Roger440

Any suggestions who? Im in north bucks.

If you can smell it, its not working right. One morning i detected a smell, just like a old septic tank, and found that it had indeed stopped working. Not sure for how long it had been like that. Getting it going again, the smell was gone in a day.

Intersting. Mine was blocked on the pipe intake. Indeed, several times before i got it right, though i suspect there was a build up of sludge around the entry as a result of lack of flow. Sadly, when i did get it emptied i wasnt there. One of my bubblers has never worked, (3 in mine)and i missed the opportunity to find out why. BCO was also of the view that the integral sampling chamber didnt qualify as such. He still signed it off though. Edited to add, does your return pipe not have an opening along the run where it got blocked?

In my experience tradesmen want to do what THEY want to do or believe should be done. Not what you want. Step away from anything mainstream and it gets hard. Im STILL, after 4 months, trying to get someone to tile the floor using specific waterproof products. (it floods). Nobody is interested. They just want to use the products they like (which are not suitable). At this rate, i'll be doing it myself!

Id suggest this is the vortex's achillies heel. It is hyper sensitive. Yours was probably set to low on the return. As mine was. Eventually it gets blocked. The easy way to unblock is to disconnect the airline that goes to it and connect to a hose pipe. If you turn it up more, which ensures it cant get blocked, you end up moving too much water and the quality of the effluent drops. You can judge this just by looking to see how far into the murk you can see. I believe ive found the sweet spot now. Bear in mind, if you make ANY adjustments to the other funtions, it will affect the air supplied to the settled sludge return. Ive no experience of other plants, but im not sure its really as good as they claim. Costs us £150 to empty here in the sunny southest.

Did mine 25 years ago. One area sunk, but rest is still good. The great thing about block paving is, if it does sink a bit, pull up the blocks, but of sand and re lat them Job done. I actually put the base down, then didnt lay the drive for 2 years, Nature is the best compactor of type 1 and sand.

Epoxy Mastic. www.rust.co.uk

Agreed. There are simply no sensible priced plots in this part of the country. GH looks "sensible" in that regard. Especially as many of the "unknown" costs in a normal build are taken care of.

Too many people is my issue. And bicester is way over delevoped now.

It is grim. There are others too.

You have been to milton keynes then? These already exist. Though in fairness, they date from the 80's rather than being new.

Slabs not structural. Its just filling the gap between the walls.

Interesting. Just struck me as a waste of money. If you did it right first time, less digging out, and no screed required. But im just using logic?

Whilst sorting things out post flood, An area of screed was in rather poor condition, probably to weak. Handy as the insurance company chaps were convinced it was screed, over insulation over concrete. So they were saying floor out to replace insulation. Happily, its screed over concrete, and presumably under that, insulation. (built 2007) But that got me thinking. Why would you put 90mm of screed over a concrete slab?

Building regs is just a joke. It can only be useful if its enforced , and enforced by people who cannt be "influenced". As for self certifying trades people, its even worse. I have a whole suite of certificates. Not one job is compliant with the applicable regs. Some pretty much not at all. Many were council BCO's. I dont know what the answer is. There are not enough knowledgable/skilled people in the industry anyway. If you take away a whole load to be inspectors, it will make things worse.