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The partial collapse of a school wall in Scotland has led to the closure of 17 other schools in Scotland while urgent checks are carried out.  Thankfully nobody was killed or injured in this incident but it does raise some interesting points; first about the design of these 10 year old buildings and also about the inspection during the build. A …

Some years ago I was working at a house and I discovered that a boiler flue that passed through a floor void had become detached and was leaking into the floor void. I told the householder and she said that both her daughters had once used that bedroom and had become ill. They went to the doctor and he started …

Welcome to Skill Builder, the resource for everyone involved in a building or renovation project. We provide practical guidance for all aspects of building renovation. We aim to give you plenty of hard information, as well as a good deal of inspiration. We recognise that the learning curve in building can be steep and relentless. As regular viewers of programmes …

I have just returned from a one week holiday in Cyprus. It was a cheap break and we weren’t expecting fantastic weather at that time of year but we stayed in a 5-star hotel with plenty of facilities and a good sea view. We would both have been quite happy to sit and read a few books but as it …

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

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 …

Printing 3D 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 concrete. 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.

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 flooding 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 someone to blame. Try Jeremy Clarkson.

The recent incident of The Apollo Theatre ceiling collapse 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 watchers from now on.

Meanwhile back at my house, there are things that need doing. There are always things that need doing. My wife has a list as long as her arm and it never seems to get any shorter. A bloke I know told me a long time ago that you should never fix that sticking door, or whatever it is that your partner constantly complains about. His idea was that if you did that job, another one would be sitting in the holding bay ready to take its place. You would never be free, so the best strategy is to hold your ground against the onslaught.

Rising damp is not usually baffling.. 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 …

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 …

Does one have to be brain dead in order to enjoy pointing? 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 …

We are about to lend would be purchasers of houses under £600,000 a full 20% of the market value through a Help to Buy scheme. In many ways it resembles a student loan but instead of investing in a person the tax payer is investing in property. What could possibly go wrong?

Qatar, host nation of 'The Beautiful Game' in 2022, (that is soccer for our American followers) is busy building the infrastructure for the games.

As soon as I saw the way this green deal was shaping up I knew it was in trouble.. 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 …

On the subject of fake chimneys, which some house developers think adds character to their new homes, I saw one a while back that was clearly a fake. You could tell because you could see straight in through the bedroom window and where the chimney breast should have been, there was the open space of a large bedroom. It just looked wrong. If you are going to fake something, you do it properly or don’t bother.

The fault lies not in the cupboard or the washing machine.. 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.

Under-floor Heating Troubles As the popularity of under-floor heating increases we are inevitably seeing a larger number of faulty installations. This is the way of the building industry, but it needn’t be so. Plumbers are often called in to pipe up under floor heating manifolds to the heating systems after the floor loops have been laid by others. Because it …

How will the outcome of the Leveson Inquiry will affect the behaviour of the British media? Im not sure what the answer to this is, but it needs to get a move on before the High Court building falls into rack and ruin.There's also the possibility that the door is now a computer generated image and the reporter is just standing in front of a green screen...