Carrerahill

Interesting statistic, but what are you going to build with, much of the timber is British, milled in Britain - I've been using Scottish felled and milled 6x2, 8x2 and OSB, concrete blocks are made just outside Glasgow from British made cement - cable is made in Doncaster, window were made in England, copper pipe made in UK, insulation was made in NI, sand was quarried about 15miles from me, aggregate came from a quarry about 5 miles away... waste piping is made just outside Glasgow using plastic pellets from a plant near Grangemouth - I reckon so far most of my build is British made using British feedstock and home sourced/grown/mined/quarried materials.

You have already posted this, by all means bump your original post but as a non-contributing member it will be frowned upon if you effectively spam a private site such as ours, so please don't spam our site with this again, it will lead to animosity amongst forum members.

Also - go and get on the chat with the guys at J W Grant's literally 2 minutes from you - everything more or less we have bought for the build has come from them. Also, excellent sheet material and building timber specialist round the corner from you in Anniesland. They do all the cladding and have their own mills they work with so can make any shape or size.

I can probably help you with names, businesses, advice, etc.

I wondered why they were clearing that bit of land and building a new access road - assumed it was something to do with Scottish Canals. I pass your plot hauling rubbish to the tip - you will be handy for getting rid of waste for free! Would be keen to pop in and see you.

Looks good, I am going to do an O&M manual for our house when I am done - sad, I know. I have left so many extras that I may never use like power and lighting circuits, CAT5, water/gas pipes that might be handy one day - only I will know where most of these things are - BT could turn up here and make a mess running a cable across the house in the future, or they wire into the switchroom and then it can be patched out to wherever - but a future owner of this house wouldn't know the half of it.

I hope this results in a project post with lots of photos and progress updates!

Basically it is just like making normal cement mortar but you use lime instead of OPC and you use sharp sand instead of building sand. You would need to by a bag of lime, there are various types depending on where you go, but generally hydraulic (sets by hydration) and non-hydraulic sets buy carbonation - use hydraulic lime for this application, as thick mortar joints may not set for an eternity if you use non-hydraulic. 1:4 would be my ratio but 1:3 or 1:5 work depending on strength. As for how your wall looks, if you do it right it will look original to be honest and the slant should be incorporated into the wall so that it looks the same. I would possibly get a bricklayer or stonemason to look at it and rattle that up for you - brick work is not "easy" there is an art, even the best of care and attention while laying bricks cannot replace experience and skill. I have been building small walls and structures at a DIY level for 20 odd years and I know my brick and block work is acceptable, but I would not opt to build anything too great or something that might be say in the middle of my house on view for evermore, not yet anyway! So it depends where this wall is going to end up - is this wall going to form part of your house one day? I see logs and pallets and cannot work out if this is a outbuilding etc.

I've had several jobs completed over the past 18 months, some were £PB and some were job rate. I am in Scotland - just north of Glasgow so take that into consideration. I would not pay more than £1.50 a block at current prices. I know some will say £2 per block is the going rate. £3 sounds high. My garage was about 480 block and cost me £350.00, it was simple 3 big walls and 2 columns essentially to the front, so 73p per block. Other things I have paid about £1-1.25 a block. Part of my extension worked out to be about £1.30 a block but then there were lots of cuts and lintels and what not so I reckon it all depends on what you need built.

