Carrerahill

Most stoves say after a couple of small burn in fires you should take it up to max temp to burn the paint smell off, what does your stove say, my experience is that you need to fire them up HOT very hot (within working spec obviously) with all the windows open and get the paint smell burn off, but maybe your stove calls for a different procedure? The 2-3day pause is perplexing then. You sure it is not rain related? What is the situation with the terminal at roof level? Pokey hat with a grate round it? I'd get it all fired up to full temp and see what happens 2-3 days later.

No, assuming your flue was checked and the draught is correct it will be under vacuum. There was an article in the Guardian recently, it was research on particulate coming into the room on refuelling stoves, a big scare narrative claiming when you open the door all this pollutions zooms into the room. Tripe, utter tripe, I wrote to them called the whole article into contention, in a long, technically based email the environmental editor was really unable to come back to me with anything to refute my claims. Basically the research had been created to tell a particular story. The first thing any stove installer, be it DIY or pro, should do it confirm suitability of the existing chimney for lining, or the siting of a new flue for draught. Small cottages with a short chimney are sometimes problematic, sometimes the problem goes once it is warmed up and the fire going well creating more of a draw with the heat convection. So, with that in mind, with a properly installed stove, while the stove is running, you could drill a hole in the flue and smoke would not come out. This was also my argument for the pollution coming into the room. Yes on a poorly installed stove with a poor flue draught it is possible smoke, i.e. pollution may come into the room but I know for near certainty in my stove it is not. Another reader of the Guardian also wrote in commenting that he bought a pollution meter, set it up and monitored pollution in a room with a stove, he actually thought his meter wasn't working and tested it by lighting a match in the room where the meter recorded a spike in particulate, his stove clearly was properly installed and the draught up the flue was such that when the door is open it is sucking like a room vacuum, nothing is coming out. If you were to fling the door open at 200mph then yes, a sudden turbulence created by the door swinging open and the suction created would draw some smoke into the room but nothing serious.

What are you burning? This is a problem I have seen with stoves with back boilers running cool with wet wood - the walls of the firebox and flue never get that hot, the result is all the steam from the wood condensates on the cool surfaces and runs down the stove wall, I was once met with a stream of black water running out a stove door at a friends farmhouse when he was using a lot of damp wood. I have also seen black streaks running out of flue/chimney connections where the same is happening in the flue. If you are burning the sort of fuel you ought to be you shouldn't have an issue. On first ignition a little moisture will be seen on metal and glass surfaces inside the firebox, that is even with bone dry kindling, however the temp will come up and soon disappear as the temp comes up. I might be way off the mark, but did you burn a lot of damp or wet wood and perhaps not let it rip properly? This can also be caused if you have too high an output stove in too small a room, people then try and underrun them and the never get up to temp, killing the stove and flue early as the gasses are always a bit damp. The next point is that the flue should be constructed in such a way that the higher part always sleeves into the lower, this is to stop moisture or rain managing to run down and escape from the flue, except from into the stove itself.

You will be good to come through the wall and into your service void, I also put a bit of plastic conduit through the makeup just so I could then seal the conduit to the building, then using intumescent seal a little bead around the cable on the outside just to stop air leakage through the conduit. I only used intumescent sealant as it was specifically designed for use around cable.

That is not strictly true, when looking at a wall, you are meant to consider both sides of the wall as their could be sockets etc. on the otherside too. I didn't build in SIPs but really that ought not to make a massive difference because you would not put cables in a TF behind the insulation either so bringing it through the wall inside is acceptable as long as you then continue on using an acceptable route - i.e. straight from location. What are you doing inside? Service void using battens then plasterboard?

Building regs requires it, as in you have a BCO coming to sign off work? If just because building regs says so and no BCO vist then get it bricked back up, if BCO is visiting wait, then get it bricked back up. Of the friends, family, holidays homes etc. that I stay in, including some new build pretty sealed up properties I have never seen an intake vent for a WBS actually being installed. Some building regs are very important and very valid, some are just silly and some really need situational awareness, this is one that needs situations awareness and this vent is a general rule that is applied en masse yet ought not to be. I have spent the last month or so tweaking our house and limiting air infiltration measuring, air pressures etc. I have now more or less sealed several rooms including the living room except for where I want air to move, the WBS is in here, there is free air movement from other directly adjoining rooms which could not be sealed up even accidentally and a small amount of air can be drawn in from the first floor ceiling void via lighting penetrations. Even at full blast the WBS cannot create anywhere like a negative pressure in the room.

What sort of house are you in? Very few really need the air inlet, if in a new build sealed up house then I can probably see it.

Ah - not impossible obviously but a bit more work than slapping a door in! OK - might not be so easy to bodge a door in... I personally would be investigating the BCO's involvement here, why was nothing said until now? What do you drawings show? If the proposed drg's are as you have now built and you have a BC stamp then raise this with him in as friendly a manner as you can. I had something similar, they asked about it right at the end, nothing in the drawings but suddenly he wants to see particular hold down ties - I wanted to reply and say, "Sorry, too late, you've missed the boat", but this is not the best approach with a council worker who you want to sign something off for you!

