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Everything posted by Ferdinand
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Planning a shower room for parents
Ferdinand replied to Vijay's topic in Bathrooms, Ensuites & Wetrooms
Somewhat, yes. So it could be done. I'm now going to leave @Vijay to his thread and find my supper ? . -
Planning a shower room for parents
Ferdinand replied to Vijay's topic in Bathrooms, Ensuites & Wetrooms
I couldn't get a textured shower tray without a special order - so it was shower tray plus stick-on ribbed patches, which work well provided you wash and rinse the soles of your feet sitting down. Mine works with a 900 screen and the shower head at the far end, but I would have preferred 1m. -
Planning a shower room for parents
Ferdinand replied to Vijay's topic in Bathrooms, Ensuites & Wetrooms
I did a series of blogs on this, and a couple of very detailed conversation threads, which are all linked from this piece. I also identify all products and sources. It covers most questions in detail and worked very well until mum popped her clogs a year ago. It should help you with thinking about 90% of questions, even if to decide what you don't need. The points I would reinforce: 1 - The most important thing I did was to sit mum on the loo lid for about 90 minutes and talk through it all in detail - especially the personal aspects such as position of grab rails, height of shower seat etc. 2 - You need to consider heights for both of them. The shorter one needs to be able eg to touch the floor solidly when sitting on the shower seat, as foot scrabbling will exacerbate risks. Also a consideration for height of loo. If you like I can put some stuff about which aids are available free or you have to buy if they become frail - eg you can borrow a lot from the Red Cross free but unusual loo shapes cause problems for fitting eg 100mm high rise seats versions. Be generous with space so you can eg add a floorstanding frame or a Hitler Trombone (one of those lift up double rails) easily. 3 - With that amount of space consider playing close attention to building regs etc, as they are a good guide. 4 - Everything needs to be operable with one hand (may have to hold on with the other at some point in the future). 5 - Dual shower - overhead and handheld. All operable with one hand. 6 - Shiny grab rails are the spawn of the devil. Use either ribbed plastic or something with a rubberised surface if it must look plush; I used the ribbed Screwfix ones, or the Cassellie ones - also from SF - with the finger grips for the other bathroom. But the latter are a bit thin. 7 - Walk in shower with a minimal lip is a good call, but your planned shower head position will squirt water out. 8 - Door opening outwards in case someone collapses against it? 9 - What about wheelchair accessibility? 10 - Grab rails need to be there to support getting to each aspect of the bathroom as well. ATB. Get it right and they will get an extra 5 years at home. F -
I had one that went earlier this year. We just replaced it, paying attention that the new one could use the same holes in the wall. Not worth the risk not to.
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Planning permission objection by neighbour
Ferdinand replied to Jess27's topic in Planning Permission
excellent. Good to have answers to the likely questions ?. -
Where do BHers get their coffee? Personally I don't like Nespresso for green reasons - much prefer ESE pods, which are paper and can go on the compost heap, if I am using pods. In a pinch I can get one in my filter basket. Mine come from a localish artisan / mail order coffee roaster that has been around since the 1920s who charge roughly £5-7.50 for 250g of beans they roast ground however you want and delivered free for £40+ orders. As I have it that aligns roughly with the high end of supermarket brands. Ferdinand
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Planning permission objection by neighbour
Ferdinand replied to Jess27's topic in Planning Permission
