Ferdinand

We had a thread about PIR here, and some of it may be transferrable: Insulate around the swimming pool :-). F

On that occasion :-). Mostly it comes down to sit and wait. This one was really misadvertised as a "local collect only" in the deep countryside. Aren't you down south in the Home Counties where coffee-fiends are much closer together and ebay competition much more intense? My worst ebay selling performance was when I sold a chap 5 sacks of ex-church wooden floor blocks for 99p as he was the only one that bid. So much for saving on commission.

I bought the Gaggia MDF grinder and storage unit, which keeps them both tightly together on your worktop and gives you a knocking-out drawer. I have alternative baskets, but have not modded the steam wand. If you hand around the UK Coffee Forums eg https://coffeeforums.co.uk/forum.php and post, there will be someone with the right thing reconditioned if you need it. I think I paid £65 for the coffee machine and £115 for the grinder and unit. At that price it was just to learn, but they seem OK. I double up on pods in hotels. Hail Ristretto ! The UK coffee forum has 15,993 members . Are we off-topic? Ferdinand

Would you get your Coop 5% membership cashback? That might help. https://www.coop.co.uk/membership I am not sure how this works in practice in different areas. The one coffee thing I have that requires paper capsules (the Handpresso) I tend to order hermetically sealed in bulk online.

That sounds like a pet dog or cat :-) . The inkjet printer marketing strategy.

Isn't that a Mexican standonoff - @Onoff working out where he is going to keep the digger while he builds a garage to keep the digger in. PS Welcome Carerrahill.

Heh. That does seem excessive. Aeropress and Handpresso (does OK crema and you pump it like a bicycle pump) should be sufficient. Personally, I can live without steamed milk. For my fairly minimalist coffee kit, I have one of these, a Gaggia Classico and grinder: Came from ebay from a chap in Beverley who specified "local collect only", so his customers were limited to tourists, a few Yorkshiremen, and sheep. He quite happily posted it if I paid but I recently killed the pump by mistake. and one of these Aeropresses. There is something about coffee videos that never quite reaches "cool". and one of these Handpressos, which is good and bike-portable, (cheesily sexist video follows, where the only woman making coffee is on a beach holiday): and one of these Thermos Ultimate Flasks, which really does very nearly work for tea at teatime when out for the day: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thermos-Ultimate-MKII-Flask-900/dp/B013YMS8RM Ferdinand

This is true. I think Nespresso are starting to reach budget hotels now ... Ibises and Premier Inns and so on. However Nespresso capsules cost from about 20p to 60p per cup. So if you have two people having just 3 cups a day each you are into several hundred £££ per year, and then you have to have a "eight supplied request more from reception" type policy, or charge them (prob. not on), or find another wheeze such as supplying two or four per day while refreshing the room if they have been used. Or identify a local cost-effective source. That was why I stuck to filter or cafietiere coffee - you supply them with one variety in one sealed packet, and they can buy their own if needed. Or just supply four or ten of the "sit on cups" filters to get them started. Ferdinand

If you convert that into 4-6 man (team will be at least 2, one climber) days and supplying chippers and kit and so on, then you see it is at £150-175 per man day. F

PS My qualifying criteria for a treeman would be roughly 5-10 years local experience of that Council, such that they can list the names of the TOs and tell me what their opinions will probably be. That is roughly the same as the experience I would expect of Planning Consultant - that they should know the Planning Officers by name, and have an idea of their individual opinions. For me, to talk to the Council first where I have a potential project I want to do is likely to be just too high a risk - especially were I to have already sunk my savings into it eg bought or optioned a plot. It isn't just about doing what I want, it is also about identifying what I *need* to do or finding better ideas, which means talking to a number of people. F

I would usually talk to a Treeman first because - however good the advice - there is a risk of a Council TO (perhaps under incitement by neighbours or NIMBYs or Councillors seeking to gratify voters) slapping Emergency (or worse, Emergency Woodland) TPOs on things almost on the spot, and once it is in the system it can be a sod to get it out again even 10-20 years later. If it is a CO or is TPO'd the Council may want / will require a report anyway most of the time. The exception would be where I know my intentions and there is nothing the Council could possibly do which would interfere. In this case I may have got the work done on the birch / beech, and got a detailed Treeman verbal opinion on the other, and then asked the Council about the Leylandii. Anyhoo @PeterW has already given a brief well-informed opinion. But I am in the position of having a continuing (and slightly too expensive) relationship with a couple of Treemen over the last several years, so I can get such opinions easily. F

If they protest, is it a viable Plan B to have a name and address stamp, and just ask the sales person to initial over the top? Or even just to stamp it?

And there was me thinking that Leica suffocated in a space capsule . You really want one of these vintage things. Mint condition and under £5. Now you can measure an imperfect nonagon of fixed perimeter for your not quite perfect surroundings. Or if you want to waste the whole day have a schlepp over to the Sippican Cottage - he makes things, in the sticks. And he writes well: Nearly as good as some of those off-the-beaten-track self-builders. Ferdinand

I think the issue with wooden worktops is a hard finish and be clear how you are handling food prep ... hygienic wood or chopping boards etc, which might enable a slightly softer finish. We had a softwood + polyurethane worktop for a few years when I were a lad ... not really a success as the surface was too soft. Oak goes like iron, of course. I worry about low-impact people in yurts or roundhouses in the woods who use too many secondhand scaffold planks etc. I trust they do not them for worktops, but they have all sorts of 'orrible stuff that has been absorbed into them. You could go really trad and eat off trenchers .

