Skill Builder Guides & reviews for building and construction

Hilti has launched its next generation TE 1000-AVR breaker, which has more demolition power and less vibration than its predecessor.

Regulars will know I'm underwhelmed by government’s Green Deal and the way the RHI favours companies willing to cut the red tape required to become an approved contractor.

There are two kinds of product tests that I carry out for Skill Builder, explains Roger Bisby. The first is to take a brand new tool out of the box and give my immediate impressions by taking it out on site and hopefully letting a few of my fellow workers give it a go to get their opinions. This has …

My heart goes out to the people who bought homes in Oxley Woods. These modern style houses on the outskirt of Milton Keynes started life with such promise. For a start they were designed by a partnership that included Richard Rogers. They were bold, bright and beautiful, built from prefabricated panels with sleek lines and maintenance free exteriors. No more …

If I had a pound for every time I have seen an invention that promised to revolutionise house building I would have at least £32.50 by now. This latest one is a 3D printer for concrete, simply load up the shape and dimensions of what you want to build and watch it chug away building up layer upon layer of …

Well we can’t say they didn’t warn us about climate change, more rain, rising seas, extreme weather. The television is full of images of flooded homes and the miserable aftermath. People being interviewed say that they have never known it this bad. Houses that were once considered above the flood plain are now being deluged and everyone is looking for …

The recent incident of The Apollo Theatre ceiling collapsing on the audience thankfully resulted in no deaths, though it appears there are some very serious injuries. No doubt even many of those lucky enough to have escaped unscathed will have nightmares and may hesitate to enter old buildings for a while. At the very least they will become habitual ceiling …

It’s raining again and it looks set to carry on for days. My daughter phoned to say that the problem of damp around one of her windows has returned. She lives on top of a hill and the gable end of her house catches everything that nature can chuck at it. We have had all summer to fix the problem …

I have always been a sucker for a challenge. If someone tells me that they have a problem that nobody has been able to fix, I am there. Rising damp is not usually baffling but rising damp in a third floor flat is. Yes I do mean rising damp and not penetrating damp, the proof being that some of it …

I went to look at a shower tray leak today. It was the usual story, a leak around the tray. The water was pouring out. The householder had been trying to solve the problem for months. He had even renewed the grout and silicone on the bottom three courses of tiles and still the water poured out onto his lovely …

I have been re-pointing some brickwork this week. Despite having a shed full of various pointing guns I was doing it the old fashioned way with a hawk and a Marshalltown tuck pointer. The reason for using hand tools as opposed to the compressed air gun was simply to reduce noise. The customer has a one week old baby and …

It never ceases to amaze me how many politicians never seem to see beyond their next move. They certainly aren’t chess players. Yet again we see another politician blundering into a trap as obvious as any fools mate. His eye is firmly fixed on the immediate prize and he seems to be blind to the dangers. If only he could …

Qatar, host nation of the 2022 World Cup, (that is soccer for our American followers) is busy building the infrastructure for the games. An expected 500,000 migrant construction workers will make their way across the Indian Ocean to provide the labour and for many it will be a one-way ticket. Put bluntly the Health and Safety record on construction projects …

The British government has been working on ‘The Green Deal’ for several years now. It was originally the brainchild of the previous Labour government but the coalition took the idea on and brought it to fruition. I say ‘fruition’ but that is hardly an accurate description because it has failed to even blossom let alone bear fruit. There are currently …

It might seem like a busman’s holiday but whenever I’m out enjoying myself, I still can’t stop looking at buildings. Now comes the bit where I inflict my holiday snaps on you and if you are well brought up you say “nice” but anyway feel free to comment. The first is someone’s ingenious attempt to protect a gable end wall …

I had a call-back on a job today. The kitchen unit doors were knocking together. I assumed it would just be a simple matter of adjusting the self-closing Blum hinges and I would be on my way. It turned out that the hinges causing the problem were not Blums but the hinges attached to the washing machine. For those of …