Ferdinand

Various newspapers and our ‘top’ universities... ?

Tip. Mark the edges of the battens on the ceiling or floor with a soft or carpenters pencil before you cover them. Comes off with a soft rubber or foam pad easily. You can find your battens by tapping with a tool handle or a batteb detector device. F

Sorry @lizzie I meant the other one ?. You are in the wise planner ahead category. i had an 8k claim, which is why I now go some way .. but not £500 worth ... to improve water leak resistance.

You need a customer with a previous 10k claim for water damage and a month in a hotel. Like that one? F

We have Purple Bricks everywhere here. If they stick around so think it is very due to optimists not yav8ng had enough cold-shower type advice. Or perhaps market testers. Te market still seems to be sells quickly or sticks, with not too much in between. Though in our immediate surroundings we have had a couple of South East downsizes / retirees looking for more house or less frazzle. F

Looks good.

My outside temp has now fallen a bit since 4am. Everything is open for half an hour !

Welcome to buildhub.

Neat.

I had te house closed up all day to day to go on a Fish Cooking course. All that filleting has gone some way to convincing me that rustic presentation of whole fish is best. Back on point ... But on return, the outside temp as read by the car has been 33C, but the inside core temp at home as read by the Hall stat is 24C. Big difference. The house is I think to approx 2010 regs. Tonight there is very little I can do to purge the heat, since outside is warmer than the inside. So it would need active cooling. Hoping for a period before breakfast where the air is cooler for a bit. Ferdinand

One way to think about it is to take would be that the slab is starting your approved garage, and it just happens that you never finished it but put a mobile home on top. A Council vpcannot enforce completion of a project usually, I think. But this is very much playing the system like a violin, so I would want careful advice from somewhere. F

On delayed faults and people not checking. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/author-will-self-flees-with-his-children-after-roof-of-1million-georgian-stockwell-townhouse-7781222.html https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/may/25/deborah-orr-roof-collapse-insurance They seem cross that their 120 year speculative build isn’t still perfect.

Have just re-educated myself briefly on Agile and Lean development. They seem to me (like every other named methodology I have ever seen from SSADM and SASD onwards) to be substantially a repackaging of ideas that have always existed in a slightly different order with a different wrapping. Eg Frequent releases or subrebreleases which allows requirements changes to be managed, rapid development, sometimes getting the customer to test it !, constant coordination and conversation and so on. ISTM that the key th8ng is always never to swallow any single package of techniques / philosophies uncritically. My favourite software engineering paper was from about 1982-3, arguing that software systems essentially controlled their own maximum rate of evolution because of innate complexity, ie on an established system management can do fook all to get it done any quicker because of how it was already designed. You can design in stuff to make it easier, but only at the start. I can see that that applies to complex systems such as houses. For self build, istm that the biggest block on adopting such a methodology is that the customer and the project manager are overwhelmingly the same person. So the important point about not changing requirements btsoyp is a mental discipline rather than a relationship and a conversation. The concept from TQM that I find most useful is the Balanced Scorecard, done monthly as a way to keep focus.

“A board is thick and rigid. It is made of wood.” Arthur C Clarke. Ish. Context: The Book A Fall of Moondust said by the Chief Engineer of the Moonbase after he has been audited by the Accounting Board.

On flashing, I have one facing into the wind on a 600ft ridge, with a fall of only 6%. I flashed into a wall using the full fat Ubiflex 300mm B3 Lead Replacement, as I had a roll. I am 7nder the red. M8nimum and I have had on3 problem a few years later with wind blown moisture, but I did poke the weather in the eye. That is noticeably rigid though formable, and I struggled a bit due to inexperience. Now I would use the lighter one now available, B2, Also cheaper. Obvs attaching it properly and sticking down thoroughly is a detail that will determine your quality. A suitably formed pressed piece is probably better if appropriate. F

