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Ok, thanks again Alastair. This has been very informative and given me a lot to think about. From what I can see there is no visible damage to the skews on my house, they haven't broken up, so I wonder whether it is wise to have them all ripped out. The roofers are quoting £3-4k to cover...

In this case what causes the skew to leak, does it become porous? In my case there are no visible signs of the skew being damaged.

Thanks again, really appreciate this conversation, very informative. So looks like it was coming in from both routes then. Going off on a bit of a tangent here, more out of interest than anything, but I have often wondered why the cement skew starts leaking, and I presumed that movement...

Interesting, I was thinking about a paint on sealer, so good to hear this has been done before with success. Sorry to keep asking more questions, but did you do the water seal at the same time as renewing the skew/pointing, or was it still leaking after this and you came back and painted on...

Ok thanks, given that the wall is much wider than the cope, if the cope oversails the sarking even slightly, a section of the sarking will be sandwiched between the top of the wall and the slate and will not be visible from the attic. Although that may only be about 150-200mm, which is a good...

Good point, but its not that easy to see because there is an attic room, although the part I can access there was no water ingress or signs of rot when I checked last week. However, does the sarking run all the way up to the edge of the cope or only to the edge of the gable wall? I'd imagine...

Thanks Alastair. That's a good plan, provided I can find a roofer willing to do that. I've had two out so far and both are talking scaffold and fully covering the skews with lead. The one that came yesterday said he would be including replacement of the sarking at the skew in the quote because...

I'm still waiting on a quote for covering the copes/parapet with lead. I have been told it will need scaffolding, which means it will be expensive. I'd also have to do at least the other side at the front or it will look odd, which means double the cost. However, I am still trying to get my...

That was my thinking too, I was just concerned that there might be some sort of regulation that says if it could potentually be used as a fireplace, that it must meet modern requirements for hearth etc, but as you say someone would have to remove the cap and in doing so they would probably be...

Hi, My question relates to an open fire, installed long ago, probably before there were any building regulations to speak of. House is around 200 years old, but most of the 'original' features are Victorian, from about 1885 when it appears to have undergone some serious renovation. From the...

Yes, floating (glued at T and G) is the only method I have done before. Only reason I started to think about nailing, is that we have been struggling to get eng flooring, seems to be stock issues right now, and it looked like real wood was available, although that fell through too! As I need to...

I should have clarified that I meant that I was considering using screws to secure new wood or engineered wood flooring to a subfloor of original floorboards. Above looks like the original floorboards would be the finished floor. So it would be original floorboards as the subfloor, which...

The subfloor that I was considering the screws for is original timber floorboards, with hardboard on top. I'd imagine its fairly stable as its been there for a long long time, and its upstairs, so no dampness issues.

Which is exactly what I have been saying, but you didn't say in your original post. You said that the fixings could cope with fractions of mm, I am talking about the fixings at the extremes, on the edges, which would have to cope with up to 15mm of collective movement.

Not at all. I understand that wood is much less predictable and variable, than metal screws, although the detail of your explanation in relation to wood is excellent. My question here is not really about the wood, its about what happens to the fixings in the event that the wood was to expand to...

Sorry for using too many words. No, I was trying to politely explain that you either hadn't read the full post or didn't understand what I was asking. If the issues was only that "individual sections will expand by a fraction of a millimetre" then you wouldn't need a gap of 15mm would you?

Thanks JobAndKnock for your responses. My apologies if you think I am criticising your advice, that's not my intention. You clearly have a lot of experience in this area and your posts are very knowledgable. At no point have I suggested that wood doesn't expand or contract, or questioned the...

Those fractions of a millimetre sum to millimetres by the time you get to the outside edge of the floor, which is why the expansion gap at the edge is supposed to be 10-15mm. If the floor was to actually expand by this much in practice, the boards in the middle will only move by a fraction of a...

First off, thanks for this response JobAndKnock, interesting. I've no argument at all about expansion and contraction of wood, I see it every year with my wooden outhouse door which expands every winter and sticks when I try to open. However, I don't see the same issue with interior doors, and...

I've had a similar thought, but isn't it humidity more than heat that causes expansion. I have a wooden outhouse door that I fitted in summer and it expands and sticks against the door frame in the winter, so I presume its the water content in the wood. On the other hand, the RH inside is...