You need one of these to go with it.

I think if I was doing a "rustic + wood worktop" kitchen, the I would make sure the worktop overhang was 50mm+ to give me the opportunity to completely change the finish by putting something on top of the breezeblocks at least twice without demolishing it first. It would be wonderful to use your own oak, which I think would be OK (check) - get a man and a minimill in to plank it for you if it is large enough, or have someone take it away. Ferdinand

Have you determined your material? That is concrete done in situ. What about rendered or painted breeze block and a hunky-chunky wooden worktop? Londonerati would pay 10k for that. At least. Or get the counter from a defunct butcher in a right-on area for the worktop. We had one of those once. 4 big men put it in the small Simca van sticking out, and the only way we could unload it at home was to tie it to a tree and drive away. Or the slate from a snooker table (often 1" thick). My other favourite is stainless steel units from commercial kitchens (bankruptcy auctions). They have an industrial but glamorous look that is very attractive. F

As an example of what you can do with GRP, this is an example of an experimental GRP pantile-like roof made from approx 8x4 workshop made GRP panels. They built a section of roof in the factory. This is an example of one of my father's (architect turned GRP specials manufacturer) projects. This is a 2009 (ish) photo of a roof installed in the early 1980s. As you can see the individual panels work well, but the connections - while being acceptable in practice (it was a pitched roof on a previous flat roof so there was a waterproof layer underneath) - are not good enough aesthetically after the time. To work long term it would require better waterproofing and better attachment to a structure. The issue is resilience of the shape under environmental influences. The individual panels are ideal for eg porch canopies, cost considerations aside - would be a good solution where you need a lightweight roof section which would be suitable for a conservation area or similar, if you can get the Conservation Officer out of the coma they may enter when you suggest GRP. This bungalow was completely renovated in about 2011 with the roof off, with the roof being taken to traditional pantiles. I wrote a blog about that here back in 2014. I would be interested in @SteamyTea thoughts, but if no one ever tried this kind of thing, we would lose some of our innovative new ideas.

The one thing I would add is that GRP is an extraordinarily useful skill to have for any number of jobs that you do not expect, since it is a waterproof robust surface which can adapt to any shape, and can be eg translucent or fire resistant etc with the correct materials. One technique is to make a pattern in a controlled environment and then fix it afterwards. At one time we did an entire roof from sections of GRP pantile like surface made by building a section of roof in the factory, or slate looking translucent panels used to provide light into traditional roofs. Worked a treat.

Your other option if you happen to forget to get BC involved is to go 'omigod I forgot to get BC involved can I ever forgive myself?' when you sell it and buy an indemnity policy for your buyer if it is within about 5-10 years of installation. If it is a serious project you will quite probably get the certificate as part of the quote. F

I think that replacement windows are subject to regs, but a registered installer is a competent person to certify their own work. https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200130/common_projects/14/doors_and_windows/2 If you use an unregistered installer you are supposed to get the BCO involved. The ones I have just had done my installer advised me for example to make the openings on some vertical not horizontal to form escape windows from bedrooms, which was different to the existing layout.

I think it is something you can tackle yourself once you have learnt the skills. Perhaps do a roof for a garden shed or a gazebo or similar first as a trial. @SteamyTea has much more personal experience than me; we had a family business in fibreglass specials that I watched. Ferdinand

This is the point at which I admit to being a nincompoop. I ordered from the Amazon page below when rushing, looking at the big picture of the 5l can not the "1 litre" in the text, and this morning received a surprisingly small parcel which will be going straight back. This is why bikini models work at car shows. I will be going for the Wickes one mentioned above at £21 each. Ferdinand

Hi @Lucy Murray Someone on the forum wrote favourably of the look of dark coloured upvc. In that case grey. My estimate of lifetimes is: UPVC - 20-30 years Softwood - 20-30 years. Aluminium on Wood - 40-60 years. Hardwood - 40-60 years. With appropriate maintenance, which is more extensive for wood. Depends on how it is treated, and weather conditions etc, and there are exceptions on both ends of the range. Do others agree with those numbers? For budget reasons, I would say make sure to get quotes from independents as well as nationals, and see if you can trim costs by small specifcation changes. There are a couple of threads around trying to compare costs, and it can be +/- 30-50% for not incomparable windows. Wood style finish to the UPVC is 25% to 50% more on the frame element of the price.

At a quick check I see there is a Howdens on Skye in Portree. My current Howdens catalogue, in addition to Lamona their own brand, includes ranges from AEG, Bosch and Neff. Prices should be good if you or a friend can be trade, but the guarantee is only 2 years. Another option. Service details are here, and not as good as I wished for above: https://www.howdens.com/appliance-collection/howdens-appliance-service/ But they cover appliances in Boats ! Ferdinand