Carrerahill

So there is just a gap with pipes in it, then wooden floor? We have CH pipes running along under our FF hall floor, when the heating is on the floor is warm, when the heating is off the floor is cool - if I was to encase those pipes in something like concrete or biscuit mix and bring that mass up to temp, that same floor would feel warm much longer. I think your floor makeup is not ideal for UFH - we have suspended timber floors - I was going to put in UFH but to do it right and make it work well it was going to need much work - the only way I'd have gone for it was with biscuit mix surrounding the pipes, then I needed to consider loadings on the joists and all sorts. I didn't bother. If you keep the CH on full time and crank the temp right up does your room ever get warm enough? What are the flow and return temps on the pipes and the flow rate?

They don't really work like that, the building regs are a set of regulations that need to be followed to ensure the safe and efficient construction of buildings but there is not a rule, for example, on page 40, that says you may not build this or may not do that, this is where architects and engineers come in, you can tie a wall into a wall, you can build a wall nearly, but not quite touching an existing wall or you can build a wall a metre away, in all cases a suitable design must be followed, for a little garden wall the suitable design may be as simple as best practise right through to tied in founds and all sorts. The regs won't actually detail how or what should be done in this situation. It is a bit like saying, what does the medical book say in reference to a doctors diagnoses. There are 1000's of variations here, and 1000's of acceptable solutions. The building handbook is free for all to view, have a look and you will see what it says, it is more about general characteristics of a building. Safety and escape routes, fire alarms, general construction practises, where windows and vents and services should and can go etc. What has been built looks fine to be honest, no reason why not and I don't think the shed has any bearing on the crack. What does look like may have happened is that through a lack of maintenance there is now water ingress. Looking at the lead flashing, my thinking is that water is getting in via the roof abutment is and causing damp, not convinced the crack is connected but cannot tell from sitting behind a computer looking at a couple of images.

We have been told they will - in fact we were given a solution to a ASHP system in a residential development with limited space in the flats, by Sunamp. I am not a mechanical engineer so I will not dive in any deeper or pretend to know more other than to say, I am certainly being lead to believe they will.

I was thinking more from heating a cylinder point of view... whereas Sunamp will work on lower temps.

Looks solid to me, been there for a long enough time without issue presumably.

Fit 2 x Sunamp units. We had the rep in last week and took us through all the options. Quite clearly 2 unit (I think they were the 9kW units equivalent to 210litres) around the size of a washing machine would replace having two large cylinders and she said they could be installed on shelves so one above the other?!? Are the Mitsi units not low temp?

What is the diameter of the old pipe? Friend had a similar issue, they broke into the pipe at both ends and fed a MDPE pipe down the 100-120m lane.

I'd speak to a local SE. Slabs or rafts were partly brought in as a means of solving issues like this one, in honestly so house builders could rattle houses up on poor ground or ground that was maybe not ideal for building, the idea being that it was just a big raft floating on the ground (as usual top soil etc. removed obviously). The issue you often find with TF companies is that they sort of just have an idea in their head and that is what they go with every time. We had family member who wanted a sunroom, builder said it needed to be a 1.5m deep trench fill footing - the existing house was on a slab - the family member who is a civil engineer and a specialist in concrete was shocked at the proposal on the grounds that his house is sitting on a big raft, then this little sunroom would connect to the house firmly seated with huge concrete boots on - they fell out big time over this. Transpired the local builder discovered this always passed BW so would just spec it every time clearly unware how founds and connections etc. all work together.

Both these options are good - the end cap with the connection in the end was my first option (in solvent weld variant) but I wanted one that day and the option I came up with was what could be done with Screwfix or Toolstation - as usual with me, desperate to get the bits, and now the job has stalled anyway so I could have waited for a delivery of what I really wanted. Thank you both.

I think you are confusing spurs and radial circuits.

Yes he can. It is a radial not a spur. Would be better to be a 20A but totally safe to put them on a 16A - if anything just overprotected.

