Adsibob

This kind of lackadaisical behaviour from a surveyor really Fs me off. I would write him a strongly worded letter mentioning that as a professional he really could have had the common sense and courtesy to ask why you didn’t have trickle vents. It’s not as if MVHR is a new technology. Tell him that you consider his failure to ask to be, at best, lazy and, at worst, a breach of the standards to be reasonably expected from a professional surveyor, and threaten to make a complaint to his regulator/certifying body if he is unwilling to accept your evidence of MVHR. With some numpties, the only option is to threaten to make a nuisance of yourself.

The edges of the stones are tumbled and the surfaces are "natural/riven". Not sure whether that would be grippy or not. Oddly, they don't have a slip resistance rating. Was going to purchase them from www.rock-unique.com so have asked them the question.

You make a good point. What pavers/stones would you recommend? We want something in grey or a mixtures of shades of grey, that looks quite classical and a bit old worldy. hence why I thought Coblestones.

We are re-doing our driveway (to fit one car only), which is on a pitch of about 15 degrees, maybe slightly less, coming from the road down to the house. My builder has suggested a build up as follows: 50mm thick cobbestones 50mm sand and cement geotextile membrane to prevent weeds coming up 150mm machine compacted hardcore Is this pretty standard or should I be asking for any changes?

We have this exact situation. The disadvantage of leaving a gap is that it will need to be accessible to allow repairs/cleaning, so probably minimum 50cm wide. That means you lose valuable floor space in your loft conversion. If you adjoin them, you need your party wall agreement to give you permission to remove some of their side tiles so that you can connect to them and then a detail as to how you will adjoin, so it’s all agreed in the party wall agreement. I’m not sure it’s so important to match their colour scheme or design. If we had done that or conversion would look hideous, but everybody had their own taste. The only advantage I see of not adjoining them is there is no need for a party wall agreement, and you might get better privacy/less sounds transferring between the dormers.

Yes, but that would be fraudulent, and actionable.

This, ie the porous tile absorbs moisture around the edges of the tile so that it darkens/looks damp around the edges.

So will Ditra add 3mm to the build up? Or does it absorb most of the adhesive such that it doesn’t impact Finished Floor Level?

I would tile under and either side of the appliances as suggested above (in case of any leaks), and tile to the feet of the other units. Then plinth goes on top of tiles, covering up feet of units.

So this might make my terrazzo nightmare even worse. We are having UFH embedded in screed and we’re going to tile directly onto that. Checking the build ups, my architect has actually only allowed 3mm of space for the adhesive which goes in between the screed and the 20mm thick Terrazzo. If this space needs to be a couple of mm bigger, that should be okay, but if it actually needs to be 20mm as opposed to 3mm I’m in a real pickle as I don’t think our front door, which is made of steel and opens inwards will be able to open.

I thought a 6 to 8 mm tile needs a 6mm x 6mm trowel to apply the adhesive which will leave a 3mm bed of adhesive beneath the tile. Is that not right?

Generally tiles come in various thicknesses, from 6mm up to something very thick like 20mm terrazzo. But don’t buy terrazzo! Adhesive will vary, but I would have thought 3mm is ok. So maybe identify 3 or 4 tiles you are considering and see how thick they are. You might find they are all 8mm to 10mm thick, which is a pretty common size. 2mm fiebre unlikely to make a huge difference. Units should have adjustable keys to give you a bit of play. i would have thought you don’t need to install everything in to get an idea of what tile will work with your scheme. Get a door sample from the kitchen company and take it to a tile shop. That should help narrow things down a bit.

Exactly. Tiles should be an easy purchase. If they had been clearer in the shop I would have just bought them when we were ready for them. I thought I was being sensible by buying everything so it was ready for the builder.

Yeah that would be a nice solution but, supplier didn’t give me that as an option. Basically, the supplier’s position is that these are effectively “perishable” in that they need to be installed within a certain time of manufacture; and they “told” me this when I ordered because the installation instructions that were emailed to me with the invoice disclosed this. But I didn’t open the attachment entitled “installation instructions” because it didn’toccur to me tiles could be perishable. The more I think of it, the more I think this is a situation where the “red hand” rule from J Spurling Ltd v Bradshaw [1956] EWCA Civ 3 would apply, where Lord Denning said this: … the more unreasonable a clause is, the greater the notice which must be given of it. Some clauses which I have seen would need to be printed in red ink on the face of the document with a red hand pointing to it before the notice could be held to be sufficient.

