Carrerahill

I wanted to run this past the collective minds of BH. I am getting a new roof done at the moment, with the scaffolding up I used it as an excuse to do everything I could, that needs scaffolding, so the chimney has had a makeover, parts rebuilt, new render etc. last thing to do is fix the concrete cap the 4 pots sit on. What has been used before was 2 No. 3' x 1.5' concrete chimney coping stones put on the top side by side, they each have 2 holes in them for the pots and the pots would appear just to be sat on top, maybe slightly countersunk into the coping and mortared into place. I didn't want to totally remove the 4 pots and concrete and mess with the 2 liners for stoves etc. so I left them be and rebuilt everything under them, now the tops are a mess of old mortar and the joint between the 2 stones have missing mortar and what not, so my plan is to screw some formwork to the outside edge of the existing stones, maybe 2-3" high and pour concrete in, it will seal and lock the whole thing up and will trap the chimney pots solid, I'll put a slight slope on it and everything should be good. I'll drill in and add some steel to key it all in, I also have concrete water-proofer I can add to the mix. What do you all think? I do like a bit of concreting and I am, if I do say so myself, jolly good at it, so I know I can do a good job, it's just the actual concept I am not sure if there is a better way. I could always just make up a sharp sand mortar and haunch it all, but I feel that won't be as good, long term, as a solid concrete cap

Do you have a water meter? See if it spins with all water switched off - or take a reading, make sure no water is used and see if it has moved over night?! I know you are certain there are no pipes, but would you bet your house on it? What are the water table levels like, could they have gone a bit deep putting in fixings, and created a route for ground water to come up? I would assume not but I have seen something like this where the house is built on a hill and water coming into the property was an easy route.

Exactly, I drove a 1.6T machine over freshly dug soil yesterday, the machine, obviously, sinks in a bit, but it rides up over the freshly dug soil, I step out and my foot sinks into the soil deeper than the machine has sunk, this tells us that we would be better walking over material to compact it!

He should write a guide to building with those skills!

If you keep a rotary blade nice and sharp it will give a relatively clean cut, the thing to look for is brown tips once you cut the grass, a clean cut will recover quickly and leave less/no unsightly brown tips, golf courses use cylinders for pristine lawns that recover quicker, so grow stronger, and look greener, but they mow fairways and greens daily in the summer, the time it takes grass to recover helps us with reduced mowing frequency in the summer. My lawn needs cut about every 5 days at the moment. Next time you mow your lawn check the tips of the grass about a day after you have cut them, it there is a lot of ragged brown tips, then think about sharpening your blade. For a domestic lawn, even a well kept smart domestic lawn, a rotary will be fine if in good condition. You can even leave stripes if you have rear rollers.

I always use Sky Plastics, they destroy Screwfix on price. My builders merch is pretty good too, but couplers for £1.25, or double socket bends for £2.19 you just cannot beat it.

How soon after the block went up was the plaster put on? Also in which seasons were each done?

Based on the age of your property I would suggest it will be combined, but do some checking. Note, to avoid confusion, a soil pipe or drain, only becomes a sewer when it is a utility service serving multiple dwellings. People use the terms interchangeably and it can confuse matters quite considerably if people believe you are talking about a sewer, because in this case, you have no right to make a connection to a sewer, you would need the water board to give you a tie into their sewer. If it is your soil or rainwater pipe, then you can tie into it for various connections be it storm or foul.

This guy knows what he is doing and takes pride in his work.

I have a small section of flat roof above a bay window, less than 1000mm deep and maybe 6000mm long, I have a Bauder torch on felt system ready but want to sort out the edge detail. At present it looks like it has just been folded round over the deck and returned towards the fascia with a rudimentary drip edge formed, it's pretty ridged and holds its position so I assume it was a torch on product that is now just old and brittle. So, has anyone done a flat roof recently, how did you do it, any photos, open to all ideas and suggestions, including if need be abandoning the felt and going EDPM or even building it up as a little pitched roof with the same tile as the main roof. At present the plan is, get all the bits in stock, first nice Saturday morning, take the whole lot of, PIR insulation between joists, new OSB deck, new facia timber, then get this felt on, I can do all of that, I can get the flashing done, but I am just not clear on how I detail this gutter edge. Is see products for this detail but many are lacking clear TDS's or installation details and I just want a really robust solution.

