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Blocks delivered and we're up to the first floor

Simon R

Entry posted by Simon R

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It's been a week of mixed emotions, we've made good progress on site but hit our first major budget overrun.

First the good stuff, blocks got delivered on Monday. JUB will only ship them on pallets which sounds OK but in practice, but causes several problems on site. For a start we didn't have a fork lift on site and fork lifts don't tend to do well on soft ground. In the end we got in a tele-handler for which a single days hire is a significant cost. It should have been a small unit, but in the end the hire company delivered an 8 ton  far too heavy and large for our site. It was so heavy it ended up damaging the new dropped kerb work done for the build.

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Besides unloading the blocks, other problems with having them on pallets soon became apparent. It's a small site with limited space for storing materials we needed to store the pallets on the raft leaving room for bracing to be put in place once the walls are built. Each pallet had a manifest of the blocks loaded onto it. No cutting is required so it should just be a case of selecting the blocks and putting them in place.

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JUB provide a nice block plan for the build giving a cross reference of block type and location.

646-2018 WALL - Assembly plan 1of2 A1.pdf

It quickly became apparent that finding the right blocks would be a challenge. There are a fair number of types, some quite small, all carry an identifier in the form nnn-tt-nnn but it's not that easy to read, so we thought it would be a good idea to use a marker to add wall position. Not such a good idea as the same block has multiple wall position numbers which further complicates finding blocks as a no 5 is in fact just the same a no 11. I've now looked at the wall assembly plans a couple of times and the logic for the labelling escapes me. It would be a lot simpler on site if each unique block type was allocated a single number for a given kit and the number was used consistently throughout the kit assembly plans. This is a first for JUB in the UK so I expect the kit process will get refined.

In any event the block assembly went very well and by Wednesday the blocks were up to the first floor and the bracing was in place. First impressions of the JUB systemare very favourable.

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One other item completed was the connection and testing of the sewer pump station. The pump has to be connected with “class C” 63mm MDPE pipe which is designed to withstand the pressures associated with a pump. The pipe is referred to as flexible but it's anything but especially over short distances. The result was that making a connection required the use of an angled connector, just a single 45 degree, but we would have preferred no connections. The 63mm run is very short less than 1M and has good access from the pump meaning it can be easily rodded.

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Now the less pleasant news, budget overrun. In hind site this is a self inflicted wound and I should be old enough and wise enough to have avoid it. Back when we started our project we had a budget offer from our shell builders Intelligent Building System. The budget included the raft and associated concrete and steel but not the ground works. From various items on the build hub and other web sources I had come up with a figure in region of £15K for the ground works.

I didn't verify this with the builder or get a phase 1 statement of works prior to the work starting. Sounds a very basic error and I still wonder just how I ended up in this position, my only excuse is that I got carried away in the practical aspects of the build. The phase 1 works came in at 34K added to this was 4.4K for the insulated raft which I had to purchase directly from JUB, so 38.4K total. The original budget offer was 14.3K a figure which included an insulated Isodom raft, assuming this would be about the as the JUB raft brings the figure down to 10K. Some analysis of the costings showed the labour had changed from around 5K in the initial offering to 15K in the costings. There were also additional materials costs which are much easier to understand, we also added items like a very big hole for the rain water harvesting tank and soak away . I had discussions with our builder over this but they are adamant it's correct. My own fault for not getting the work properly defined  before starting.

I'm still on talking terms with the builder, whom I'm generally very happy with and would recommend to other self builders. They have been very proactive and helped considerably with getting JUB to engage with the build and many other items.

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vivienz

Ah yes, groundworks. Way more expensive than i first thought, too, so you're not alone. Nice to get the materials in, though, and worth planning for other deliveries. A way off, but I found the insulation took masses of space and having somewhere dry to stash plasterboard needs thinking about, too.

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Thedreamer

Always a pain when you go over budget, but foundations/utility connections tend to be the area where most uncertainty exists. Hopefully going forward the costings will be more accurate.

 

I was surprised at the cost of chambers and pipes for our foul and surface drainage.

 

Edited by Thedreamer
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Sue B

Loving the plan of the ICF blocks although I just can't see the logic of what they have done.  If I'm reading it correctly, blocks marked as (for example) 5, 27 or 28 are all the same block, just in a different location?

 

Can they send you an editable format so that you can find and replace at your will until you get all blocks of the same type, with the same name?  There must be a reason for their labelling system but I just can't see it from first glance.

 

When we were at the training course for Isotex recently, I did jokingly ask if they sent a colour coded plan of which blocks to use when ( and there are nowhere near as many block types available as with your build system).  Who knew it was a possibility!!!

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Simon R
On 17/03/2019 at 08:45, Sue B said:

Loving the plan of the ICF blocks although I just can't see the logic of what they have done.  If I'm reading it correctly, blocks marked as (for example) 5, 27 or 28 are all the same block, just in a different location?

 

Can they send you an editable format so that you can find and replace at your will until you get all blocks of the same type, with the same name?  There must be a reason for their labelling system but I just can't see it from first glance.

I finally got to the bottom of the wall layout numbering... the stock block are numbers from 1 to 21, all other blocks are cut or cut and glued  in the production plant, the numbers are from the block used as the base component.  There is far more work in producing the kit than I would have thought. The results are a very dimensionally accurate build.  It makes DIY build somewhat more predictable and a lot less messy. I've opted to have our contractor put up the ICF, if we were to do it again I think we would be happy to do most of the work and get help for the concrete pours. A good deal more risk but more satisfying.

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Sandybay

Hi,What was your overall wall width?

Blocks look good, is the external side wider for extra insulation saving fitting ewi?

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Simon R
2 hours ago, Sandybay said:

What was your overall wall width?

Most of the blocks are 390mm for better thermal performance. The garage and sun room use 300mm blocks as the insulations was not as important. The structure came out as 68W per degree. so even in the depths of winter we should need less than 1.5kW to maintain a temperature of 20C.

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Sandybay

Ok thanks, that sounds great, liked hearing about your roof too,basically looking to build a bungalow to a similar spec as your build, struggling to get an experienced ICF builder near me though. 

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