Carrerahill

Best piece of advice yet.

This isn't what you will want to read but as I see it there should have been consultation with the neighbouring landlord at planning stage. This is the issue with the bureaucracy that is planning in this country, it seems to totally neglect certain very critical details and issues. Given that this tree is a pivot point for the whole build why wasn't it fairly high up on the list of things to resolve at the beginning of this process and if unable to be resolved the building altered to suit. There are clearly many options here, but the only option I would currently pursue is making contact with the neighbouring landlord and hope he/she is a nice person! Possibly you are going to need to setup a meeting, and their number may be obtainable from the tenants.

Should cost about £10-12 a tonne from a quarry. I got a quote from Tarmac of £12 a ton delivered in an 8 wheel tipper so a full wagon load will be about £450 delivered. You would be paying £31.14 a tonne at that price! Even dropped loose in 2 tonne loads from my local merchant it is only £21.00 a tonne. Other options are 6F2 of which we got a lorry load of too. A quick search just to see what is out there: https://www.littlerbulkhaulage.co.uk/shopprices/prod_1872758-Mot-Type-1-SubBase.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjwhZr1BRCLARIsALjRVQM6s6R2Aqomf641FSoqdIYC6c6Yxn6OZCHonvbK-0W8irIgzPMvDVgaAilwEALw_wcB

Please. Stop the bus, you are looking far too far beyond where you need to be looking right now, this isn't a weekend warrior gardening project. The issue is the removal of a substantial volume of material from the front of your property. So many factors will impact the structural suitability of the house with this material removed. You might have a basement, with deep foundations for the house, sitting on good ground, in which case this is likely to go quite well, your house, probably sits on a fairly reasonable, but not serious foundation, on reasonable ground. Start to remove the mass of material on front of the house, and possibly not next week or the week after, but 6 months, a year down the road after seasonal ground changes, some wet weather some dry weather, things can start to move. Worst case scenario the front elevation falls down, best case nothing happens, however in-between those two extremes is a plethora of outcomes from structural damage, cracking, bay window settlement with large gaps opening up and potentially a house you can never sell. I say this as the partner of a multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy, albeit I am not a structural engineer, I have co-attended plenty of kick-off meetings and site visits to know more than my own professional skill-set allows to a level suitable enough to know at least the basics here and in some cases (concrete) the advanced stuff to. Many many members on the forum are highly knowledgeable, highly skilled folk and from the limited reading of this post I have seen multiple warnings and advise strongly, that you take heed. This is a front page Daily Express article in the making right here!

500? What are you building? Multistory carpark? 250mm sounds more sensible, I think what you have missed is the cost in 500mm of concrete vs. 250mm!

Long radius bend: https://www.drainageshop.co.uk/110mm-drainage-pipe-fittings/GWPTE320.html

Could you not use a rest bend on its side or something, rods will easily go around that, it is just your shower so in theory should never block unless it was a backup and then you could always back rod from the IC. I know this is not perhaps by the book, but I see your predicament in filling the place with IC's and rod points.

When it comes to my Makita tools, I always go genuine, I know a builder who bricked a brand new battery in a dubious charger, the batteries have chips in them, that I can confirm, I don't believe this bit though, but I was told 80 full charge cycles and then they stop taking a charge, as I say this figure seems too low, a tradesman could easily kill a battery in 40 days then, I don't know, maybe if he is that busy then £35-55 for a battery is just seen as an expense. I have Makita 18V stuff and always just go for the 4Ah batterys which are not bad, never felt the need for the almost double the price 5Ah battery. I could maybe see it if I was using a big SDS drill or circular saw all day but for impact, 1/2" impact, drill the 4Ah has more than enough capacity - I still like corded, the rest of my Makita is corded - the grid has good capacity! The first time I bought a Makita tool it was a bare unit, I then bought a £120 drill from Screwfix just for the charger and battery at the time it was the cheapest way to get the charger and battery. I have since nearly bought another whole set just to get more batteries as I see you can usually sell the bare tool for about 50% of the whole kit price.

I could, I have a roll of 10mm copper and I am actually tempted but the work to get it in now would be a pest and I am not sure where I'd put the manifold - the house is now sort of split with water at one and and water at another, I've already run in 15mm copper under the floor for the new kitchen, but I suppose these could just become the supplies to the kitchen off a manifold with a bit of a reshuffle. I will also be bringing in a new MDPE pipe in under the new kitchen and moving the stop cock to the new kitchen, however I am now tempted to move the stop cock to the service cupboard and then run off my feeds to each area from there on a manifold system. Hmmm. I wonder if I need to be thinking about altering the whole system now.

Nope, my build is a rear/side extension so it's an existing water system that I am adding to.

So do I, but they look a bit "plant room"!

Those are the boys... Looks smart.

You know something, that is a bloody clever idea! Drat! I'd hate to mix it all up and find it goes off in 10minutes!

This is what I have heard, there is something in it to reduce risk of skin burns. I have used it out of date for decades.

Why don't you buy some of the uPVC cladding and stick it on? I did a work/sink area, just bought uPVC cladding stuff, £11 for a 4m length and it was about 300mm wide, in the situation, it looks really good, I just used plnety of battens so it felt solid. In your situation, you could just stick it on with grab adhesive and it would last you a year and probably cost buttons to do with little mess and faff.

Could you replace the freezer with another fridge (perhaps with freezer box) and have a freezer elsewhere? We have a fridge freezer in our kitchen which we would struggle with on its own but a chest freezer in the garage for bigger things, infrequently used things or bulk.

