Adsibob

You need to design a 2 degree fall into your patio. The way we are doing it, is having it slope by 2 degrees from the middle of the patio to the edges, and at the edges we have brick slot drains (all along each edge) that feed into a drain which takes the water to the soakaway. There will be a pump in the soakaway which will come on once it fills to a certain level and pump the water to our sewer.

I got permission for building my rear extension right up against the boundary line. But I think it’s because my rear garden is West facing, so there was no risk of reducing my neighbour’s light, and I kept the wall very short (about 205cm) by making my extension have a pitched roof (taller in the middle, shorter on outside edges).

The manufacturer’s website just says this about their glass: The AG210 is supplied with 24mm double glazed units, using warm edged spacer bars, argon filled cavities and high performing low E glass. The low U value and increased solar gain means the units provide excellent thermal insulation whilst allowing optimum solar gain to pass through the glazing and heat the interior of the building, helping to reduce heating costs. Other unit configurations including solar control, acoustic and laminated panes available on request.

I’m sure it’s a myth in the sense that it doesn’t clean itself, but does it at least make it easier to clean?

I don’t know. I could ask the window company, but not sure I will be told. the windows are AG210 aluminium windows manufactured by MetTherm, supplied and installed by Govette.

Yes, I agree with you… now. Unfortunately I was after a very specific window and only managed to find two suppliers. Neither of which accepted credit card. My only leverage is the final payment I owe them, checked my contract and it’s actually 15%, so that’s something at least. They have sorted most of the problems, it’s just this distortion issue that remains.

I have friends in Buenos Aires. They are currently going through a heat wave in October, achieving temperatures that normally aren’t seen until Jan or Feb. That is like us having a heatwave in April.

I do not disagree with this. I was disagreeing with your stance on climate change, which was effectively denying or underplaying its seriousness. Of course every individual human needs to do what’s best for them. But at the climate change conference I hope leaders take a socially responsible stance and agree international laws that will curb greenhouse gasses significantly.

I have no problem with you being opinionated. Everyone has an opinion and sharing it in a passionate manner makes that person opinionated. The problem I have is your opinion. It is not based on any science, and at this late stage, when the scientific literature has long established that the danger is real and iminent, your opinion just serves to promote the myth that climate change is not a problem. This is all the more troubling and - quite frankly offensive to anyone who cares about the future of the planet - when one considers that climate change is the biggest problem humankind has ever faced, probably because its solution requires selflessness, something that humans are not very good at because over the last 100,000 to 300,000 years we have been evolving on the basis of survival of the fittest and survival instinct (until now) requires selflishness. But now we face a challenge much bigger than any one person and so we must go against our evolutionary instincts and pool together to stop climate change.

Nope. Just well informed about certain things.

Are you talking to yourself?

Honestly, you are speaking utter nonsense. Why don’t you pay a visit to the people of Vanuatu and see what they think of your senseless and ignorant opinions. Go and see the devastation that climate change is countless other islands.

I'm being told two conflicting things about easy clean (sometimes called "self-cleaning" - is there a difference?) glass for a rooflight. Supplier A is telling me that it can't be fitted in combination with solar control glass and I need to choose one or the other, whereas supplier B is happy to supply the coating onto the outer pane of the rooflight (in this case SN70/35). Supplier A is also telling me that the self cleaning coating doesn't really work in the UK and is designed for climates where there is more sunshine. So: who is right about the conflict between self-cleaning and solar control? and does self cleaning glass work in the UK on a near flat rooflight? In case it is relevant, this is for a large 2G rooflight (about 3.7m by 0.8m) which will be installed almost flat (about 4 or 5 degrees).

I need to decide what to do about this distortion issue on the glass. They have replaced it but the replacement is just as bad. They are saying “we told you so” I’m saying “you need to use a different supplier because yours clearly didn’t comply with the GGF standards. They are saying all toughened glass is like this. We are at a stalemate. The overall contract value is sufficient that the 5% retention would cover the cost of a replacement unit if I bought it from a different company.

Yea, I think my brain must have completely checked out when I wrote that.

All interesting points, thank you. We have top locks on all our doors and PAS24 on all ground floor doors/windows (and all upstairs windows are lockable), so I'm fairly happy we have a reasonable structure to start with. No flat roofs at ground level to make accessing the upper floors' windows particularly easy. We will have plenty of security lights as well. As for a garage, our property doesn't have one (or space for one). So I think the missing ingredient is how to secure the car that's in the driveway and the keys when in the house - mayb'e I'll line the key cupboard with something to make it into a faraday cage. @AliG you mentioned bollards, is this what you meant: https://bisonsecurityposts.co.uk/product/round-steel-telescopic-security-post-500mm/?attribute_pa_colour=yellow-ral-1023&attribute_pa_keyed=to-differ&gclid=Cj0KCQjwt-6LBhDlARIsAIPRQcLIPbOAVI7gVn3LhpF2ZlMXteBi05HPnV3uizSs0dEArOGZOLNFyB4aAvBbEALw_wcB ? If so, I think I would need two, plus the cost of fixing it, although hopefully given we are about to redo our driveway, that won't be too much. The alternative to bollards is a a steering wheel lock, which only costs £60 from Halfords (e.g. this one) but I never really understood how these work. Is it just that the post attached to the streering wheel prevents the wheel from turning without bashing the post into the windscreen? If so, what's to stop a burglar breaking the windscreen and then replacing that after he's nicked the car and managed to angle grind the steering wheel lock off in the privacy of his own workshop/garage?

