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It is all OK now. I went out and bought all new stuff from Screwfix on the Saturday and used the superseal inserts too. The stuff I was talking about came from the merchant and was all a bit doubtful. I have used JG before plenty of times on non-critical installs - taps in garages etc. So I guess I have already taken a bit of a jump the fact I now have some 3.6m, over two runs, of plastic pipe and 4 x JG fittings in and installed and working.

@Ann I’m an architect with 35 years experience. When it came to building our own house which had approx 65sq.m of ceramic floor tiles with UFH I specified the Schluter Ditra matting mentioned by @nod @Russell griffiths and @Pete We always specify it on our commercial projects and in my opinion it’s not worth the risk of not using it.

Red ash from blast furnace slag. Wife's uncle & cousin are builders up in Stoke and he's mentioned it. More common in areas that historically had such works. Some reaction happens when it gets wet even years on. As an aside I believe German engineers used similar ash in constructing the Channel Island defences (again because of shortages). Found it made really strong concrete. Says something that they're still up and in such good nick!

You're correct there - and a self build forum might not be the best place for this comment as most on here are hugely knowledgeable! - but, I've seen a lot of self-builders fall into the trap of getting rid of all the consultants after they get a builder and end up with something go wrong during construction, 99% of jobs have changes as they go along, at least in scotland you must have building regs approval so the builder can only go so wrong! But I've seen a lot of costly mistakes due to builders thinking their anecdotal understanding of particular building regs doesn't have an impact to the overall picture. saying that I've had projects which have gone on site and we've never heard a peep again, I've also had one where the builder appointed us for the site stage because the client was making changes all the time! (I'd also say I've been involved in very few, if any, houses that would be considered "grand designs")

Now we have planning in place, and a design we are happy with, time to get started. We are certain we cannot employ a main contractor to do the build - at 280m2, the MC estimates are in the £400k range. We need to keep it closer to £250k. Demolishing the existing was the first challenge. After a few calls, it soon became apparent that this would not be cheap. £10-£20k from the main demo companies. Lowest offer was £4 for a reclamation company to come in, demolish by hand and take all the natural slate, timbers and Belfast red clay bricks. There's upwards of £15k worth of material there, so jog on!!!! So, I started the laborious process of demolishing the house in September 2019. As it was a single story bungalow, it seemed like a doable job, esp as the walls were red brick with weak lime mortar. Wall render, radiators, floor boards, insulation, kitchen, plumbing, ceilings. The biggest challenge and worst job was the loft insulation. Somebody in their wisdom chose to use 100s of bags of loose EPS balls. Absolutely nightmare. Couldn't sweep them up, couldn't vacuum, couldn't let them mix with the rest of the materials. In the end, we ended up punching through ceilings, and using a leaf blower to pile all the beads up, then stuff in to numerous 90l wheelie bin bags, and off to the dump. Horrible job! Ceiling down, beads separated using leaf blower. Walls stripped, floors lifted. Joists and floor boards being kept for future use on outbuldings, furniture etc. Roof stripped of natural slate tiles. Mostly done from inside the attic, with slates lowered down on pallets on a telehandler. Walls were demolished by hand, with a little help from my pregnant partner and our "site car" VID-20200328-WA0006.mp4 All in demolition including putting in a wider access road and stoning the front of the house, £3k. Next: ground works. VID-20200328-WA0006.mp4 VID-20200328-WA0006.mp4

The JG Super Seals do. 2 o-rings that are on the stalk of the insert, and one around the large rim of the insert which seals to the inside of the fitting itself. They're just quite thick walled vs the slim Hep stainless insert but are pretty good as far as sealing is concerned.

I bought a 2.5 tonne digger for our build and so far haven't regretted it. I was initially very rusty - I had not driven anything like it for close to 25 years - but it all comes back quickly enough. Various people I have roped in to help over the build have also used it to good effect, saving me a lot of hire charges and it's done a few jobs on other sites too. So far I estimate I would have spent at least £3k on hire and deliveries etc and would have used weeks of my holiday from work because it wouldn't be cost effective to only have said digger for say a month of weekends. I fully expect you'll get the hang of driving a digger within a couple of hours, so no problem there. But the work you list doesn't look that extensive really so there probably isn't much of a saving to be had - the people getting rid of the soil may well take the tree stumps out for you for very little additional cost because they're already there. The rest of the work on your published list is probably not much more than a weekend hire. You will find more work as you progress of course - are there digging requirements in foundations for instance? My digger made all the difference on many occasions, e.g. when we put in the ground floor concrete beams, and because it is always available I haven't needed to take soil from excavations away only to buy back more when landscaping in the dim and distant future. Mine isn't going to get much use for the next couple of months though - diggers are not known for making roofing or cladding easier!

