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My guess would be that the house had some kind of slate hanging or timber cladding outside, hence the step in. I'm a surveyor myself and I would be looking about £100-200 to come have a look and give advice if you lived near me so shop around. Good luck

A good extractor hood to the outside for the kitchen and the same for the bathroom with "run on" as required by Building Regs. Apart from drying clothes this is where most of you moisture is coming from. I have also found that a drimaster system fitted in the ceiling at the top of the stairs...

You will also need your flue checked and possibly lined. Don't want any CO escaping into the room or into upstairs rooms!

What age of a house? How is the top floor not cavity construction? Sounds like a condensation issue. Call a local chartered building surveyor, should not cost that much when you consider the damage being done to your contents.

Ordinary mortar on the outside would be fine in my opinion. If you are thinking of a wood burner in the future (and for an open fire) check out the Building Regs for the zone for noncombustible materials and get your hearth size right. From memory it is about 250mm all round of non...

I have a load of 150mm HD polystyrene insulation board left over from a project. I want to insulate my loft at ceiling joist level and floor it out for storage. Somewhere in my head I think PVC Twin & Earth don't mix. Is this due to a reaction between the pvc and poly or does the cable...

Lime based mortar is the one to use. Can't remember the mix off the top of my head but lime: sand: fine aggregate is the one to use. Ask around in Bath there is probably a standard mix for that part of the country.

What age is the cottage? There might be a lot of stone rather than brick in there so to put a lintol in you might end up with a very big hole

The first picture says it all if I am looking at it right. The membrane should lap into the walls at the very least and have covered the gap between old and new construction. Why the piece of wood? That's going to rot.

For internal walls I would go with dot and dab (skim finish) and on external walls I would use insulation backed plasterboard (the bonded on type). Will be very messy and disruptive though. It's the density that will reduce sound so the denser the better, a stud wall with insulation may...

You can buy a little stick on block which you adhere to the wall, leave it over night and it will tell you if it is condensation, can't remember where to buy them though, try checking out survey equipment suppliers. I am guessing it is more likely to be condensation based on the type of...

How old is the house, post war, inter war? I've seen houses built in the 20's like this had one who had a dpc injected and the inside of the house smelt like a bitumen factory. Turned out the solid portion was dressed inside with bitumen to keep out damp and the injected dpc "softened" the...

I am guessing then that someone tried to convert these to be energy efficient from original. As far as I know they are about 10 years old.

Not one for waste me :D My house is full of old light fittings that I have saved from the skip and rewired all they need to be safe is the wires in the right place :)

Thanks. I have some knocking about in a box somewhere :D

Is it worth the effort or should I just rewire them with a new lamp holder? (nowhere to put anything external anyway)