James Newport

I had four pitched roof dormers done last year for less than half that. This was before the madness of timber prices at the moment, but even so. This was by one bloke on his own, with me as assistant for lifting the tripled up timbers into position. We had prices similar to yours from fancier building firms (who would have just contracted the work back out to one bloke anyway!)

Our neighbour claimed the boundary between us was in dispute, which meant that planning couldn't proceed because they didn't know if this was the case or not. Once I sent the planning people copies of the deeds demonstrating there were no boundary issues planning passed it. I actually think the reason they passed it without changes was because they realised the neighbour was just being obstructive.

Here's a link to how valleys should be constructed. https://rcimag.co.uk/sandtoft-blog/how-to-ensure-the-correct-detailing-of-pitched-roof-valleys Ask your guy if they did any of this. Wish I hadn't found this article now though, since I'm pretty sure the mortar in my valleys was laid directly on the lead ?

My major concern would be if that's how shocking it looks then clearly a competent roofing person didn't do the work. So then what else is wrong? - They put the first few battens up, realised they messed up the spacing, but rather than fix it properly they just slapped on an extra batten to add an extra row of tiles, which is why you have those far smaller looking tiles at the top. The tiles on the main part of the roof seem to be spaced closer together towards the top as well. - They couldn't even get the battens straight. All that talk of the structure of the roof means this is how they had to do it is total [expletive deleted by forum]. The only thing that could force such wonky looking battens is if a tiny black hole - or other similarly dense thing - has warped the very fabric of reality up on your roof. Wait...similarly dense thing? Was your builder/project manager up there when they were roofing it? - One technique to get a nice line on the cut tiles in the valley is to lay whole tiles and then run a disk cutter down them in one go. Which is fine if you put something over the lead to protect it, but if not, one slip and there's a gash in the lead that is easily hidden by the mortar. - There is a house near me that was renovated and it was well known as the wonky house because that's how it look. Took aaaaages to sell. I would not buy a house where some of the roof looks like that. - Someone pointed out that the flashing beneath the velux is the wrong type i.e. not designed for your tiles. - The cement work looks poor, and there look to be shrinkage cracks in it already (could just be tricks of the light in the picture though)

The pointing is the mortar in the lead valleys, between the tiles and the lead. To stop little birds making nests, so I was told by a roofer. The headlap is how much one tile overlaps the other. The tile manufacturer will specify how much the tiles should overlap based on the pitch of the roof. Nip up to the scaffolding and measure it before any verge goes on (verge is something to cover the edges of the tiles that are exposed)

I would have liked full house MVHR, but the design of the place meant that a single system would have been a nightmare to get the ducting installed, plus the airtightness issue worried me. There are no trickle vents but I reckon the old blockwork walls are leaky as anything. Useless because of lack of air tightness? Or because the system will be trying to ventilate the rest of the entire house?

That is a genius idea.

This is LVT - luxury vinyl tiles. There are loads of versions around. I've fitted it in two bathrooms and it's been great. Think of it as a fully waterproof laminate It's usually only 5-6 mm thick, so although they call it "rigid" it's still bendy plastic, so you need a very good subfloor. It won't bridge imperfections as well as something that is thicker.

Fortunately the outside vents are all approximately 2.5m apart!

I have a room that is going to be a kitchen/diner, approximately 8.5m by 4.5m. During other works I managed to include 3 x 100mm diameter vents in the tiny eaves dead space above this room that vent out through the soffits. 1 of these is going to be used by the cooker hood, which leaves me the other two to use for background ventilation of some kind. My original plan was simply to fit a couple of low power inline extractor fans and use them to mop up any steam or cooking haze that escaped the extractor. But could I use a small MVHR just for this room instead? Would it work with both the stale and fresh air intakes in the same room? Or would I simply end up with a lovely flow of fresh air circulating between the two vents on the ceiling and not much else?

There's the unbranded option https://www.boron.org.uk/Boron_shop.htm They do explicitly state that there's no problem combined with breather membranes. Of course, you have to navigate the world's most user unfriendly website if you want to buy anything.

Google for Marley floor tiles, that's what people seem to call old floor tiles that contained asbestos. I've attached a picture of one from my kitchen. They look nothing like your tiles. But I have no idea what your tiles might be.