Your changes are so long ago now that there is not really going to be evidence of this very recent electrical work so I doubt someone will specifically start looking for the cert - a simple electrical test and inspection to cover the house as a whole will be fine. It is good you are thinking about it but why would a potential buyer single out the shower and go asking for the cert? They would not. When I bought this place I just bought it, electrics were rough it transpired but how would I know from looking on the surface was what new and what was not unless clearly obvious. At 5 years it's pretty much water under the bridge. You say you won't sell for a long while, so it will be even more water under the bridge. By that time good electrics from 5 years ago might be faulty anyway - the cert is more or less useless now - he should have checked all the circuits at the time, providing a test report with the readings, but to be honest, those readings are like an MoT for a car from 5 years ago. Get your spark (suggest another one now!) in to do the changes you mentioned and have an EICR done and you should be good. 1 note: 16A radial is OK for 1 socket but if you add it would usually be a 20A - bearing in mind a 13A plug is only 3A less than your combined total of a 16A so if you plugged in two 10A loads... I'd look into having that checked out and increased to 20A assuming 2.5mm T&E was used for full run and it is not excessively long, that will be fine - chances are that was just a spare way and a spark used it out of laziness though - you may also know your loads will always just be small appliances in which case, just leave it alone but the additional sockets does suggest you have more consumers to plug in... Looking at that board with all the squint MCB's I would get someone to check it all, I would want them all loosened off the busbar, straightened up and re-torqued.

I am really against the resin bound gravel, I just don't like the environmentals on it, stones bound up with plastic, so no matter what way you look at it it is one day going to be plastic waste, at least concrete and stones and paving can all be crushed and reused. I also don't like the idea of this big mass of plastic sitting on the drive, what can leach out of it?

I have a 110mm underground soil pipe (terracotta coloured) popup in my garage for the sink connection, 4 years ago when it was cast into the slab I left about 300mm above FFL and even left it with the socket so I could come along and just slide the required connection onto it. Well that was not going to work as that wall now will have kitchen cabinets along it, so the plan was, cut the soil pipe down to a 40mm stub, solvent weld a short boss on, screwed lid on the top and a 50mm waste pipe into a 50mm solvent weld boss which would run under the cabinets to the sink cabinet. All fairly straight forward... Or not. I decided, luckily, to trial some solvent onto the underground pipe piece I cut off and try and solvent weld it to a piece of 50mm waste pipe the solvent won't touch the underground pipe. The solvent is good and fresh and working perfectly on the 50mm waste and 20mm uPVC conduit I am working with too. I am tempted to use a tube of 2 part epoxy and just glue the boss to the stub. I am also having these thoughts: 1. Die grind the lip off the 50mm pipe boss so I can shove the 50mm waste pipe further into the boss than normal (not a major issue as I will never probably use the top connection) and stick a 90° bend on it inside the boss so that all flow is directed right down the pipe beyond the boss in case the resin fails. 2. Fit boss with resin then use a bead of silicone on the inside to seal the union and on the outside silicone again then haunch it with a 30-40mm mortar bed. It will just be a garage sink for washing hands and cleaning bits of car and things and I can rod the underground section from the rodable gulley in the centre of the garage floor - I am also using 50mm pipe for the enhanced foreign object handling and ease of snaking which will be possible via a Tee with an access point on the opposite side with the waste coming in the top - so all in all lots of provision for clear out. Thoughts?

Hardcore, tons and tons and tons of hardcore - at a guess, about 141tons if you are just about 3m wide and the existing ground is not bad, that would give a nice layer. That sounds bad, but to be honest you should be able to get that for about 2K if you do a deal with Tarmac or similar. I was offered a tipper truck full for my build for I think about £12 a ton plus haulage, MoT is cheap, just not when you buy it by the ton bag. Where can you put the top soil? If you scrape away say 200mm of soil that is about 105cubic meters you need to lose, if good top soil you could sell it or use it. Then you need to start trucking in the hardcore, layer it, compact it etc. Last 40m can be topped off with a decorative gravel or block or whatever, but to be honest, a good hardcore road isn't unsightly especially if the verges look smart and what no, so even just the last 10-15 might work for you.

Send me your address and I will send you a pocket ruler!

Measure your opening at several positions, take the smallest size then deduct another 5mm per side minimum, even 10 depending on what you are going onto. Be careful to tell the window manufactrer your true size and required size because our manufacturer had a policy that they would automatically remove 10mm from side and height (so take it 5mm each side) I personally, looking back on it now, would have rather they took 20mm off because I was building into a new build I could set them into the TF opening then have the brickie lay up to the window, instead I ended up with 5mm all round which on big windows is nothing and means they need to slide in dead straight and level or they snag and the whole thing was a bit tight actually. I could easily have set them in with room all around and then used spacers and then had the block and concrete sill taken up to the to suit. You live and learn.

I read the same stories on some construction news website I get articles sent from, needing to build some final garden structure to finish the build I panicked and ordered a load of material, the guy said that availability was normal - so it's very regional. The stuff our mech stocks is Quinn Cement in green bags - still £3.49 a bag. They also had sarking board and loads of concrete block, but then there is a block factory about 15 miles away and I think they are supplying it to their regular customers as a priority. I wanted 10 blocks a few weeks ago so I could lay out a outside kitchen footprint and went to B&Q - no block, no 10mm or 20mm gravel, no ballast, no slabs - it was empty, well they had shed loads of cement! I asked the girl on the counter how long until they had it in, out of interest rather than relying on them for stock and she said 3 weeks, so the issue is B&Q are probably using sources for all this down south yet the place is awash with the stuff. So if you are really stuck, come up to a merchant in Scotland!

