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Maybe sleepless nights are rights of passage for us self builders…

Thanks @Nickfromwales. On your response to Q2, i probably wasn't being clear. My question was whether the fact the red hand is pointing to 4.8 means that it is set to restrict to 4.8 and so the reading of 3.3 is just the unrestricted reading at that time of the day. i.e. is it best practice that when you set it up you leave the red hand pointing to where you've restricted it to? Sorry, no idea how a PRV works.

hmmm. not sure that would work. I think the options are to clad the projecting corner in an oak veneer to match the staircase or leave it as it is or ask the SE whether we can reduce it. Assuming it can be reduced by shortening steels 10 and 11 and then joining them together with a 1/4 ring beam to link 9 to 11/12 junction as suggested by @Radian, anyone have any idea what it would cost to remove the plasterboard around this 85cm by 85cm corner, cut the steels, connect in the the ring beam and patch it up again?

Due to the open plan layout of our ground floor, BCO insisted on getting a fire engineering report which recommended a sprinkler system. We went with imist who initially said all I needed to do was ensure there was a power supply and water supply to the area where the tank and pump would be installed and they would do everything else. This turned out to be a bit misleading with them actually sending through a list of much more detailed requirements for my plumber and electrician to sort out. They have now done that and I had to supply photographs of what had been done to imist prior to the final fix of the sprinkler system. A These photos have prompted imist to raise the following question: I can see you have installed a pressure reducing valve, is this due to having a booster on site and the pressure being above 4 bar?I find this question a little surprising because I thought PRVs were fairly standard operating practice and required to balance the system. Our pressure on the the below gauge is showing 3.3bar. This was take at 845am on a weekday, so I assume though not quite at peak demand time, it was close to peak demand time. My questions are: Why do imist care given they state their requirements are a minimum of 1 bar and I clearly have more than this? Does the red hand point to where the PRV has been restricted to? i.e. my pressure won't exceed 4.8 bar?

If she has consented, it is too late for her to ask for anything. Carry on.

Well annoyingly, it was the staircase designer that pointed this out AFTER the staircase had been installed.

Yes

Yeah, bloody ridiculous that. But what I don’t get is why the SE specified 10 in the first place. If it can be removed, what’s its point? I fear that when we consult the SE on Monday, he will say we can’t just remove it.

As far as I can see, all steel 10 is doing is connecting 9 to 11. Two thirds of 11 is holding up the sky light, but I’m not sure Why steel 11 needs to project beyond where it connects with 12. Maybe @Gus Potter has some views on this. The issue is purely an aesthetic one. The staircase would look much better with a bit of space around it. If we got rid of that redundant corner, it would show off the staircase more, and let it “breathe” a bit more (visually). Difficult to explain, it just looks wrong having the beautiful sweeping bannister almost touch this very angular corner. If it was cut along the diagonal, we could then build out the diagonal into a curve. Even if it’s just a 250mm or 300mm radius curve it would look so much better.

Ouch. Did you have to take up the karndean flooring up and redo the screed?

Why tell, when a picture says 1000 words: Spent a fortune on a beautiful oak staircase, with a lovely swooping bannister. Except that this corner of the floor (which is completely unnecessary as there is nothing above it) is obstructing a big chunk of it. There is no breach of regs, as plenty of head height above the stairs, just bloody ugly. not so straightforward to round off this corner because there are steels where the purple lines are. The steels are to support an internal skylight, part of the hole for which can be seen to the left of the picture. Here is the structural drawing (the junction between steels 10 and 11) is the ugly corner: Both steels in question are 150 x 90 PFC. Wondering if they can be cut shorter and the shortened ends joined by a diagonal steel. Obviously need to consult with an SE, but it’s a Saturday night and I’m pissed off!

So I discovered a pretty bad balls up today. Can’t believe it has not been picked up until today; probably far too late to fix without a lot of disruption. wondering what other f**k ups people have encountered on their projects to try and help me put it in perspective / not feel so s*!t about it.

