ToughButterCup

We have had one wasps nest the size of an egg cup. If they notice it, everyone comments on how nice the shadow gaps are. I forgot to paint the battens that show in the gaps black . @Russell griffiths 's fault that ... he didn't post about the issue in time. The unpainted battens 'disappear ' a few steps away from the house. Buy yourself two Viking Arm clamps. They work perfectly as separators - to within half a mil.

Please ask a properly qualified SE to do the design for you. We used Tanners: very experienced in this sector, and very keenly priced. (£1008.60 )

Fill it full'a sand and use it as a heat store. Employ a Finnish company to do so.

I'm too polite to consider your withers ..... Naaaah, thats the Delivery Man. Poor lad.

Made any jam recently? ChristOnAbike, heated sugar holds onto heat longer than @pocster to walk-on-glass.

Was the little boy right, but correct about the wrong thing? Those Finns, frightfully clever lot eh? https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-61996520 Got any spare builders sand lads? (OK - and lasses - @canalsiderenovation )

Welcome to our 'normal ' Use the stress of every delay to improve your planning.

Welcome. It simple: just do it.

Thank you.

Hello, welcome. We started that process in the 1990s, managed it in 2010s . We're wincing at the current costs. Good luck! Ian

Thats tremendous @pocster. Useful thread to help folk like me who plan a similar approach in a year or so when we've saved up a bit of money. Would you mind me asking what the battery costs are - roughly ?

To me, that is a powerful argument . But. If the process of building a house is in part about risk reduction, the question becomes: Who is taking the risk ? And : Who benefits from over-stating or understating the risk ? Our SE (Tanners) put it simply - How many cases of ground-heave are there, and of those how many do you hear about? The answer (to the second part ) was (and still is) is almost never. His response was - his (non-professional )friends in Ireland would have given the same answer as I did. But that his company had been consulted a few times recently (Irish building boom times back then) to sort out ground heave issues. Over-stating it? Tanners have too solid a reputation to misrepresent stuff. And beyond a certain level of Due Diligence, you just have to trust. Why buy and dog and bark yourself?

Any of these'll do..... To Infinity and Beyond. One Master! One Slave. Tune In, Turn On, Drop out

'ere, son.... you thinking you might need to change your signature soonish like?

Reading that article made me feel sick. We are also on glacial till. There's a bit of a sand layer in it and one small rock incursion. Many locals (who wanted to work for us during our build) expressed something on the range of surprise to open criticism that we should get an independent survey of our ground conditions. And when they told the cost, several times the response was: "Aaah'd a dunit fer £200 - tha's bin fleeced, lad, fleeced" "And do you have PII " I asked . "Whassat?" "Listen mert, they 'ouwsiz next to your'n bin oop fer centuriz" was the sole argument they could muster After 6 years of hearing the same refrain, I am now certain that some full-time builders think of self-builders as moneyed idiots. More money than sense. Who sang '... will you walk away from a fool and his money ...' ? (1970s?) The piling company required sight of our ground report before quoting for the work, and then did their own survey in addition. Sensibly, they asked me to do the digging for their own survey. The cost of all the soil investigations together was £2435 : money very well spent. I hope.

Lets hope @Onoff reads this. The last of the videos above has a separate crane unit - based on two strong A frames. That appeals to me. Hitched to a towing point, it means that the unit can be stored and tinkered with separately. Is there any way to attach a rig like that to the swinging part of the dumper?

Until today I had no idea that there is such a thing a 'skate set' for moving heavy stuff around .... like this ... Is anyone aware of an 'off-road' version of the same thing? By that I mean larger-diameter tyres... It would be German-made wouldn't it 😔

These days I dare not ask what my lad is up to trying to counter that sort of behaviour.

Hmmm, same problem, but smaller scale, John. This may interest you : and of course, I've sold my LandRover the other day .... and then there's this ... But this is the best, I think Wadja fink?

Locally, I understand that a couple of the large firms pay their scaffolders partly (50%) in white powder. Which is why we employed a local family firm. Polite, hard-working, sensibly priced. And deliciously indiscrete. Recently, another local firm wasn't paying him properly. So come Sunday morning, he popped out to the site and removed the scaff boards. But what if that company hadn't been paid and so couldn't afford to pay you, I ask. When this company is on 3 months credit, he shot back. "There's credit, and then there's tekin' 't p!ss. Eeee wunts ter pay me in cork - fook that"

Thanks very much folks. Much appreciated Ian

Has anyone had an offer of a fixed rate ?

Thanks @JohnMo, I've had a quick look at the Lancashire County Council website. There's no guidance . I'm almost sure the regulations are different here ....

We'd like to make a driveway apron from cobble sets (100 * 100 *60), about four cobbles deep. Since our land borders directly onto the road, I'd like to make a durable sub-base for the sets. I'm trying to find out what the specification for the apron sub-base concrete should be. I'm guessing ST5, about 150mm deep - and possibly reinforced. (defined here). I've looked in loads of places to see if there is a relevant Standard to which we should work, but can't find one. Here for example is the relevant NHBC Standard which mentions, but doesn't cover the issue in any depth. Can anyone point me to a set of Standards, or Design Guidelines, please? Thanks

I'm going to be dead before I work through my snagging list ...