markc

Glyphosphate will do it. Drill a few holes, pour it in and leave to rot.

Good morning, if you were poring highly stressed concrete or for a polished slab then I would be careful what went in the mix. as you are setting gate posts then it doesn’t matter. During the war they threw anything into concrete to pour tank traps and pill boxes etc. They are still standing and are a bitch to break up. pretty much any stones, pebbles, shingle etc will do nicely for post setting. If they are too big it makes the surface difficult to level off that’s all.

I am also tired of hearing COVID and brexit as excuses for inflated prices and supply shortages. Yes interest rates are stupidly low, yes there is far too much money around. I import construction machinery from Italy and we can now sell our machines at prices less than two years ago.

Either blocks or soil to form a bund that will hold the shingle in place

Good afternoon and welcome. +1 on the above

Just re looking/reading this. So the wall is supporting the pavement/road. does it look like the retaining wall wall built to allow the house to be built, or was the wall built solely for the purpose of supporting the roadway regardless of the house being there? do your deeds mention this boundary? if you are liable for the support of a highway then your insurance company would be the first people to contact as you cannot undertake this work yourself.

My thought …. Do nothing, allow it to fall and then Highways or local council will have to sort it out. and/or notify council that their wall is dangerous and you are concerned for you and your families safety as well as road users etc.

Hi, I’m even more confused now. what is on the other side of the wall/fence? Do the inner properties have much bigger gardens? do your deeds show this patio area as yours?

Noooooooo ?

The car in the pic could scupper any chance of Part Q. Had it been a tractor it could serve as proof of Ag use

Can you post a pic? I’m struggling to see how your patio can be a ROW unless it shouldn’t be a patio in the first place.

If (when) I build from scratch I will install a bespoke system in plant room, but in my present place I use Hive plugs for driveway lighting, Christmas lights etc. A ring of sockets around the garden/perimeter proved power for the hive plugs. very easy to programme different effects via motion sensors etc.

Get it ripped out and done right. This is your home, not a commercial unit. you will never feel happy knowing it was bodged.

Hi, apart from reducing the walk from kitchen to bedroom or mezzanine what benefit would it add? I think the potential benefits would be outweighed by the disruption to kitchen layout and surfaces.

Hi, another company or person could have purchased any assets but unless they took on the company in its entirety, debts, liabilities etc. Then I cannot see how any agreement made during a sale could be transferred especially as there is no monetary value and if any other purchaser on the estate were to have an objection, would the company or new owner still honour their agreement? Definitely not.

+1 on the above, I would say the £200 insurance is money thrown away. 50 year old agreement with a company that has since gone bust …. Nothing enforceable, everything regarding the company ceased when it went under.

You could go straight to a structural Engineer - adding a whole new storey will require SE input anyway, or you could approach local Building Control and get an idea what they would be wanting in terms of calcs, test pits, ground analysis etc.

Thermalite.. AKA icing sugar blocks! Pain in the ar*& to fix to. im taking it this is a single leaf wall construction … single block thickness? if so then I would take the risk on differential expansion (which won’t be much anyway) and use some proper blocks to add some stiffness and secure fixings.

@ianR1 Yes it is a stepped footing. When we moved in the floors where found to be damp as it is an old house the was no membrane just concrete painted in bitumen which had broke down as the floor boards where nailed directly through it. We have dug out the floors for the floor to finish as it was originally. I guessing you dug out to below the footing, so now only insulation to stop the footing sliding/moving sideways off its bearing/support. Screed will help to stabilise but I would keep an eye on the floor for movement. Rare but it does happen when the ground outside swells and pushes on the founds, if there is nothing solid on the inside to resist the walls can move.

Not related to your question but the step out brick … is that the stepped footing? Have you lowered the floor below footing level to get the insulation down? Or has it been underpinned?

I doubt it is piled, looks like a shallow strip found, sadly many larger developments have been getting away with pretty poor foundations. I’ve seen loads recently that are little more than scraped indentations (as opposed to trenches) with around 300mm of concrete thrown in. I feel sorry for the buyer because they are likely to have major issues coming up.

I don’t know of anything saying you can’t tee off before the main property …unless you were going before a meter.

If possible I would be looking to keep the ground away from the new structure by a deal with the track owner or making the new build slightly smaller to allow for a drain. failing that you will need a watertight slab and wall construction at least until out of the ground plus a couple of hundred millimetres. Above that you could use timber or SIPs etc.

Nothing, an abrasive disc will always burn wood. You can profile MDF (fitting trim or cheap skirtings) with course sanding disks but the dust is horrendous

+1 on the above