Ferdinand

It’s not a goaty, so on principle I approve.

She believed you, did she? ? Love your son’s beard. Very Amish and very individual.

How does the maths work .. 7 for two of them, 9 for you? (I approve, mind). (And the plasterwork looks good. When are you doing stucco on the outside?)

You you can also have a reasonable fall on the roof itself, as you can get levelling shims, or even self levelling supports. They can cost as little as a couple of ££ each, and support several hundred kg or more if a heavy duty version is used. I have my patio on these since 2014, and I am waiting for 8 to arrive to give me an adjustable shed base as the ground keeps compacting and my shed looks differently drunk every year. If you are of an H&E or Hampstead mindset, you could save money by having an open air pool . F

What do you want to end up with? Mine started like that, minus the upstairs. This is what the previous people did wit( it. You can see the bays.

You could isolate the terrace from the roof using this sort of system. There are various types around, and they are not especially expensive imo.

Welcome ! We like photos. We tend to be visually stimulated here. Architecturally, I mean, of course.

Remember that Howdens do sales in October, which can make a big difference.

Not to state the obvious, but what happened to the shades in your avatar? They are quite cool in an NCIS sort of way.

Remember that heat travels by conduction, convection and radiation. So things other than vacuum help keep it in or out, and a thing called a u-value or an r-value will tell you how good each type of insulation is. The best stuff *is* vacuum panels, but they are a little costly .. and may be restricted to small areas for expensive items that are very hot inside, such as hit tech heat stores. Where space does not matter especially you might use solid polystyrene or rock wool like your loft (or other versions thereof), but for insulatng a small kitchen I used stuff called PIR [polyisocyanurate I think in technical], known as Kingspan or Celotex by brand. PIR is about twice as good as polystyrene or rock wool in keeping heat in so you only lose about half as much space round your room for the same benefit. There are other considerations such as rock wool being cheap but a‘problem to work with itch-wise, and so on, but none of this is difficult. And if you have questions we have clods like me and friendly boffins who use English who can explain things. My first double glazing was 2 panes that slid individually. And eg secondary glazing works but does not have vacuum in it anyway. And the sealed unit stuff that is argon filled will have filled up with air after a few years anyway. If you pop over to my Little Red House thread over at the ‘other place’ the Green Building Forum it has part of my experience from 2012-16 working on a house perhaps not dissimilar to yours. We took energy bills on a tiny solid walled detached cottage from £220 per month to about £100. External Wall Insulation was not in the end justifiable, so we did not do that. That included adding a 240sqft conservatory bought off eBay for £600. http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=11560&page=1#Item_0 It is good to start with the basics. Back in 2013 I did a 9 month 2 nights a week general DIY course that did a bit of everything, just to fill in the gaps in my experience. Hang on a bit and someone will point you to a dry-lining video. ? Probably the only power tools you need will be a cordless drill, and your arm. Ferdinand

I think £80-100 might be reasonable as a one off in the South West depending slightly on notice and distance. Mine here charges 60-80 inc VAT depending on whether it is a back boiler or not, and we have a lot of gas engineers in the area.

What do you thjnk the bill will be? It maybe less than you think. Having renovated 5+ old properties over the last several years. I find that the material cost is roughly 10-15 per sqm for decent boarding out and insulation. The issue is that once you have committed to new parts of your kitchen, you lock in a cold kitchen for 5-10 years or more. What are your energy bills, tariff, and consumption?

If you are doing work on the kitchen, then it will be worth you considering inserting some insulation onto your walls. It should involve relatively little work/expense and pay for itself fairly quickly through smaller heating bills. But the real benefit will be in comfort. Even 25mm Celotex on an uninsulated wall will make a huge difference. 50mm would be be better. You would lose about 2-3” off every dimension where you insulate.

Screwfix seem to be giving out footballs with every order, including my £7 one. Fill yer boots. They are not pumped up however. Who will be first to test a compressor in the shop ? To be fair, I’d let the World Cup go to hell in a handcart oif we hadn’t been so comprehensively embarrassed by Scotland at cricket last week.

