. If he gets fined (rarely) , the customer pays it. The deal is that he gets paid in the weight of wood felled. Which is promptly sold (and hauled off by) the local log merchant. Couple of grand for a Sunday morning's work. "Worth gettin' out-o-bed fer lad......"

Very warm welcome to you. We're a nosey lot: photos, maybe?

With but - note - one (1) flush button. That's an opportunity for serious misunderstandings innit?

Here's a playlist by Peter Millard: it details his experience of all sorts of sprayers. I recommend his video channel because he's reliable, his videos are well-presented, no waffle, no look-at-me-being-cute. https://ytube.io/3dZv

Get the children indoors folks: yer man's at it again.

Welcome. I see you have been influenced by @pocster then.

This post is about attempting to reducing the risk that self-builders take when purchasing goods and services. By another name: Due Diligence. The intended audience is self-builders. People who have an on-going building project and are spending what (for them) is a significant chunk of cash. This post (when it's finished) is intended to help readers decide for themselves how to reduce the risk involved in the process. The notes below assume that the client (you) is a Domestic Client (under CDM 2015 that term is explained here ). This post is not intended to be anything more than a general guide. A starting point for your own thinking. The contributors are not experts. But over time, some of us have become what the research literature calls Expert By Experience. (Here's a web search that explains the term) Some members here are professionals - builders, sparkies, plumbers, brickies, there's even the odd Structural Engineer, a BCO or two, and - praise be - someone who knows about rendering. There's even a man who knows about trees. There's a Planner or two and we have some people with a good deal of legal experience under their belt: that's not to call them lawyers. They may from time to time let slip that they are - in the business. But Its more common for members to keep that to themselves. There's the odd bar-room lawyer here too. I would like to emphasise that even if the posts those members write appear to you to be definitive, that the post sounds authoritative, and is exactly what you need to read, members acting on that advice should still do their own Due Diligence. Nobody here knows your project as well as you do. We're all in a hurry to get on with our building project . That means KISS doesn't it? This thread isn't the place for that (KISS). This thread is intended to enable everyone else to contribute their comments . So it'll go off topic now and then, that's normal. When the comments settle down and the thread loses 'steam', I'll summarise it, and ask the Mods to pin it so we can all have access to it quickly. Due Diligence needs to be appropriate and proportionate to the project. So the post is divided into subsections below A quick note on building projects, family, friends, Mates Rates and Due Diligence. Here be Dragons. Nasty fiery dragons. A professional relationship is often impossible when you employ people close to you. It could be seen as insulting to ask (say) an uncle to refer you to a couple of his clients to talk about his clients' impression of his work. Maybe you can't avoid employing a close relative because there have been cost over-runs, and the 'generous' offer is made to sort-it because 'I've done loads-a jobs like this ' . And S(H)WMO is chittering about completion dates and the kitchen spec disappearing into a forced trip to IKEA. My own teeth are clenched now..... There's no way round the problem. Passive Aggression is unlikely to work. The only way I have found round the issue - and its only a partial answer - is to ask the 'mate' to do very small bits of work, and try to build a good working relationship from there. Mates Rates is often a diplomatic nightmare. Maybe you have a good handle on how to deal with poor work and Mates Rates. Please contribute below. At it's simplest, Due Diligence is about risk reduction. It can be a hugely resource intensive process, and at the other end of the scale it can be a quiet word in the pub with someone who has worked with [...] The process needs to be proportionate to our needs. The notes below disregard the 'heavier' end of the scale: there's little point in doing Due Diligence on British Gypsum, but there is every good reason to think about why plaster board is being offered at a very low price on Ebay. And you really do need to look what a Check-a-Trade operative has built before now Due Diligence: The online guidance Bearing in mind the caveat that the Internet is full of shared ignorance, and on Social Media in particular, I've done a few searches and read some apparently authoritative sites to promote discussion here. Here's what architecture100 has to say on the matter The Construction Wiki has this to say about the process This section on the Master Builder website had me sucking my teeth about what was left out of their advice, but for the sake of completeness, here it is. Here's another Architect's take on the matter . I haven't found any Architectural Technician's website offering advice on Due Diligence. Social Media. I'm not sure whether to recommend that we check a trader's or company's social media profile. Those profiles are so easily manipulated. But on the other hand , it only takes a few seconds and may provide some pointers to further research. Companies: for example window suppliers or build-system suppliers I'm very conscious that concerns originating in this sector of the build market 'caused' this thread. Many contributors had good points to make, and I'll summarise them in the pinned thread (later) Sole traders How do you check (do Due Diligence on) a Sole Trader? At first it seems a daunting task but , broken down into small chunks the task becomes manageable. The process of building a house relies on networks of people. Many of whom will know one another, or 'of' one another. That network is invaluable. And it is often exactly what is not available to the average Domestic Client. You can - with a lot of effort - break in to that network. But it takes time. Nobody wants to spend more time than necessary building a house. Locally it is common to hear of customers waiting for a couple of years for the 'right' builder to become available. In Due Diligence terms, a customer makes the judgement that it is worth the wait to have builder X working for them. The risk is acceptable Due Diligence is hard work. It involves active listening and listening between the lines. Some 'cues' are easy to recognise. Like these for example; "But I thought the decision to buy [...] was a Done Deal .... Why are you hesitant now? Another useful cue is the persistently unanswered phone call, the unanswered emails. Asking for referrals from someone who is already working for you is a good method of risk reduction. Traders are unlikely to recommend poorly performing colleagues. I'm sure there are aspects of Due Diligence that I haven't covered. Thats why I hope that you'll add to the thread below: tell us what you think, what worked for you. So we can all benefit from what @MikeSharp01 memorably calls the Hive Mind. Online resources Expert By Experience: web search 19/04/2023 https://ggle.io/5i5v Architecture 100 website downloded 19/04/2023 https://bityl.co/IGSE Construction Wiki 19/04/2023 https://bityl.co/IGSV Master Builders website on Due Diligence 19/04/2023 https://bityl.co/IGSp

sometimes I was just too tired to do that. How often have I wished I'd taken more photos and then tagged them properly

Site tidying up: every day at least one hour. Nobody else is going to give a stuff Site security: every day something. Nobody else is going to give a stuff Site admin: every day something. Nobody else is going to give a stuff VAT return: every day something . Nobody else is going to give a stuff Catching dropped bollocks. Every single damn day. Nobody else is going to give a stuff Waste disposal. Most days. Nobody else is going to give a stuff Planning, re-planning, re-re-planning. Nobody else is going to give a stuff Talking to tradesfolk - listening - watching : being a good customer. They do give a stuff.

We've recently transitioned (ooops sorry) from splinter-in-yer-arse-pallette-knock-togethers to hand-me-downs from our daughter for nothing. It looks shite, it is shite, the chickens poo on it (two are sunbathing on it currently - ermmmm, three now) , the sheepdog hoovers up all leftovers and you can spill any amount of red wine on it with impunity. Top stuff. Cost? Nothing. Too embarrassed to post a photo.