Yes to the foundation, you need something, it's been a fireplace so there may be some "concrete" but it may not take the load of a wall and was probably just a base for the fireplace, I would carefully dig down and see what you have. I would not be surprised if that wall has no foundation like you would expect to find nowadays. You need to be careful, a big heavy foundation next to a "stone on ground" build could have issues such as differential settlement, the existing wall can move as ground conditions change, dry out in summer and become wet in the winter, a concrete found will change the way in which your new wall would move, so I would first work it all out, work out your ground conditions then get in a found of some sort that is sympathetic to the original construction. Once you dig out don't leave it open for too long, the removed material can cause the ground around to settle into the space which could cause cracking. I'd want to dig it out, work it out and have it refilled within a day. A lightweight found may be the answer - the original may just be large pieces of stone upon which the rest is built - you could mimic this with some trench block and a light concrete at the base to level it all out. Only disturb as much soil as you need this means your new construction can sit on undisturbed sub-soil - never a good idea to dig down then fill it back in as you end up with a layer that will settle which is why founds are poured directly onto a solid undisturbed sub layer. At the end of the day it is a couple of hundred bricks to tidy up a wall and I would not get too hung up on it all but at the same time be aware of conditions or you may end up with the new wall popping away from the old. It all depends on what you are trying to achieve, are you just going to brick in the gap flush with the rest and follow the shape of the opening? Are you going to build out a chimney breast feature? You will need to tie the new wall - you can little L shape ties which can be fixed as and when they are needed. You could possibly use a wall starter tie kit on the two vertical sections but I think that may be overkill. In terms of the slant then yes as it's not a structural wall and really just a facade - other wise you end up with a straight wall against a slanted wall and it would look daft. I would use lime mortar too, not ordinary Portland to give a better match and keep it looking shall we say... "rough". Those bricks look nice.

I don't see the point in your post at all! Just to have a dig and vent? This forum is famed for its friendly atmosphere and helpful members, certainly not those who post simply to poke disgruntled commentary. This is a building forum, a building forum almost entirely subscribed to by self builders and home renovation DIYers or people who take a vested interest in their properties and how it all goes together. The OP wanted to know if it was right or not, we all agreed no it was not (as he himself suspected). You popped up a post suggesting what they would need to do to sort it and made a surmission that it was "Not a quick fix", and that they would need to "...strip back from the top to get at the lower Batons" I then posted commenting on how I suspected the issue came about and how it would need to be resolved and gave some anecdotal information on roofing issues and how these things could come about - things I learnt the hard way because there is not a plethora of roofing information out there owing to the fact it is little done as a DIY project. I suspect it grated with you when I pointed out that you need not strip entire roofs and then explained to you how it was done, it was an education, now you know - might save you money one day. It was a comment given in the friendliest of terms. Now, you will have noticed that people on this forum take a lot of pride in their work and also take a lot of time to detail and explain things, there are some well known members who can easily fill a page with excellent advice and experience to help solve issues or help to be able to best choose a detail, procedure or product. The detail given is fine, and it is always in the detail, so we like fine details! So yes, he does want his roof looking right, and now he probably knows thanks to most of the good posts in the thread that it is wrong, as he knew, and that the builders ought not to complain to much as it is a quick enough fix. So, are you are missing something? Yes, the point of this entire forum! The next time I ask someone about a piece of insulation and I get a whole posting about the pro's and con's and temperature readings and thermal efficiency I will certainly not be lambasting them for posting the potentially irrelevant, but nonetheless very informative and very helpful advice.

You don't need to strip a whole roof to get at lower tiles. Roofers crowbar in - pop the nails up (if any on that row), slide the 7th row tile up and then the top of the 6th is exposed. If it was the case you needed to strip roofs for removing lower tiles it would cost £1000's to have a skylight installed. I also bet that the chances are they used the minimum number of fixings as stated in the building regs, I nailed every single tile on my roofs but that is me and that is my roof. An hour on a scaffolding to fix this at most.

