Home DIY

New update from the house what cowboys built.

On the rear elevation there are 2 Juliet balconies next to each other between them I am putting some coloured fibre cement cladding up. Small problem though; the fucking dolts who Framed the building and put the balconies in fucked up and one is 25mm higher than the other. Normally this would be easy to lose but not when your putting a cladding system on the wall that draws a series of horizontal lines across the wall AND FUCKING HIGHLIGHTS THE FACT THEY ARE ON THE PISS.

Told the architect about this and he is past caring and shrugged his shoulders.

Oh and in other news the client got a roofer out to evaluate the issues I flagged earlier this week. Roofer came out eyes popped out of their sockets and he wondered around shaking his head and muttering. The roofer went away wrote a report and presented it to the client who has now hired the services of A FUCKING LANDSCAPE GARDENER to put it right. Don't get me wrong they're good at what they do but............

#probablyshouldbeintherantthread

Maybe the client is intending to turn it into a landscape feature, like a hillock...

Yep, one of those living roof / grass things :)

Maybe the client is intending to turn it into a landscape feature, like a hillock...

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For those that were helpful/interested, turns out my RSJ wasn't sitting on any padstones. Today's builder was advising leaving on the existing brickwork but being conservative with how much to remove each side as the RSJ wasn't actually resting on top of the party or hallway wall. Having said that he was very keen to acrow it until secure. Also this thread needs this.

https://youtu.be/7HH--O5lCGQ

Well done for getting it looked at. Sorry for the pain that lies ahead. What do the bricks holding it up sit on? Piers under the floor?

Maybe I'm being naive but after getting the quote back already along with a few other jobs seems this guy has good reviews, availability and the price wasn't bad. What could go wrong? Have a few other people coming next week to compare.

edit: regarding what the bricks are sitting on, after removing a few more seems it's not on the floorboards but something deeper, so that's something.

All this RSJ chat is giving me the fear.

There's cracks in the plaster of no.1 child's room, directly above the RSJ resting on the RSJ of the kitchen / side return combo extension.

With the recent talk of wallpaper stripping I found a few previous inhabitants had signed their names on the wall once we removed the wallpaper with dates. The earliest I could see was 4th Dec 1956. Almost seems a shame to paint over it if it's survived this long.

So the bridge saw arrived this morning as planned. I had to take it apart to get it through the house to the garden. Rebuilt it and went to put the blade in and it turns out they'd sent it out with a metal blade 🙄. Gave them a call and they rang round a bunch of depots and managed to track down a porcelain blade in Canning Town. It took the fella 2 hours to get to my house in Catford, by which time it was nearly 2pm. I fitted the blade and...it's shit. Took nearly 20 mins to cut through 1 tile. Called them up again and they're trying to track down another blade, said they'd call back. They didn't. Let's hope they sort this shit out tomorrow otherwise it's going back and I'll crack on with the wobbly angle grinder.

Trying to make them look like a machine cut edge is beyond anything I've ever achieved.
I imagine the only way to do this would be to cut proud and hone back. I don't have the time or patience for that!

Is it sitting on something like slate on the bricks.

Can't see that deep yet unfortunately, only that the bricks start below the floorboards.

Almost seems a shame to paint over it if it's survived this long.

How big is the writing?

Could you frame it?

Sorry I meant is there anything between the steel and the brick.

@hugo not too big and slightly covered by new plaster feathered in but can just make out the date

@Scilly.Suffolk sorry no, just RSJ, 2" of concrete then bricks.

Wiring in some double insulated wall lights, which means they don't need earthed.
They come with these wee boxes attached

But because the old light fixtures have the earth wire, I'll be keeping those and wiring the new light into them, like so

Obviously no earth wire from the light into the box

Just want to double check this is safe - I've little experience with this stuff. The black sleeve on the end of the supplied light box isn't vital right?

Oh it’ll do brick no problem, but given the choice I always grab the battery SDS (but I’ll happily just take the combi if it’s for a handful of holes and I’ve got to carry it any distance!).

The black sleeve is literally what makes it double insulated, lol.

I don’t like these double insulated lights tbh, because the double insulation is always fairly lacklustre.

One option is to put a screw where it says “GND” and wrap the bare copper of the earth around it. Which will earth the light - which is similar to what I did on another light fitting recently.

Thanks - like so?

This one already had the black sleeve so have done it light so - okay as well?

What could go wrong?

When we had our rsj put in, building control specifically checked that it was sat on padstones. They were in an out in about ten seconds, but that was one thing they did check.

Looks good to me. Does the new light attach to the bracket by two grub screws? It’s probably not the most effective way of earthing the body, but better than nowt.

But one minor thing is that you shouldn’t have any bare copper showing. Try and straighten the strands, lightly twist them, trim the end so only the amount of copper that is needed to fit into the connector block is left bare, make sure you back out the screw on the connector block far enough that there’s no screw visible when you look down the barrel of the block, insert the cable and tighten the screw while continuing the push the wire into the block. It’s a fiddle, but it’s quite important no bare copper is showing.

I asked about regs/sign off and the builder said it wasn't needed as no footings were being dug and the footprint of the house wasn't changing. Thanks for mentioning, I'll do some searching if that's true.

If you want to make life easier in the future grab some spring loaded connectors like Wago make. Makes these jobs a breeze.

We bought the house about 12 months ago and it didn't come up on the searches or survey. I don't know if this should have been signed off, or if regs were even a thing then, when the arch was made.