Tetrarch

It's not just the width, the excavator tracks may do a huge amount of damage to the floor and the length will determine whether it can navigate your maze (and how long it takes) Regards Tet

That sounds like an.. erm sub-optimal situation A crane would be extremely expensive. It would be probably cheaper to hire a couple of labourers to carry gorilla buckets through the house than pay the time-cost of filling bags and doing the same Regards Tet

Removing soil through the house - do you have a direct line through the house, navigating through and around door ways will be the real challenge. In my experience, wheelbarrows are difficult to control consistently when loaded, I found a four-wheeled pull trolley easier to manage although a soil conveyor would be optimal - hence the first question......... Regards Tet

Thank you for the link. It looks as though I should have spent longer on the FH Brundle website.......there is a specific pre-made (but MUCH more expensive) panneled version called zenturo available: https://www.fhbrundle.co.uk/fencing-and-security/super-gabion-fencing https://www.wireland.gr/en/products/steel-wire/rockfall-mesh/item/toixos-apo-sirmatokivotia-zenturo The sizing on this is bigger mesh than mine but it comes up in maximum two metre panels Regards Tet

I intend to use a drainpipe to insert stones slowly rather than dropping from a height It's just a stone wall, (plus design proof of concept for a more substantial curved retaining wall planned for the drive). I started with the idea of a wall that was 9" at one end and 6" at the other. It's only when offering up the mesh that I realised that this would be costly Agree with both these. I have plenty of hooks. As it's decorative rather than structural then the thinner it is the less it will bulge. I have some 1" box-section aluminium that I could use as guide bars to give the structure some support Do you guys think that a 4" thickness would be suitable - ultimately if it doesn't quite work then I can always make it thicker Regards Tet

I've created a space that I want to fill with a gabion wall. I've chosen 1" x 1" x 10g galvanised wire mesh sheets and they are fixed at the ends and to the bottom. I have a number of gabion ties (double-ended hooks) to hold the walls together before filling. The "filling" itself will be ~30mm pebbles of some sort. The overall size is approximately 3.1m x 1.7m. The post at the right hand end is 6" across and I have a 9" brick wall at the other My question is how thick should I make the wall? The thicker it is the heavier it will be, the more the pebbles will cost and the more likely it will to bow the gabion itself The thinner it is the less stable it will be Any advice welcome, pics below Regards Tet

With the right kind of standoffs you secure the standoffs to the beam and then fit the glass to the standoffs in an entirely separate process. I found this on youtube to give you an idea: Just to note I have NOT installed these, but just came across this when doing my reseaach Regards Tet

You don't need these. For a standoff in a glulam (is there a better screw substrate?) you could use a regular coach screws - the biggest that you can safely insert Regards Tet

Things masively depend on the glulam beam construction and what's behind it but it looks like you have two options: Either some HD through bolts like these: https://www.fixingswarehouse.co.uk/products/toggler-snaptoggle-heavy-duty-toggle-bolts-bm10-25pk Or some M10/12 screws straight into the glulam - are there any load recommendations Regards Tet

I can't recommend FH Brundle highly enough. From order to delivery their people are absolutely top-notch, the prices are extremely keen and they keep you very well informed I wanted the standouts but didn't have enough vertical space on the return to make it work as you need (IIRC) 100mm below the low standout in the glass. Getting it exactly straight was a process but using their inserts and four post-it notes (a new construction unit) made it perfectly vertical Regards Tet

I looked at Aluflow. I'm going to make a recommendation but with one HUGE caveat www.clearamber.com aluflow deepflow gutterring is superb. Really strong and looks fantastic. Using the deepflow means that I haven't had to introduce any fall and they have no problem shifting water in the heaviest rain. I would unreservedly recommend if it wasn't for one detail...... The corners and fittings are cast and the main pipes must be extruded. I have found that the cast parts finish has gone matt over time. To their credit clearamber have offered to replace the faulty parts but 60% are already in-situ and I am loathe to change them out as they are screwed and siliconed. I may keep the roof-line ones as-are and just change the first floor, but I am still weighing my options Regards Tet

But he'd lose his floor space..... I was wondering whether you could take the walls in at the "shoulders", where the wall creases but then feather it so the floor remains unchanged Regards Tet

This instruction from the council will oblige you to sacrifice your loft room as one of your lettable spaces How much extra PIR do you actually need? Its a sloping roof - can you not just add thin PIR on the sides and then a thicker portion right at the apex to achieve what you need? Regards Tet

Welcome - from a fellow Kent dweller (Kentish Man in my case) This place is an incredible resource, invaluable advice and opinion - I have learnt so much, and continue to do so Much of your plans will depend on your local authority - if it's Sevenoaks then buckle-in it's going to be painful All things are possible if you have adequate budget, patience and a hide of leather Very best of luck Regards Tet

If you're cricketing then you might need behind your rooflight to divert the pooling that will inevitably occur there Regards Tet

I had a parapet wall specified on my 28sq m extension as I was trying to avoid downpipes on the rear elevation (side scuppers). Apart from the technical challenges you are encountering there is an aesthetic component as well. My original drawings looked like this: It turned out to be completely misleading as a warm roof is way thicker than the drawing would indicate and it would have left an enormous space above the patio doors. In the end I kept the side parapets and had a single deepflow gutter with a rain chain as a feature You can see that if I'd kept the rear parapet the rear wall would have dominated the elevation Regards Tet Ps Yes - I know, still waiting on my lead-man to return to finish off the parapets....

