Under Staircase Insulation

[nowty]

Nowty, what's the spec on that wood & fitting process please?
(wife wants new carpet on stairs but this is way nicer)

They were these from B&Q but they are no longer available, but other similar products seem to exist elsewhere. There is an installation video on that webpage. I would say he ain't putting on anything like enough adhesive for each step !

https://www.diy.com/departments/geom-st ... 077_BQ.prd

They were about £90 (for 3 steps) when I bought them (even more now) so not cheap but were very good quality, engineered plywood with a real oak veneer and a solid oak nose, all nicely finished, i.e. no oiling or varnishing to do.

I cut to length with a powered mitre saw, and then I cut them to width with a jigsaw, then stuck then down with tons of building silicone which makes up for any imperfections and gives a slightly softer flexible step. The stair nose is designed to fit nicely if you don't get the cut perfect on the risers.

I messed up twice with my measuring though, so that was another £90 as they only came in a pack of 3.

I was concerned about whether they would be too slippery but we've never had an issue.

[Mr Gus]

Thanks nowty, that's excruciatingly pricey for a veneered strip of engineered wotnot.

I think I may talk in the pub to a local chippy & see if there's anything he can make up for me to stick on with solid oak, rolling an edge & so on.

[nowty]

The whole house use to have carpet but now its all ceramic floor tiles or solid oak or veneered oak on stairs (actually one last room to convert). Cannot believe the difference in terms of of dust / allergy reduction. Would never go back to carpets ever.

Kitchen has 10cm polystyrene underfloor insulation with electric heated floor, rest of ground floor has 5cm under floor polystyrene insulation. The floor surfaces are so hard wearing, will see us out easily. And non of it is cold either, can easily walk comfortably in bare feet everywhere.

We were lucky in buying up loads of really cheap easy fit solid oak flooring after the financial crisis. I recall B&Q kept reducing the price to get rid of it until it ran out in our local B&Q but we found the last remaining stock in another branch but I had forgot my wallet. SWMBO guarded the last stock whilst I drove home to bring my payment card. Whilst I was away, another couple came along and attempted to buy up what was left, but SWMBO guarded it with her life and told them it was already sold.

This photo is taken today, about 10 years after installation,

[Joeboy]

The whole house use to have carpet but now its all ceramic floor tiles or solid oak or veneered oak on stairs (actually one last room to convert). Cannot believe the difference in terms of of dust / allergy reduction. Would never go back to carpets ever.

Kitchen has 10cm polystyrene underfloor insulation with electric heated floor, rest of ground floor has 5cm under floor polystyrene insulation. The floor surfaces are so hard wearing, will see us out easily. And non of it is cold either, can easily walk comfortably in bare feet everywhere.

We were lucky in buying up loads of really cheap easy fit solid oak flooring after the financial crisis. I recall B&Q kept reducing the price to get rid of it until it ran out in our local B&Q but we found the last remaining stock in another branch but I had forgot my wallet. SWMBO guarded the last stock whilst I drove home to bring my payment card. Whilst I was away, another couple came along and attempted to buy up what was left, but SWMBO guarded it with her life and told them it was already sold.

This photo is taken today, about 10 years after installation,

Life without the SWMBO's would be s**t, great story. Glad you are enjoying it. My SWMBO returned with the free cycle Tjene and a huge grin. Never underestimate the women!

[nowty]

Life without the SWMBO's would be s**t, great story. Glad you are enjoying it. My SWMBO returned with the free cycle Tjene and a huge grin. Never underestimate the women!

Aye, ya don't believe the grief I had with SWMBO with doing the kitchen floor. I wanted to do easyfit laminate flooring but SWMBO insisted it had to be tiles so it could be mopped clean. I disagreed because its a suspended timber floor and its almost impossible to do a tiled floor on a suspended timber floor as it inevitably cracks.

She would not have it, its got to be tiled so I can mop it !!!!!

OK, so I did some research and I found that it could be done BUT the existing floor would have to be ripped up, the floor joists would need to be strengthened with noggins, then a layer of structural plywood would need to be screwed down to the joints. After a further layer of hardwood plywood needed to be screwed to the first layer and screwed 10cm in a grid pattern with literally thousands of screws. Then the electric heating cables taped down with aluminium tape, then a layer of flexible polymer screed which sets in 15 mins so if I get it wrong we start again.

Then finally flexible adhesive and grout for the porcelain tiles.