I am gong to disagree slightly here after looking at the app. N has objected to 2 things - can logistics be done safely on a main / side road corner site with double yellows all the way round, and a big pile of junk in your front garden. The first one looks trickier, and I can see the Council asking you to show that it can be done safely. Probably not difficult but it is a big extension, and arrangements could have a cost attached (eg where is the skip going?). The second one is not a planning matter as such, but site tidiness may be an issue if it becomes a nuisance, and were they to complain via the correct route (council, but not planning), you would get a letter about your current pile. But tidying up is not difficult. Councils are usually tolerant of safe piles of stuff for the duration of a project. Not showstoppers, but I think you could get a couple of planning conditions. I think a potential issue is trying to go from a hipped end corner terrace 3.5m or so from the sideroad pavement to a 3 storey with a gable end perhaps 0.5m from the sideroad pavement, bearing in mind that there are 3 or 4 blocks of similar terraces with similar corners and none of the others have been extended. You will need some work to show that that is "in keeping" with the area. That is a planning issue. If you can find one done before similarly in the area it should help. I think there is also a question mark over that driveway access. Is it accepted and established with a proper drop kerb and planning permission? From the photo it looks like a hole in a garden wall, and was clearly not there in 2015, or in Dec 2016 when it was purchased. It is very close to the corner. That is also a planning issue, which could be the showstopper imo. What is Council policy on the minimum distance? I am also not sure about all those parking spaces. But your neighbour is clearly not that good at making relevant objections. I would suggest the key thing to do is to watch for the Planning Officer's report and address any points therein well before the Decision Date if the recommendation is to refuse. You should be able to withdraw the app and reconsider then reapply within a few months without another lot of fees if the project is very similar. And look carefully or the consultee response from Highways. That will have relevant stuff in if they object. Check the website every day for these. Perhaps not what you want to hear, but that is imo any difficulties will lie. Personally I think you may potentially need to hip the end or leave the side extension single storey, and put more parking round the back (which will cost part of your garden). Best of luck, however - and I hope I am not correct here. -
Been a funny ol day
Ferdinand replied to Russell griffiths's topic in General Self Build & DIY Discussion
Have you checked that you can get one upright in the loft over the hole... -
Cavemen live in caves...
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What I mean is that if your space where you want your shelf to go is a bit longer than the shelf you have to put on it, you can put a "side" on it with skirting if one end is up against a wall, which will help cover the gap. Just like you are putting skirtings on the "side" of the steps you have just made. Only works if the end of your shelf is running into a corner.
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What temperature do you run yours at?
Ferdinand replied to recoveringbuilder's topic in Underfloor Heating
We had a cold snap with autumn arriving about 10-12 days ago - where the high temperatures were below about 10C for 3 or 4 days in a row. Mine went on then, and it took a few days to warm it all up. It is now running at 18-20C. Display on downstairs heating controller seems to have half died, so I am playing jigsaw-deducation games with the segments in the LCD until fixed. Upstairs is off apart from the rad in the downstairs bathroom which is connected to that half of the system - presumably as it is rads upstairs and ufh downstairs, as I am still 95% downstairs including sleeping. F -
Timeframe for registration of land purchase
Ferdinand replied to Omnibuswoman's topic in Party Wall & Property Legal Issues
Interesting,. I had interpreted the Q as whether a legal SLA applied to te( land registry process, not a timescale for the purchaser to meet. -
It looks good. What is it made from? It looks to be a higher class more design-lead version of the type of cladding I used from EuroCell when sharpening up a studio bungalow a couple of years ago.
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Stand back and stand by. Nuvver fine mess.