Yeah it's wrong, and I would not even expect myself, a DIYer roofer of only a year now to do that! From my experience I think I can shed some light on it. Things went wrong on the first 6 battens on the RHS of the dormer, the dormer has basically messed them up - easily fixed - remove all the tiles for the first 6 rows on the RHS of the dormer, straighten the battens and relay tiles. If I had to do it I reckon it would be an hour tops to fix so they should not object too much. The 7th and above rows looks good, so they just need to measure down to the 6th batten - it will not be parallel to the 7th and the subsequent lower battens then run off too. I suspect they have messed up when they tried to ping their line across the roof after the dormer, as it would not be a clear line they would have had to try and continue their line after the dormer and lost their way. From the methods I have used I would probably just measure and mark it manually based on a measure down from higher main roof battens this then means the whole roof is taken from the same datum - if they assumed the sub-fascia to be the same all along and measured up on the short piece it could lead to this issue, the corbel at the gable end may have thrown them. I did something like this on my garage last year - first time I had laid a tile roof - I started on one side, and I was happy to take my time to get it right, I then had the other side to do and then this year I did my extension roof - I am now confident enough that next year I plan to do the main house roof. The clever bit is the battens - get that right and a monkey could lay the tiles and get it right. So people with a good eye for detail and good at woodwork will manage this easily. 2 roofs have been done round here recently that I watched daily as I walked with the dog - both of them I would condemn and I know what they have done wrong and how to fix it, which makes me mad as I am not a roofer and why I largely do not have trades in for anything. My battens ran out a little, mistake I made was how I marked them - I put in the first and top batten then measured and marked the rest but as I went up I think I was gaining 1-2mm - which at that you will get away with but over 10 battens you end up with 10-20mm and tiles not sitting well. I lifted 210 tiles - stacked them high on the roof, redid all the battens on the bottom half, moved my stacks then did the top battens - I ended up making spacer blocks, by the second side of the roof I was using spacing blocks for checking and a chalk line - by the extension I was using only a chalk line and double checking before each end was nailed then the centre and nailed it. Roofing is full of little details you need to learn - master these and do things right and it really is very easy. I did my own lead-work, and enjoyed working with the lead and taking lots of care when cutting the chase - I sheeted my new roof and made sure old render and dust didn't cover my membrane. I watched the roofers I mentioned earlier cut chases and remove render from chimneys and the stones and dust was all over the membrane, then the lazy sods walked all over it, I could see punctures and tears all over the membrane - made me so mad know that perfectly good materials had just been monkeyed onto a roof. The firm were a roofing company of a fixed address and multiple van fleet so not just the local tarmac crew having a roofing day before starting on tree surgery.

The only way for it to truly work is with an external daylight sensor and LED's capable of full colour mixing to replicate these colour temps - the best I have seen commercially is done with a LED board that can create 2300-2500K to 5500-6000K (depends on who makes them but I have seen as low as 2000K) - it works well with the correct controls - the LED's boards have double the number of LED's - half of them are straight 2300-2500K LEDs and half are 5500-6000K they can then create anything in-between by mixing - can be quite costly as you need dual channel drivers with colour temp control but it can be done. Anything that is not the same as what is happening outside is a bio dynamic nightmare. It's like when you go to the cinema and come out into broad daylight, how do you feel at first? Philips Hue are pretty good fun, but a gimmick. The issue with a lot of LED lighting is that it is all actually blue or UV, the blue light photons hit a phosphor coating - some photons will travel clean through the coating and remain blue and some will strike the phosphor coating and release a yellow light photon - the mix of which creates the "white" light we have come to expect - what people don't realise is that all this blue LED light is detrimental to our health and circadian cycle will be impacted. Solution - incandescent sources! There is a lighting report due out this year with input from medical researchers and lighting researchers into just what we should be using - there is a lot of misinformation being banded about and it will get worse as manufacturers jump on it as a USP.

They will only do work on the meter and cutout side. They will not go into your DB - however, it depends if you get a decent guy, or rather one willing to bend rules, he might do it for £20 - however, with regulation and the way things work these days, he could get himself into bother so I would expect no generally. It is an interesting one, no one is meant to touch anything that belongs to the board - however, loads of installations have a new CU and tails, no cutout in sight, yet somehow the new CU and tails were installed - go figure. It happens and they will not ever have a go at anyone who has done it for genuine reasons - if they started that game then they would be inundated with requests to come and fit cutouts, come and isolate supplies etc. not going to happen.

