Ferdinand

I am looking for about 7 tons of gravel for paths and a front and back garden, base for a loose-paved seating area etc in the next day or so. I would be grateful if anyone could give me a price check. I have looked at Decorative aggregates (eg "Golden Gravel" and normal gravel) think I can use a basic 20mm quartz gravel rather than decorative since much of it will be hidden and I am going for architectural planting etc and have an interesting boundary treatment. Prices are delivered. From the local BM, Decorative gravels (Golden, Slate chippings etc) are between about £100 and £130 for a bulk bag (=~800kg), plus VAT. Normal gravel = £50 per bag. Non starter. From Wickes Decorative Gravels are about £140 per bulk bag for eg Golden or Plum Slate. 3 for 2 makes that £94. Minus the usual 20% for Trade Card and using a Reloadable Gift Card makes it about £75 per bulk bag, plus £30 delivery equals £78 each for 10 bags. Normal Driveway Gravel is £43 per bulk bag or £40 each for more than 3. Minus 20% = £32 each. Or £35-6 each including delivery. Good reviews. From a local quarry: Golden gravel or Yorkshire Flint gravel comes in at about £400-450 plus VAT for 8 tons delivered. Quartz Gravel (ie normal basic driveway gravel) comes in at £200 plus VAT for 8 tons delivered. But I really do not want to inflict a 6 wheeler on this small cul-de-sac and make half a dozen people rearrange their cars - will use up too much goodwill. Conclusion Therefore I think I am inclined to go for a slighlty smaller quantity and get 8 bulk bags from Wickes, and swallow the extra £50 or so it will cost. Have I missed out any keenly priced options? Cheers Ferdinand

Two heaters, since one would only give 34C according to the thread.

Without doing all the sums, can you use 2 in series for the shower?

Is there a possibility here using walk in freezers with no power used, or even small refrigerated containers upcycled inside a stud wall? They are strong things with a lot of insulation - dismantled a 40ft one once. The issue would be managing humidity. Outside the thermal envelope? Does the efficiency change if you are at say Transit or Bedford van size, and use the other half for something that needs to be warm such as a drying room . Said he somewhat speculatively. Ferdinand

That diagram does not seem to involve bending at the knees (?) F

That is near Grantham, but the bloke basically provides a pile of SIPs and some timber, so you get a thing like a bus stop with insulation and a floor. Could be cost eff give, depending on the ability of then the buyer to source the rest and build it. Guessing that best coat will be 2-3x his price ignoring time. Which could be OK. I still need an 8x12 detached utility, and it is close enough to go and have a look. Hmmm. Their website is here: http://www.simplysips.co.uk/ The biggest issue for me would be appropriate doors (roller shutter might be an idea) and how to handle finishing the flat roof.

@JSHarris published a simplified cost spreadsheet for his project here, from which you could generalise a skeleton of items, @Russell griffiths http://www.mayfly.eu/2014/04/part-twenty-nine-some-details-that-may-be-of-interest/ That list contains approx 100 items so could be part to a good basis and a checklist from a different angle to your own to fill in some gaps. I expect there will also be something printed in eg House Builders' Bible somewhere. If you end up with something that is comprehensive it would be a good structured checklist to put on BH. Ferdinand

We are not as well specced as many here, but these are our experiences. Our internal temperature has been up around 24C measured this morning, which is a couple too high for my ideal comfort. Creating a through draft via a couple of open windows or doors seems to work to keep it a little cooler. Two questions: 1 - Is it feasible to run the ufh as a temperature equaliser in a conventional ufh system? I.e. Gas boiler only and pipes ? 2 - How robust are solar films to window cleaning using a pole and clean water? Just interested not planning this as our better solution would be a south facing veranda. Cheers Ferdinand

That is presumably big installations that normally run on cheap overnight electricity. Charging milk floats? Ferdinand

I think that this kind of slightly more elaborate brickwork is basically straightforward but different, and not *that* more difficult once you are used to it - do 50,000 bricks like that and you will be quicker. We think it is difficult because we do not do it enough ourselves. I think the implication we sometimes see (not here) that only Artisans can do things that look complex is a bit of a smokescreen. I am reminded of all sorts of skills I saw from 25-year experienced engineers when doing site training in Telecomms - in my case particularly cable management and tying in - that looked as though I would never learn in my wildest dreams. IMO walls faithful to a local style for walls are perhaps more important for the 'feel' of an area than blanket cladding everything in the correct type of stone from the correct quarry. F

Thanks @JSHarris. Useful.

Diaper work is nice though. http://www.building.co.uk/bond-patterns-in-brickwork/3046522.article

The Brickie who is building it for me went "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" (roughly) when I suggested the dog. My concern for neighbours would be if it became a feature, and had people coming to gawk. I love the idea of making it slightly more fun for the kids from the local Primary School in the morning, or people out for a walk on the footpath that runs close by into the country park .. but it would be easy to disturb a quiet lovely road eg if we had a few Tonka-Tanks visiting during the day to gawp after a Facebook feature.

