Shell820810

The painter said 3 coats of spray paint. I assumed that meant spraying the house 3 times. He has landed and reckons he will be in and out in a day. We need to move the temporary stairs so he can paint behind them. He said that would be a 10 minute job. I asked how he could get 3 coats on then. He said it would be dry in 2 minutes for recoating again. I assume he is going to spray a wall from say top to bottom, and then back to the top again, and then a third time. Just a few minutes between each coat. Surely this isn't going to give the coverage of 3 coats? How would we know if it's been given 3 coats?

We have some mould left on ceilings from when the house was drying out. I don't think we have any issues with damp now but as the painters are coming on Wednesday I was wondering if I need to bleach over the mould or use a mould spray on it and give it a wipe?

Thanks Nick Painters are in next week (spraying). Is this something we should ask them to do or is it better if someone has it patched up before they come? (Have a builder and dry liner/plasterer able to chip in). Have another socket to add in the kitchen too that was forgot about though we probably only have 4 inches of wall between socket and upstand so not so concerned about it.

There is a socket directly under the top of the stairs, so could go straight across from that, but I really didn't want to cut into that much wall. Decisions decisions!

I would've liked some lighting on our stairs, either under the treads (open tread stairs) or under the handrails. We forgot to leave the wires in! can you think of anyway to get power without tracking an obvious part of the wall (I assume a patch up plaster will be very obvious)

https://www.reuter-shop.com/blanco-tivo-single-lever-mixer-projection-215-mmswivel-spout-360-anthracite-chrome-a320031.php Can anyone confirm if this is UK compatible. I think there are links to spec sheets on the page. We are going for silgranit sinks, and getting them at half the price as the UK reps are quoting.

Perhaps we could stud something like this? Could you just do it in mdf and paint it? and a cat flap type hinged opening to push the clothes down the tube?

It was a larder unit I wanted, but 600 deep isnt enough for the duct with the bend on. With the duct with the bend on we need to move the thermostat, and there isn't really room to because of the architrave. I think it would be fine, we just need to cut a bit off the bend (red or green lines) to reduce the depth of the whole thing but he just thinks there's just too many wee things that could go wrong. Am sure he could do it, but it's not worth the hassle to him. It probably makes sense to keep everything below the level of the thermostat to avoid hassle, although it means losing storage. My uncle is a joiner and is going to look at it, so I am just trying to get some ideas of what we can do that won't look like a complete eye sore!

No, just the hassle of getting it to fit where it needs to go. He said before he looked at it that he didnt really take on bathroom cabinets. He is happy to do the downstairs one, its just the bathroom one thats a pain.

We got our trusses from Quinns, haven't a bad word to say about them. They sorted out the issue with my sister's pronto by getting it escalated to their engineer.

As we get into the more decorative stage of the build, I am regretting some of my rather rushed decisions. There was a reason behind them at the time, but now perhaps with better designer advice we could have had "nicer" rooms, but hey ho. They are plumbed and they are staying! I have a downstairs toilet, with shower. Shower is an electric shower and is unlikely to be used very often, just on the off chance we have no hot water in the thermal store. Its left for a 900 quad in the corner, but I really dont want a tray and enclosure. Everything is plumbed so cant move it. But do you think we could get away with a wetfloor, and if so, where would you put the screen? The shower is on the same wall as the toilet, could we put a screen opposite, beside the sink? and leave it open beside the toilet. Secondly, in the main bathroom, I have a laundry chute behind the door. I had wanted a tall unit to enclose this, with additional store above. Its not really working, the kitchen fitter wont make me a unit, a thermostat will need moved, blah blah, I need ideas for the laundry chute. Do we just box it in and skim it and paint it same as the wall and put a hinged lid on top? We have a 340mm air conditioning duct, and an optional 90 degree bend. Building control havent stipulated any specific requirements. But on a personal level, needs to be kid proof! With the lack of storage I was going to add a wall hung unit between the sink and shower. Do you think we could lose the end panel on a 1400 long shower? And just have a 900 panel to the right as you go through the door? The shower is on the same wall as the door. Concerned about the cabinet getting very splashed.

