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Hi Richard- great help again! Could I possibly bother you for one last thing? I'll then leave you in peace.... You mentioned creating a clearance duct and pouring concrete around, and filling with vermiculite before screeding over. I'm aware of e.g. plastic pipe ducting, but are you describing a...

Hi Richard- greatly appreciate you taking time out to write this. Think I'm going towards concreting in. Just wondered- do you know if this would be building control notifiable and if it would need insulation as well as basic stuff like DPM etc? Thanks.

Hi Richard- thanks for getting back and adding so much useful information. The floor area is about 4m x 3.5m. The central wooden bit was joists resting on brick in turn resting on dug-back chalk. The ends of the floorboards then rested on a recessed lip of about .5 inch at the wood/ concrete...

Hi- I'm retiling a 1930's kitchen floor which is concrete, with the middle section thick WBP plywood suspended. The old floor tiles cracked at the concrete-wood junction however. Can anyone please tell me if there's a way to prevent this cracking again other than filling the wooden part with...

That's great. Thanks. Sounds a bit more fiddly especially if not square/ keeping paper straight I guess, but suppose I could do 2/3 strips instead of one. Yes- been wetting tape- same method as when I wallpaper- paste wall, run paper through water- fast & never fails. Cheers.

Brilliant. Thanks for this guys. One more thought.... If I braved doing an internal wall corner, could I use the same stuff, or if corner's tight, just run angled trowel down? Thanks.

Hi- have taped and filled tapered ceiling plasterboard edges successfully as a novice, but need to do external corners on a p/b boxed in beam. Is there a way to do the external corners (for someone with no experience of full board skimming- which I won't even pretend I can do), such as metal...

Might sound daft, but if these pipes are within pipes, how can they be inspected properly once fitted? Sounds tempting to box it all in behind false skirting if tiling the floor by the sound of it......

Hi- I need to replace a wooden suspended floor with concrete. Fine, but can anyone tell me the latest regs for the pipes? I've got a 1930's lead pipe to replace (should this be 15mm or 22mm?) and some radiator pipes. I guess I need plastic in plastic for the CH(?), and copper in plastic for...

I have a 1930's kitchen floor, 1/3 concrete, then 1/3 floorboards on joists on brick pedestals on the ground chalk (void is about a foot deep), then back to concrete. Whole floor about 12ft sq. I want to tile over both the concrete and floorboard areas, but where this was done before, the...

This is most useful- thanks. A short time ago I wanted to light my kitchen. I had no idea I'd be entering such a minefield. It seems now that everywhere I look, LED equivalents are wrong or at least misleading. I'll reinvestigate with this knowledge......

Thanks very much for this. I don't feel as mad as I did last night. So in a new garage conversion, can I add say 8 LED downlights at the above rating, without being executed at dawn.......? Basically, are these rules for building control, or guidelines?

I really appreciate you taking the time to point all this out, but what a nightmare! Is there not one, simple, readily available kit from Screwfix or TLC that sparkies buy to keep their sanity?! I guess I'll have to trawl through all those documents and take a guess at the ones I'm missing......

Just going a bit mad chasing all latest regs.: Looking at domestic building services compliance guide on new and replacement lighting- 'low energy light fittings should have lamps with a luminous efficacy greater than 45 lamp lumens per circuit-watt and a total output greater than 400 lamp...

Thanks again for people taking the time for really useful posts. This just leaves me with the one question now: Don't worry- I'll be gone soon: So I get the correct lights as per regs., but as there's a room above the conversion, I need 100mm insulation in ceiling void, and as mentioned (by...

Ok- good advice- thanks. Guess I've done it wrong then. Could I save by getting LED drivers and say 3W lamps? If not, what lighting can I put in- only 2.6 by 1.5m. Thanks

So 12V 20W lights are considered unacceptable? Is this really the case? I hope not.........

Thanks for this, but is this definitely right? The lights are 90 min fire rated which I thought was more than enough as the fire door only has to be 30 minutes fire rated. You're right on the insulation which can't be around the fitment/ cables, but then what sort of light fitments are...

OK.Thanks guys. It is just a biggish domestic garage- 10 of the lamps in there. I have just put 4 fire-rated 12V MR16's at 20W each in the smallish 'Utilty Room' too (old end of garage). Hopefully these meet the not too clear requirements....... I wonder if BC are concerned about what's...

Hi- thanks for this- it's just a standard domestic garage conversion, and I believe the BC guy is spot on with latest regs in this case. If noone knows a definite answer, you're probably right that I should contact him direct. Can't see a problem though as 3W per fitting exceeds LV (12v) halogen...