Was having a debate with a family member about security alarms. Despite having witnessed a burglary across the road from our house shortly after we purchased it, I am still not convinced a burglar alarm is worth it. It’s not just the installation cost, but also the hassle of false alarms and the maintenance cost. Came across this research paper by a group of Academics at respectable English universities which says this: “This article reports some intriguing findings based on data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), which suggest that the addition of burglar alarms may be counter-productive.” As is often the case, the devil is in the detail, and the methodology used in the article does have a couple of flaws (which it recognises). Worth a read: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/cpcs.2014.17

So primer on the concrete, but not on the aluminium window frame, correct? What about on plywood?

So this is the tape I'm looking at, in the 60mm width. @IcevergeI am sticking either to concrete reveals that were cast three months ago, or in most cases to timber frames. The company selling the tape is hitting me with "You may also need this primer" (https://www.ecologicalbuildingsystems.com/product/tescon-sprimer). Do i, or is this just upselling?

So I tried this company, and although they are competitive in price, you need a VAT registration to order from them. Will try using my builder’s.

You are clearly more experienced than me in this and I’m sure you are right. But in my biased opinion, and I’ve only worked with four or five BCOs across three projects, two were just a pita and more concerned about irrelevant stuff than spotting important mistakes a builder had made, the third is just very laissez faire, not really worried about anything and the fourth and fifth were either very helpful or completely incompetent, depending on what mood they were in. Also had contradictory opinions on the same issue from two BCOs that worked for the same company. Also had some idiot BCO insist that I needed a thumb turn on a brand new front door, only for me to have to come on here to get the forum’s opinion and then quote the applicable regulations back at the BCO and ask him how he derives the interpretation that a thumb turn was required. Eventually he retracted the ridiculous position he had been taking, but not after I wasted several hours of my time learning how to do his job. So unfortunately, in my (albeit biased) experience, they are closer to pen pushers than qualified professionals. But I’m sure there are lots of exceptionally brilliant BCOs who are passionate about their job and dedicated to their careers. I just haven’t met any.

He knows I think he is lazy/slow. I’ve told him so and happy to tell him again! Lol

Apologies if this has been covered before, but the few recent threads I found linked to products whose links had broken. What tape do people recommend for ensuring the junction between aluminium windows/sliding doors are airtight. The only tapes I have found are really expensive (over £3 a linear metre) and are much wider than I need, at about 60mm or 75mm wide. I have very narrow framed windows so probably can do with much narrower tapes than that. Or am I missing something here - is wider better?

Let me put it another way: I think @Digger1 you are putting far too much faith in the BCO. He is not going to check your concrete has been mixed to the right consistency, or that the dimensions of the blocks you are casting are the right size, or that any reinforcement bars are of the correct spec and in the correct position. Most BCOs, as far as I’m aware, don’t have any special qualifications. Some may have surveying of building backgrounds, but most don’t. They are effectively underpaid pen pushers, some are very good at what they do, but many aren’t. It’s completely luck of the draw. Maybe you are extremely confident in your ability to follow your SE’s plans and in your SE’s ability. But the fact you are enquiring about insurance suggests to me that maybe somewhere you have some doubt. I can also say that even the best professionals make mistakes, and good teams consist of members that will spot other’s mistakes. My SE is good, occasionally a bit slow/lazy but on the whole has helped us do things I didn’t think were possible. He did however make a mistake in one of the beam designs. Luckily, my builder is very experienced and spotted the mistake before he ordered all of the beams. Who is going to spot your SE’s mistakes? Who is going to spot your mistakes? If you think it’s the BCO, then you are, to an extent, elevating your BCO to that of a project manager or site foreman, with a level of expertise that I don’t think they have.

By the way, I checked the building regs compliance: In terms of building regulation compliance, the reality is that the council have to take action within 12 months of the work being completed, although it is open to them to serve a dangerous structure notice at any time if there is reason to. So if they deem it a fire hazard, they could enforce at any time. At that time, you would have to rectify it. At which point you would reset the 4 year period under planning, so the planning dept could enforce. But in reality, it is rare for Council BC depts and planning depts to liaise with each other. It can happen, but usually the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. So my view remains that the most pressing issue is your neighbour who could help those two depts communicate with each other, or speak to a litigator and work out how to sue you.