Ferdinand

Rent a telescope first ? ?

That is perhaps a relevant point. Different profiles and flexibilities of foot, and the amount of feeling available, will both affect balance. Rather like the hiking boots vs climbing shoes thing. There are also things available like rubber socks that can be removed to wash the feet on the shower seat, having successfully not slipped whilst washing the rest. Or even flip flops. F

The nicest LVL tiles I have seen are probably Quick Step. Having had a couple of samples of different makes, there are differences in flexibility and softness of surface, as well as the texture. My feeling is "softer / more yielding" would be better, but I have no proof. I used a Uniclic Laminate instead, which has a somewhat matt texture.

@Mark Welcome to the forum. F

@Benjseb Welcome to the forum. I think we need context on how well insulated your house is etc, before we can comment on whether that amount of solar gain would make much difference. My suspicion is that potentially the extra problems in weather like the present may not be an overall benefit. F

Just to check - fold and slide are where they are on a track, but each door is separate? So the action of closing them all is like dealing cards from a shoe in a casino, rather than say like opening a concertina-folded set of 10 postcards of Skegness? F

Need some help here... I only know one scooba washy. How do vinyl tiles perform when wet?

Fake grass for showers? Might work in the Wintergarden of Human Delights as a Lancashire version for an outdoor shower. I think the neighbours would see it as wussy - not being properly outside and in the teeth of the howling gale. More seriously, I even speculated about using nobbly professional (20mm thick) gym matting over the swimming-pool-surround mesh as a way of really fixing oldsters slipping and falling in my accessible shower, whilst draining OK. Even have samples of the latter. F

Agree on hips. (Though hips reminds me of ships which reminds me of something my niece said when she was little. "We are having an arbour for the garden" "With ships?" This being Nottinghamshire, where 'aitches 'ardly 'ever 'appen.) Top Tip 1: Get a sample big enough to stand on and test them with water and with soap. No disrespect to the appliance of science, but a stand-on-the-real-thing test may better for your own shower, unless you have a precalibration of your comfort vs the standard pendulum. Top Tip 2: The more textured, the tougher they will be to clean. Test with your chosen cleaning method - you will be wearing out your hip cleaning them. I have matt finish tiles called Karachi Ivory from Realonda Ceramica via Tile Town, which are quite non-slip. There is also a thing called a "matching mosaic"; presumably that is something for designer types. Best cleaning method is a steam floor cleaner (so I am told by my cleaner), though a traditional cleaning-lady mop (dab not scrub) or floor sponge seems OK. My supplier Tiletown currently have a 20% online discount. Currently about £26.40 per sqm all in, and they send up to 3 free samples in the post. And no delivery charges for >£150 order (in England and Wales - cough). Or £26.40 on the spot with the printed voucher. Normal price £35. Good price - not much more than their normal trade. Ferdinand

Plenty here have unfixed islands held down by deadweight. So if you need more after the window chat, then that could be your option.

I think you need advice from a more local forum on this one. Over in the UK it would depend on what it is, and how it is sorted. The easy way would be a general purpose skip, and load it in apart from anything banned. Cost for a 6 cubic m skip would be around USD $250-300, of which about 40% is green taxes. F

You would have to start with you generally not owning the view. BUT 1 His PP. What does it say? If in breach you may complain. And a nice letter from the PO may work. If it is a dev then they might have done a Visual Impact Assessment, which could be leveraged. 2. Council nuisance. I think light pollution may be addressable that way. 3. Dark skies is a sexy thing these days. Especially in a Nat Park, or if you have local enthusiasts. May help. "They will all go and visit Kielder instead." 4. You could approach them directly. Surprisingly effective sometimes. Perhaps they are nice people who will agree to a change. Most people are reasonable if approached reasonably with a genuine concern. It may be cheap, but they may ask you to pay eg for cowels. Problem here is that ‘will change the bulb type next time’ now means up to 5-10 years if LEDs. 5. Local astronomy group maybe willing to do something. 6. You accept that you now have a permanent conversation starter over your supper time cocoa and shortbread. Imagine 2055. “Remember, Shona, when those buggers installed that lighting back then .. nice people but I sure miss following the mountain rescue team on Ben McSavage by their lights”. Whichever way, leave it 1-2 years and your chances of change may be 80% less. Imo act now to mitigate, or grin and bear it forever. Your call ?. It may seem strange to mention contributing, however that can be useful if asked .. I find that going halves on fences or materials or shared chimneys (done all 3 in last decade) even when not technically necessary means that I get an input and a decent job. Ferdinand

Or there are narrow submersible pumps. But this may already be Plan B. Or Plan C. Plan B may be @epsilonGreedy junior and a hose pipe.