However, discussions with the manufacturer may solve this for you. All joking aside, if you were to take delivery, and leave it as it is delivered, and do a deal with them so show them for example a photo of it with a newspaper dated say 1st October this year, with all the wrapping still on it, sealed before you open it, then they may accept that the warranty runs from the day you open it. I know that sounds mad but I know someone who did that with computer equipment he bought in bulk.

It's going nowhere then, regardless of what it is, clean it well and render over.

Pretty much!

There are many factors to consider, I don't think prices will go down, I suspect demand for many materials could be very high post lock-down which could see increased prices. Obviously you need it, the only thing I would check is warranty periods, if you have stuff sitting for say 6 months and it only had a 1 year warranty then could this be an issue. If you have good dry safe space and the money then I think I would probably buy things like the cylinder and windows and stuff that doesn't really "go wrong". I'd do the same for the other bits but look into warranty for the electrical stuff, make sure you still have a good period left. Another option is to see if people will sell you it now, deliver later... that too comes with potential problems though.

It almost looks like a cement wash has been painted onto it. Try chipping a little away. If it is paint and it is sound you can render over it. Google Blue Grit. The guy who rendered our extension was talking to me about it and he has been rendering over sound paint surfaces for decades. He used to make his own version of blue grit with a exterior grade PVA and sharp sand to apply over paint after a good jet-wash and dry.

A cavity wall will always have moisture migration and transfer at ground level - trapping it isn't a good idea. This is the beauty of engineering, there are always solutions and options that can be used in isolation or in conjunction with each other to create ideal situations. I just use no fines as it lets the later transfer to the lowest point and then it weeps through the block/mortar joints - a concrete block wall is about as waterproof as a sieve! You would be amazed at just how much water will pass through a block/mortar joint. Lean mix is absolutely fine, no reason not to use it, I just personally used no fines on my personal builds as our civils guy always specs it. The thinking behind it is that is fills the cavity with a solid mass, but it allows water to drain particularly during wet season and helps to balance the moisture content out on both sides of a wall, very dry on one side and very wet on the other can cause its own set of issues.

My concerns would be over those founds, that is a big foundation and a mass of concrete, what is the original house on? I doubt anything close, you run the risk of differential movement as the house will likely move more easily than the huge mass of concrete, result can be seasonal ground movement but the extension will stay stationary. Ideally foundation should always be similar in design and construction to the existing (assuming the existing is built well and does it's job obviously!). Another issue with big founds is that you may then find it settles significantly due to the huge weight, and the house stays put. Foundations are a serious area of contention particularly with BCO's who are not structural engineers or even if they are, are not specifically well versed in concrete foundations etc. Totally ignore me if the above has all been carefully designed taking into consideration the existing and the ground make-up etc. I'd just use concrete block in and out. Lean mix is just lean on the cement concrete, and it is usually just sharp sand and no aggregate, it is to stop the walls before ground level from being pushed in essentially. I personally use a no fines concrete as that is permeable if the walls ever did flood. Looks OK to me, the flat roof is only 2400mm high? What height does that give you in the room?

Yes correct, the pieces are made to very fine tolerances, when you push two pieces together the gap is very small, in essence there is no gap, just a joint line which if done well will be very tight. If you look at the above then you will note the herringbone layout abuts a border, so this will require good clean straight cuts. If you need to cut a plank/tile that abuts a border or something then you need to make a perfectly straight and square cut, I used a combination of a 6 inch speed square, a steel rule and a Stanley knife with a brand new blade. Where the joint is going to be on show, such as at a border, you then bevel the edge to factory edge finish (assuming your product has this) by literally shaving a tiny slither off the top edge of the wearing surface with a small, sharp plane. I didn't really need to do this as although I had cut edges of the Amtico abutting factory edges of the cheaper Vusta stuff I didn't care about the bevel, but I did do a couple just to try it. The joint is perfectly straight and tight (look at the top picture that shows an Amtico cut piece abutting a Vusta factory edge). I pinged a line down the middle of my kitchen and worked out my ideal layout to minimise waste, I then started from the middle of the room and laid 1 full piece, I then worked out how much I would need to cut off the last plank in that run and made that cut and started the second row with this off-cut (my cut line to the wall), I the worked out what size the last piece of the second row would be and made that cut and put that off-cut in as the third row. The result was 3 starter pieces down in a nice staggered arrangement. I then left that over night to set. The result was on day 2 I was able to crack on with the rest and really push the pieces together hard knowing that the first 3 pieces wouldn't move. If you have 2-3 pieces set up and you push the last piece in tight the whole lot will move slightly so you need to work to something solid to get tight joins. I could have fixed a square cornered batten to the floor and screwed that down and done one side of the room to that batten but I was in no hurry to hit it in one go. I wonder if the pro's use a batten or a couple of panel pins knocked in as "stops" for the first pieces.

I'd say for me as it going into a kitchen it was going to be Amtico or tiles, I went for Amtico as I felt confident, after research, DIYing it, I also have experience of living with Amtico flooring and thought it would be a good option as it is never as cold as tile and dropped glasses and plates stand a chance of survival, being able to do it DIY was a big factor too. Of course I know you can DIY tiles but I couldn't really be bothered with the hassle. I choose tradesmen very carefully and when it comes to letting them into my house the bar is raised even higher - I don't have any flooring contractors on my speed dial and the monkey I did phone for a quote put me off so badly that I didn't even try a second. My mind was made up right then and there that I was doing it myself. I opted for a fairly expensive Amtico product on the basis labour was free so I think in the end I got a better floor. Amtico installation difficultly is one of these myths spread by the installers themselves. If you really think about it, it is gluing bits of plastic to the floor! After 2 attempts I was even able to cut and bevel the edges for that clean lines you will see at the transition from Amtico to Vusta on the plank ends, this is the same skill required where doing Amtico with borders etc.