Is there any wisdom on attaching fence panels to the top of a small wall for extra privacy? I have seem this done by people drilling down through those concrete copers that are everywhere, or by buying (or making) a bracket which is screwed down to the copers, Highly bodgy or somehwat bodgy - asking for ingress of water down the middle of the wall, and require repair in under a decade. In my case it is a 3ft wall with coping bricks which are 45 degrees each side. I think I am inclined to use 3x3 tanalised posts attached to the back of the wall for perhaps the top 18" to 2' attached using concrete screws or concrete screwbolts, using 3 per post section, then attach the 2ft high or whatever panel to the front of the posts. If I can find any I will add brackets to let the panel rest on the wall with no mechanical attachment. Can anyone see any issues or suggest better methods? (I am OK wrt fencing facing the highway and height regulations, because it doesn't). Cheers Ferdinand

I think your only answer here is going to come from your gasman. I think that garage installations should be reliable if it is a reliable boiler. I would certainly prefer it to a loft installation (bl**dy things). Will 26kw be enough output for your DHW? I am about to have a Vogue 32 fitted. Ferdinand

I am wondering about putting the silhouette of a large sitting dog in my wall in a contrasting brick colour just to give an interesting twist to the road, but I do not know if I have the nerve . F

Decision made. I am going all blue engineering brick, with a double row of red tiles to be a dripguard at the top. I will probably have a couple of details - say diamonds - using a small number of the bricks I have in honey-cream matching the house. Materials ordered to arrive tomorrow just in case my builder decides to work Saturday or Monday. Ferdinand

In a level patio clearly you need some sort of well to allow access to your airbrick, which could be filled with stones a la @ProDave and have a patio slab on top, or a slab supported on whatever the edgings of the well are. Or you could use something like Adjustable Support Pads - perhaps four in your well: Cost about £4-5 each. My entire patio is on them, but I have a slab underneath. I think in your case I might lay a chunky paver below the airbrick level, then put pads on that to support the top slab. Access to the void is simply by raising the one loose slab. You need to keep your under-patio material out of the well, and that could be bricks or breezeblocks around the edge, but I might be tempted to use strips of paver dug in as retainers, as you could for a raised bed. The problems then are what to go under the patio to keep it rat free, and how to keep the air-brick-wells drained. Both seem soluble, but need careful thought. Alternatively could a periscope vent be built into a hard garden feature? Ferdinand

What is your patio surface material?

(This thread is about brick walls - please do not invade it with fences, and hedges - except as garnish for the brick). In a few days I will be having a small front garden wall built ... about 5m x 1m high so 500 or so bricks, in a street of small 1960s bungalows. I did a little wander up my street to crib a few ideas, and these were a few of the walls I have locally. It is a former lane lane which has been absorbed into the near town centre and has buildings from approx 1830 to present. There will hopefully be a longer blog post, but these are a few examples off the type I may be having built. I am looking for comments. The surprise for me is how quickly these deteriorate, especially with the wrong choice of materials - some are looking shoddy after only 25-30 years. IMO brick walls should easily last a century unless there is a requirement not to do so. Here we go. A Nice looking wall, made with facing bricks (like my house) and copers, and basic engineering bricks as DPC. B But it has spalled badly. Do not use facing bricks for a garden wall. C I like this combination of red and blue. 40-50 years old and suffering a little? On the main road with the traffic. D Posh gatepost. Inadequate materials as used in the flats behind. Now badly deteriorated. E Yep.Like it. Recent, and they have trees in the right place, too. But are those facers and will it spall later? F As above, but two or three decades older and now careworn: G Similar with added decoration from blue engineering bricks. English Garden Wall Bond, I think. H Again, with blue decoration included in the paving: I Another variation. Someone did not like the postbox in the gatepost. J A very carefully done piece of architecture imo. That stone wall style used to be the dominant note on the road, and is still the background. What have you done or seen? What will wear best? Feel free to post lots of pictures of garden walls from your area. If there is one fault with the above imo, it is that there is no discernible vernacular in this selection. Ferdinand

They are not secure enough, they are not universally compatible between different companies, and they potentially give outside bodies the power to control my electricity without me being able to do very much about it easily or necessarily knowing what is happening, or consenting, That is why I refused one.

Answers in the thread title posted on Ebuild here: (Some of these views may have changed, but it is still all useful grist for your mill. @Declan52 @ProDave @JSHarris @JSHarris @Stones @jack @jack There is another thread buried deeper in Ebuild, which I aim to have a look at later.

Yes, that was Mr Blair in 2003. This being the UK, I seem to recall the media taking the P and his being accused of grandstanding, however there seems to have been a serious report behind it: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1422243/Blair-sent-in-tanks-after-chilling-threat.html TBH I always viewed it as posturing, but it seems I was wrong. Ferdinand

Some waste you can burn, I expect, as a normal bonfire. And you may be able to burn a few extra bits depending on neighbours (if any), location and visibility from the street. I think that would relate to eg untreated wood. Really it is horses for courses. If you choose to push it it is for you to decide, but if you receive a visit (fire brigade, council) then imo it is game over for slightly bending any rules. If you are genuinely domestic then I expect that the initial intervention could be less severe. One thought is that a marginally larger skip may not be that much more expensive. There is also that Waste Transfer Regulations are a bit of a dog's breakfast as to what is "waste" and what is not, and the License you may or may not need, and what is accepted at the domestic tip from whom. I would welcome advice on this, as I do not really understand the system. I do not particularly wish to shell out for a Waste Transfer License if in fact I am moving topsoil from one site to another where it will be reused. I have never explored this one but I think it probably revolves around the correct documentation. Ferdinand

+1. Love the defenestration window for Czech visitors. A pond and a plank must be tempting.