Have now done this one. I used the ASBO stuff, which is normally about £40 for 5l. Paid £30 for 2 tins that were being flogged on ebay are were a little dented. I used the "semi-gloss" version. 5l of the product gave a coverage over Traditional (not the ultra-smooth one) Sandtex Masonry Paint of around 2 coats on 40-50 sqm, so I have a whole tin left for topups. The finish has a slightly rubbery feel to it, as if flies might bounce off, and the one I used had a sheen when viewed longitudinally. I would not use it for a wall, heavily exposed to scrotes, but for something that is not subjected to regular attack it would be fine imo. The Sandtex paint is one of their 'offwhite' shades, perhaps Cornish Cream. I would do a patch test or sample test first, and I would want to paint it over the new finish as quickly as possible. The pic below shows the close-up sheen. It is reflecting sky and a brick wall about 4m away. Ferdinand

I am doing a small cladding job on one of the properties at the moment, where whatever masonry paint they used has flaked off on a more-exposed corner, and I don't want to have to redo it again, and had to buy a few battens. The colour dye, it was explained, is so that BCOs and the like can inspect more easily and reliably from ground level. Sounds logical and reasonable. Though the bloody stuff came off and my dashboard is now slightly blue. I think it is perhaps a bit of a red-herring to go for price over quality on the battens, as they are such a small proportion compared to the cladding. Even on my job with relatively cheap (£25 per sqm ish) plastic Eurocell rosewood-shade cladding, I have paid £16.27 for treated 25x50mm battens @ 53p + VAT per m, and about £200 for cladding. Undyed would have been about £13.27. The job looks really sharp as an inexpensive tart-up, so I will do a blog entry when it is finished. Ferdinand

IMO possibly, depending on the project. To me, having had EWI quotes on about 5 different properties including one of detached, terrace, semi and 2 bungalows - though not a 3 storey terrace, that looks like 10-18k depending for EWI plus scaffold levy in your area, depending eg on prep required and the complexity of the back. Whether 60k in total would do it depends on the auction price particualarly, but taxes and obvs sharks in the custard of the legal pack and what standard you renovate to, if you are self-renovating, finish you want, and how good you are. Council grant may be possible, and with 5 or 6 doubles potentially a good yield if a rental. At that price may have 'flats' potential. Ferdinand

Thanks.

Nice hat.

I think building a heat loss model of your house may be a good place to start. You want the heat loss spreadsheet at the top of @JSHarris‘s blog page. And start addressing the very very basics such as draughts under doors. Eventually you will make it warmer. The colder it is, the more impact you can have with simple cheap things. F

This may be a worm escaping from the can. Are you properly ventilated and insulated, especially in the kitchen? F

Upstand along the back made from something 40mm+ thick. eg a 150mm x 50mm plank of wood (ideally hardwood) done with something like polyurethane or waterproof yacht varnish. I have one that was done with bullnose skirting board back in 2013 behind a kitchen sink, and remarkably it has survived this far. Or a row of border tiles that normally live in bathrooms come in a similar dimension. Put a request in the Marketplace and somebody may have something left over.

1p At 20.3mm diameter. 50 x 50 ish plus the extra for a hexagonal grid. £30 per sqm so the same as a nice tile. But you get backache even more and resin is not cheap.

With a simple shape like that you will be able to get a complete secondhand one off eBay for perhaps a couple of hundred, maybe with appliances and even the sink. Watch for one locally, check sizes, go and look, then buy it. If you just want to do your worktop, then what about 600x600 large tiles? Or if you really hate mason’s mitres, then consider a sit on top sink to replace your current one, butting up to the L. Or a joiner could probably replace the worktop for you in half a day or a day for 100-200. Ferdinand

I make it 2500-3000 pennies per sqm. Ish. Good project for a weekend !