That looks to be fairly straightforward and what the services would call ‘regulation’. Metal corrugated sections ordered at the right length which will overlap one ridge. Plasticol coated in a colour of your choice following te fitting regulations. The suppliers should have all the edgings and things in the appropriate shapes. Fall looks fine. Personally I prefer box pattern to corrugations, nice it is easier to walk on and is more tolerant of things not quite lining up to your joists. Issues I can see 1 - You need to match the spacing of your timbers since they are already there. 2 - I am not sure how you attach it directly to your higher roof .. I am used to going into the wall. Presumably there is a profile to flash underneath. 3 - Need to think about insulation and ventilation. 4 - Are there any weather issues for That far North and the howling gales. As opposed to the Howling Gaels ? Someone will know a supplier that way, who should have all the Details. F

Welcome. These days mortgages can go into your 80s.

Do you need a portable air con to cool it down for your viewers, and to be quickly inserted into the closet?

Hoicking this thread back out of the underworld, how are bh-ers doing in the heat? My house - built to 2010 building regs plus a bit better - ran all the way up to 26C yesterday in core temperature (hall stat], which is nasty for me, and I managed to purge ventilate it down to 21.5C this morning. A bit longer and I will close most of it to keep the hot air out If any appears. linterestingly I am getting cool air intoigh the South side in te last half hour. The happiest people I have talked to are a couple of tenants in the nothern half of pairs of semidetached houses .. both 1900 solid walled vintage - who say it is lovely and cool. F

This is a useful chart from @Visti on the other thread about his quotes fro 48sqm.

The best 2G is now not much different from some 3G in thermal values, and there are options around such as dark grey upvc (Eurocell amongst others) that look very sharp. In my head I think of upvc 2G as a 25-30 year solution, and aluclad 3G as a 50 year solution. Not sure if that is a useful reflection for you ... and there are plenty on here who know far more than me about 3G. It is quite possible that someone will take a quarter or a third off their price to get an order on the spot. But a8 am sure you know that. We also see very significant price variations for things that are ostensibly very similar. This thread from Jan 2017 quotes 3G prices: the range quotes for 3G is say £250-600 per sqm plus £70-100 per sqm for fitting, very very roughly, and with some outliers for special or idiosyncratic requirements. And you can get quote variations of 200-300% for a seemingly similar project or job. These are for jobs in the 25-100 sqm range mainly, so I would expect a price 7-15% less than otherwise for your 200sqm Crystal Palace (!) job. But this is just me guesstimating. Obvs there is a cost vs service trade off. For 2G I would estimate perhaps 20-30% less than an equivalent 3G, but again that is gut feel. Were I doing a new build, I would probably look for the high quality 2G or 3G established use product without going to the bleeding edge, and be willing to simplify my design in search of price (eg using a small range of window sizes or French Widows rather than a space-engineered nirvana). But that is just my general mindset, and others are just as valid. Hope that helps. Ferdinand

Since much of the market demand may be armed forces related, It would make sense that that still has a male predominace, so the partners would be more likely to be looking. F

There is no valve. Just a pipe coming out of the ground that vanishes under next door. Thanks all. Will call the supplier. F

Have an open day on Saturday to mop up the viewings 1 hr slots or free for all if they have said they are coming if you wish. With a published deadline for offers of Tue 31st 12pm. Hard deadline at Wed 8am or Tue 7pm if people ask. Then decide on Wed. Then make a choice. People making offers will be looking elsewhere after about 1 week, or will be finding greener grass if they are looking continuously. Need to strike before the birds return to the bush. F

I have a strange situation in a shop that has been in the family for a century - a small shop in the middle of a terrace of similar. There is a former outside toilet, and a supply pipe that comes out of the ground to where the cistern used to be. The shop is on a meter (inside) and this supply pipe is not on my side of the meter. When there was a burst some years ago, we talked to all the neighbours and closed off all 4 underground stop taps at the corners of the block of streets, and the pipe was still running. So my plumber simply crimped the end and left it. I would like to get this thing properly capped, but I have no idea where the supply actually comes from. How do I deal with this? Phone call to the water company and explain? Cheers Ferdinand