Ferdinand

Looks very sharp, and will look very good. But how often will you need to repaint this? (I just started a thread on spray painting the exterior of your house. I am not sure if I could face painting a whole house in roughcast with a brush.) Ferdinand

Use the expensive (eg Sika or Dow Corning or similar) where things get wet eg shower screens, inside shower, bottom of multipanels etc, but you may well be OK with cheaper stuff elsewhere. Personally I would not go below say Everbuild. Multipanel make you use theirs. Use one of those gummi-bear kits to make your sealant beads neat - they work. Use chemical reaction grout in bags that you self-mix not the tubs. Do not make the shower gap thinner than you will be in 20 years :-). For a lot of teh standard stuff ebay is your friend. eg Shower screens under £100. Also ikea can be surprising. I did a detailed series on my recent shower room, including full costs. Links listed here. F

Wickes list price or actual price? ? I have never bought from them but they always seem to have 50 percent off offers, minus another 20% on the normal Wickes wrinkles. When I bought the current house from a self-rebuilder it was remarked that the kitchen was like a Wickes range ... this was when they had about 17 shades of off white named after exotic countries that did not quite match any of each other yet made it impossible to tell which one you actually had ... and the chap was seriously offended. Not sure if I have ever seen a quote from a kitchen place that did not have discounts of 60% to 90% claimed. F

Yes, but if let out for x days you can claim a lot of the stuff such as renovations, furniture, business expenses etc against tax. Normal lettings etc cannot.

Holiday homes are currently a very sweet spot in the tax system. Expect them to be clobbered soon.

OK. I made up my first 3l of solution with 500g of CuSO4, and it seems to have semi done about 1/3 of my roof (3 sections this is trial), plus 1l extra water to soak up the undissolved CuSO4. So I am estimating perhaps 3-5kg to do it all row by row which may be good for the first application. 3-4 l was about 15 squirts with the squirter. The blue stain looks distinctly useful in detecting what has been covered. next time I will probably try after rain whilst it is still damp, as the solution dried very quickly done this way. It reached beneath the solar panels relatively easily. Now to wait a week or two. All comments welcome.

On the old principle of wetting dust to keep it down, get a couple of Labs or Golden Retrievers and the dust will all be drawn to the pool of dribble that will instantly materialise on the floor of all your rooms. I am convinced that all Labs have some slug in their DNA somewhere.. hence the slime trails. Went to visit 4 Golden Retrievers this morning and it took 20 minutes to get the damned trouser leg dry afterwards. But the no longer Type II Diabetes diagnosed lady owner has successfully kept 3 stone off for a couple of years now, which is great. She said she took the doggies for a 2 hour walk this week and because they are getting older that is them done until next week. So it does work sometimes. F

Waiting for someone I recognise, never mind know, on this thread.

Professional report. In the dangerous one I did, the Council were cooperative.

When I did mine I got samples from two or three onlines, and Curries who are 2 miles away - and there was very little difference in quality of finish. So I went with RCs . Probably the dog. Try a fly swat and see if a cloud of dust comes off :-). We used to have a rabbit-coloured cat that never washed itself. You always felt that she like Linus, but wearing the blanket.

Couln’t possibly comment, except that all the other rooms had to be empty for spraying. /excuse.

Compare: http://skirtingonline.co.uk/epages/www_skirtingonline_co_uk.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/www_skirtingonline_co_uk/Products/bul-18-4200-06/SubProducts/bul-18-4200-06-0001 and https://roncurrie.co.uk/94x16mm-4-bullnose-mdf-skirting-board-primed-various-lengths Seems to be a big difference, if RC have the ones you want. Like 30 or 40% difference on eg bullnose, but I have not dug deeply - busy. Ferdinand

Skirtings. I would recommend pre-primed. Very little extra cost fro what it saves. Mine came from Ron Currie's, family firm who have a huge internet presence. https://roncurrie.co.uk/skirting-and-architrave Hint. Paint first.

