How do I bathroom / kitchen / extension? etc.

will 9mm plasterboard clear those fittings?

Hes still chasing the pipes to hide them. Tbh I think it sounds reasonable, its not a straight forward job and sounds awkward.

Also I try to never give someone the expectation your paying for 2 days, the price is X and ill put beside 2 days to do it solo but I might have it done in 1.5 days.

Is material included in the £700 too?

Seems a fair price for the work - also if the guy seems solid then you might use him again and finding a decent plumber/reliable plumber isn’t to be sniffed at imo

I would be expecting for this to be made good assuming he removed the skirting / plaster to get this done.

But again it covers down to what communication you had before he did this. Hopefully tomorrow's work will include replacing the skirting and making good.

That's my thoughts too. We've supplied the radiators and valves, but all the other material is included in the £700.

^ all the skirting boards will have to be taken off by the floor fitters anyway - which is also why it seemed like a reasonable solution to me. I guess my OH's point is the area of the wall above the line of the skirting and wants that made good.

Removing the skirting is guaranteed to fuck up sections of the wall. So again it didn't really seem that much of an issue. This has also been called out by all of the floor fitters who've quoted.

This is also a bit of a personal whinge as well I guess. The patio is being done today/tomorrow which I've sorted all the clearing out for. OH is away so I've had that. I expected trades to be a hassle but not to get it on the other end too.

Slightly taller skirting could cover it? You might need to run a small strip of wood along the bottom for the skirting to be attached/ stuck do.

Plenty of room to jam a copy of the coronation daily mail for someone to find in 5o years time too.

Its a bit of a grey area as to how much making good a plumber should do beyond replacing a lifted floorboard, I wouldn’t expect them to start cutting plasterboard and getting the easyfill out and prepping for repainting.
I hear you on the both ends though!? Nothing worse than finishing a day building a stud wall to go and start several hours of freelance work in the evening and watching someone walk round with a spirit level not saying anything….

Sounds like you either need expectation management of your OH or let them deal with the trades to discuss and agree outcomes.

Third option - she could become a plumber/electrician/floorer/builder and all the work is free. Profit.

If all the skirtings are coming off anyway then new taller skirtings seems the best solution as there will be collateral damage when all the others come off. Is that a load bearing wall?

Is that a load bearing wall?

Possibly.

Is your concern that taking a horizontal 1.5m section out could impact it's strength?

I'm not qualified to say. But if it's a single skin, which I assume it is then, I'd be a bit nervous about removing ~25-30% of the material.

Its a bit of a grey area as to how much making good a plumber should do beyond replacing a lifted floorboard

Just had to ask the plumber we've got round to put a new bathroom in* at the moment to be a bit more careful up and down the stairs having already managed to put marks up one side and scratch the banister on the other in the first few days and ding the paint/plaster off a couple of corners in places.

Appreciate it's a working environment, but don't really want to have loads of bits to patch up once done!

• the discovery of black mould across the whole plasterboard behind the tiles of the shower that was removed has added in the removal/rebuild of a wall and door into the room...these jobs always have those extra 'there's just one more thing' you'd never expect, eh?!
  

I'd be a bit nervous about removing ~25-30% of the material.

Me too, tbh. Though also not qualified to say

"the discovery of black mould across the whole plasterboard behind the tiles of the shower that was removed has added in the removal/rebuild of a wall and door into the room...these jobs always have those extra 'there's just one more thing' you'd never expect, eh?!"

get them to replace with proper board be that cement board or tile backer not ordinary plasterboard. both bathrooms i have had done recently are cement board in the bath/shower area and then moisture plasterboard beyond that (the blue stuff).

Yep, that’s what he’s done, including the blue stuff.

‘Amusingly’ it’s turned out our internal walls upstairs are all four plasterboards stuck together (other than that new one), which whilst apparently not uncommon for 80s builds does explain the real lack of sound insulation between the rooms!

Domestic harmony restored. A reminder of how much easier irl comms is vs remote.

One exceptionally ugly utilitarian, but cheap and efficient rad. And one nice efficient one.

Annoyingly I've realised I told the guy to put the TRV on the wrong side, so it would of been more discreet. Good lesson in keeping a long list of your random musings so you can check they've all been ticked off.

One thing that has been useful is to see that even though lining paper has been used in the dining room there is still almost an inch of plaster. Same for the sitting room with no lining paper. This makes me think that my youngests bedroom with two external walls on the cold side of the house probably does too. So I think I'm definitely going to look into knocking that back to brick and installing insulated plasterboard. It's a small room so any loss of volume matters, but nice to know it might not be too much.

Anyway now to wait for the half the wall next to the black rad to come down and floor to go up.

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Came back from holiday (had to scramble up the scaffold and break in a 4am cos the builders had latched the door) to see that the dormer cladding has started to be installed. Quite exciting!

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Zinc? Very jelly. Also wanted zinc or alu but was another one for the “can’t afford it” list.

Thanks, it's coated steel (Greencoat PLX).

We're on a corner so the dormer will be very visible. As we had to go through full planning I thought it was worth doing something a bit nicer than standard tile hung. Will be about £5k extra (nearly 7m wide) so the 2nd ensuite will have to wait until we find the pennies....

Yeah great decision, Shacklewell architects just did similar on an end terrace and it looks fantastic.
That’s what I heard price wise too, also looked at pretty plastics tiles and Dedraft style concrete board but costs and builders lack of familiarity with them scuppered plans.

Have gone for real slate which was a pretty reasonable 1200 quid extra, and in keeping with the original roof.

pretty plastics tiles

These are grand, but they're a real pain to fit apparently. It took about three attempts at coursing them to get the setting out to work as intended.

Loft conversion planning application has been submitted, which is very exciting.

However, I'm suddenly having second thoughts about an ensuite. Mostly because I can't see how water is gonna get up there without tearing up either the kitchen or bathroom floors.

See attached. I know HW goes from the boiler under the kitchen sink cos the pipes get warm when running the taps in the bathroom. Also have no recollection of water (other than CH) pipes under the hall when I've had those boards up in the past. Toilet is adjacent to the bathroom.

The ensuite isn't necessarily something I need, but despite the additional expense thought it worthwhile in terms of selling (also like the idea of contingency if/when the existing bathroom needs a refurb). Suddenly wondering whether it might involve too much short term hassle.

My place seems fairly typical for a converted terrace so presumably this must be a pretty common issue. How's it usually dealt with?

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When my place was done they had to lift the hallway floor (which was laminate and they did pretty neatly so it could be put back down again) to get access to the pipes going to the bathroom and central heating. Kitchen and bathroom floors were undisturbed. Boiler was in the kitchen too.

I'd definitely have an ensuite if you can.

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Given what I guess the overall cost is, not getting at least the water/waste/etc for en suit installed seems like a false economy.

It would cost a lot more to retrofit.