Sounds like our neighbours who when they are on holiday leave all the blinds and curtains wide open, have no lighting at all internally or externally and park their car right at the mouth of the drive. As soon as it is dusk it a very clear no one is home.

How do you interface between that and your phone? Do you use an app or something? Did you install it yourself?

I think the first thing I would do is ascertain what I was going to build then look at how the two can co-exist - if it would add significant cost to my build to solve then I would look for another solution or investigate input from next door, if it was going to be negligible or a small cost I would just get on with it and accept some water. I can help but thinking that in an ideal world you would drop that wall, form one gulley running to the rear and then build your roof like theirs having created a central gulley for you both but I am almost sure your neighbour is not going to want to rip their part up and redo it - unless you opted to pay for it as part of your works because it probably won't alter cost much, you need to do something their regardless. My initial thoughts are, if you built a matching extension, you could possibly leave that wall, build an identical gulley on your side (with no central upstand!) and ensure sufficient fall to the rear of the your building and deal with that water in a conventional way. You are going to need to deal with the upper roof run-off anyway as it stands because you are currently discharging over your section of roof, so I think I would not get to hung up about this. I would say that trying to get them to change things at their cost on their side to deal with their run-off is probably going to sour your good relationship and that I don't think it would be a costlier exercise to build a roof to suit this - I also think a near mirror image of this extension would work well and keep some continuity between the properties even keeping them looking all original, with the only exception of your roof gulley being 5-10mm lower at the top and falling away sufficiently to drain the gulley. Another thing to consider is that anything you do that impedes their run-off and leads to leaks or issues on their side will probably become your problem because you touched it. Could you post an image of how the rear elevation looks, how does that gulley interface with the rear wall, guttering etc.

As per the title, I built a little shed, the roof is 11mm OSB, I wrapped the rest of the structure in membrane before I clad it and decided just to throw some membrane onto the roof to dry it in, I went a little bit over the top and ended up with a fully membraned roof all tucked in and stapled down looking good - if I was putting on tile or slate I would be sorted - however after much deliberation I have just gone for bog standard roofing felt - I got some IKO stuff - question is, do I leave the membrane on? A couple of things I have considered, breathable membrane under felt, I know will do nothing useful, but it may help protect the shed further in the future when the felt starts to fail. The membrane is designed to have a gap for breathability, being sandwiched in between OSB and felt might impact how it performs but I do wonder if it could rot, or somehow degrade... I wonder if the membrane will allow to much slip between that and the felt and may aid in it falling off in the future, I have bought the IKO felt adhesive for the joints but had considered a bead here and there to help bond it to the OSB to reduce slip. So, answers on this would be good thanks.

Make consideration for lighting, we have a very similar roof makeup but I opted to use indirect light sources for all our lighting - our whole kitchen is lit from light sources on top of cabinets up-lighting the ceiling which in turn reflects down giving a good quality of light which is nearly impossible to create shadows in and creates a very clean look. So the ceiling is totally bare which is what we wanted. If you use the above makeup then start trying to punch downlights into it just forget it and think about a battened out service void and second sheet of PB or something which also then gives it some fire rating.

I honestly think the next kitchen I do (a while off as our kitchen is not even 1 year old) I will build myself. Friend did this, he built all the cabinets and ordered doors from a shopfitter/cabinet business - they look really good and the whole lot is DIY except for the door/drawer fronts. Not a small kitchen either, he did it on his own over a few weeks with a Fes TS55 and some fairly simple tools! I got MDF CNC cut a few years ago for a fairly precision custom cabinet making project and it struck me that given carcasses use the same side panels over and over the best way would be to draw up a panel then using foil faced ply get however many needed CNC cut, then cross braces could be cut at home or if all say 600mm carcasses order those too, then work out shelf sizes and have a stack of them cut. Starting with the precision sides, all drilled with standard fixing points etc. you have basically taken out a massive margin of error and will assemble cabinets better than the staple and glue gun wielding assembly staff at Wren, Howdens etc.

My dad has been making his own for about a year now, just for his own cladding and fences (Lockdown no doubt played a part in this). It seems very water resistant, easy to work with, can be done in various ways, lacquered or not lacquerer etc. I am going to use it for my shed.