OK.My Copper Sulphate Pentahydride has arrived from the @JSHarris link. Just a few checks. Precautions: Obvs disconnect any connected water butts, used for the garden, where some may end up. Great care required to avoid contact with water courses / ponds - bad for water plants. Presumably keep the amount going into soakaways as little as possible. Questions: Are there any sensible limits that should be adhered to? Can I use say 500g-1kg at one session, without undue risk? Does this stuff do any damage to reed bed and treatment plant systems? I can see some reaching reed beds, as iirc they are used for surface and grey water, but treatment plants generally are not? (I am on soakways or main drains) but it may affect others. Do I need to keep a separate set of buckets etc for this, or can I simply wash down afterwards? Tangent I ran across Tribasic Copper Sulfate, which I think is the normal version with a different label. The Soil Association approve it for organics at 6kg of copper per Ha per annum, or up to 5 years worth in one go for a perennial crop. Ferdinand

I have hedgehogs everywhere, from perhaps 2-3 years ago, and huge overhanging trees - though now fewer. Hedgehogs are great in maintaining a flow even under a pile of leaves, but some leaf matter will still get through. This year is the first time I have blockages inside drainpipes, which is why I am trying to fix it permanently. Ferdinand

If the peak of your loft from the joists to the top of the roof is less inside than about 9ft, you will struggle to get a non-compromised room or two in, without a new or raised roof. Can still do it, but more difficult. Useful rule of thumb. Measure it. It is because your roof will need a lot of insulation, plus the thickness of a new floo4 and reinforcement. And welcome. Your next step is t9 do the homework to the point where you have a confidence in evaluating what people tell yo7, and judging their recommendations wrt your needs. A good place to start is to work to create a one paragraph then one page ‘statement of requirements’. Ferdinand

These are the two with which I have to deal. The easy one which was wedged on the grill. Now propped up a couple of inches. May just need a pipe trim or one of those chute things. Difficult one. pipe runs down the wall, and along under the gravel, round the corner and on to the drains 6m away. That wall also has to have my split aircon going through it. F

I have at least one of these to do, too - which is backing up and filling the secret gutter arund my conservatory (don;t ask). And one where the naked drainpipe goes straight onto a grill. Hate crawling around on conservatory roofs.

Who wants grotesques for their gateposts? I

Is there such a thing as a "air block" to avoid messing about with lintels?

The hearing was by District Judge in the Magistrates Court. In a Mag Court the fine is £20k. In the Crown Court it is unlimited. I am not clear what the powers of a District Judge in a magistrates Court are, or whether it can be transferred for sentencing. Surprised that this one was not heard in the Crown Court. Ferdinand

That looks *very* similar to @Grosey's in Cornwall, who also came out with very good numbers but built himself. No idea why it is upside down; stand on your head to look ?, or "right click open in new tab) His blog is here:

It had better be good quality. Heard yesterday that a T bought 2 of these for her new burger cafe on my suggestion. If it isn't I'll be banned from cups of tea for a year. ? F

I would move the door to the bathroom up, and that to the study down, so that by moving the door to the top bedroom down by 1m there will be the option of a second posh master suite like the one downstairs. Gives your parents similar suites upstairs and downstairs including the bathroom as a wardrobe should they want it. Not sure if that will help them, but gives a more flexible design. As to bathroom, one option we worked out for somebody else was put plumbing in behind walls, and use it for now as whatever you want ... of which above I give one example.

My last one was a vapour membrane on top of the existing floorboards, with rock wool between the joists and nothing below the rock wool except the ventilated space. Then a further layer of Celotex .. 25mm .. above the vapour membrane in a traditional battened semi-floating floor, and my new floor on that. Cannot remember if we taped the Celotex .. we certainly foamed it all carefully. Generally I do not believe in ‘trusting the Belgians’. That concurs with some of what you are doing, and disagrees with other bits. All effectiveness will vary according to the level of draught, and I think Best is impossible to define. I used rock wool cos I needed it out of the roof to empty the roof so they would install 270mm for me under the free programme, rather than the 100mm that was there, and because it is a hellavalot easier in a Reno than crawling around underneath. What I do suggest is that you instrument it for temp and humidity to a moderate degree. F