General Building

Keylite Polar PVC Roof Window Review

Keylite Polar

Keylite Polar is a brand new white PVC roof window which is said to establish a new standard in maintenance free, energy efficient roof windows. Roger Bisby takes a closer look. It surprised me to learn that the number of white roof windows now being sold in the UK is almost half of the total and if the trend continues …

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Redland Apprentice Roofing’s Top 10

Redland Apprentice

Somerset’s Joe Stradling has won the prestigious title of Redland Apprentice of the Year against stiff competition as one of ten of the country’s best roofing apprentices. In a West Country double, Cornishman Tom Knight was awarded Highly Commended, a category created to acknowledge how close he was to the top award. Joe, who works West Country Tiling in Frome, …

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Safeguard Roxil Range Review

Safeguard Roxil Range Review

Roxil? If you have never heard of it join the club, this is my first brush with the product, says Roger Bisby in his review of the Roxil Outdoor Protection Range from Safeguard Europe.

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Quick drying plaster review

Quick drying plaster review

Roger Bisby tries out British Gypsum’s Thistle Bonding 60 that is designed to dry in one hour and accept any type of finish you care to use. You have to hand it to British Gypsum they keep going after new markets for their bagged plasters. The latest target in their sights is the making good and small repair market. This …

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Social media success for Roughneck products

Social media success

Olympia Tools, the company behind the Roughneck brand of hand tools and workwear, says it has seen a surge in demand for its products thanks to social media. Two of the distributor’s products featured in posts that subsequently went viral, attracting interest from a global audience. The first product to prove a social media success was the Roughneck Tri Vice; …

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The tool that draws square holes set to debut at Toolfair 2017

tool that draws square holes

QUADSAW, the tool that drills square holes, will be demonstrated in public for the first time, at the Toolfair tradeshow in Harrogate, UK on 24-25 May. Almost every construction project requires square holes for electrical sockets and other boxes but for years electricians have struggled to create them with rulers, pencils and handsaws. QUADSAW solves this problem thanks to its …

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Redland invests millions in tile manufacture

tile manufacture

Redland, the UK manufacturer and supplier of pitched roof systems, has announced that it is to build a new manufacturing line for its plain-tile appearance product, DuoPlain, and large-format concrete tiles and slates. The multimillion-pound investment will help secure supply of these products into a UK market that is currently experiencing huge demand and extensive lead times. The new line, …

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Tackles damp that’s difficult to reach

damp-proof coatings

The Drybase range from Safeguard Europe – the UK specialist in damp-proofing and waterproofing technology – has been designed for use when it is not possible to protect building materials and interior surfaces from the sources of dampness, like rain penetration or rising damp. The collection of damp-proof coatings, coverings coatings and membranes can be used for protection against a …

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Welsh properties get thermal upgrade

webertherm

External Wall Insulation by Saint-Gobain Weber has been specified for the thermal upgrade of social housing properties in Bangor and Y Bala, North Wales.  They have been transformed with the application of the webertherm XP External Wall Insulation (EWI) with u-values that have been dramatically reduced while the aesthetics of the properties have been changed completely.  Residents are praising these …

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How to: Apply Weber One-coat Weberpral Monocouche Render

Apply Weber One-coat

In this video Roger and Duncan get stuck into Weber’s one-coat, through-coloured, water resistant weberpral monocouche render and find that it’s not quite as difficult as they expected. weberpral M is a one coat, ready mixed, cementitious, weather resistant, external decorative, through coloured render, suitable for most types of brick or blockwork. Factory produced from carefully selected raw materials for …

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Eurocell offers BIM in a basket

BIM Centre

Eurocell, the UK manufacturer, distributor and recycler of window, door, conservatory and roofline products – has reimagined the way designers and specifiers access its BIM models. The result is the BIM Centre, where finding and downloading the right BIM models is quick and fast, and updates are delivered automatically. Users can sign up free to the BIM Centre in minutes …

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Construction products market continues to grow

Construction Product Association

Sales in the UK construction products manufacturing market continued to climb for a consecutive fifteenth quarter in Q4 of 2016, according to figures published in the Construction Product Association’s latest State of Trade Survey. The construction products manufacturing industry has an annual turnover of £55 billion, directly providing jobs for 288,000 people across 22,000 companies. Products range from ‘heavy side’ …

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Cyclone Paint Mixer/Stirrer review

Cyclone Paint Mixer/Stirrer review

Roger Bisby regrets not having used  the Cyclone Paint Stirrer earlier. This little stainless steel stirrer has been sitting in my goods in bay for a few months now and, even though I have used quite a lot of paint  in that time I have not thought to use it.  To be honest I was thinking “It’s a stirrer, put …

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70% of Builders Reporting Material Price Hikes

Small builders

70% of UK builders have seen an increase in material prices due to the depreciation of the pound, new research from the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) has revealed. Sarah McMonagle, Director of External Affairs at the FMB, said: “Thousands of smaller building firms are grappling with the rising cost of materials caused by the depreciation of sterling since the …

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Man-up Key review

Man-up Key review

Roger Bisby takes a look at the Man-Up Key, a new tool that is designed to allow manholes to be safely lifted by one person without the need for chiseling or hammering. Man-Up Key, what a great name for a manhole lifter, unless of course you subscribe to the gender neutral version which is a person hole but person-up is …

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Skill Builder’s top videos of 2016

Skill Builder's top videos

There’s been lots happening on the Skill Builder YouTube channel in 2016; here’s a few highlights. Power tools In January 2016 we published the first part of the new 18v drill test which was first published in 2014. This time we split it into three parts looking at: Part 1 – batteries; Part 2 – flat bits; Part 3 – …

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