saveasteading

They (or some) do take it but don't want it mixed in the skip. It is nasty in landfill so they have to separate it. Then most of it goes to Germany to be recycled. All very expensive. Although I fear that rather a lot gets 'disappeared'. Not by people on BH obv.

I will take reflected pleasure when your beans are being harvested and mine are still feeble. The problem is in going away for 2 weeks too often, so I blame the highland project which has to be priority. I come back to dried out or waterlogged (or eaten) seedlings.

These are just about safe from slugs and snails now. They don't eat the stems once they get woody, and seldom climb above the bottom leaves.

Miracle Gro are owned by a huge US corporation that used to dig up our peat bogs until paid a fortune (of taxpayers money of course) to stop. Perhaps they have stopped doing terrible things now. I like to make my own as described. Garden compost is the best thing you can do, and it is immensely satisfying to get several barrowloads of free and better compost every spring. Then the worms do most of the garden work for you.

And if you leave the roots in the ground after your harvest, they leave nitrogen nodules in the ground. I have grown the same beans in the same spot for many years, and there has been no loss of quality. Contrary to the usual rotation method requirement. Just some compost heap mixed in before planting.

I suspect Stanley would be shocked, and give you a new one.. For very, very accurate measurement I was taught not to use the end, so we would start at 1m or whatever, as long as we remembered to add that to the number. Some special tapes have a long pull handle to allow this to be done from a proper zero. There are different categories of accuracy and some are remarkably approximate to be considered to be to a standard. That is understandable for a rough survey through undergrowth where a fibre tape is better and an approximation will suffice. BUT I once bought an own-brand steel tape from TS which was out by over 100mm over 30m. (The worst Class 3 would have allowed 15mm error). Could have been expensive and we had all the foundations, bolts and walls in using it before, fortunately, using another tape. I got the money back but declined to take it back to the shop. Presumably that level of error is known at the factory but deliberately overlooked.

You shouldn't need any for a bit. meanwhile make your own miracle mix. Collect fleshy weeds, esp nettles, groundsel, dandelion. You can add coffee grounds, banana skins etc if you want. Put in a bucket with a lid. Cover with water and a weighted lid and wait 2 weeks. with it outdoors! Drain off into a container and chuck the solids in the compost heap. It really stinks, but seems to work very well, is gentle on the plants and the earth. I add about 10% to watering can but perhaps should be more/less/ Then keep making more. It keeps ok for a decent while in a sealed container.

Of course most people can't do it well. But many can. What is 'design' anyway. a concept or the whole caboodle?

I think because the priority is to get the inside cold, so they chuck away heat as fast as they can. Then capturing any of that is not efficient. Pouring the heat into an adjacent cold warehouse that should be warm would heat it very quickly, but would soon become less efficient all round. Putting it through a heat exchanger would work of course, but on a very small scale compared to the primary function.

I gave up asking chill-store contractors about harvesting the waste heat to use for adjacent offices. Still sees feasible to me in my ignorance. Eventually I found one guy who seemed to understand it, and he said you can only get about 10% of the energy out of the expelled hot air, so it was not worth it. The big heat pump companies have systems allow for different zones in an office, so the waste heat is used elsewhere. But I don't know how well it works. I think the various heating and cooling returns are merged before recharging....or is that simplistic?

The good ones do. As for many such things, it is worth the extra for a known brand, other than an own-brand.

I will PM you.

2 sheets of grey is plenty but, as above, you don't need it.

No , easy. I have done stacks of new steel portal frame buildings as offices and classrooms, and the same logic will apply to a house. BUT the advantage of a portal frame is clear open space. If you have normal domestic subdivisions then the the walls provide support. For anything of domestic scale a conventional construction is more likely to be best value, but if you want big spaces in any dimension then steel portals come into their own. For the upper floors, my preference is steel z rails as joists, then decking. Against precast concrete is the craning operation without smashing the steel frame and especially any purlins.. I designed such buildings so that half the columns and beams were erected first, then the slabs put in, and then the rest of the columns and rafters, but this was for a very big 2 storey warehouse, and the costs would be prohibitive for a house. I have not read the thread fully, so forgive any errors of understanding. Would I build my own house as a steel portal? Definitely, but it wouldn't look like a barn, but a boxy modern shape, and with big rooms and feature cut-outs. I would avoid all the latest gimmicks, and also the ones that won't go away such as straw.

Designed for the job, and will cut and self-tap screw itself in one. A wood screw might work fine but is a compromise. Just be sure to get 'heavy' self tap screws that will go through an rsj, and get a few extra just in case any don't quite get through. Hex head for maximum torque and certainty, or torx head if it has to countersink into the wood. I look at these screws and all the complexity and wonder how we can buy them for 10p each.

Working at ours today. Our ground is remarkable, and something I had never come across before. About 12m thick pure, single sized, sand, plus some bands of cobbles, as laid down by glaciers. It is strong and dense as can be see by this picture of the ground, with deepenings for columns, hand dug with vertical faces. 300kN/m2 by our tests. Ask for details if interested.

Yes. Left one probably Victorian. The newer wall even has printing on it but prob not a date. 70s? Houses from Victorian times were very much to a pattern, so someone who knows this can see if any walls are missing.

Nod is right BUT. I have had a very extensive argument with BCO on this. He was adamant that the regs said that the stairs must be non-combustible. The fact that we had completely boarded with 2 layers of plasterboard was of no interest to him. 'Wood is combustible.' Eventually we prevailed. I think you still have to board to protect the timber in a 'cupboard under the stairs'. The risk being that a fire might start in a vacuum cleaner/plug etc, and go undetected until it burst through. Sounds sensible to me.

Given that trench block is intentionally lightweight, 7N does seem excessive. But it depends on the construction and where the loads are coming from. Hence ask the SE why, and there is likely to be a good reason. Anyway your situation is sorted. However I prefer 7N blocks because the quality is usually much better, the finish is better, and they are denser and more durable,

Our SE told us that fibres were not considered as too expensive. I think he may have been thinking of steel fibres as used for airport runways and for military tank strength. The plastic fibres are made by SIKA who were very helpful in persuading the SE that this was not something new. Local concrete suppliers both quoted an additional £9/m3 for fibres, so you can work out how much cheaper this is. The only trouble is that it is sticky to handle (no slump). I first used fibres about 35 years ago. There are issues, but as a sub-layer I have no problem in specifying it. We will use 150m2, so it saves us a lot. Steel mesh provides a little comfort if the ground is iffy. But with rock underneath nothing is about to move.

Home after 2 weeks away to find that the beans are badly eaten, with one of them just a stem. Meanwhile a bean (seed) I placed in the ground has grown 25mm and may overtake the pot-nurtured ones. Back to midnight torchlit slug sessions from tonight. The courgettes have barely progressed either, but perhaps are concentrating on roots.

And you don't know what a previous owner has done. Remove an old load-bearing wal and add another nearby with whatever timber is handy for example. The SE should be able to 'read' the building.

We have been getting sensible delivery costs for 25 miles out of inverness, from HIS, Travis, MKM. And better (£15) from the nearest merchant who won''t cover you though. The mesh itself is very expensive. £32 and £82 / sheet of 3.6 x 2m For half our floor slab we are going to use fibre-mesh (plastic fibres in the mix) this will cost £1/m2 and free delivery with the concrete, so is a huge saving. It depends on many other factors, but we only need crack control. Why only half? too late to convince the SE, who I don't think even knew of the existence of the product.

Headline this week: 'Invergordon man retains world's strongest man title'. You were quiet for a couple of days, so your secret is out.