Carrerahill

Tarmac's Topflow was almost going to be used here however it suffers badly from surface latency, due to the high flowability of the product it leaves cement and fines near the top with a high % of water, this stuff will be weak and will dry like a surface layer of digestive biscuits. As it has more water and liquid chemical additives to give it strength in the first place (as too much water is the Achilles heel of concrete) then you end up with this issue, Tarmac rep who was here said it's great to slam in-between your foundation block work, then whip up a timber kit soon after but it cannot be a wearing surface and should ideally be covered up fairly soon. He didn't recommend it for my project but we did cost it then are there and the cost was only about £75.00 more per wagon. He commented that Cala just pour it using normal labourers with no concrete finishing experience it self flows and levels they rake it it about a bit, then use the tamper to swish it about then walk away. 24hrs later they can be erecting a TF - which he didn't recommend but says they do get away with it.

A vertical mounted sheet of 11mm OSB exposed to the elements, I can report, will last well over 2 years without paint! Also amazing the surface has not done that thing where the strands on the exposed face start to expand and peel off - so this temporary garage wall of mine will be recycled into something else when it's taken down! I did a temp main garage door, or rather "wall" while I went on holiday last year (just to secure the materials and fixings and all sorts I had out there), 3.2mx2.2m, I made sort of frames to go round the blockwork like a "C" section, they slid over the walls then I screwed sheets to the frame. I put a couple of studs in too. It was during all those storms last year and it all stood up fine.

Two single lifts, with planks between is how the guys are working here - they just drag or move (takes about 6 minutes if they must dismantle and rebuild) the towers when they want to move. I also built them a nifty 2x6 mid section support so they can span near on 14' on one section using some 2x8's. They have about 4 isolated pieces of scaffolding up just now and the quick-stage towers sort of move about. I know it is not ideal but it works.

I would not trust those to stand on let alone anything else, i.e. load with the weight of some blocks and mortar. My builder is using something like these for the lower bits: https://www.toptower.co.uk/builders-trestles-swivel-leg.html I would say his a much more heavy duty. A small scaffold could also be bought and made up in 2 sections with boards inbetween. http://www.scaffold-towers.net/summit_size.php

If you have endless seasoned wood and or a means to produce it and want to use it as a source of additional or maybe primary heat go for it. Personally I would not use it as my sole means of heating, as when I go on holiday in the winter I can setup my gas boiler to take care of background heating and personally I did not go for a back boiler because it was going in my living room - I wanted all the heat in that room and didn't want the issues that back boiler stoves can cause (getting firebox up to good temp etc. due to water jacket cooing it things like this) I would consider a Bosky or Aga woodfired backboiler/oven but we have the means to heat the living space with a WBS and that suffices for us. My friend heats his house with a Bosky - he did have the oven version but eventually it was replaced with the heater/hob top version only. He lives on a farm so it was a no-brainer. Downside, however, is that it does his DHW too so he needs about a 45min burn in the morning to top up his 240litres of DHW - can make his kitchen a bit toasty in the summer, he does have 6Kw of electric plate heaters in the tanks too but he tended to chuck an arm-full of logs in and do it for free. Mind you - he also has a waste oil fuelled diesel generator that feeds directly into the tank heaters - also free. So many pro's and con's that this really becomes a full conversation.