It does work this way but it is not like the heat is lost, for every litre of hot water, you might get 5 litres of warm water, the heat is going into the system, you cannot destroy the heat energy in the system, it gets used. It is a bit like a combi making hot water for a shower/bath/tap, to get a nice flowing shower I turn my hot on full and add cold to suit, I can turn my boiler down so I can use just hot water, but the flow is not as good because I don't have the benefit of some cold, so we have our boiler sitting at max DHW.

Yes it is possible, holiday cottage we stay in every year uses an oil boiler and the whole cottage is UFH with tanked hot water. Personally if my options were limited to those two I would probably go oil for now knowing that one day I would need to change it - but lets face it, heating systems are like phones, you know you will need to one day.

Maybe an option, could you split the land then and repackage it as land with planning, then you are not responsible for CIL because you are not building it... I think brining both the planning permissions into one phase may have been the issue. Or re submit as two standalone planning applications?!?

I don't see this idea being an issue at all - just make sure you do it right. I am going to be doing something similar in an office of ours at some point as the first floor was built with 2x6's where it should have been 2x8's and deflects a fair bit, it is not going to fall down either but it annoys me when you walk across the first floor room.

If rain/damp stopped play, nothing would EVER be built in Scotland!

It is a fireplace not a garage door opening, the brick work looks OK so just remove things carefully and away you go. I have skim read this post, I am not actually really sure what you are trying to do, are you trying to widen the fireplace to get a stove in or such? I think you want to remove the first few corbelled bricks, in which case I would either, simply remove them all carefully, or prop the row 2 up, and remove the courses you want, then fit an angle iron lintel type affair. If I was doing it I would have probably put in 3 lintels, on 2 running back to front, then the main one running across. However, heavy angle steel is your friend! This is a mornings work with a couple of cups of tea.

Understood.

So did I and as far as I can tell our Bosch oven is just a standard sized oven. But this cabinet was basically a base with legs, 2 sides and some cross rails at the top, initially I slid the oven onto this shelf and the thing would have been down at my ankles with a huge gap at the top between the underside of the counter and the top of the oven - so it was a bit of joinery for me. Perfectly good solution, I will argue better because I incorporated some air vents into the "shelf" so that the oven is less enclosed. I used a piece of the many many extra decor panels and filler panels, the one I used was finished on the top and sides and I sealed the bottom so I am happy with it , I suppose no different to the decor panels and various other things that you need to cut to size on site. I just know the next time I buy a new kitchen I will be making some significant changes to what I order. A friend of mine bought all his carcasses from one manufacturer without doors, then he had a furniture maker make him all his doors to his spec (solid walnut) he gave the furniture maker the hinge positions and they drilled all the hinge holes, went together perfectly and looks brilliant.

He suggests the pipe run is 80m long and the field is 1 in 10 - so 8m height difference from plant to stream - I don't think a NRV is needed and would probably cause more issues, I'd just make sure the pipe is exiting into the stream in such a way that a high stream level would not potentially block up the outfall with debris, a simple grate would probably be best.

An integrated dishwasher, as you may or may not already know, simply sits between two cabinets or a cabinet and a end decor panel etc. So, if I was going to do this, I would simply design a location where it could go, possibly between two full height cabinets, and then create a solid shelf say 300mm up to give it that lift into a more comfortable zone. I'd then use a piece of 600mm decor panel to fill the bottom and then integrate a 600mm cabinet in above the dishwasher (may need to use a wall cabinet etc.) to create a unit that looks like a normal cupboard unit, but actually has a D/W in the middle. Don't use MDF anywhere near it though, that stuff is just a dried out sponge, with steam and water drips you will soon have a mess. Use 18mm ply built up on a proper 2x4 etc. frame. Another thing you will need to work out is the door cover panel, you need to notch the plinth under an integrated D/W to get the door to swing in and over it, that means that the same sort of attention would need to be paid to create the recess for the door when you raised it, but I am certain that with some clever joiner it could be done and look spot on. You may believe the above sounds like a bodge, but anyone who has ever fitted a kitchen will tell you that fitted kitchens are not all they make out to be, unless you are installing really simple kitchens you almost never install a kitchen without having to actually do a bit of joinery work to make it all come together. Our designed kitchen required that 3 cabinets needed totally reworking, like seriously so, circular saw right down the back and the whole back off one cabinet type of thing, another needed a whole corner removing, then I spent ages rebuilding the customised cabinet so that inside them it looks factory finished by routing out panels and sliding in backing pieces and all sorts, net result is I am very pleased with it. The point I am making here, is this, decor panels and infill panels and all sorts need cut on site, so making what you describe above, I would not have an issue with that being customised. Also, anyone thinking of buying a kitchen, don't buy integrated oven carcasses, waste of money, we spent £120 on a carcass for the oven, it then needs the shelf building up to the height to suit your oven, that was total made in house, so I basically paid £120.00 for two sides, a base and 4 feet. Had I known what it was, I'd have just installed the oven into the gap left between the two adjacent cabinets and used 2 filler strips either side to create the same look and a piece of 18mm ply setback either side to create a lip that the oven screws to! The end result would have been identical!