Well yes, the water would run away. Use a spirit level or long straight edge to see how flat the tiles are, it also just takes one to be slightly lower and you are going to have a puddle.

Several things, although there is, you suspect, a fall on the patio the tiles might not be dead flat, especially if they are trying to mimic a granite look/texture, so a lower spot with the texture will trap water.

It would probably cause more issues. The key question is how wet are they getting, if they are sitting on sub base, and the slabs are pointed up with mortar then the only bit that might ever really get wet is the face, which will then air dry. So they might be sitting soaking wet, in which case they will rot out in 6-10 years (depends on grade of timber and treatment, old railway sleepers were bombproof, but the new "sleepers" aimed at landscape use are wimpy things), or they will be sitting pretty much dry and could last 50.

Are you sure he is an electrician?

OK fine, not really any reason electrically and its becoming more common, however, consider 2.5mm² 20A radials for smaller areas/rooms etc. that will make terminating easier and save you some money on copper. Small power loads in houses are not really heavy at all, it was different when every lamp was 100W and people had the odd 2kW fire here and there but consider what you actually plug in. Treat kitchens differently, I did an appliances (grid switch) circuit and a small power circuit with a dedicated 16A radial for the fridge/freezer.

You are right, when broken down that is where my gripe is. The whole industry is just a corrupt mess. If they offer me 5p kWh (I know higher is available from some) then I feel truly ripped off if my utility co. then charge me 50p. If the argument is that they pay wholesale, then we need to be asking why between purchase from me and sale they generate, between them, a 900% mark-up. However, I don't think wholesale/retail pricing should come into it, a unit in or a unit out. It all balances out. US, parts of Canada, Denmark etc. have net meeting (usually up to a max figure but from what I have read it is always well above any domestic installation).

It does indeed! Also appears to be storm proof its such a good snug fit. But you need to know to slide it over the handle side first then down over the drum.

Buy it. You will also need it for all the other things you forgot about or haven't even thought about yet. I got mine 7-8 years ago and it has mixed so much, concrete, mortar and render that I just couldn't imagine life without one sitting there at the ready. I need to pour 2 small founds for some block columns at the weekend, an easy mornings work to dig, mix and place concrete with the mixer about.

You are just a lowly home owner sold something by a bogus renewables company that then disappeared! My attitude here, as with many things like this, is that if you install the second PW, and configure it to sit within your current G98/G99Export Limitation, then who cares, you know it will be fine, the issue is the DNO just doesn't trust people with extra capacity in case it gets configured incorrectly. There is a potential in their eyes for it to exceed permissible export and cause higher voltage on local LV network (only you + neighbour?), and they would be right, but they need to start being more forward thinking about this because it's the future and if local government (particularly the greenies) got wind of this sort of setback to well meaning homeowners I think you could ruffle some feathers and maybe even invoke change. Another gripe of mine is not having net metering in UK (although I think it might be coming for small scale). It should be that I use a kWh, my meter rolls on, I generate, it rolls back. Fair, you scrap all the systems and offices for SEG and disband the lot, make life simple. We pay a standing charge which is meant to cover transmission costs so why they need to rip people off by paying 10-20% of market value for generated electricity is frankly just theft.

Have you considered just doing it? Configure it properly and within realms of what DNO would want and crack on. I could not professionally make this recommendation obviously but what is stopping you? There is no DNO police. There, I have thrown the written hand grenade.

You only said Ancon, I don't have a crystal ball...

Hmm, might put concrete in my sons bedroom when we do it up then, with a channel drain in the middle.

Our 4 year old regularly, i.e all the time, plays on either engineered oak / Amtico depending where he is in the house, we only have carpet upstairs. No complaints from the little scone. A nice rug helps too and if something is spilt can be machine washed.

Thanks, our bricklayer has been building things for us for about 6 years now, he is very accommodating, and does it all as weekend shifts so it creates timeframes for me to get my bits done without it impacting him. I know this will not suit all but it suit me perfectly. This was done last summer and I was doing 6-7 sheets a night after work before dinner - it was an easy shift. If you ask your guys to build like this and fit the insulation as full sheets you will get a nice neat job like this. I think the key here was installing full sheets to minimise joints and just generally make it look much neater.

This was during tape-up: