How do I bathroom / kitchen / extension? etc.

It's less about recycling and the environment and more about the health effects of silica exposure, which is why they have banned it in Australia:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/dec/14/australia-will-become-the-first-county-to-ban-engineered-stone-bench-tops-will-others-follow

Ignore me Corian's ok, just don't get fake stone made with silica.

🙋🏻‍♂️

Extension update: last week I fell for an invoice scam and lost a load of money. This week - when on way home from work even that I'd left house at 5am for - builder told me they'd caused a gas leak. Emergency guy is there, calling repair team, and we can't go home. And they want to break down next door's front door. This isn't helping neighbourly relations.

This time next year you’ll be looking back at all this and laughing at the hi jinx.

No amount of exposed brick and ply ceilings is worth this.

Oh dear.. how did the scam happen?
Last thing you need

jeeeeeeez...

Wow that's bad, I'm sorry.

shiiiiiit...
er, hugz I guess! can't really offer much more

That also counts for Corian? At least I don’t find any information about it, apart from ,solid surface’ etc.

Sorry I'm spreading fake news! I was sure I heard something about Corian being bad but it isn't made with silica so Corian is actually good from that point of view.

This is good news for me because it's probable first choice for our new kitchen...

So we got our gas cut off. Builders need to move all their materials off the front garden so the gas company can come tomorrow to fix. They're going to try pushing a new, plastic pipe down the old steel pipe. But if they can't they say they may have to put one of those ugly white plastic boxes on the front of the house, which I absolutely hate. Sounded like that's their easier option too, so it might happen quite readily.

But on the plus side it was deemed to be corrosion not cock-up, so hopefully no charge. Our builders looked very sheepish but gas company said it was a very, very old pipe and that they can go at any time. Apparently we were in the top 20 gas leaks in London yesterday.

Builders were halfway through laying concrete floor in new extension so half of it looks nice and smooth and half like the surface of the moon. But that's going under insulation, screed, battens and floorboards.

Quite the day.

Sounds like a blessing in disguise! Silver linings

Quite, imagine the leak occurring after you'd got everything done and then discovering they were going to have to dig the old pipe out to replace it.

Yeah, it's a complex one; if it didn't leak during work then it may have been fine for 30 years. But no bad thing to have it updated. Unless I end up with a plastic box. Was hoping to get front garden sorted, nice new front wall, fix the pointing, put windows back to Victorian sashes etc. If there's a big plastic box on the wall I'd be less inclined to bother. We'll see. At least nobody exploded!

couldn't you just cover the plastic box with something nicer if you really wanted?

The only thing that seems to stain my quartz worktop is turmeric, that seems to stain for a week or so and gradually fades. Nothing has stained it permanently yet after ~4 years

Yeah, it's just an ugly thing, and a nuisance because meter is currently happily hidden under stairs. Wouldn't be the end of the world - just me having a grumble.

I think it’s reasonable; you’ve spent xxx thousands of pounds on a house, it’s allowed to want it to look how you want it.

That’s the main theme of this thread, no?

Yeah. You don't really have any control over this though, it seems. I'll work from home Friday morning and see if I can encourage them to do the pipe-in-pipe fix. Apparently despite the pipe being loads smaller it's also smoother, so more gas flows through them.

just sharing an image of the type of slate worktop i'm aiming to get. If I can get one in the size i need it is going to look so good

1 Attachment

Something to consider is that you don't have to have a wall mounted meter you can have a box partially buried in the ground with the meter in. We had a similar situation and opted for the one in the ground, its also a light brown colour so you don't really notice it.

osmo top oil

Do this. I have it on my wooden worktop and it doesn't need to be redone every 6 months due to magic

I've got some green slate offcuts from a hearth that I use as serving boards and they're awesome. Looks great.

Will you be sealing it? Slate does like to soak stuff up.