Carrerahill

Smart dogs eh! He, was a rescue dog from just outside Edinburgh, he was the kindest most loving animal and behaved so well. Dog's deserve longer lives.

It can be quite handy! Our dog will bring you things, if my wife is in the kitchen and I need matches for the stove for example, she can send him through with them. Or if I am upstairs and she wants to send me something she will give it to him and say take that to dad and he appears all happy with himself. Our border collie could open doors but only if you were not looking. Shut various doors in the house, come back and he would have opened them all en-route to the bed! If he wanted out the a room and you were there he would sit and look at it till you opened it for him. He was not daft.

You need handles so your dog can open doors! All joking aside, a couple of observations from different handle arrangements, handle-less doors can end up quite dirty as people always seem to create a dirty zone around things like light switches etc. The other thing is if you are carying stuff, you can often get an elbow onto an handle push it down and nudge it open, possibly not with the grab handle type. They look smart for sure, probably better in an all adult or teens household.

Torx screws are brilliant. The good positive drive even at slightly jaunty angles is brilliant!

How much of it will you do yourself? That makes all the difference. If you did all of it except say the block work it would cost much less than 8K for what you have described, try about half. Get people in to do every stage and 8K would probably about cover it. Don't know why you would need founds done professionally - apart from the actual concrete bit (because I assume you don't have a concrete plant!) I wouldn't even do founds, just a 8-10inch slab, stick in some re-bar and that would work - give us details of your ground makeup and what level you need the slab to be at. You could rent a diesel mixer and do this in a day but you probably like your back! Sounds reasonable though.

Why I would never buy a house built after about the 1960's - unless it was a self builders and done well.

That's typical really isn't it. Took me basically all day yesterday to put 2 rafters up. OK I have 2 up and I now have my cutting plan so the rest will be easy but a days work 2 rafters! Should have had the whole roof sheeted! Like you, everything conspired against me, daft things like running out of extension cables and sockets and having to run back and forth to the old garage switching between air compressor cable, saw cable, drill cable, cable that temporarily feeds new garage, so each time I got to the new garage to grab a box of screws or wood or something I realised the door would not open and had to go back to the old garage, clamber over the mess, unplug something, plug in the garage supply, go back, open it, get the thing I went for...

I think given the nature of what a shed is, assuming it will just be a small-ish shed I would just be building it, put it somewhere that is not too visible from the road or neighbours and just build it, the only way planning would ever actually know was if they happened to be on your property, or someone reported you. I doubt your neighbours would even suspect a shed to be against your planning and think to complain. A shed is a temporary structure, you could lift it up and move it somewhere if you needed. At the end of the day it is a shed, life is too short to worry and what are they actually going to do to you and if they did say take it down, you take it down for a week and rebuild it somewhere else, I would plant some hedges or tree's or hide it behind something. I do not condone flouting planning, if someone builds a wholly unacceptable building or extension in contravention of planning I would be the first to get annoyed, but, it is a shed! Build it. A friend of mine, who was treated very badly by planning and building control got really fed up with them and just ended all communication with them, he built an extension. It was all done properly but with no planning or warrant - the BCO happened to come round and stood in my friends new kitchen when it was all done telling him he could not do that, my friend just replied that "I just have" (typical farmer) - the BCO man walked out the kitchen door in 2004 and that was the end of that. One day the property will be sold... the extension will have been up for so long I doubt anyone would even think to question it's authenticity.

Basically to test an RCD you need to "leak" some current in a safe manner to ground (i.e. it's going AWOL from the circuit - this could be via a person or animal hence it will trip) this creates an imbalance because current flows one way, but not the other, so it is "lost". A tester can set the "leak" current to a predetermined level to test the responsiveness of an RCD, so a 30mA RCD should trip out within 40ms at 150mA. There should be a test switch on your RCD - this creates a small leak locally and will trip it - if this works, and your sockets work, then it will work as RCD's will work regardless of a good earth - in fact, that is sort of the point of them is to detect remote leaks to earth, i.e. not via the earth cable because a remote leak suggests it is going via someone or something direct to ground - dangerous - wear wellies! Obviously it will also protect against leaks to the ground cable. I had an RCD constantly trip out on a garage circuit, it was because because the circuit, in a low lying electrical wiring connector in a freezer was damp, it was leaking current to earth via the damp. So really all you need is a damp extension cable lying in a puddle and an RCD would trip. Another way to trip them is to use an RCD socket, like the ones used for lawnmowers and things, or even use something like a lawnmower or external extension lead with one built in, hit the test button and it should take the main RCD with it at the distro board etc.

The TBS doesn't need to be in a fancy £600 meter box - you could rattle together a small enclosure from just about anything lying about - it just wants to be solid enough it won't blow away and rainproof. Often a 4x4 fence post, concreted in securely with a piece of plywood screwed to it as a backer and an IP rated enclosure big enough to contain all the bits would be fine. Or get a sheet of ply and knock up a simple box with a door and shed roofing felt over it. Look about, you may even be able to re-purpose something, crying out loud now I think about it for £200 you could get a cheap shed!