Thought you just topped up the exit pipe with a jug of water from the top, or similar mechanism. In this case do you not just need a side connection where you can connect a hose to initially fill the tube from the top, and an air valve at the very top to let the air out? How precise it all needs to be will depend on how tolerant the whole thing is. F

True ... but the marginal cost vs extra heating bills over 20 years and so on ...

Have aerogel prices come down? if I have my numbers right, 100mm of external wall insulation ... one you have added the extra things such as render ... will not take you much beyond Building Regs basic standard. Ferdinand

The last one I did I drew all the bits on the walls, took the lecky round for 20 minutes, and he gave me a list of what to buy two days later! This is amenable to a bottom up estimate imo, which should be quite quick to do. More seriously, I would do this by reviewing my plan, perhaps with a highlighter, and break it down into sub elements that I can do by inspection or guestimate in my head, then add a bit extra, then either accepting that I would use more cable later (piggery?), or buying the extra reel from somewhere I knew I could take it back 2 weeks later - as you would with tiles. It is nice that cable lasts for years and years. Or deconstruct it in my head - eg for a 10m x 10m house with a 3 room x 2 room plan, I know that a ring main round them all will be 4 full runs one way and 6 the other way from counting walls basically regardless of room shape and qty of sockets except for eg wiggly walls, which is 100m per floor plus twiddles for back to the CU, 3m per time to go upstairs, 300mm per double for the loopout, 1m per double on the worktop in the kitchen, rooms with no power etc. I would write each sub element I can do in my head in a list, and then add them up and do a cross check of some sort. Then repeat for each type of cable. That is how I do skirtings - how many front to back inside walls + side to side for overall dimensions for an estimate, then match the mix against lengths of individual walls eg 3.6 4.2 4.4 to minimise small offcuts (add this list back up to check the numbers are about the same), add a couple of lengths to avoid an extra delivery cost which will usually cost more for skirtings due to minimum order for free delivery, and match list 2 against price lists to give me the lowest total. Slight watch needed eg for outside corners which can require extra 100mm or so of skirting to be safe if there are several. I would say any I miss out is because of things I have forgotten, rather than things I have miss-estimated as I know my room sizes and distances quite well. The highlghter on the plan is one way to avoid missing things. F

Wall u value is probably 0.25. Rockwool in the cavity, thermalite inner. F

So you are presumably in the market for Buildhub zinc roof offcuts ...

Clearly, as ever, you all need to consort with Hermione. "Detritus exeat. Statim."

Cheers. Splitter it is then. Unfortunately my tap is in the wall, and I don't even have one at the front.

Our family's last Ford was a Cortina Mk III L reg, and that *didn't* handle well. Which was why the next one was a Mk I Fiesta15 years later when I was desperate, bright yellow and known as Felicity by its previous owner. Sort of car that Florence from the Magic Roundabout might have, Though to be fair a Ford Cortina was not much competition for NSU RO80s, which followed it. When it was stolen they bailed within half a mile. F

Getting to grips. I think I am missing 1 - An extra outside tap to dedicate to the drip system, or splitter. 2 - A converter for normal hose to 6mm, to enable a direct water buttonnection. F

I am getting a prehistoric Arthur Dent feeling about this. Confirmed by yesterday’s Cricket. I also have a couple of pieces I made as part of my EP-something, including a measure-twice-reminder toolbox with the handles welded onto the wrong end of the sheet of metal that became the lid , so every so often you get a reminder not to make that mistake again when it barks the knuckles.

Brick and block. Inside the cavity insulation is block. Inside the house is some studwork, some block. F