Cheer of the Day!

[Feltwell]

I'm sure he would - he lives in Halfway House I believe, so Bishop's Castle is only half an hour away. If it's a straightforward query though he'll do it over t'internet. I found out about him from the brickie I've been using, the construction company he works for uses him. Will PM you the details.

[Monty]

Great, thank you. I took down part of a plasterboard ceiling for some plumbing work to discover a few shockers. Professional advice will be most welcome.

[a twig]

Re: acro props, when I last needed some there wasn't much cost difference between hiring them and buying used off ebay or whatever, so I now have 4, plus strong boys to go with, and they have proved surprisingly useful ever since.

[a twig]

My cheer of the day!

What I thought was the return of a damp problem (just as we are selling up - typical) turned out to in fact be residual water damage from when the trained monkeys, ahem "labourers" assisting on the repointing of the chimney got a bit enthusiastic with their "damping down" and liberally hosed down the inside of the chimney. Pointed a 2kW electric heater at it for 5 days, then a new coat of clay paint, and Robert's your father's brother - all nice and dry, and stains no longer visible.

Also selling up has finally forced me to finish off the utility/boot room, repair the leaking toilet, re-carpet the hallway - in short finally finish the blimmin place. Reckon we'll have a solid week living in a "finished house" before we move out and start all over again.

[Feltwell]

Sounds about right! I got the Artex ceilings skimmed over and the rooms decorated *after* I'd moved out of my last house (and into rented 200 miles away)

[RBailey]

So, it's hire a couple of acros to temporarily support the floor above and start bashing away!

Acro props are great for supporting structure. However, if you are putting in beams there can be better options for beam support.

In my youth the company I worked at did a lot of steels a we had tripod Accro's that we had made, they gave more stability and allowed the beam to be unsupported by the structure. (Acro now make tripod supports that fir their single post design.)

There are also specalised hand operated beam lifters for getting the beam up. (We just used muscle )

[Feltwell]

I've seen those, neat bit of kit. Luckily no need here though - it's only a 5'6" long, 4" x 6" timber beam, so well within the "me up a stepladder" capability to fit.

In truth it's almost certain I could just make the hole in the wall and insert the beam with no support - there's no masonry above, just floor joists which are cantilevered at the other end anyway - but I wouldn't do that. A big lump of timber on 2 acrows a foot or so away from the wall, supporting the floor joists above, should do fine.

All this effort just to move a wall by 18" It will make a huge difference to the bathroom though.

[a twig]

Next cheer of the day, confirmed today that our "new house" has a DPC - I genuinely am very excited by this after 6 years of putting in mitigation measures for a property that didn't.

[paulc]

Picked the last few figs today. Celebrated by making a Port sauce to lightly poach them in. Went a bit over the top and used a whole bottle to get a tablespoon or two of almost black syrup.