We got quote of 830 for our spraying, 3 stories. 2 floors is 3100sq ft, not sure of the total including roof space. Fella from Banbridge, kinda taking a chance, just heard of one other person about that used him and was happy. I have sliders email by the way. Pm me if you want it.

There was an experienced electrician and a younger Polish guy. Not sure who was responsible for it but it appears everyone but those two knew that you should not be drilling trusses to that extent. They were only there two days and had done that and set all the boxes with bonding which is also apparently a big no-no. These will have to be taken out and re-set. Not sure if they are taking shortcuts because they are being subcontracted in and don't care, or if that is the general quality of their work. The electrical contractor will be given the chance to put his own men on the job, or else I assume they will look for a new contractor. ETA: the only reason the joists remain viable was because they were 8" x 2" joists. If they had even been 7" by 1.5" it wouldn't have been as clear cut.

The engineer came back this morning and confirmed the trusses are OK, and he will write a letter to building control to that effect. So panic over! Luckily. But I don't think the electricians will be back.

The bank holiday is slowing any progress on this, the engineers are off. They are trying to prepare themselves for worst case scenario. In my opinion worst case scenario is new trusses, that they have to pay for themselves and its game over. They had 40k spend on ground works as they are building on a slope and need to dig very deep and a lot of shuttering needed. It wasn't expected and left the rest of the project very tight financially. Of course hopefully the contractor will willingly rectify the problem, as per structural engineersrequirements, but it could be a court job. Does self build insurance generally cover for this type of problem?

The truss manufacturer said they have a diagram marked with the "safe" areas, which I assume will correspond to above. However the holes have just been measured and there is one set 700mm from each end of the joist, and another set in the middle of the joist, as pictured. I don't think any of these fall in the safe area. The span is 9.2m. The manufacturer has seen this before and isn't optimistic, before it has needed new trusses. But they don't know until the calculations have been done. Fixes like Jeremy has suggested might be fine in practice, but building control will be all over this and there will have to be all the documentation for any fixes I assume .

No money paid yet. Spoke to truss manufacturers and we have to mark the position of all the holes and they will send it to the engineer. There will be a charge for this, which I assume needs to be passed to the electrical contractor. It's a waiting game to see what the engineer says.

Their building control officer lets absolutely nothing through, totally by the book. How would you go about rectifying it? The holes are too close together for a start and I don't think they have following the "zoning" rules.

Hah all the information I gained was on a need to know basis. It has now been erased from my mind and been replaced with the theme tune from Mickey mouse clubhouse and old mac Donald

Dry as a bone now! Humidity 45-55%, pretty much the same as our 10 year old house. Floors in since January, been at a standstill trying to get time to go places to have a look at tiles/kitchens etc

From the nhbc calculations these should also be 3" apart, whereas they are 1" apart. I thought they normally run along the joist and up the eaves? The truss manufacturer is being contacted in the morning.

30 trusses, easily 200 holes around the house

And so the sagas continue. Luckily not our house this time. Sister's house; electricians started on Wednesday after weeks of waiting. The company they went with has contracted the work out to someone else because they are too busy (without any prior agreement or notificiation). They have just went on site this evening to find 4 holes drilled in the joists of the attic trusses, the whole way up the middle of the house. What now??

So we all know that Solar PV will reduce our electricity bill. But how does this work in practice? I know we put our readings in for the FIT etc, and that's separate. And that the electric company will assume we export 50% and we will get 4-5p a unit for this. But how do we receive discount for the power we use when the solar PV is generating? My little girl mustve turned the immersion heater on a few weeks ago . We ran up about 1500 units on the meter, but this was over a sunny period, where the solar PV was working well. Has the solar PV saved us from say 2000 - 2500 units going on the meter, or do you have to provide a reading from the solar PV at the end of the year and get a refund etc?