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I like your idea, pumped in from outside, leave it 300 mm below the floor level then break out the floor and remove then insulation and a concrete slab on top.

I don’t know what build method you are proposing, but if it’s a new house and you have failed the sap then you need to go back to the beginning and start again because something is very wrong. you either have an architect who thinks it’s 1960 or you have chosen a poor build method, How are you thinking of building this thing. please don’t say brick n block with 100mm cavity and 75mm mineral wool insulation. we all started somewhere, c’ mon show us what you got.

Hi all Just when we thought we could crack on😥 Our sap calculation man has told us we've failed. He thinks🤔 because of possible cold bridging. He says he can't do the design for us we need to pay a professional designer😭 possibly costing £2000. Is this right. How can we overcome this quickly and do we really have to pay someone more money in the design stage. We've already been through the whole nutrient neutrality and buying credits etc which held us up for 3 years on top of all the normal stuff 😭

I feel for the guy, having been through similar myself. This is a very difficult industry in which to pick one’s self up from, and restart, as you have to ask people to entrust a lot of money up front, and only your trading history and client references can perpetuate this. When little fish get knocked by big fish, it causes irreparable, or sadly often terminal amounts of damage. They seem to be genuine, and if so I wish them the best in reestablishing their business (and reputation). Thanks for taking the effort to post these details, a lot of people read them.

With SBR + tile adhesive, I honestly think that the screws will do the square root of (expletive deleted) all. I can’t tell you not to fit them as I’m not warrantying the job, plus they cost so little we’d both be fools to not do so / advise you not to do so. So….”do so”. 👌

If I had the chance to build that house, and move my family into it, I would make a point of stepping, bare-footed, onto each step, and proclaiming the slight indifference of temperature of the adjacent flooring elevations….. No. We’d just be happy. Chill out ffs. 👍👌😎

Frame Technologies are still in business, but with only two employees, Simon Orrells and his wife. Everything is sub-contracted out, including manufacture of the frames, albeit to a manufacturer who I believe is STA Gold. I think a previous incarnation got into trouble when a large order with a developer customer went bad. The consequence was that he had to sell the factory and let go all his employees. I'm sure it must have been a traumatic experience and he must have considered finding an easier way to spend his time, but he decided to get back into the business with this company structure - no fixed assets and no employees. He's a tremendous guy with huge experience which would be an asset to any project. I'm sure he has happy customers and could deliver a service as good as any other frame supplier and maybe better than some. But you need to do your financial due diligence and satisfy yourself you're happy doing business with a supplier with this rather unorthodox structure.

Just taken delivery of the Thermowood cladding for our Pod. It comes in random lengths and we have chosen two different widths that will be installed in a particular pattern. The question I have is whether we should sort the timber into similar lengths and then try and be specific in our choices of where the joins are or, after having pretty much randomised the lengths by moving them to the rear of the plot, we should just go with what we pick up (length wise). Will it be too obvious that we have tried to be random?

Haha! If only you knew about my problems! A £60k court case is causing very much procrastination and too much time to think about stuff like this. The steps as you see them will have 150mm of PIR insulation on the horizontal treads and an effective 100mm of PIR on the vertical risers. With 50-60mm of screed over, followed by a 4mm microcement finish. It's more wanting to avoid any irreversible regret. I have this vision of walking through the house in a state of blissful house completion euphoria and the sensation of a stone-cold step bringing me back down to earth with a chilling bump! Call me an over-thinker, it's the truth, but I hold dear the attention to detail that quality has allowed me! Thanks for your help all, as usual.

Looking at the recent reviews of that knauff adhesive, it's all 1 star, they may have changed the formula. That combined with the non primed boards I think I was on a hiding to nothing. It's like an immovable object now with the tile adhesive and I've foamed the gaps between. Even so, I'm going to mechanically fix with screws. Makes me wonder why they recommend stainless screws though when they will be getting coated with tanking anyways, surely they'll spend the rest of their lives dry as a bone.

They’re not exactly ‘colour-sympathetic’, but why is this ‘dodgy’? Is there more to this?

What he said. DEFO not what HE said. #medievalbobthehygieneoppressor

A sober moment; when have you ever been to a dwelling with heated steps / stairs, or actually GAF? Genuine question btw. If you're genuinely up at night worrying about this, consider the fact that these are part of an insulated structure and will acclimatise to the ambient, or thereabouts all by themselves. If SUPER worried, lay the tread tiles over XPS insulation tile backer boards to allow the aforementioned naturally occurring temp balance to maximise its potential. On a side note, I wish my problems were like yours. Shall we just tell him to run faster?

Does this affect the structural integrity of the building as a whole, or is it entirely isolated to this one ‘flat’?

Happy days 👌

I’ve had success in such situations both with the bottle viakal dripped on the beastie in question and with the spray version too. Patience needed.

That flat bit is where you apply an adjustable spanner, and the offending item will unscrew anti-clockwise and come out whole. Then a soak in Viagra, as @ProDave uses and swears by, or maybe just WD40 or a quality ‘release agent’ will get this moving again. You can use google to match the part and maybe get a new replacement, but that’s down to luck tbh.