I'll see your 1TB in the 80's....... In 1956, IBM’s Data Processing Division in southern San Jose, Ca transported the first hard-drive that only held a whopping 5 megabytes of storage Regards Tet

From the information you have provided it would appear that they are going to install a parapet wall. They could use concrete stones, porcelain tiles, or some kind of capping like aluminium or zinc. Any of these would likely have a TINY overlap into your airspace. I would seriously consider how you are going to live with this and your neighbour after it is built. There is no way that you can specify how well (or badly) the final wall will be finished. There is nothing you can do to ensure the aesthetic finish of the wall. Furthermore, you cannot finish the wall yourself - not even paint - without permission. In my opinion I would play the long game. Make it easy for them to access your land on the condition that the quality of the external wall is good, as you will have to live with it - not your neighbour. Consider what finish you would prefer and get written permission to paint/render it as a condition of easy access. The ease of access is important as you want their bricklayers to make as good a job of it as possible Regards Tet

IMO - I'd take your timber framers offer. I had my (aluminium) "foffit" (not a real name but a one-piece combined fascia and soffit) installed immediately after the framing, but before any slating (though some leadwork was being done at the same time. You know your dimensions and wall covering thicknesses - so there's no real downside Regards Tet

I cannot recommend FH Brundle highly enough. Their custoner service is the best I have EVER come across. Not just the sales guys, but the logistics people, the delivery guys and the staff in the warehouse who allowed us inspect a product (from a high shelf) before we committed. https://www.fhbrundle.co.uk/handrailing-and-balustrade/frameless-glass-balustrade?via_sb=true My (side-mounted) internal stair balustrade is fixed to a 10mm steel plate bolted to a floor joist. The floor-mounted balustrade from FH Brundle may well do what you're looking for and at a fraction of the price Regards Tet

Thanks for the feedback. A direct feed would have been an excellent idea, but I have been in touch with Stovax, unfortunately it is not retrofittable. And 8.1kw IS big. It's that size because it fits the fireplace, not because the output is required - especially since we have sealed and heated the rest of the house! Regards Tet

Hi All, The reno is basically finished. Our Stovax Riva 66 8.1kw Wood Burner was installed in 2021 and only subsequently has the house been completely revamped and made (relatively) airtight with MVHR.... I need a final BC sign-off, but I'm thinking that we won't be complient with Part J and that we'll be looking for an open vent in order to comply. Our fireplace is actually an external brick structure affixed to the house and I am extremely loathe to punch a hole anywhere else. Part J says: "Permanently open air vents 1.10 Permanently open air vents should be non-adjustable, sized to admit sufficient air for the purpose intended and positioned where they are unlikely to become blocked. Ventilators should be installed so that building occupants are not provoked into sealing them against draughts or noise. Ventilation openings should not be made in fire-resisting walls other than external walls (although they should not penetrate those parts of external walls shielding LPG tanks). Air vents should not be located within a fireplace recess except on the basis of specialist advice." (bold mine) Where do I go to get this "specialist advice" in order to get the vent placed within the fireplace? This would very much satisfy the "not provoked" and be the shortest and most direct source of air possible. Is it just a matter of "finding" the right expert? Regards Tet

I'd agree with the "don't do it twice" advice. You state that youn can't afford to take the wall down, I assume that this means that it's structural. What you could do is to leave everything as-is but employ a builder to make a huge hole in the wall and put in a lintel (you can probably get a second-hand steel from somewhere) We had exactly the same thing done for precisely the same reasons. We had a 10ft supporting wall knocked down and a pair of 8x2's acro'd in. This "temporary" fix was supposed to be for a few months whilst our planning went through, but this eventually took three years! It did, however deliver the open-plan we were looking for and got us used to the space before the extension went on. I attach some before and after pics below: It only took a day and cost me two man-days and some timber First pic is after the floorboards were removed. Bizarrely I don't have this pic before this stage! Regards Tet

https://idsystems.co.uk/roofs/rooflights/ I was really impressed with ID Systems. We visited the factory twice and bought their beautiful Vistaline tilt-and-slide doors as well https://idsystems.co.uk/slide-and-turn-doors/ The Vistaline doors were actually the first purchase, we added three rooflights and two static windows to ensure that fit-and-finish was the same. Apologies I thought I had taken some better pictures, but all the ground floor windows are ID Regards Tet

I've got 6 sq m of rooflights and MVHR. I haven't yet gone through a summer, so time will tell, but I've noticed that the MVHR is very good about maintaining fresh air throughout the whole house. We went for (quite expensive) sealed unit rooflights that "drop over" our timber upstands. They make a great seal and then the only join that matters is where the upstands poke through the roof material. In our case it's a rubber roof so I was massively obsessed with the way that these were constructed. I'll open our patio doors if things get too hot! Regards Tet