Ferdinand

This is one of *those* questions, with only one answer. It really is personal choice and your own risk vs cost vs benefit assessment.

Replied.

If you send BACS to the wrong place it will be your responsibility since you issued the instruction; and while the bank may get it back they may not depending on what the mistaken recipient has done with the cash. The situation is now somewhat improved in some cases in that banks etc will return money from an account without needing permission from the mistaken recipient. Personally I detest BACS ever since, despite always sending a £10 part payment first to check and set up the correct details on the system, I rushed one time ant a lot of money to the wrong place. I got it back but I avoid at nearly all costs now.

I have not read the plans in detail, but one of the advantages of a half-landing staircase is that when you have older people to stay (or you are older yourself because you could never face another self-build after this one), you can put a chair in the corner of the half landing, and have a rest half way.

Welcome. I forecast lots of responses.

Thanks for the reply @MikeSharp01.

Just checking that is a fan not a balanced flue? Going over your own land is the only answer. Fortunately they are easy to redesign slightly :-).

Is this a good time to reread "The Mythical Man Month?" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineering-Anniversary/dp/0201835959

Dodgy? Us? Perish the thought. At 30mm I think you should probably be fine. Do you need the space to store a sheet of plywood?

I had a visit from a retired teacher this week, who wanted advice on replacing a single glazed old conservatory with something new, and how to find a builder. My points: 1 - Build an extension with a real roof not a conservatory. Seasonality of conservatories. 2 - Local word of mouth recommendation for a builder. It is a little too far to recommend a builder. 3 - It may not require PP depending on the distance from the boundary. Is there anything better I could have said? One complication - that one side of the conservatory is moderately close to a boundary. We were playing "the one that got away" games to try and decide how far, and she was concerned that planning permission may be needed. But I think that if an extension needed PP so would a conservatory. Ferdinand

Thanks for the reply - nice to see threads wrapped-up.

You want us on topic? Boo. I find that a different method may work for different tradespeople .. some email, some text message, some voice call to the mobile or the landline. One or two the best way I have is to go and knock on the door at home on a Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon can be unpopular due to football. IF they get regular work from me, a visit at home will be acceptable. Or they may answer the phone whilst doing somebody else's job Recently to me my phone failed entirely except for text messages since it had switched itself into deaf person mode where all sounds, including voice, were turned off. F

Yep - in my most I went for pre-primed 94mm MDF bullnose to avoid dust, at £1.60 per metre run, which was low enough to avoid taking on the self-cutting pfaff. Within reason B&Q would cut up the sheets for you.

On manufacturing vs services, we still do it and our manufacturing sector is almost exactly ... give or take currency fluctuations ... the same size as the French one in both turnover and percent of economy terms. There has recently been an amusing media meme about how we no longer manufacture, for example, to some extent by commentators bewailing Brexit https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/06/the-legacy-of-leaving-old-industrial-britain-to-rot-is-becoming-clear But companies still manufacture. TRiumph Motorcyles now turn over half a billion and I have a pair of 100m turnover window companies ... Synseal and Euronics ... manufacturing within 4 miles of my desk. WHat we need is hundreds more similar operations. They have escaped short termism by being privately or private equity held, or by luck, and done long term investment. Both Euronics and Synseal have grown from small companies since the 1970s. One of my favourite manufacturing stories is how the best selling pizza sold in shops in Italy is made in Leyland, Lancashire. @recoveringacademic will like that. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jun/21/how-good-dr-oetkers-pizza The one thing that will wreck them is if some demented politician decides they know best and interferes. Ferdinand

@MikeSharp01 @JSHarris I am going respectfully to disagree with both of you. If we are talking Holman Brothers Ltd of Camborne (wikipedia link), who manufactured mining equipment, then they were merged in 1968 then eventually asset-stripped by a British conglomerate called Siebe, which became Siebe plc and then part of Invensys. I would be interested to know the timeline for the 1980s, but it seems to me to be insufficiently professional management in the 1950s and 1960s and a company that was resting on its laurels and was not ready when its market evaporated - any govt involved would arguably be "White Heat of Technology" Wilson's first administration from 1964-1970, and by the 1980s I am not sure what any government could do, - how many employees were there in say 1985? And it was a family company anyway. I am also going to disagree on service vs manufacturing - we have world-beating service industries, consider Auction Houses or Advertising or even Architects or Universities for example. I think the issues are around professionalism of management, export orientation and partisan politics. I'll concede there is an issue on short term vs long term investment. The areas where our industry has struggled or evaporated are those exactly where governments *did* intervene - how are National Dock Labour scheme ports or British Leyland doing (Felixtowe is still here and Nissan Sunderland is their most productive plant worldwide)? Ferdinand

If a clean look is important what about a square profile skirting the same colour as the wall. Beware dust traps, however.

Cockney not Barcelonese

Welcome to the forum.

SOme photos here https://www.lep.co.uk/image-gallery/in-pictures-more-than-200-faults-in-our-newly-built-400k-home-1-8998119/8998120/img18998118 Quite a lot of drying out plaster gaps. How much of this is moving in too early, and which party forced that or permitted it?

Can anyone point me to the list of snags? Personally I am sceptical about the 200 figure without full evidence, and the overall seriousness. Especially as they were able to move in,

Need photos :-o .

My only comment is to make sure you take care of your back. LIft 'em and lay 'em correctly even if takes an extra day or two. In addition to @Nickfromwales my maintenance man is going to be looking for an altered career soon as he did an injury being heroic at a road accident decades ago, and every time he does something wrong lifting-wise it tears the old injury. He has lost a month in the last 4 Take care if yourself. Ferdinand

Rates http://www.pimlicoplumbers.com/services/central-heating Expensive, but perhaps not outrageous for Kensington. Eg boiler service 100-170 for weekday to Sunday rates.

And you get to compete with the squirrels. Need to do some admin now ... boo.

I think the last couple of winters should tell you whether you are also a frost-pocket, @JSHarris. Get those vines in and you can have "vinum & oleum" (to quote one of the Roman poets I vaguely recall reading at school). Get a walnut tree in now, and you can have walnuts by about your 100th birthday!