Well Industries that work at the edge of what is possible, like aerospace for example, have to constantly push design to limits manufacturing may not be able to achieve. Design for performance Design for manufacture Design for maintenance Design for recycling etc etc. The poor old design engineer has got it hard.

Block and beam? No! Ground bearing slabs. A decision that has given me sleepless nights and resulted in some serious hard graft. We had 60 ton (that’s what we were told 🤔) of Type 1 MOT delivered and had to then proceed to get into the bays and levelled up, before compacting it. The brickie was an arse as he should have stopped building and said “get your hardcore in and laid”. His work was rather shit, so I knocked some of it down to enable me to get a dumper in distribute the piles to make levelling it quicker. Building control were fine with me using grano dust as the top layer. This compacts nicely and gives a much harder surface than sand. Below are a few pictures. Hoping to get everything finished by tomorrow. I’ll breath a sigh of relief that it’s done and dusted.

We own a flat in the north-west in which our daughter lives. It's in an old red brick school built in the early 1900's and converted to flats about 25 years ago. Late last year a ground floor flat owner replaced some flooring and discovered a crack in the concrete which upon further investigation turned out to be a suspended slab over a basement no-one knew about. The developer had removed most of the external access stairs, levelled the ground and put a manhole cover over them. Roll on 25 years and when access is finally gained it is found the steel beams supporting the concrete slab have seriously corroded. So bad that emergency propping was required and the flat owner advised to move out. It appears the basement is entirely under that one flat. This has now blighted the whole building. Two sales have fallen through and no-one is able to move or re-mortgage. The managing agents bailed out as they felt the building was "too much of a risk". The insurers have wiped their hands of it saying it's a maintenance issue. That has been disputed with the ombudsman since the situation was hidden and no maintenance could therefore take place. A decision is awaited. The developer who was also the head landlord has gone into administration. That leaves us 25 leaseholders on the hook for repairs. I haven't been into the basement as yet but my first thought was to cut the beams out, drop the old concrete floor into the basement and then mass fill it with say foamed concrete topped with a slab. However, that suggestion has been poo pooed by the flat owner involved as they say they have been advised by surveyors and engineers not to do this as it would create "maintenance problems" (?) and cause damp in the affected flat, indeed no professional would be associated with any such proposal apparently......... As yet we await a formal suggestion as to how to deal with this but to be honest it has to be cost effective because we will all have to pay and some leaseholders are just young couples in their first home and we haven't got loads of spare cash lying about. Am I barking up the wrong tree with my idea (the volume is probably 4.5m x 5m x 3m) or are we looking at replacement steel beams with say block and beam and screed which involves much more labour?

Hi ProDave, yup had thought of this, but awkward to get something to soak it in. Kettle, easy. Here/ this, in situ, I can't exactly immerse in a bowl of limescale dissolving stuff. Noted Viakal tho. Thanks, Zoot

It’s quite refreshing to adopt this approach, even up to today where I had an opinion, client had another, point raised, pros/cons/caveats discussed comprehensively; clients choice was the “winner”, ownership of the decision removed from my hands, and on to the next problem we went.

Hi Nick, thanks for your 2 replies. No, the brass centre section seems stuck firm. I don't quite know which bit is meant to move (never unscrewed the top of one of these ever before- & no-one really uses these taps-up-to-showerhead things). I presume, in photo 1 where the chrome cap is screwed on/ as is meant to be, this section should simply pull UP say 1/2" or so. Meaning the brass bit with the thread on inside, should also move up 1/2". I can see your flat area on the outer tap section, but i wouldn't need to twist or use this for leverage.. would I? It's only the centre brass area inside it that I need to grasp & shift. Unfortunately I'm NOT near it presently (I live 120m away)- I took photos of these taps, at my dear old friend's upstairs previously unused bath area, which a new situation/ a live-in carer has just started using you see. At the mo, she only has the bath of use. Not ideal esp in this heat. Even if she's from Zimbabwe. Thanks, Zoot

Refer to Schedule 2 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development)(England) Order 2015 Schedule 2 Part 2 Class A - Erection,construction, maintenance, improvement or alteration of a fence, gate, wall or other means of enclosure. Para A.1 (b) says: [ development would not be permitted if] the height of any other gate, fence, wall or means of enclosure erected or constructed would exceed 2 metres above ground level; In the interpretation of the order it refers to height being from ground level and if not level then from the highest ground level. That would technically allow you to erect a 2m fence on the boundary but as mentioned above that could be overpowering for your new neighbours. Personally I would like to remain on good terms with my neighbours - it makes life so much more pleasant. Could you set any screening back from the line of the boundary so it lessens the impact?

I’ve used him for over 25 years zero jobs have ever curled so no worries there, but nobody would argue with any sensible garnish of belts and braces. Unless the additional actions were administered to the detriment of the job and that then caused a failure that would otherwise not have occurred if ‘left well alone’.