Gone West

We used Trueline Products to fabricate the aluminium sills, to our dimensions, for our windows. Trueline powder coated them to match the windows. It was a long time ago but I assume they still do it.

I had this after we had built our house. We were in the process of dismantling the bungalow we had lived in during the build, we had three months to do this, and an enforcement officer turned up to say they had received a complaint about the length of time it was taking us. He was just ticking boxes and said he was monitoring the situation and we never heard anymore about it. Try not to get stressed about things like that, if they've received a complaint they have to investigate it. Try to work with the enforcement officer as much as you can.

I've only taken down one chimney stack before and that was conventional double brick with a square hole and flashing let into the brickwork about 40mm. I've now been taking down a 2m high stack on this bungalow. It's built centrally above the 600mm thick stone wall with the hole going down through the wall. I'm pretty sure the stack was rebuilt in the 1970s and it now has a ceramic liner which has been concreted around tying it to the surrounding brickwork. The flashing has gone under the bricks and has been dressed up around the liner. The concrete had stuck really well to the lead flashing and I had to tear the lead to get the concrete off. Any idea if this is normal?

There was rebar where the holes were drilled. Used a Bosch concrete rebar cutter drill bit, not used it much though.

Yes, to the extent of putting the half built house on the market, because I was pissed off with spending all my time working on the house. When we didn't have any interest, other than nosey viewers, we decided to carry on. We're glad we finished it, even if it did take us eight years. I think that if you don't finish the challenge you will regret it. It's important to split the tasks up into manageable bits and not to get stressed. If it is getting on top of you, walk away for a time and come back refreshed.

Our frame was fixed to the slab with 12mm threaded studs bonded into the slab with two part resin.

It was several years ago but I used the Wetherby system, just for a plinth around the house, six rows. Didn't have any problems.

Looks like 60A, which is odd. Do they put stickers on the other isolator switches, showing maximum amps, when the other phases are connected up.

I bet you're glad, that picture brought back a lot of memories. 😢

🤣 They were Steico I beams which were 45mm x 300mm. The web was 9mm which left 18mm each side, so the ply plates ended up flush with the flange. I didn't have any say in the construction of the frame which was done by the SE and the TF company.

There were no beams used. A picture paints a thousand words, so IIRC the joining pieces were 18mm ply both sides, glued and screwed. I think the roof angle has to be around 45 degrees to prevent spread. I am not a SE though, so could be wrong about that, it was many years ago.

We did indeed have a factory built timber I beam portal frame. IIRC there were limitations when designing, such as the roof angle which determined the maximum width for a given height. Ours was only 6m wide. I think PH15 construct their frames in a very similar way to ours.

Many years ago I had a Victorian semi built in 1900 which had 2" cavity walls. It had a slate DPC and had a damp problem in one area. The problem was due to the soil level being above the slate DPC. Ignore the chemical DPC and look for the level of the original DPC to see if there is a problem with the soil level.

In the fifties and sixties my Dad used animal glue for less serious work and Cascamite where some strength was needed. IIRC we used Cascamite when we built a Mirror dinghy at school in the sixties.

I thought I recognised that picture from around 2018. It was cobbled together connections for the EASHP condensate and the water softener regeneration outflows. It was a standard swept T junction with threaded male end with a reducer with threaded male end. I just searched for female threaded spigots to fit the pipes I had. IIRC they were smaller than washing machine waste fittings.

If you're in England this might help. https://www.planningaid.co.uk/hc/en-us/articles/203179001-If-my-development-took-place-some-time-ago-could-it-be-too-late-for-action-to-be-taken

I used NuLok, but it was 13 years ago in England. The supplier is no longer trading. At the same time a friend used NuLok with their PV system and was very pleased. We were also happy with the product with the exception that there was some difference in colours of the porcelain tiles, so batch numbers had to be checked.

When living in the temporary bungalow while building the house our vented DHW cylinder sprung a leak. I took it out, removed the immersion and tipped out a lot of loose scale that was just lying in the bottom of the cylinder. It was a very hard water area.

@Alan Ambrose , @MikeSharp01 , @Mattg4321 , @MJNewton , thanks for the replies. I have carried out the various tests after leaving it off for half an hour. When MCB switched off L/N = 9V, L/E = 9V, N/E = 0V. Turned the whole CU off and L/N = 0V. So my conclusion is that, it is, as suggested 'ghost voltage'. Every day is a school day.

It's an old Mercury MTM01 multimeter and I've got it on up to 600V. The junction box just connects two lighting supply cables as the other circuit connecting to the junction box was removed some time ago. The 10V has persisted for around 10 seconds. I haven't tried it for any longer yet.

We have a lighting circuit running through a 6A MCB. It has a junction box connecting just two cables which are supply cables. When the MCB is on it's reading around 239V and when the MCB is off, it reads 10V. Is that acceptable or should I be looking for some sort of fault?

Correct, but we did have a well, which we used for watering the garden 😁. Instead of the deep bore soakaway we installed a reed bed system, because we needed a solution quickly for the BCO. We later removed the reed beds when the sewage treatment plant manufacturer improved the outflow readings. This was all in 2010 so I guess things have moved on a bit since then.

I used that system for the plinth on my last house. It was really straightforward to install.

I would use a 300mm concrete gravel board. You don't need his soil against your wall.

One of the original (1840s) external sandstone walls of my house is now an internal wall when a 1970s leanto was built. It's got an area of blown render which looks like it's been repaired before. Under the render is just shale and sandstone, which is all very dry and crumbly. Would soaking it with SBR stabilise it enough to rerender, or does anyone know if there is a product designed for this problem?