Ferdinand replied to ToughButterCup's topic in General Self Build & DIY Discussion
Did the digger survive? -
I don't think that is quite what was meant - concrete stores more energy than a timber frame, and will heat up and cool down more slowly if it currently has more energy stored in it. The issue is surely whether that behaviour is useful for what you want from your house. A highly insulated house to say near passive standard may only fall by 1C in a period of 24 or 48 hours with all the heating turned off anyway, even if Timber Frame, so I am not sure what value or functionality is added by large quantities of concrete in that situation. Not sure. How long it stays cooler depends more on how long the heat takes to penetrate to the interior ("decrement delay"), not how much is stored in the heatsink. For a concrete heatsink to be keeping it cooler in hot weather it needs to be diverting energy away from the house interior. I am not clear how it does this. Ferdinand
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Bespoke kitchen units-ideas needed
Ferdinand replied to Tennentslager's topic in Kitchen Units & Worktops
And just for the record, that squirly mark on the kitchen floor where someone missed a bit is on the camera. It's all Apple's fault. All the other marks match the tile pattern, but that one got through. ???? -
Bespoke kitchen units-ideas needed
Ferdinand replied to Tennentslager's topic in Kitchen Units & Worktops
The other one is, though. *innocent face* But obviously, being me it is in the space sideways. -
Bespoke kitchen units-ideas needed
Ferdinand replied to Tennentslager's topic in Kitchen Units & Worktops
Do you perhaps want something practical and reusable rather than bespoke if the kitchen is being redone? This is what I have in the corner of my kitchen. It is an Ikea ‘mobile island’ with 2 lockable wheels and 2 legs, which is sized to fit snugly into a single 600 unit space and fit just below the worktop. Dimensions are 50x58cm on plan x85cm high. It has a couple of wicker baskets on it, which I think are also iKea. Not expensive, but not charity shop prices either. They do several sizes and versions of these, and you could repurpose it as a ‘trolley’, mobile workbench etc later. Looking at this page, it is probably a Bekvam which costs £40. This has been in my kitchen for at least 15 years. https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/cat/kitchen-islands-trolleys-10471/ There’s another one called a Forhoja (same page, get Bill and Ben to pronounce it for you in flobadob), which would fill both your unit spaces. that is 100 x 43 x 90, but the legs should be trimmable go under the worktop. That has a pair of biggish drawers (cutlery drawers). Another type of basket to look at are the IKEA ones for their Kallax grid-shelves, which are around 30cm x 30cm x 30cm where you can get a fairly floppy but useable fabric one for about £3 up to a nice wickerwork one for say £10-12. Bottom of this page for the varieties https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/search/products/?q=kallax (Yes I know you all hate the rug but it refuses to die. Bought from IKEA in 2000, and was so inexpensive that a spare was purchased. The spare is still wrapped up in the cupboard.) I think all of these can be ordered on line. probably flat pack. delivery charges but probably not outrageous. F -
Timeframe for registration of land purchase
Ferdinand replied to Omnibuswoman's topic in Party Wall & Property Legal Issues
I have occasionally done things by going to visit the regional office near me - especially where I want to have particular things explained, and reference several docs. But I have not done LR stuff since 2017 or so, and COVID has affected it in god-knows-what ways. It all helps to short circuit the thing that always worry me most about LR - which is getting something not quite right on a form and being told much later to go back and start again. -
Timeframe for registration of land purchase
Ferdinand replied to Omnibuswoman's topic in Party Wall & Property Legal Issues
I don't think so. Depending what you are doing it could be a couple of months to quite a lot of months. I have always found their helpline to be very informative, so a phone call may help you get to grips. If you really need to expedite it your solicitor may have access to their online 'trade' system and that may be quicker than doing it yourself with paper forms (if that is what you are doing). -
We are all 21, in our heads.
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Saniflo Sanicompact macerator toilet installation with no soil pipe
Ferdinand replied to howplum's topic in General Plumbing
Sorry. Latin Group 3 verb TYP-IRE - "typo, typiss, typit etc - to make a typo". "... covering what I perceive to be all the issues, and with details of all the kit I used ..." F -
I can help there. Being the forum cheapskate, they are already in pots growing for a couple of years time. The aim is blueberries from late June to mid September, different foliage colours and varied flowers. There is also a box, a blackberry and my previously neglected Fuschia which is kindly giving me a new flush of flowers after I apologised to it and extracted it from its sulking corner behind the bamboo.
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There are a couple of threads on the forum about different options. An aquatron is like a composting attach,ent on the end of a conventional system plumbing. It separates solids and liquids in a fixed spiral separator. Solids fall into a smell free worm composter which needs emptying every several years. Liquids go into a leach field or soakaway. we had ours about 30m from the house. very economical option.
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Saniflo Sanicompact macerator toilet installation with no soil pipe
Ferdinand replied to howplum's topic in General Plumbing
if you are doing this I would say do a fan as a matter of course. I wrote a series of 6 posts about the conversion of my downstairs bathroom for my mum two years ago, covering what. Perceive t9 be all the issues that details of all the kit I used Here is the index article