The government aren't doing away with them, they are just tightening controls, eventually, as with gas boilers, diesels etc. these things will all be phased out in most areas - provisions for remote areas may allow for a relaxation of controls. Even if they ceased to sell such appliances they would almost certainly allow the reduction in wood burning appliances simply to reduce over time through appliances reaching the end of there life and not being replaced etc. It would also be very difficult to police. I think that they should simply control the sale of wood fuel. If you cannot run your wood stove on locally gathered wood that you arrange and process yourself then having a stove is not really worthwhile in my opinion. Limiting what people can buy from B&Q or the petrol station would essentially control WBS use. Also an outright ban on the sale of any unseasoned timber would help vastly. Asda had bags of green pine for sale, I had a look at it out of interest and wondered how many stove novices would buy it and chuck it on their stove that night. It said in small print on the bag that this wood was unseasoned and it would require to be seasoned. If only well seasoned hardwoods and smokeless fuel was available that would solve a lot of issues. I think there are many many stoves that were bought as a piece of furniture for the living room and get used on a Sunday night or Christmas day - yet the ONS decided to use the number of stoves that have been sold and multiply that by "average" burning hours which were frankly ridiculous and came up with these preposterous emissions figures. I know a lot of people with WBS's which just don't use them - they wouldn't even know which end of an axe to hold and have no clue how to, or indeed incentive to, sort themselves out with firewood - I think they buy some wood for special occasions and that is it. Fine, leave them to it, that is a nice thing. What about BBQ's/Firepits in the summer? It is probably fair to say a lot of BBQ's and fire-pits smoke away during the summer - more people BBQ and use fire-pits than run WBS's and the burn time is probably comparable for the majority of WBS owners as many do not have access to unlimited amounts of firewood therefor it is just an evening event and probably only weekends at that. Ban all the plastic tat they sell for parties, or stupid little solar rechargeable garden lights that last a season and end up in the bin, what an environmental disaster these things are, think of all these little cells now rotting away in landfills. People jump onto the things that are easy to jump at, like WBS and diesels, but look at the utter rubbish people buy for an event and bin the next day. I saw a car air-freshener the other day that resembled a small Pringles type tin with a grille on the top that the fragrance emanated from - I looked at this tray full of them and thought what a total waste of resources, time and money. Ban crap like that. I bet people exist who buy this tat yet lambaste those of us with a diesel or a WBS as being environmental disasters. I might write a book!

No issue at all - in effect an unused leg is just the same as a radiator on the circuit which is off. Water cannot move in it and you will not waste any heat. As with any plumbing setup the more connections and stop ends and valves and taps the more likely there is to be a leak, but I think it would be worth it if it enables a "perfect solution" in the end. I would however cap them all, fill the system and test or pressure test them. I made up a testing system with some push fit stop ends and one with a Schrader valve on it. I put some water into the pipes then pressurised the pipes with my compressor to about 3 bar and left it like that. You could use a bicycle tract pump or little car tyre compressor.

A slightly different approach I used for the similar issue. I made some angle pieces in timber just slightly short of the height of the defect, clamped/jammed etc. them onto the corner and made up a concrete mix - I used some "Ciment Fondu" in the mix to speed up the setting time and trowelled it down the gap at the top occasionally tapping the form with a hammer to remove voids. At the top my mix was of a low slump that I could just trowel it into the gap and flattened it. I took the forms off before it went super hard and scratched it so the render had something to adhere to. I was really pleased with the repairs, looked smart and must have taken me about 15 minutes all in!

Got to be a Numatic product, I have used a Henry for essentially building work and with good bags and keeping it well maintained he has been a beast, we now have a George and a Hetty. I would not recommend the Henry quite for your level of stuff, he could cope, but the bag would fill quickly. If I have major stuff to do I get the 15litre bag for George and use him, I managed to fill Henry right up and all the way along his pipe with sawdust once and it was still vacuuming away no bother - sure it was reduced but it was impressive. Have a look at this stuff - there is a reason you see these guys all over sites, schools, airports etc. they are good. A standard Henry is HEPA 15 I think which is 99.99???? and then there is a HEPA 17 which is 99.999995% which is basically the particle arrestance ability. For your needs, you can get ones that are even designed to vacuum up asbestos dust and will not re-emit the dust into the room - so the point is, if you got one, keep it pretty clean, you could then end up with a really really handy machine for bigger cleaning jobs which will give you better dust control than any domestic vac you can buy - Dyson - eat your heart out. https://www.numatic.co.uk/product-subranges.aspx?r=6 You can get the big blue one for about £200 which is 20litres.

No, ADW are just a rip off, they were the most expensive quote we got for windows too. They took ages to return the quote too, so when they asked if I wanted to proceed I said, well first of all it took you weeks to return a quote and you're the most expensive by a long way. No thanks!

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.