Ferdinand

They are in and the architect and builder came for Christmas drinkies ?

You may find this 6-minute solicitor timer useful . Bail out at 5 minutes or 11 minutes. http://www.online-stopwatch.com/timer/6minute/ For this reason: http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2006/04/23/six-minute-billing-units-2/

Hmm. I make that about £7.5k just for the 13,000 bricks - assuming 21 high x 4 wide x 5 bricks per metre run x 30m x £600 per thousand. Where to start to reduce that and the overall cost? Tricky. That would have taken Winston Churchill three months to build (apparently). Since it is at ground level, can you mix the concrete with a big cement mixer or mixer bucket on a mini-digger, and use the other option? It will be more time, but may be under 20k. Or could a mini-mix lorry get on site rather than a full size concrete truck? It would take more labour but that should be under £10 per hour, surely? Ferdinand

What are you going to do with this, @Barney12? I for one would probably enjoy it. Perhaps a Kitchen thread and a Bathroom thread, saying what you want ideally and what flexibility you have, would be good, Starter for 10: these Wickes Everest Porcelain 600x300mm tiles have been available at about £9 per sqm all summer (13.49 per sqm + normal Wickes discounts + sale). And here is something very similar though not identical but from the same source in @Grosey's ensuites on the floor:

That sounds sensible, as the bathroom is the source of warmth. There is also a towel rail rad, which responds pretty much all the time - but I am guessing that that is plumbed as a bypass on the upstairs rad system. It sounds like the guy who renovated the house did it to follow the ideas of a traditional system. It makes sense, though, in some way as the downstairs bathroom is right in the middle of the house. The flows are indicating about 1 lpm for nearly all of them, fully open. Is that low? Well, having whacked up the boiler temp by a couple of degrees yesterday, but leaving the ufh on 24h on Manual, the temperature measured on the hall thermostat is now +1C at 21C not 20C. I will try a bit of crude flow juggling in teh next week. @PeterW Do you have a good source for those Wunda heads? Sound interesting. May need to alter the design of the screw on panel ! What was it you said before - magnets? Presumably that is the type of magnets used for cupboard doors. I have some Howdens ones left, which cost 70p each. Cheers F

And you can assumptions about the ground temperature from perhaps 1m down. I think a number of say 6C might be alright for calculating heat losses.

Thanks for asking the question. I believe we checked. Will recheck. Will also check what it does, since we replaced a lot of plumbing.

I think you need to look at each item individually. Unless you need a spectacular quantity or something quite technical such as 3G, I cannot see upvc 2G being cheaper to import. It is an inexpensive product, and I would expect a local manufacturer to be competitive. Ferdinand

My general opinion is that you should be able to save 30-70% on nearly everything, You will get 20% on some, but 90% on others. 1 - You need to be willing to accept things "similar" to your ideal. Less flexibility = fewer opportunities. Key question: how flexible are you? 2 - Legwork and being there, offline and online. I have picked up some good bargains at B&Q this year .. but their sales can change every week. 3 - What are you comparing the price with? I tend now to compare with the Wickes unreduced single price - partly because they are my closest supplier that I use most. Does not really work for kitchens, however. I agree that shed headline kitchen / bathrooms prices are meaningless. Perhaps a good idea would be to post a detailed longlist of all the things you need to buy on a thread, and we can see what we can find. eg I now have a set of bathroom suppliers / products I think I am very happy with, but it may not match your bathroom. I am sure others have their own "satisfied" lists. @Grosey's post-facto blogs have some very good thoughts. Ferdinand

Ouch. For a start, what is the "4"? Bricks, feet, metres ... ? Ferdinand

Returning to the tuning of my ufh system . I have left the system alone for a week, and it is running the house at 19.5-20C (on the manual setting of the stat), with heating coming into all the rooms on the ufh and delivering heat far better than before. That is when the general room thermostat (in the hall) is set to 21C and indicating 20C as the actual temperature reading. The individual room stats are all set at 25C+ to take them out of the reckoning. It is possible that the room stat is stopping the heating doing its max at the current setting due to hysteris etc, so my first step is to put that up by a jump to see if we can raise the temp with current flow temp etc. The issues now to be addressed are that the room balance is not quite right, and that is not going to be quite enough over Christmas - visitors will like it warmer. Say 22C or 23C. Am I right that my next steps are? * Juggle moderately adjust flow valves to give a distribution of room temperatures closer to the desired mix eg lounge is too cold, as that is where mum sits. * Set overall timer - 06:00am to 10pm will be a start. * Boost overall temperature by a couple of degrees. That may be where there is capacity on current settings, or can I do that by notching up the flow temp by 3-4C while we have visitors? Well spotted. But the strangest thing is it should really be the space where the room stat is . It's a bedroom according to the schematic. So does that mean that a "bedroom" is always-on or never-on? ie Is the open valve passing water through the loop, or excluding the loop? Cheers for any further comments. Ferdinand

Sure, even after Christmas. While there are different opinions around, we probably all agree that it is a complex subject.

