Recent content by stuart45

You don't normally insulate the cavity on timber framed walls. It's important to have the air gap. Have a look at SIPS as well.

It's an option if it's going to be a long jpb. It's different for a firm that can stick a 2 and 1 gang in and have it up in a week, and have the chippies pitch the roof, and have it felt and battened the next. It really depends how long you think it's going to take, and what's below. It's...

You would have been OK this summer. I took a chance when extending a flat roof extension and topping the lot with a pitched roof, but it only meant cutting the edges of the deck so I could get the rafters in. Once I had a few in I could tarp it.

You might find it comes off quite easily. At the back a scutch hammer could be easier, just don't hit it too hard and take small bits off at a time.

A temp roof combined with the scaff is the standard method. You need a scaff anyway so having a tin hat is the normal way. Trying other methods might lead to a lot of water coming in if the water can find a route in somewhere, which it often does.

Trussed rafters didn't have diagonal bracing from day one. It was added to the regs later when some of the early ones suffered from wind racking.

In my early 20's I worked in the USA for a few years including California. I'd say he's not totally wrong. A lot of jobs I worked on used shingle roofs, although Spanish tiles were popular in Southern California. One of the main differences was using ply to board over the rafters. When trussed...

The think to remember when you cut off the render to fit a render stop, is that you can get a horizontal shrinkage crack where the new meets the old, which can allow moisture in. It's worth using a bonding agent at the join to help prevent this.

It looks to me like you've got a wall built with 3 inch blocks on top of the DPC. Used to be quite common so the render came flush with the brickwork. The problem is that a small shrinkage crack firms at the bottom, and as quite a lot of water runs down the wall some of it tracks into the wall...

They use roofing batten with a 6 inch driven in to clean out cavities, so you might some some luck with that.

What is the new drain for? The company that did the work are taking a risk doing notifiable work without going through Building Control. They now have up to 10 years to prosecute the builders.

It's normal with lime pointing for the arris of the bricks to be just visible after using the churn brush. The brush should be clean after use, otherwise you have used it too early.

Labourers used to do that when mixing up by hand on jobs. They'd mix up a gauge and then put one in to soak while doing something else. By the time they came to mix it up, the water had soaked in, so all they had to do was turn it over a couple of times. It wasn't as good a mix as when turned...

There's a difference because if you think about how many times a mixer turns over the mix in just one minute compared to how many times you turn the mix over by hand before you've had enough, then you can see why with a mixer you get more air into the mix. With excess water it tends to bring the...

NHL3.5 is best done in a mixer. Ideally a roller pan, but a drum is OK. Best method with a drum mixer is to mix it dry for 5 minutes, then add enough water so it's not balling up, but slightly dryer than you want. Let it mix for 15-20 minutes to get air into the mix which make it workable...