Looks pretty good on the face of it, this is just at a glance, but I would try and arrange bathrooms to keep water and waste/soil runs simpler and reduce water noises etc. I hate the noise of waste pipes. I am actually looking at the acoustic Marley stuff at the moment as I just cannot stand that splashing/sloshing noise in walls and ceilings! Master and bed 1 are fine, as they keep water and waste within 1 wall, I would then copy the footprint of bed 1 for bed 2 so that en-suite moves to the left which lets that tie into the master and bed 1 plumbing. Then I would have the laundry directly next to the stairwell, then bed 3 then guest, this would centralise the laundry closer to the stairs and mean only 1 wall of the laundry was next to a bedroom from a noise point of view. Make the plant room a bit bigger.

OK - Between yourself and Jamie it looks like I will be able to get some - I have a friend in Carluke too! Let me work out what I need and what will be the simplest stuff to get hold of and I will be in touch. Big thanks.

Wow so many offers. I too am in Glasgow most days. What stuff have you got there? Thanks

Thank you, I appreciate this, for now I will see if Christine and I can sort something as she cannot be far from me. If it is not the right stuff etc. then I will let you know - I would also feel terrible if you gave me some then ended up short for your gable!

It is for wrapping my timber frame - the bottom stuff looks like the job, is that Protect TF200 Thermo stuff in the bottom image? I cannot be far from you as you say, I have a friend near Lanark too so not sure if that is in your direction? Looks like this may work out if you can spare a little! Thanks

No it needs to be be the reflective stuff - thank you for your offer - I spy an reply from Christine Walker who is A near me, and B it looks like she has the exact stuff I need! Thanks again.

I got myself some 2 section, extension/A frame type ladders. Delivered in the AM and they had paid for themselves by dinner time!

Glad this all went well. Could have been nasty. I was out fighting sheets of OSB yesterday. The Celotex stayed put miraculously!

Hey, excellent, the shiny silvery reflective stuff? I am in Scotland but if it was not going to be an issue I could email you a label to print and stick on the bag and I will arrange uplift and arrange to square you up for it...

On the scrounge here, I am looking for about 6m of Tyvek Reflex or any breathable reflective membrane, Protect TF200 Thermo etc. I ran out with a small piece of wall to finish and a bit above a door and don't fancy paying £340 for another roll to use about 6m of it! Does anyone have some of a roll left I could buy, or do they have enough on a roll they could sell me some by the meter? I would arrange shipping and square up with you. I could actually use a little more, about 10m, but that is not critical, it was an over engineering situation! Help would be much appreciated. Thanks

Well that is what I realise, I have binned more sets of ladders than I care to remember as they have aged and got damaged and been condemned! So I seem to be in this situation where I need more to replace them all. I think I am going to buy a big set of 2 section ladders and worry about smaller ones in the future.

That is more or less what I have just now. Need more height you see.

I am looking for some ladder thoughts and advice. I have a set of super sturdy, read super heavy, multi-purpose ladder's which are still tied off to the new garage roof (as a reminder to fit the rest of the ridge tiles!) and then I have a borrowed set of 3 piece combo ladders (A frame with extension or lean against etc.) they are really good, tall enough to reach the top of the garage gable end comfortably which is about 4.6 meters and feel secure yet also small enough I can take them into the house and change a lamp or something without being ridiculous and could be stored in a cupboard, what also is handy is that they also fit in my Volvo lying down with the rear seats down without having to sit over the front seats - I like that - I often help out friends and family so being able to take ladders with me is useful. But they are not my own set and I really need to clean them up (still more or less immaculate as I keep all tools) and return them. I was going to just go and get a pair more or less identical but my requirements would call for something a bit taller that could let me get up to gutter level on the house which is 7m where the ground level is lowest. With this sort of size I end up with ladders that are not really "household" sized, they become too big for the car and a bit bulky for the cupboard (although realistically they will live in the garage) so what have you guys got, what do you find is a good middle of the road one size fits all ladder? I don't really want to have to have 3 sets - the big fold up set are great but really only for use close to the house or in the garage or where I need a platform as they are too heavy to lug about and actually a pain in the neck to deploy as you need to lay them down or prop them up and unfold bits and then you smack a wall and end up needing to paint again... Who would have thought a ladder purchase could be so difficult. Has anyone used these guys - they seem reasonable, but is there a reason for that?! https://www.laddersandscaffoldtowers.co.uk/index.html

Fact is somewhere you need a vent, a vent and an AAV obviously both do quite different things in their own right, albeit a vent will do both - so make the BCO happy there is a vent somewhere and you should be fine. I think if you suggest to the BCO that you want to maintain the integrity of your roof, he will understand that and also respect that if anything, you are trying to make this building better which in his eyes should be a good thing. I suspect you would have more luck asking him if you can have a horizontal vent section (with a run on it obviously) exiting from the side of your house thus saving your roof or as @JSHarris says draw his attention to the treatment plant ventilation setup. Venting depends on many factors but what you are trying to vent is any possible hydrogen sulphides, ammonia, methane, carbon monoxide etc. build up from sections of pipe, if a gas can build up and get trapped then you have an issue. It seems they will often allow AAV only on short runs of soil that go directly to a manhole cover or vented stack, so say a toilet on the ground floor, it can be, from top down, AAV hidden in wall or above ceiling height, toilet connection, slow bend 90 outflow to manhole this section is un-vented but I think it is so short there is no risk?

Before you cut anything, is there not a way around this? My BCO has accepted a horizontal section of vent so that it can come out the gable... The fact is, as soon as you penetrate it you've compromised the roof and no "seal" will ever be as good.