Thought I’d update you on my ongoing nightmare. The terrazzo company agreed to store them at their warehouse for a few more weeks, but reiterated their concerns about moisture uptake. I thought by now we would be ready to tile. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Build has progressed but really far too slowly. If we are lucky, we will be ready to tile them in early October. That means 4.5 months after manufacture. Still v. annoyed this risk was not more clearly pointed out to me at the time of order. Calling on my legal knowledge, reviewing the terms and conditions and the contract they really should have raised this more clearly than they did. I could repudiate the contract and take it up with my credit card company, but I’m wondering whether beforeI do that I should try to seek a compromise with the supplier where they agree to sell me a new batch at cost price rather than force me to accept tiles that might develop picture framing effects. Or maybe I’m worrying about nothing - I do that a lot.

We have a 7 year old Kaldewei steel bath that has a small chip on it, probably from a shower falling on it. Are these things repairable? Photo:

Is that a cold or warm roof?

Not sure I understand this. If there is no soffit what is Lindab gutter attached to? I notice that Lindab’s aly zinc range is excluded from their 15 year warranty: http://www.lindab.com/uk/pro/products/Pages/Campaign/Rainline.aspx

It’s under PD and you are correct about leaving a strip of roof. We’re have factored that in, there will be about a 25cm wide strip of roof. We are insulating with wood fibre and PIR, mostly between the rafters and additional insulation under the rafters. This leaves internal height of 254cm. That is if we match my attached neighbour’s dormer in height. We could go higher than my neighbour by another 10cm, but not sure it’s worth it. My reasoning was that it might look a bit odd (although that’s not so relevant, because his is so bloody ugly that matching any aspect of it seems nonsensical) and structurally it might be easier to finish the join between the two if we don’t have different height flat roofs too our respective dormers. Is it necessary to insulate a wall with wood fibre (for increased decrement delay) if that wall is mostly not in the sun?

We'll shortly be doing our loft conversion and my architect is encouraging me towards what he calls a "premium" look, rather than a "bog standard" one. I attach photos of both. I really prefer the look of the "premium" one, but my builder is saying that having concealed guttering will make it more complicated to clean - architect disagrees, the guttering will just be hidden from view by a small parapet wall around the perimeter of the loft, and then taking the water out to the side of the house, but it will be perfectly accessible. He also doesn't have much experience of building that type of loft, whereas he's done "hundreds" of standard ones. We have gone with a pretty contemporary look for everything else we've done to the house, including the ground and first floor extensions. I'm just a bit torn. My heart is saying go for the "premium" one, whereas my head is telling me that it's easier to just stick to what the builder knows and not to try and prepare plans for something non-standard at short notice, which will be stressful and could delay the builder. Really, it's annoying the architect didn't raise this me when he was preparing the construction drawings, but that's life. Do people think one look vs the other is likely to affect re-sale values? The picture of the "standard" one isn't really a fair comparison as we are going to have much larger (and nicer) windows, akin to what is shown in the "premium", but with a crittall look, so really the main difference is the lack of soffit and the concealed guttering and drainpipe.

Why not just rent it?

Thanks @Temp maybe I will fit an AAV. Does that create any air tightness issues for the MVHR system? I also wonder whether another solution might be to use a standard trap but locate it a bit further away from the sink's exit point so that I have more space for it. For example if directly under the exit point I have a right angled bend, that would take the waste water to the adjacent cupboard which is a cupboard rather than a set of drawers. Plenty more space there to locate a standard bottle trap. Or is that a no no because the trap must always go directly under the sink's exit point (as shown in the attached picture, which also features an AAV)?

Yes, it is valve based. The downside of the Wirquin you've found (at least according to the reviews) is that it can be a little noisy. Also looks similar to the trap that came with @Bitpipe's floor mounted resin bath I believe, which he described as "worse than useless", although perhaps for a bathroom basin it's okay. Not sure I think I understand how a bottle trap works, in that it uses a bend in the pipework to create a small reservoir of water that acts as a block to prevent nasty smells coming up. But I don't get the difference between all the different types of traps and their pros and cons. For example, would something like this work: https://www.screwfix.com/p/floplast-shallow-bottle-trap-white-40mm/19145

I'm considering adapting an old piece of furniture into a vanity unit by mounting a countertop basin on top of the piece of furniture. Directly under where I want to mount the sink, there are some drawers. The top drawer is about 8cm deep. If I lose use of that drawer, presumably i still don't have space to fit a normal U-bend in it? If that's the case, could I use this: https://www.screwfix.com/p/mcalpine-wash-hand-basin-space-saver-with-self-closing-waste-valve-white-32-x-32mm/863HP?tc=ST2&ds_kid=92700055281954514&ds_rl=1249404&gclid=CjwKCAjw9aiIBhA1EiwAJ_GTSmDfMhXLaYlhNgx6txgim_zmzk2dsN1hq7GHyA-mPwdJVZLRrUSSixoC7pQQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds Has anyone fitted (and lived with) one of these? Of the three reviews on screwfix's website, it looks okay, but just sounds too good to be true. If this works so well, why would anyone bother with a u bend?

I think they only come in 45mm and 55mm length, so I guess it's the 55mm length I want...?