Exactly it really isn’t worth the risk Two Christmases ago we tiled a 200 m2 floor for a Barrister On a screed that had been down a matter of weeks With a bio boiler that was commissioned the day we finished Tiling the floor I pointed out that he would be mad to take a chance on a green screed He just said they needed to be in for. Christmas and would take full responsibly We used Ditra and got away with it As above All commercial have matting on most floors regardless of UFH It really is marvelous stuff cost £4m2 Ditra Adhesive (flex) £1m2 Labour £3.50 m2 My wife laid the 80 m2 in the kitchen area while I was Fitting one of the bathrooms Rollered to an inch of its life

@Omnibuswoman There's a Lewis badger to consider, this is a small wheeled loader a bit like @joe90 has. Just seen one pop up on eBay, if the listing is legit and it's not knackered, might be worth considering.

@Joe87 there are surface applied liquid dpm products available that you could use on top of that floor which would get rid of the issue of rising moisture affecting the new timber floor. There are also dimpled underlay mats that disperse any moisture to the edges of the room but I have less experience of those.

We've a twin wall drain running all the way down to the bottom of the site. Sits about 300mm lower than the base and filled opening with rubble and stone. Seems to be doing the job well so far.

I suppose it depends on how involved or capable the owner is. I am an ex builder and have done all the specification and acted as project manager so a third party would be a waste of money (in fact my main contractor appointed his project manager but he never had to come to site). Someone with no knowledge of the building trade or the specifics of what has been specified would need someone to help with the finer details.

Doesn't help you much given your marble is a lot whiter than ours, but here's ours in (from memory!) Mapei smoke grey. It doesn't look quite as dark as this in real life.

Nidagravel , they're 1.2 x 2.4 so lay very fast compared to clipping typically 9 squares per sqm together and fighting with their stiffness. The nidagravel's are flexible, but you should still aim to create a 'flat slope' rather than a radius....they did accommodate my slightly arcing transition from slope to flat though. They're not cheap and when comparing their robustness to say Aco's grids there's much less material in them so you'd think them flimsy.....time will tell, but the point with all the grids is that their strength comes from the gravel fill. I've no problems so far with them. http://2gomadindorset.blogspot.com/2019/08/driveway-and-some-landscaping.html Sure Joe, but in Dorset at least Hoggin is sand/gravel/clay and while its ratio may vary from supplier to supplier it can't really be a 'non-shedding' surface in the way paving, decking, tarmac or gravel is, but it does have the potential to be the opposite as far as i've seen, perhaps because i've not seen an installation of any significant area thats entirely avoided puddling.

Agree with above, depending on the service you will get from your 'builder' (i.e. may be TF firm, etc..) you may decide that your architect's continued services are duplicative and not required. However, per @the_r_sole - you need to understand the implications of ceasing that relationship and what remaining obligations they have. You can rely on goodwill for the occasional query but don't be upset if you don't get it as this is after all a commercial relationship and they may be unwilling to provide anything if they feel uncomfortable professionally doing so. In our case, our architect designed a beautiful house for us and secured planning over some LA and neighbour objections on the second pass. As our thoughts turned to low energy construction methods and then, more specifically passive timber frame, they admitted that this was not an in house skill set but they would re-interpret drawings and do the building control and planning conditions submissions for a sizeable fee. As the TF firm was producing their own detailed drawings & calcs - I checked with the independent BC firm that they would be satisfied with those and when they agreed, we politely parted company with the architect and did our own planning conditions submission together with supplying the BC with what they needed. It all worked out fine and we saved a sizeable chunk of money, however we did not go back to them for any professional advice thereafter but did stay in contact wrt progress as they were interested in the end result.

inserts are penny’s, go buy some more (and take a bit of pipe to make sure they are tight!!!). Only problem with plastic is scratching the pipe where fittings go, this can lead to weapy joints, keep the pipe clean and scratch free and it will be fine. If an old Luddite like me can be converted to plastic anyone can ?

