Gone West

The brick slips are just a rainscreen and our DPC is behind the cavity. I can't say for sure whether Wetherby do a blue brick but they do have a large range. We have shingle around the base which just covers the bottom of the slips.

We half DIY'd it. We installed the render board (Bluclad) and mesh but I chickened out of fixing the slips and pointing as we were running out of time for getting the plinth finished and the cedar cladding fitted before the weather changed. We had a chap who was a general builder finish it for us. He said it was straightforward and he used a half round tool for finishing the mortar. We could have done it ourselves but it would have taken a lot longer.

I used the Wetherby system which uses a bagged mortar which is applied with a mortar gun. The whole system is pretty straightforward to use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoZGlEU7apA

@pocster Well I wouldn't want to rely solely on an anti slam mechanism in the header rail with a glass door but as you say having a wooden cover piece sounds like an easy way out. My door post has a rubber T piece inset into a groove which acts as a soft stop. I'm sure with more thought they could have designed the white piece on your frame to incorporate a soft stop.

My Dad used to use fibrous Rawlplugs in the fifties, which I used to pass to him, being very helpful?

I think this is just a UK semi standard. I've bought boxes of plugs which follow that rule but some manufacturers make their own for specific uses.

Presumably the order of the words is fixed, hence fewer total words required. So someone else could be "stumpy corrupted salads"?

I use Soudal MS Clear, sticks anything. http://www.soudal.eu/soudalweb/productDetail.aspx?w=9&p=410&ID=1994

There doesn't seem any option other than to glue it.

I'm sure I saw a post recently by @AliG ? which had panels as you describe.

Normally on a concrete finish you would use bonded rather than bound.

So that white strip is non removable and therefore you can't screw through the metal and replace the white strip? Where is the door stop?

This might be of some use next time. http://www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk/how-to/fasteners-fixings/wall-plugs

Hi, welcome to the forum. In question 7 you have two 'strongly agree' columns.

@dnb Our supplier is also Southern Water and as we were building a replacement house we already had water on site. We had a meter installed before we started work and after that we had no more contact with SW. We did take pictures of all the trench work just in case, but we've not been bothered by SW.

On the fourth picture showing the chimney? flashing shouldn't the cut by the vertical pipe be tucked under the pipe flashing? It's not been dressed at all and is appalling. It's so disappointing when so called professionals carry out work so badly. It's the reason I ended up doing so much of my build myself.

Ha-ha, I had to laugh. Our house is kept at 23C day and night. I did hope to be able to drop it to 22C, in our second year in the house, but 23C it is. Wendy's reaction to anything less you wouldn't want to hear. Wendy would like it at 25C but I find 23C ok now and in fact I would probably think it too cool at much below that. It's surprising how the body adjusts.

Our longest span is 5.9m and for that area we have 254mm deep metal web joists with chord width of 122mm at 400mm centres. This is covered with 22mm Caberdek and there is no noticeable deflection.

Another name for Rowan is Mountain Ash, if that could be incorporated into the name. Copse Corner is simple but at least people would be able to spell it.

We had a low voltage cable, for which we had a wayleave agreement, oversailing our garden. We wanted to build a replacement house and the cable would have hit the roof of the new build. We told the DNO our plans, removed the wayleave agreement in writing and asked them to route it underground. They refused on cost grounds, but agreed to reroute it above ground free of charge. Good compromise. It did all take about a year in all though.

We used Rockwool RW6 batts for it's good thermal and acoustic qualities, as well being fireproof. https://www.rockwool.co.uk/product-overview/slab-products/rw6-en-gb/?selectedCat=downloads PS Just remembered you're building with concrete so maybe your idea of graphite EPS would be better.

It's just classed as timber frame, whether it's 140mm timber studs or 300mm I-beams. I think having timber cladding on timber frame might affect re-sale more than the frame material itself.

I quite like them as well. My whole house is built out of them.

I guess letting the timber frame settle before boarding or fitting windows etc would solve the problem. Wouldn't work for those wanting a quick build though. You could use engineered timber like I-beams which would move a lot less.

We hang our wet washing on clothes hangers on a drying rack in the wetroom. The wetroom is usually around 24C and has a MVHR extract vent. If we hang washing in there first thing in the morning it's dry by the evening.