Maybe this will solve my problem: https://www.amazon.co.uk/1home-Universal-TVs-Height-Adjustable-Management-Holds-32-55-Height/dp/B075FN4GH5/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=sony+tv+stand&qid=1647102288&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExSzZTODhCSkpPMFZFJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNjQxODg1Mk84WUlURzlBUzFMMyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwODExODkyM0dOUVpZMDE4QTA0ViZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

The problem is (and this is a very middle classed problem) that the soundbar is curved and has speakers on half of the top, so really nothing should sit on top of it as I imagine it would interfere with the Atmos projection.

We spent a small fortune narrowing the width of our room by a few inches so that we could build a false wall to soundproof the party wall. We have SbX boards which are filled with a honeycomb membrane of sand mounted on some metal studs which are isolated from the party wall with sound insulation mineral wool fills the voids. On top of the Sbx is soundproof plasterboard, two layers with the joints staggered. It's a very effective setup. I am now thinking that it might make sense to put a tv bracket on that wall, but I don't want to compromise the sound proofing by drilling into the wall for the fixings. Some people have suggested green glue can help seal the fixing points, but I'm not sure how that work. There is an alternative which is for the TV to just sit on a cupboard (which is going under the TV location anyway, but if I do that i need to somehow find a way of elevating the TV stand (which has a rather large oval shaped base) by 12cm to make space for the soundbar to sit underneath it.

That all makes good sense. What Material worktop are you going for?

@canalsiderenovation are you planning on sitting on stools for your office setup? That is really not great from an ergonomic perspective. You really want a proper desk height (which I think is around 75), or a standing desk (which depending on height is around 110-116). Those stools look like they are up against a 90-93 kitchen counter, which is really just not going to be comfortable at all. i also think that desk alcove is quite narrow. How much space will each alcove be?

We’ve decided we are going to carefully try it out first before making any changes as the staircase company says they leave the treads slightly textured so that they are non slip. I tried it in socks, and it doesn’t feel slippery, but we need to see how it performs. Still a bit worried about the kids slipping though.

We are thinking of putting an anti slip coating on our oak stairs. They’ve been stained with Saicos ground coat, and then finished with three coats of Saicos hard wax oil. I subsequently learnt that Saicos do an R10 anti slip coating, though need to work out if I need to remove the hard wax oil first. (Link below.) https://www.saicos.de/en/produkt/additive-anti-slip-r10-2/ OSMO make an R11 coating, but maybe there is more risk of incompatibility with the Saicos finishing products I’ve already used? Does anybody have any experience with anti slip coating for oak floors/stairs, whether Saicos, OSMO or something else?

You can also get tile trim in all sorts of finishes. Best to consider other finishes in room and match those. E.g. in our under stair WC, we are going to have antique brass taps, so we are going with an antique brass trim.

Planning is everything. You can do really nice things with metro tiles, but you need to choose your layout style, spacer size and setting point very carefully. Grout colour also essential.

Getting a quote for some work and joiner has said that I should decide whether I want to go ahead soon because already birch is starting to go up in price due to the Russian - Ukraine war. Apparently a lot of timber comes from Russia and so prices are going up. Anybody else experiencing this, or could this just be a sales tactic?

We went with a Saicos hard wax oil to finish our staircase. It is similar to OSMO, but we chose Saicos as we knew our flooring was finished by their products and wanted to match as closely as possible. The colour match is perfect (floor manufacturer told us which colour stain to use), but I’m not sure I’m happy with the level of sheen. We had the choice between: Matt Satin Matt Ultra Matt High Gloss We went with Matt, but it looks rather flat, no sheen at all, which I guess is to be expected given it is Matt! I’m thinking satin Matt would have been better. Three coats has apparently been applied by the staircase manufacturer, on top of the ground coat stain. Is it too late to apply a satin Matt coat? Would I have to sand off the other coats first, or would this risk removing the stain from the wood?

Not sure it’s very japandi, but this is our staircase, going in recently. Not wore finished yet, but you get the idea… Oak handrail, steel spindles coated in a slightly brown shade of black.

I also need a fireproof sash latch with a rather large backset of at least 90mm, but preferably closer to 100mm. Any ideas? The largest I can find is this one, but the biggest backset it comes in is 82mm: https://www.locksonline.co.uk/Locks/Mortice-Locks-/Fire-Rated-Mortice-Locks-For-Fire-Doors/Imperial-G5000-5-Lever-Mortice-Sashlock.html