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Thanks @Nick Thomas, you win the prize for being the only one to have actually answered my question. So if you were to buy again, would you go for kiln dried? @SteamyTea, fear not. This is not our main heating source. It’s just for occasional use, twice a week at most and it’s not currently cold enough to justify it.

We have some leyland Cyprus logs that are seasoning in are garden and will hopefully be ready some time next year. I know they aren’t great firewood, but they came with the land. In the meantime, I’m looking to buy some wood for our stove to get through the winter. Was going to get kiln dried, but then came across these, which are made from compressed saw dust and nothing else. Wondered what the pros and cons were vs kiln dried logs: https://www.homefire.co.uk/homefire-heat-logs-shimada.html?utm_campaign=543767_Homefire%3A Black Friday Early Access 181122&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Homefire (CPL Distribution)&dm_i=6XY1,BNKN,XUXDO,1EVDN,1 Thoughts?

My gut feel is to agree with this: I had considered flooring, but I think this is way overkill and probably won't look as good with so many more joins. The wall is about 4m long and 3.1m high. We would need extra long planks to reach that height without interuptions, and the widest I've found is about 320mm and even that isn't long enough at only 2.6m.

We are cladding an internal wall with oak veneered birch plywood. I was surprised to learn that the thickness of the oak veneer on each sheet is only 0.6mm thick (that's not a typo, yes, only 6 tenths of a millimetre). I haven't signed the contract with the joiner yet, but when I queried why it is so thin, he said that this is standard, and if i want thicker veneer then he needs to order some bespoke made oak veneered birch ply in either 1.5mm thickness oak veneer or 2.5mm thickness, but that this will increase costs significantly. The wall is quite big, so we can't afford to do that. The question then becomes, will this 0.6mm veneer be thick enough to withstand every day knocks and bumps? It is on the side of a broad hallway/living room, so I don't envisage many knocks, but I do have young children who love to run around whacking things. Should I be thinking of the veneer a bit like an extra thick wallpaper, rather than wood? Any other alternatives to clad a wall in wood? The wall is quite tall, about 3.1m in places, and we need the wood to be unfinished so that we can stain it and oil it to match our interior scheme. I won't consider any "fake wood" products.

But this would not be good for storing wine

How much was it costing you to run it 24/7 ?

Not mine! But then I did spend a fortune on Tado thermostats!

Me too! Are we neighbours?

Well if their HA/Landlord won’t remove the mould promptly, or wishes to make tenants jump through hoops, I can only infer that the tenants felt the delay and prevarication/bureaucracy was beyond the pale and needed legal action to speed it up. But I don’t know… just inference.

Just like they inspected Grenfell. Please… when will people stop this ignorance. either fixes the problem permanently, or avoid that it is uneconomic to do so and sell the property at its true value so that somebody else can fix it / tear it down and start over.

You seem to be missing the point. You are an intelligent person, so I will assume that you just didn’t read the article. The family did complain, several times, and their complaints were ignored: “We cannot tell you how many health professionals we've cried in front of and RBH staff we have pleaded to, expressing concern for the conditions ourselves and Awaab have been living in," they said. "We shouted out as loudly as we could, but despite making all of those efforts, every night we would be coming back to the same problem."

Was literally just reading about this on the bbc: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-63635721 Absolutely outrageous. I hope the council agencies involved are sued for this completely avoidable tragedy.

I’ve only ever eaten llama, so I wouldn’t know. Didn’t taste very good, but might have been because the chef overcooked it.

Interesting. I’d never considered the environmental cost of our water softener. I had assumed the supposed savings on detergent would benefit the environment, but maybe that was marketing trickery. Now you’ve got me thinking, it’s not just the energy… what about all that salt that gets sent to the sewers??

good recommendation, thank you.

Now priced at 80p/kg. That's an incredible 33% inflation in just 4 months!

@SteamyTea you should know better. An alpaca is different to a llama!

Ok, I will get a llama.

I can’t remember how long, but after a certain number of years, the Council lose the right to enforce. It’s less than you would think, something like 4 years from the erection of a building. So if you have got evidence from when you put it up, that would be helpful.

No. You want to ignore it to see if they actually follow through with enforcement. Often councils are so short staffed they send the first notice and then don’t do anything else until it’stoo late. Depends how persistent the complainer is.

We’ve had a lot of fox 💩 on our property recently. It could be a cat, but I’m fairly sure it’s a fox. Actually, I have no evidence either way. Can anybody recommend an ultrasonic deterrent that can be heard by cats and foxes, but not humans (or dogs, preferably, as we have a canine in our future), please? Amazon has lots of options, but I don’t trust their 4.5 or 5 star reviews anymore, been burnt too many times buying stuff where the reviews had obviously been manipulated, as was a piece of junk.

This sounds like a good idea. What type and size vents did you install?

Very helpful. So would you add more opportunities for air changes by drilling holes, for example, or would you rely on the non-airtightness inherent in the shed? Normally it wouldn't be that important to control humidity in a shed, but I need to store some books and other items for about 4-6 months until our house is properly finished. These are already in sealed cardboard or plastic boxes that have been covered with a dust sheet, but they've been in our shed for the last 12 months. That shed is very draughty, and just about waterproof, but will soon collapse it is so old and unstable, so trying to figure out what to do about ventilation in the new shed. Even in the old draughty shed, cardboard that I put in a couple of months ago has already gone a bit damp. We're in London where external humidity levels can be very high, particularly in Autumn.

Why would a new shed leak? Most come with a five to 12 year guarantee (seems to vary from supplier to supplier), so surely one wouldn't expect it to leak within that time.

About to place my shed order and I notice that the Ts and Cs state "It is advisable whenever possible to ventilate your shed by leaving windows/doors open. This will allow any condensation to evaporate and help to avoid any humidity that may gather inside the building." The shed I'm getting does not have openable windows, just fixed, so only option would be open door every so often, which seems unlikely to be sufficient or convenient. Options I can think of: drill various holes either side of the shed to allow air in and out - this is the cheapest and easiest, but query whether this risks the integrity of the shed or encourages rodents or any other downsides? install some small extrator fans, and a solar panel on the roof to power the fans and the lightbulb i want to hang internally - seems like overkill to me. ignore the Ts and Cs and hope for the best. Thoughts?