I literally cried when I agreed because I knew how big the job would be. I warned her it would be a big job and not be pretty. I got a sledge hammer and a gorilla bar, she just grabbed the sledge hammer and started smashing away at the original vinyl covered chipboard floor. I could not believe It, it took us a month to do but in hindsight its one of the best jobs we ever did and I am so glad she persuaded me. 10 years on, no cracks and I'm sure will last a lifetime.

She's not technical, not an engineer like myself but sometimes you need an alternate view to get the optimum outcome.

[Mr Gus]

Ha ha, this is not dissimilar to how it was for our bathroom (which did raise the threshold hold a bit, the extra noggins, 3 or 4 layers, a sandwich of marine ply bonded between two layers of hardie backer, then the natural stone (oversize tiles throughout) ..to this day it's the room you with as to whether you heard something as foot traffic is much dulled, worth the effort & the sealing.
If only I was allowed to do the landing like that, complete with bombproof hinges for pipe & cable access, ..joy!

[Ken]

Nowty,
Who are you going to for your triple glazed window and what will be the frame material?

Ken

[nowty]

Nowty,
Who are you going to for your triple glazed window and what will be the frame material?

Ken

I ordered from this company,

www.modernupvcwindows.co.uk

I used them before so I know what to expect. Frame is standard 70mm UPVC but they use a quite attractively profiled frame. They used Optima frames (https://profile22.co.uk/optima) but have recently changed to Heritage but they are apparently very similar so hopefully they will still match.

One thing that I liked is they have their own delivery vans and their drivers are not just drivers, I had a long chat with one and he had a lot of knowledge about the windows.

They did make a couple of mistakes but they were rectified ASAP no quibble.

One triple glazed window was supplied with double glazed beading which has a different angle so would not fit, and a cat flap was put in the wrong position in one of the door panels. But both replacements were couriered out to me within a couple of days. For the replacement beading, they asked me to measure the lengths exactly to the mm as they said they are made to match the actual window which might be 1 or 2 mm different from the window plans because of the manufacturing tolerances. I thought that was a good attention to detail.

The other thing about the windows I like but maybe its standard now, is that they can be securely locked slightly open so I normally leave them like that all summer.

[Adokforme]

Life without the SWMBO's would be s**t, great story. Glad you are enjoying it. My SWMBO returned with the free cycle Tjene and a huge grin. Never underestimate the women!

Aye, ya don't believe the grief I had with SWMBO with doing the kitchen floor. I wanted to do easyfit laminate flooring but SWMBO insisted it had to be tiles so it could be mopped clean. I disagreed because its a suspended timber floor and its almost impossible to do a tiled floor on a suspended timber floor as it inevitably cracks.

She would not have it, its got to be tiled so I can mop it !!!!!

OK, so I did some research and I found that it could be done BUT the existing floor would have to be ripped up, the floor joists would need to be strengthened with noggins, then a layer of structural plywood would need to be screwed down to the joints. After a further layer of hardwood plywood needed to be screwed to the first layer and screwed 10cm in a grid pattern with literally thousands of screws. Then the electric heating cables taped down with aluminium tape, then a layer of flexible polymer screed which sets in 15 mins so if I get it wrong we start again.

Then finally flexible adhesive and grout for the porcelain tiles.

I literally cried when I agreed because I knew how big the job would be. I warned her it would be a big job and not be pretty. I got a sledge hammer and a gorilla bar, she just grabbed the sledge hammer and started smashing away at the original vinyl covered chipboard floor. I could not believe It, it took us a month to do but in hindsight its one of the best jobs we ever did and I am so glad she persuaded me. 10 years on, no cracks and I'm sure will last a lifetime.

She's not technical, not an engineer like myself but sometimes you need an alternate view to get the optimum outcome.

Oh Nowty, I don't envy you all that kerfuffle. But what a great job.
Washing and wiping up chores of years past by old butterfingers here quickly led me away from hard tiled floors. They have long since been my favoured choice. In it's place cushion flooring has been preferred, albeit of a tiled design. Don't know if it would pass the severity of SWMBO's specification but does seem to survive a similar treatment here with bucket and squeegee.
After ripping out the old kitchen units here we included a dishwasher in the new layout so the risk to breaking crocs has been dramatically reduced. Except with just the two of us, it seldom seems worth loading the dishwasher, or at least, by the time the plates have been pre rinsed, they might equally have been washed and placed on the the draining board in readiness for their next drop test.
Old habits die hard I guess!