On one of your points, it is my understanding, that so long as the designs and drawings are used for the construction of the dwelling for which they are originally produced, there is no concern over rights. A concern would arise only if you were, for example, to re-sell the design to others for profit. With some architects obtaining the CAD files, on the other hand, can be tricky. Not with my architect I should add; I have all of mine for my build.

If the mat floats won't the tiles sound hollow then?

@SuperJohnG The main Risk with a ceramic tile floor over UFH is cracking of the tiles. Obviously with LVT this is less of an issue (although It can still happen in larger commercial sites with big expanses of concrete floor where the floor cracks at day-joints). Compared to ceramic tiles however, vinyl and wood flooring is much more vulnerable to damage from concrete or screed that has not been dried out properly before the flooring goes down. I’ve seen whole vinyl floors fail on commercial projects due to the water-based adhesive emulsifying due to water migrating from the screed.

Vari light pro dimmer with 6 Aurora GU10 works very well for me Also a Lutron Pico remote dimmer and switch dims a Aurora MPRO1 and MPRO2 perfectly. Have you tried fitting a ballast to your circuit? Downlights.co.uk have plenty of test videos for various leds and dimmers - never purchased from them though.

most of my downstairs is tiled and I did not use matting ??? (and I have UFH) ?

Keep the pallets stacked up nice and neat. You will have lots more deliveries which might need something clean to set them on to keep them out of the muck.

Good morning. I’m Martyn. Together with my wife, we’ve recently bought a mid-fifties bungalow in Sussex. It’s a pretty solid build, and most important for us it was designed before windows shrank, so there’s lots of light. Over the years it’s been added to and modified, and that work has not been quite so solid. So we’re slowly putting that right and are beginning to bring the house back to how it ought to be. This is our fourth renovation project, and age dictates that we take this one more slowly. We do as much of the work ourselves as we can, and get in the relevant trades when we can’t. It’s worked for us in the past, and as long as trade day rates don’t go through the roof it should work for us again. Build Hub has been a good anonymous resource already, and I thought it was about time I signed up.

For the DIY er that wants to build say a small wrap around extension, dodging away at the weekend and wants to keep hire costs and trips back and forward to the hire shop down. Thanks Tonyshouse. To quote Tony. "A piece of orange string, set out front of building first then the critical side square to it then c/l of trenches then the rest of it I mostly used ancient Egyptians 345 and double checked by measuring the diagonals os any rectangle" Levelling. What about a water level. Get a garden hose & some clear plastic tubing say 2.0m long from the DIY store. Couple 1.0m of the plastic tube to each end of the hose. Get some food dye. Choose your own colour – just make sure it is a darkish one so you can see the water in the clear tube. Get ALL the air out the hose. Calibrate it by putting the two tubes together – the water in each should be at the same height. Jiggle / shoogle / do something to it and check again. Pin one end of the clear tube to something and take the other end to where you want, just make sure the water does not spill out. Mark the levels of the water to the bottom of the meniscus. Now you have a datum and you can measure up or down from that. Change the tube ends round and check again to give you confidence it works. Lastly, when you are finished plug the ends of the tube to preserve the coloured water. The great thing about this is that it goes round corners and as many as you like. A laser beam goes in a straight line unless you can apply some physics I think. You can take it into the house to check the floor levels to tie say an extension in... probably plug the ends first in case you get dye on the carpets. No points for that! Setting out dimensions For smallish stuff invest in a good steel tape, fabric ones stretch very easily without you knowing. If measuring over a distance use blocks, wood or something to support the tape frequently so it does not sag and try and keep the same tension on the tape each time you take a measurement. Set out and double, triple check. If you take your time you’ll get will within the tolerance a bricklayer can build to. You can use Pythagoras (3,4, 5 triangles to get a right angle) there lots of school maths formulae you can use to calculate the sizes say if you know the length say two sides of a triangle and the angle between them. Hope someone has fun with this and saves a few quid.

I guess I should have got that from your user name. It been a long week.

4. CAD Technician, FREE ? That rate is still a lot for an ACIAT in my opinion. Was he or she employed as part of a larger/limited company with overheads, etc...?