SimonD

Thanks, but unfortunately K Rend doesn't do a render for woodfibre insulation, just EPS, mineral wool, or phenolic.

All the woodfibre manufacturers specify min 300mm from ground level although some will provide detailing at below that. This usually involves a gravel splash area and the use of either xps or eps insulation up to the 300mm, including the use of various membranes. What's really unfortunate is that it gives them an excuse to try an wriggle out of it! That's eminently reasonable on your part. Hope they come back with a decent response and the technical support you need. BTW I know you're up in Scotland, but do you suffer particularly from wind-driven rain? Here's a paper from Norway looking at EWI failures and moisture damage. May not solve your problem, but may give you some more info about what might be going on for you? Durability of ETICS with Rendering in Norway—Experimental and Field Investigations I'm keeping an eye on this thread as I have 96sqm of woodfibre ewi about to go on my walls. And after receiving what appears to be incorrect advice already about which render system to use, it looks like I'm down to using the Baumit system! ? Although Weber.Therm is also suitable according to the woodfibre manufacturer. The only other option is to find an independent surveyor with the knowledge to do an assesment and provide a report. If the supplier doesn't come back to you with an offer to assess it themselves, this is perhaps something you could suggest they work with you on getting done?

I read this one a while ago. For me a lot of what is being said about hydrogen belies the fact that what most people are doing, many experts included, is viewing hydrogen or renewable energy, electricity in particular, as direct replacements to the existing model of energy distribution and use, with a bit of energy reduction tacked on at the end. It's as if there is a belief that we can swap out the dirty, dangerous and exceedingly costly fossil fuels and carry on the way we are with [insert your chosen energy preference here]. It's a technocratic approach to avoiding what is probably going to be inevitable and fundamental change. This may mean getting used to paying higher prices for energy as well as finding new models of business and economics, and behaviours, individually and socially. Unfortunately people don't want to change because they mostly see change as requiring loss instead of affording opportunity. At present there are actually no short or long-term viable options to allow us to carry on as we are. So, what if we do actually have to live our lives with less abundant energy available to us at the switch of a button. Would that really be such a bad thing?

Oh well, that's simple, they'll just have to build desalination plants powered by..hydrogen. Magic perpetual cycle ?

And to play devil's advocate, how many people are going to want to give up additional space for DHW storage when the heatpump hasn't got the output of their combi-boiler ??

Yeah, it's a proper dilemma. I wonder whether councils even have the funds, but given how much council housing stock has shifted to private ownership and/or housing associations, I wonder how much funding needs to be passed their way. I sat on a parish council as few years back where there was a housing association that decided to demolish an existing low rise development and build new. Temporarily rehousing residents took years because they didn't have an alternative ready development where they could move them and they also had to build a good number of houses they had to sell at commercial rates to fund the development. Therefore they ended up with less housing space than before. IIRC it took over 10 years from conception to when they actually started demolition.

For me there seems to be a bit of a binary hydrogen argument going on at the moment. On the one side you've got the hydrogen is not suitable as a means of heating houses and powering our cars because conversion is too inefficient so we need to convert everything barring heavy industry to electricity. On the other there's the hydrogen is the future brigade together with lots of companies desperate to secure their future revenues, like oil & gas companies, boiler manufacturers etc. I find myself sitting somewhere in between. We're so deeply invested in the gas network for home heating and converting everyone and everything to electricity would be enormously expensive and take a long time to upgrade the grid. Therefore as a stop gap hydrogen, starting with a 20% natural gas mix, could be used as part of a phase change to how we heat our homes. Heatpumps are a very sensible next phase but currently too expensive to realistically provide a viable change-over. In East Asia there have been studies into piping hydrogen to homes fitted with fuel cells to provide micro electricity generation. There definitely needs to be imaginitive solutions, but as you've said, upgrading housing stock and reducing energy consumption has got to be the first step. I read an interesting piece on Passivhaus recently which suggested that embodied carbon was less in retrofit upgrades of houses compared to bulldozing and building new. So perhaps it is indeed greener to upgrade as much existing stock as possible and build new where its just too dire.

Man, that takes me back. We had those in our house in Switzerland when I was growing up. What really toughened me up was what we had outside the cottage in Sweden. Something looking like this: Shovelling the sh*t every year was something I thankfully managed to avoid!

Haha, brilliant. I can only imagine what that must have looked like. Probably better than asking the rep to turn around as you pull your trousers down! ?

Well, that renders it pretty useless then ? Never mind!