If executed well I think it would look good - it is done a lot in commercial properties that have little or no windows to the back or internal areas, offices in built up areas of major cities for example. It is usually a big pane of toughened glass, low profile frame, made to look like it would be a window, then done with etched glass or they put blinds over it so you get a glow and often fool everyone who doesn't know. I have used a tinge of blue towards to top to create a sky effect just by colour washing the top slightly - I have also done daylight linking where the window would replicate the outside sky colour and light level. In the morning (early) it would be, on a nice day, a nice warm colour and by following the sun it would not screw up peoples circadian cycle. It is not good for a human to enter a building at say 07:00 in a summers morning bright and then enter into a building that is too warm or cool a colour temp. Sadly manufacturers use colour temp as a selling point to boost employee output, but the end result is actually fatigue, eye strain and mental disturbance. Ideally your office lighting should mimic exactly what the outside is doing. A lot will be coming out about this in the near future because playing with light inappropriately is like turning the temperature too low or too high.

We have specified these type of feature lights quite a few times as a ceiling option, cloudy sky, autumnal tree canopy, that sort of thing. The ones from reputable manufacturers look brilliant and last well. https://www.whitecroftlighting.com/products/indoor/feature-and-display/life-p-led/ You are looking at £2K for a good 4-6 panel commercial version - can hangle 24/7 operation. Any cheap LED lighting panel or something like this will suffer early LED degradation at long run times and probably discolouration of the panel itself unfortunately. At £200 I would risk it for my loft or home office if I thought it would not be used too much. I was going to put a fake window in the loft with a blind over it and then two LED strips either side behind it washing onto a brilliant white backdrop - I just fancied just having a mess about. Maybe once the extension is done. I was involved with the electrical design for the QEU Hospital in Glasgow (not the cladding, ventilation or water systems!) and they were specified for kids areas and waiting rooms in internal parts of the building with no windows and particularly where patients may need a cheer up (cancer wards etc.). @Tennentslager - are the drivers built in or remote? I would consider dimming them (if they say they cannot be dimmed they are lying).

OK sounds like it is on the way then - either of you, let me know if you need any help.

I prefer a direct coupling because exposed gullys always seem to end up blocked. You could have a rodding eye very close by, or see if you can source a sealed gully type thing. I do personally like a direct pipe through hard landscaping etc. To be honest, if you go into a 4" then blockages chances are low assuming you do not have tree's directly above your roof.

Um... I am not sure. I will PM you an email address.

Send me the PDF and I will see if I can convert it to CAD - works 99% percent of the time, I do it almost daily. Once in CAD then changes can be made easily.

Seems pretty excessive to mess with lintels - what is he planning in fitting, a super giant air-brick! I take it the wall is built of concrete block and is solid, ideally it would have been built as a honeycomb. Could you core the wall with a 100mm bit.

Always compact in layers and dampen the hardcore as you go, water is a fantastic compaction aid. 100mm is the sort of maximum you should do in one go, but for small projects like houses I would always say drop that and go 50-75mm in one go - the rest of your build sits on this so get it right and take your time now. It also helps with levelling as some areas will compact more than other depending on how the hardcore was spread about so you can end up with an undulating surface if you do too much too soon - do it in layers and you can get the first fill compacted and levelled out - top up bits with a barrow or dumper load here and there. Then you can spread more out and be fairly certain it will work out level. When we did our garage we needed about 38 tons of hardcore, the first 5-6 tons went in with cement dusted through the hardcore, dampened and compacted, it made a really really solid fill (basically a weak no-fines concrete of sorts) that was going no where and helped to keep things right until we could get the levels worked out. It also meant that the retaining wall for the back of the garage was under much less load as the hardcore it was retaining was self supporting and didn't want to go anywhere anyway.

Ah, OK. Do I have a concern here, or have I created it?

What about Milton steriliser - 5litres for £10.00 - it is basically sodium hypochlorite. Safe too. Used for baby bottles amongst other things.