The fitter spent part of a day this week making a small breakfast bar for the Little Brown Bungalow out of a worktop offcut. It is intended to be just suitable for eating breakfast, but also for charging, shopping-dumping, and anything else. The dimensions are just over 1m wide, and about 325-350mm front to back - aimed to be just enough for bacon and eggs, a cup of coffee, and an iPad. It started out at 400mm deep but the first attempt to cut the worktops at the 60 degree angle splintered the corners. The side-wings are attached as straight routered joints and normal worktop fixings underneath, and with a peg-leg from Screwfix. It just needs the end of the batten tidying up by a coat of paint. Perhaps next time I might make the ends of the batten a little shorter and more hidden. I thought it might be useful to have a photo thread.

Happy to debate that, but suggest the other thread...

It seems that Wilko do a Pick 'n 'Mix range of fastenings. The range includes normal sized washers (from ring washers up to 30mm or so), screws and bolts, coach screws and bolts up to about M8 x 80mm, decent sized cup hooks and ring hooks etc. The quality seems OK, but probably not for critical or external applications. You get a big resealable bag for £2.99 or a small one for £1.99 and can fill it with anything Perhaps a good opportunity for anyone wanting to stock up with a range of items, or needing a lot eg if you want hooks for a garage, or a supply of washers. This was £2.99, and is 2kg of assorted washers wing-nus/bolts and other items. I make it about 600-700 washers for a start, which will probably last me years. Ferdinand

A couple of months ago, Screwfix were giving away free foam doormat-like things as seen below. Might they still be around? Ferdinand

I think a survey report probably has more weight for the purchaser than a warranty, especially if it is old enough (2-4 years?) for any serious problems to have emerged and the initial drying out etc to be complete. For peace of mind I might go for a warranty, depending on the cost. When we sold a biggish Grade 2 Listed property (5k sqft, 1500 to Victorian) we had our own full structural survey done as part of the sales material. Ferdinand

Yes. Reading the gumf I am inclined to agree with your interpretation - that straight runs through next door are adopted. Possibly that was not intended. Sorry . But Severn-Trent's gumf is unclear on the point :-( . In your circs (and having looked at the Planning App though not all the detail, I would have been inclined to try get their sewer to the front as option 1. Option 2 would be to move their sewer to a track down their garden and across the bottom of mine (ie yours) to the side-road, with an access / maintenance easement plus either 1 - my garden designed to avoid issues or 2 - a transfer of a small slice of land. Option 3 would be with it on my land down the side as well as across the bottom, depending on how difficult it would be to dig up their gardens. Given that they have just chopped their garden in 2 it might be able to be disturbed. Option 4 would be heavily modify the basement design. Any of those would swallow a hunk of contingency. I would want an option that fixed it once and for all, even if pricier. Ferdinand

Services were so much reliable in the stone age . Which is why I sometimes prefer them.

I saw that, but it does not clearly cover the case where a pipe runs from a dwelling across a second dwelling's certiledge to the public system where there is no connection between the two.

Perhaps this particular issue could be sidestepped by @Ed_MK buying a strip of land a foot or several feet wide from his parents, putting in the sewer, then giving them a Right of Way to walk etc over the top. That would have other complications, however. Might make buyers of the parent house uncomfortable. Ferdinand

Can you give me a link on that? Was going to ask in the other thread but it was hidden first. My understanding *was* that it only becomes an adopted soil pipe where there is input from 2 separate dwellings, not simply by going under somebody else's land? I am thinking that I may be wrong on this eg my neighbour's soil pipe which runs under my back garden without connecting into any part of my system may in fact be adopted? Is this true? It is a case not covered on the website of my own provider Severn-Trent. Guessing that @LadyBuilder has dug deeply into sewers, I would welcome clarification. Cheers Ferdinand

Interesting project. Is it me or is it leaning to the right?

Remember that if you pronounce that like a cockney ('fick') it could offend a certain Teutonic personage of our acquaintance. F

Principle? (It is also pendant central.)