You would need 0.904m3 Which would be 289kg cement, 542Kg sand, 1084Kg aggregate. 12 x 25Kg bags cement 22 x 25Kg bags of sharp (note B&Q/merchant etc. bags are NOT 25Kg). 44 x 25Kg bags aggregate (note as above) Or get 2 builders bags of all in one and 12 x 25Kg bags of cement which around here would cost £100 and a sore back. My spot mix man is bringing me about 1 cube in a couple of weeks and he will take £150 for first cube and £80 per cube thereafter - I am happy to pay the extra £50 given it will take all in all less than 1 hour, his guys barrow it to the areas I need it and they will vibrate it in, tamp it, level it and I will float it an hour or so later!

You need to read my post in conjunction with my caveat to be fair. I know that good, well built ones can be good, but they are few and far between. As I said above: "Seriously though they are a big pest, only high end ones (Pilkington Insulite glass etc.) that are not cobbled together by doubleglazing installers are any good, i.e. the oak framed ones with ventilation and proper spec'ed glass etc."

Let me re-phase that for you: "All conservatories are problems. They all leak. Being made of glass the solar gain is so high they are a waste of space in the summer unless you want to cause yourself to get heatstroke." Seriously though they are a big pest, only high end ones (Pilkington Insulite glass etc.) that are not cobbled together by doubleglazing installers are any good, i.e. the oak framed ones with ventilation and proper spec'ed glass etc. We demolished ours, it was only 5 years old when we took it down, (previous owner installed it) it was just a mess - I could not even give it away! It cost £15,000 when built. Best option, remove and replace with a proper extension. Next option is the lightweight roofing options people go for, I personally do not like them, basically you cover the glass internally with insulation then plasterboard it, the structural integrity is questionable, no, actually, it is worse than that, it is really not safe. We had a firm out here when we first moved in and were still naive in thinking it could be made to work for us. They talked us through the process and £5K price tag (I never had any intention on going with them as I would do it better myself but they were knocking on doors!) and frankly the whole weight was being added to the existing structure, I asked how they felt about the loading and they said they could "borrow" some snow loading - well I asked them what happened when it snowed... Silence followed by a pathetic line about reduced snow in UK! If I was confronted with a conservatory again that I was going to opt to keep I would probably add in more walls by removing some windows, make it more of a bright room and remove the roof and replace with a solid roof with some big windows.

See my edited reply above.

Why? Are we talking a single dwelling house that you will build for yourself? Many businesses don't even have an accountant for day to day operations and merely use them to sign off the books at the end of the year for submission, my point is that why would you need one for building a house? You will have no income from it, just outgoings, keep a ledger if you want to keep track of expenses by all means. The only professionals you should employ should be engineers and maybe an architect! You would literally be paying them more of your money, to tell you how much of your own money you have spent! As for the Ltd. company, I can see some minor benefits, I bought most things via my business and I used my business name, however it is an already established business and our business name, although engineering consultancy, sounds like it could be a building firm. When you call up and say I am calling from "business name here" it always carries more weight. Ever notice that manufacturers and merchants almost always ask where you are calling from - you always feel a bit silly saying, "Oh, just me, I am a private individual" I am certain they roll their eyes as soon as they hear that. I did that with Jewsons last month, called them up, I got trade pricing immediately and they didn't even think twice. However, you could adopt a name to operate under, call yourself Mulberry Construction and use it for everything you do. Nothing wrong with that. Have all your invoices made out to that name too. I see no point in forming a business at all, bear this in mind, if you owned a business, you can buy certain things and write them off against tax, that is all very well, it can go down as an expense which comes off you profit line which reduces your tax liability, however, if your business doesn't make any money, because it is just to build your house, then how does the business receive it's funds? Presumably from you, so you are investing in your business with your own money, there is no tax liability on that, so you are not saving the corporation tax. The only way it would be worth while is if you were thinking of forming a construction company that was also going to work on other projects and you could probably put all your materials through as "business expenses" which is actually fraud mind you. Another would be if there are plans that are essentially "business like" - i.e. build 2 houses sell one etc, then there will be some of the benefits above i.e. the materials could be deducted from profit of sale.

As the subject says really, I am looking for some stripping or border that would go with a light oak plank. Basically I want to rotate the planks 90° as they pass through into another room, but I want to create a solid delineation. I only need 900mm! I'd consider a tonal or contrasting wood stripping, or gold, maybe silver, a bit of left over border would be good, another thought is that a thin plank of say a dark oak or grey or something would work too. I called Amtico and they said they can make me up a meter squared box but it is 10 days out anyway and that is from when a retailer orders it for me. Ideally I'd like the flooring down this week. If anyone thinks they have anything please let me know. Thanks!

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