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I think that you should put some sort of retaining "wall" around the sand layer. To stop rodents making their home in it or water washing it out. Top soil is very soft, your barn has been compressing it for 100 years +, your garage will also compress its base unless the hardcore is truly...

I have dug deep holes in clay and suddenly come across water flow. Sort of like a little pipe (fissure?) in the clay that drips water at a high rate, cupful in 5 minutes. So leave it flowing overnight and you start to get flooding. A temporary cure is to hammer in a suitable wedge, literally...

If the wall is now kept dry the insulation will dry out. If it is finished in render outside and plaster inside and the cavity capped by the roof, I really don't know how long it will take to dry out - 6 months? Until its dry you will have problems with interior decoration. Frank

Another point, you will need to think about how you are going to get your mortar thickness correct. I can't remember how I did it. It would be useful to mark a centre line on the face of each former and brick up from both sides at the same time in a bid to keep each half of the arch the same...

I would think that its to stop water which gets into the box from dripping onto the inner leaf. Looks like a badly designed box. So you need to glue or pin the plastic sheet to the inner skin with its top higher then the back of the box and the bottom lower then the box and angled right across...

" just the 2 formers each end" Surely, one former each end? The weight of several courses of bricks is significant, so make sure your formers are strong enough. I once built an arch in a Victorian garden wall, 42" wide about 8' high in the centre, the whole thing was made with special shaped...

800mm is OK, the length of my en-suite is 2.5m and its OK. Hinge the door very close to the shower. I used a macerator and close coupled suite which I boxed in to give a shelf above the cistern, because the infra red heater was on the wall above the toilet suite. We also used an electric towel...

The original post is lacking details of the exact floor construction. There are a lot of methods that end up with wood on top. In the end you need 4" of insulation on a firm base with 60-70mm of screed on top in which your UFH pipes sit. In the worst case the under floor void can be 1.5m deep...

I would not use an epoxy resin for this job. The problem is that the PVC is shiny and expands/contracts with changes in temperature. What material is your "headboard" made from? What is supporting the front edge of your roof? Can you not fix the blind by screwing the brackets into the top of...

Why not buy the ali plates that clip onto the UFH pipes? Used for upstairs UHF. Frank

See the old lintel has got tapered ends, as weight is put on it , it jams itself tighter to the sides. So its important that the gaps at its ends are completely filled with mortar and bits of stone hammered in. It is importent that the wall either side is in a good condition. Because of the...

I would use legs that splay slightly when the table (desk) is sitting on the floor, and you fold them up and clip them when the table (desk) is raised. Have you looked at camping/patio furniture as a basis? Frank

Judging by the age of the property, it will be built with lime mortar and will have no expansion joints. As Woody says , could be the end of the run, and the other houses were added on, hence the funny brick courses. Frank

Under pinning a wall like this, means digging a trench across(2') and under the wall until subsoil is reached then putting in a foundation of concrete so its 2' wide by 12" by 6" deep then using bricks or blocks build up from this until the new "wall" is supporting the old one. when this bit has...

Have you built the walls and you are just getting a quote for the floor slab, or is this for the whole concrete works? because your walls will need some sort of trench foundation. For a 9 X 2.8 X .1 M slab ( 2.5 Cu m) of ready mix is about £400 Frank

The air gap is to vent any moisture that occurs over the top of the foam. So where it touches I would think there is a continous gap right out to under the tiles and where the joists are the gap will exist, I would not worry. The whole thing is a bit theoretical , because unless this gap is...

If you used foil backed plasterboard you should be OK. Else its just a risk that condensation will gradually occur in the void and drip down. This will saturate your glass fibre so it is not insulating any more so the effect will then appear as mould on the inside. The drips would also rot any...

It is very possible that the stonework has changed its shape when the bay was knocked through. My 1800 stone cottage has got a 2" drop across its back extension. Also where I have exposed the original rear wall stones as a feature, you can see that at a height of about 5' a tapered courses of...

Those screwy thing made me think, especially at £1.6 each! I have used this system for double height oven units with only 2" spare headroom - no room for standard plinth fittings. So it goes like this:- Drill a hole 1" deep in the bottom of the joists, get some stainless steel coach bolts...

When digging down at the side of the wall you need some width to the trench. As a silly example making it 2" wide will mean a galleon of water will fill it up, I am suggesting that 9" should work, if its too much trouble, then make it 6" wide. Again, as the DPC should be at least 6" below the...