MortarThePoint

Am I right to think toilet bowl and basin pedestal don't get fitted until after tiling?

The plasterer is pretty much done now, so the next external trade I have is the tiler who I am currently looking for but thinking about what I need done before they start. The rooms to be done are: Bathrooms (floors, walls to just over window cill level and shower cubicles to above head height) Loo (floor possibly wall to just over window cill level) Kitchen / Family room (floor) Utility (floor) I am trying to work out the jobs I need to get done before the tiler can start and think the list looks like: Bathrooms: plumb 110mm soil pipe to toilet position but not fit toilet(?) plumb shower feeds to shower bar tank shower area fit shower tray and waste plumb shower waste to soil stack fit & plumb bath with box-in frame but not fit panel (v-groove timber) plumb (feed and waste) basin as far as is behind tiles but not fit basin unless it is solely wall mounted (i.e. not vanity or pedestal) Loo: fit any plumbing connection points that are to stick through the tiling understand how waste will connect to stack connection in floor and make any adaptations needed Kitchen / Family: trim island 'conduit' (110mm soil pipe used) to near flush with floor so it doesn't stick up too much above tile though careful to avoid allowing mopping water to enter this so worth being >1cm above finished tile level extend screed into the exterior door thresholds. this is because I had the screed done before fitting door steps or doors (wouldn't do that again) Utility: fit door lining to cupboard extend screed into the exterior door threshold Screed was fitted >12mo ago and I have already had the UFH flow higher than likely end use temperatures. Any thoughts as to what I have overlooked?

You have to bear in mind each sales person is going to try to make theirs look better. Even if there wasn't glue, the beads would fill the space. I like the draining capability of beads. Watch some YouTube videos of that. Mineral wool on the other hand soaks it up and can go mouldy, though the newer wool may have biocides to stop that. A patchy installation should be observable with a thermal camera in cold weather. As a retrofit I would concentrate on minimising the negatives rather than maximising the positives.

Was that a complete reskim then? If so did you put MultiFinish between the original skim and the paper jointing tape?

The vast majority of rooms have gone fine and are crack free, but the two largest rooms downstairs have quite a few hairline cracks at board edges. All edges were definitely scrim taped (Gyproc FibaTape Xtreme). The rooms are 6.4x4 and 10x4.6 and each plastered with Thistle MultiFinish in a single hit. The larger room was 15mm TE MR boards primed with Thistle BondIt. The other was 15mm SE WallBoard. It was a bit warm inside for this time of year 'on site', but something like 17C. Boards were attached to Gyplyner system (400c/c with brackets at 900c/c max.) and screwed at 200mm c/c or 150mm c/c at board edges. I don't think the cracks appeared in the first couple of days, but can't be certain. The door is sometimes left open as work is done letting in cold air, but the room temperature has pretty much stayed above 15C. I know about EasiFill/Paper Joint Tape/ EasiFill feathered in and sanded approach, but that would leave a slight hump and I made a huge effort to get the MF and plasterboard super flat. Has anyone tried the Crack Free paints? Two come to mind (linked below) but I'm worried that they are too good to be true. First hand experience would be very helpful. @nod have you encountered them or are they snake oil? The cracks are very fine. PolyCell Crack Free Ceiling Paint Zinsser Ceiling Pro 5-in-1 Some impressive pictures amongst the pictures of leaking tins.

I dug it the hard way and it wasn't too bad 🙂 I'd say it's a good DIY job for anyone who enjoyed school science experiments

This is as much a roofing question as a window one I suppose. I have a rectangular bay window with 5 lights across the front and one at each return. Above the windows there is going to be about 45mm of painted timber and then the soffit leading out to the facia, guttering and roof structure. I don't want to do a mitre joint as it would be tricky and feels a bit fussy (shout if you think that's a mistake). That leaves two choices for a butt joint, both depicted below. Which is the better of these two options. I am leaning towards the top one as it will be harder to make out the joint when looking square on to the front of the house. What is the normal way to go here?

Some good thoughts

This link is now dead, but it can't be found by Googling ir761.pdf. I am attaching here anyway. Gypsum board walls: transmission loss data Halliwell, R. E.; Nightingale, T. R. T.; Warnock, A. C. C.; Birta, J. A. 20331556.pdf

I thought I would attach the report in case it became unavailable 2009-09-16-BPB_General_board (1).pdf

A fair point, but it is the CE mark not China Export one and they even include their certificate:

That would make the wall partition very good, but the big stove hole would still leak a lot of noise. That would be a worry. Hopefully the mass of plasterboard would help. I would hope that even if it acted a bit like a drum, it would be better than just nothing being there.

Can you turn the ASHP on and off, change the flow temp and reconfigure the schedule?

That must make me an elite motorist then 🙂 Might you void the warranty of the battery by doing this though?

What does the WiFi adapter allow you to do? Can you do everything you can otherwise do at the controller?