While looking up some data for sealants and adhesives for external wall insulation, I came across a PU foam glue that Soudal sells that is suitable for building non-load bearing interior masonry partition walls. Now, with the price I can get it at, it's a bit more expensive than buying sand/cement/plasticiser, but blimey, for knocking up a wall without the hassle of dealing with mortar, it seems like a great idea. I'm tempted to give it a try.. I wonder how it works in practise. Anyone used it or something similar? Adhesive for non-load-bearing walls

I trialled a whole load and preferred Trello in the end. However, I didn't use it long term as I ended up doing the building work myself. PM kind of goes out the window then.. But since, I've found Excel to be the most helpful software for each stage as it's so flexible - being able to create lists, charts, and calculations all within the same app I've found essential.

Not seen that. I will have a look at it.

That is exactly what motivated my post. Even after reading the paving expert and seeing all the reassurance on here about sub-base, I'm still feeling half-minded about it.

Years ago that happened to me too. Turned out it was a remnant of living in a shared student house and I'd never seen any correspondence about it.

That's reassuring to know. I recently put a dip in the tarmac drive thanks to a 9 meter telehandler at full reach loaded with a couple of pallets of plywood, one wheel just started to sink down - unfortunately no fixing that without a very visible repair.

Thanks all for the input, I'll have a look into the sub-base construction with geotextile and concrete edges.

My wife wants our new driveway to be block paved. Current driveway is very crappy tarmac. I'm pretty sure the last owner had someone knock on the door saying they had a spare load and should they chuck it down for a drink or two. Anyway, my question. Every single block paved driveway I've seen has started to show irregularities over fairly short periods of time. Our driveway is sloped and at its steepest it's about 10-11 degrees. Can a block paved driveway be done that lasts the test of time? If so, what do I need to do to ensure it lasts?

I think I'll be needing that by the time I get this build completed! Two boys, 9 and 12. Somehow they manage to flood a bathroom with a fully enclosed shower. It's chaos. I might put a drain in the floor for squeegeeing away the floods mind you.

Thank you so much! You have just shown me why I don't want a wet room with 2 young boys in the house! They're bad enough in a shower enclosure. The decision has been bugging me for months ?

A friend of mine has a heating business and heat pumps aren't on his radar. He's just too busy as it is so has no incentive right now. The only functioning heat pump system I know about is my mother's in Sweden. Hers is a 'proper' one where they bore down to about 150m and works for both standard radiators and DHW. My personal experience of trying to get one here in the UK has so far not been particularly successful. My first attempt was about 17 years ago when we were doing up a mid 19th century cottage. Despite our plans to upgrade insulation etc. all the firms I spoke said no (because of the myth that they don't work in old houses). So I gave up on that one. The second time was last October. I phoned a number of local-ish companies to get quotes for ASHP and it was a disaster. I only received one quotation where, when I looked through the heat loss calcs they'd done, they'd obviously given up on separating the rooms out and just did a calc based on assumed house volume. I'd done my own calcs and if we'd gone with their system we would have been under spec. It was also a very silly price. One amusing response I got was a company calling me back late February saying I'd left a message and was I still interested - I suppose I should be grateful they returned my call even if it took them over 4 months! ? For now I've gone the easy route with gas but I'm keeping half an eye on the development of air-to-air systems rather than air-to-water for a future heating upgrade.

At least that's something ?

Mine were all specified as triple joists so I have three sets of triple joists at 400 centres under mine. My bath runs inline to the joists. If it runs across the joists it would be a different matter. Personally I would reinforce under a bath but better to check first with your SE, architect or even local BC for final confirmation about how much.

Pre-action protocol you linked to apply when you are planning to take someone to court. Therefore the pre-action protocol begins with the Section 7 requirement that the claimant sets out its claim including specified information. In litigation, this would reasonably happen after you have exhausted all other avenues of resolution, not before you've even tried to talk to the other party to sort it out. Even after you've already tried all other avenues, you are asked to meet and try to negotiate a settlement through mediation or something else according to the protocol before the claim proceeds to court. Here is a helpful link to writing a letter of claim: Contents of letter of claim. It details the basis of the claim. This is not where you start with dispute resolution, it's towards the end. Here is a brief outline by Which? of dealing with builder disputes to illustrate that the formal legal stuff comes as a last resort (see section 6 specifically for when the pre-action protocol applies): https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/how-to-complain-if-you-re-unhappy-with-building-work-aWG3g5O4RZCh

Yes I have read the protocol and I'm familiar with its use. There is currently no dispute in the OP. And as I've said you first have to ensure you've given the builder every opportunity to satisfy the contract within a reasonable amount of time.