The tiles I found in my kitchen that definitely contained asbestos came up incredibly nicely!

These guys turn around asbestos samples very quick, and they can offer you advice about whether you should touch them yourself https://www.artisanenvironmental.co.uk/services/asbestos-services/asbestos-sample-analysis/

Thanks. It all sounds pretty much the same as Home Assistant, right down to the flaws and the forum

Any info on how it compares to something like Home assistant? I like Home assistant, but if there's something better out there...

Home assistant is a good option. It is software that allows you to control multiple different types of home automation equipment from many different vendors from a single interface. It's very flexible, but this makes it a little more hoop jumpy than an offering from say a company that specialises in just the lighting or just the heating. If you're doing a new build then you could consider a hard wired home automation platform (e.g. https://www.loxone.com/enen/ - someone posted a couple of months back with details of their incredibly nice looking setup), but if not then z wave/zigbee/wifi is the way to go. (Check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8-VNIQQiQE&ab_channel=TheHookUp for a good overview)

We had a visit from a planning officer following a complaint (couldn't tell us the details) from a neighbour (wouldn't tell us who). The planning officer took some photos of one side of the house , which happened to be completely shrouded in plastic wrapped scaffolding, but turned down the chance to photograph the other side of the house because they already had those photos. I wonder where those came from... Nothing came of it. I guess they compared the photos to the plans and that was it.

We had most of our PVC windows from https://www.gap.uk.com/. These are the guys that lots of builders and small double glazing firms get their stuff from. I've also had lots of people rave about https://www.sevenday.co.uk/. The windows are fine, mechanisms all feel substantial.

Yes, old floorboards came up and were replaced with P5 chipboard. The floor has been down for 9 months so I guess it has settled again! There is definite joist movement though - I have taken a small section of plasterboard down and I can see the joist move a little when someone jumps up and down above. Are you referring to the 4x2 on its side idea?

I have an existing room that is 4.5m wide spanned by 7x2 ceiling joists. Because of the size of this span, every other joist has been doubled up. In the two years we've owned the property there was never any significant deflection of the ceiling. We have recently done a huge amount of renovation work, which included a new roof, replacement of dormers, and relaying the floor above. Cracks in the ceiling developed following the lines of the joints between the plasterboards. A 1.8m spirit level laid on the chipboard floor in one of the rooms above shows a 4mm gap between the spirit level and the chipboard in the middle of the level. I guess this must be similar in our now carpeted bedroom, because I get to sit in bed and look at two chests of drawers that are both ever so slightly out of level. What's even more annoying is that when I walk between these into the sidle-in wardrobe there's an annoying rattle from some of the stuff my wife keeps on her chest of drawers. My original plan has always been to underboard the old ceiling and move on, but now I'm contemplating whether I should take the chance to do some work to try to stiffen up the ceiling. Any work can only happen from below. Simply adding extra joists isn't an option because of the amount of cables and pipes in the way. I have read about several things I could try - brace the joists together - glue and screw sheets of plywood to the sides of the joists to stiffen them up - plywood the entire ceiling from below - glue and screw 4x2's on their side to the underside of each joist to form something similar to an I-beam engineered joist Has anyone tried any of these? It's going to be a lot of work to take down the existing plasterboard, pull out all the acoustic insulation and then try one of the techniques above, and I don't want to go to all that effort if the improvement is going to be minimal.

It was a structural engineer who specified the steel lintel. Based on stuff I've read here I'd have preferred an I beam or box section, but hey ho, it is in, and it is undeflected to the naked eye.

wow, that was some good tape!

This kind of thing https://www.toolstation.com/window-scraper/p53477?utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=googleshoppingfeed&mkwid=s_dc&pcrid=515847200306&pkw=&pmt=&gclid=CjwKCAjwoZWHBhBgEiwAiMN66eqFXMNwtRDShZX0tSAPKQRxfyYaDRWHTeO_iI1nie81dYFlMPgaahoC6PsQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

that was more a general question if you'd tried it... white spirit has always worked on tape residue for me, combined with a window scraper if it's really stubborn goo