Does it really need to be WiFi or do you just want to be able to check. If the later, my ASHP installation came with one of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08X6J865C/ Alternatively, I would love someone braver than me to try out one of these: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004158545611.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/1005005184859497.html Important to not that the first one says in its text that: "Both models have NO overcurrent protection, can not set current ,voltage in APP." The second offers current limiting, but that looks to be via software so not to be relied upon I'd say. Anyway, you need RCBO rather than just MCB function nowadays. Easy to put downstream of an RCBO. Both claim to be CE marked. Form you own risk assessment 🙂 Available as Zigbee too.

I'm planning some shelves for our family room on the 'wall' shared with the dining room. It's currently just open so the shelves would form the wall. They go either side of the chimney that has a large (approx. 900mm x 900mm) opening through to the dining room where the double sided stove fits. This opening represents a significant acoustic weakness. I could have a removable panel on one side or other of the stove opening for when there might be a rowdy dinner whilst kids watch a film for example, but it will always be a weak spot. That leaves me wondering if there is any point in having a significant partition at the back of the shelves. I could go for just 15mm plasterboard and 3mm hardboard as the the shelves are likely self supporting, though I think I would rather replace the 3mm hardboard with 12mm plywood or equivalent. That saves quite a lot of depth vs using 48mm or 70mm studwork (MF or timber). Partition options (thickness) that come to mind are: Option A (18mm): hardboard and plasterboard [102mm] Option B (27mm): 12mm plywood and plasterboard [93mm] Option C (52mm): 12mm plywood, 25mm battens with 25mm APR insulation, and plasterboard [68mm] Option D (75mm): 12mm plywood, 48mm MF studs with 25mm APR insulation, and plasterboard [45mm] Option E (97mm): 12mm plywood, 70mm MF studs with 50mm APR insulation, and plasterboard [23mm] Option E is equivalent to most of my other partitions which are 70mm MF with 15mm plasterboard either side. A thicker partition pushes the front of the shelves closer to the front to the chimney and I think they would look best recessed a bit (amount shown in [blue] based on 250mm shelf depth). The black rectangle is a 55" TV which would weigh about 30kg and I think I would have studs within the shelf depth to cope with that load if hanging out on an articulating TV mount. I am planning to use 33mm PSE softwood timber to make the shelves, either 250mm or 225mm deep. I don't imagine us hanging anything significant on the dining room side of the wall.

Here's the Unistrut under the HCF to counter the beam roll/twist. I wanted to anchor it close to the secured side of the HCF to avoid HCF deflection rolling the beam As both bits of Unistrut are about the same length it should serve to halve the beam roll

It'll reduce the Unistrut bending massively, but won't reduce the beam twist

Pretty sketchy test setup pushing the post out over the void but I got some numbers. Only for the 1x case though (is no safety factor). As I have two posts I can use the other to observe beam twist. Laser level and pen marks plus a crane scale and brute force. It's 1.8m between posts, so 1.8m*0.36kN/m=0.65kN. Peaked at 67kg force with a total deflection of 27mm, 7mm of which is from the twist of the underlying beam. So the Unistrut setup is deflecting 20mm which is within the 25mm limit, but I should stop the beam from twisting. To stop the beam from twisting I an thinking of adding a hidden piece of channel acting as a counter leaver. Addition of timber will stiffen posts too.

To complete the information, the jambs are 92mm c-stud with CLS routed to slide inside and then a second c-stud with its web screwed to the timber. As shown in the previous post, the main jamb stud is then cloaked in deep track. It all feels very solid.

It's in a 92mm metal frame partition (2 doorways under a beam). I've used the double track and c-stud detail attached for the lintel which is good. I added a 3x1 timber in the lower track so that should allow the door lining to be screwed to the lintel. I've adopted the attachment approach of the Siniat image (folding down the vertical stud). I haven't done so yet, but may add small c-stud sections to the upper track as Metsec suggest.

I've fitted plenty of door linings for single doors now but am looking at my first lining for a double door. It's for a double 686mm door with 15mm couple so the span needs to be about 1393mm. Do I need to screw the head to something mid span?

You can just do one (tg or thermal lintels) you don't have to do both though both is better. I went with thermal lintels but no tg due to the cost benefit

For shorter spans, there isn't much cost uplift and the removal of the cold bridge that the lintel represents is a similar upgrade to going from double o triple glazing. Those are some quote large spans so I'd imagine the lintels are sturdy. I used Keystone HT/XHD+ 100 WIL 2850mm lintels for 2485mm openings in 140mm blockwork and they cost around £200 each in 2020. Condell used to be a sensible place to see how much lintels cost, but be careful as some of their prices (Catnic Thermally Broken) look a joke now. When building an entirely new house it sometimes makes sense to remove a 'weak spot' that doesn't make sense removing in a renovation. I doubt you'd notice the difference in terms of condensation etc but it would make a difference to your heating bill.