Roger440

Its certainly seems worse in the uk. But when building control have NO liability to the homeowner for what they sign off (council or private) one cant be surprised that some are willing to sign off anything. OK, post october 23, they do have some liabilities, but still not to the homeowner. I dont think it fixable. As you say, the experience has gone, and for most of the actors, no pride in the job.

You didnt mention pumping it out? Yes, slow it down, but you cant stop it.

If the underfloor area is dirt, you are literally wasting your time. In the event of a flood, the water will simply rise through the soil. Bit like one of my neighbours who had a 500 year old cottage with stone flag floor. When the floods came, the water just came up through the floor. Fortunately, she was smart and well used to it, so furniture on blocks, wait for the water to leave, light two open fires in fireplaces to dry out. All original lime plastered and rendered walls, so dryed out easily. Id definitely be doing similar to what i described. And removing the rockwool. Unless the flood is 30mins max, stop trying to stop it coming in. You will lose, the water will win.

As someone who has been flooded, please stop, now. Glossing over the rockwool in your cavity for now, the house as it stands can dry out post flooding. Your proposal, both the bitumen and the EWI will ensure in the event of another flood, that it cannot dry. Ever. Lots of problems will stem from that that dont need explaining! Yes, i know the thinking is keeping the water out means it wont be wet. This is utterly futile, it will get in, probably first through the void under the floor.. On my last house, if you accept the water is coming in no matter what, the question is what to do about it. My house was slightly diffrent in that it had a solid concrete floor, but what i did is: I created a sump in the lowest point (front room in my case) which would be in your ventilated void. In this sump i had two electric pumps which would pump water out through tubes in the wall higher than any flood would reach. Additionally, as we lost power during out flood, i also added a battery powered pump with a controller that switched on if the power went out. The simple theory was based on our flood experience. On the night in question, we found that 2 screwfix submersible pumps could remove water and pump it out faster than it came in . My final installed pumping capacity was 8 times that. So, in the event of a flood, yes, water will come in but as it will immediately be removed, your water depth is limited to a few mm. This massively reduces the damage a flood will do. Addtionally, i tiled all of the ground floor, and, as i observed during the flood, there were a few places water came in such as around waste water pipes through walls. The biggest was water coming up past the concrete base between the concrete and the walls. I sealed all this using a sika product they put in expansion joints on runways. So i significantly reduced water infiltration rate as well. Stuff like the newel post on the stairs, i cut 20mm off the floor and installed a stainless spacer bar. So the wood wont soak up water. During my time there, i admit, i never had to use it, but im 99% confident that it would have done as designed. My target was to be sitting on the sofa 4 hours after the last drop of water had left. 4 hours to mop of and clean up the silt etc. get a couple of dehumififiers for a few weeks and sorted. It was, because of the risk of flooding that i DIDNT insulate, in particlar the old part of the house that has solid walls. Whilst there would have been significant benefit in doing so, anything i did would increase drying time. In your case, the products will simply prevent it entirely. If you accept you cannot have a completely watertight house, and you cant, at least retrospectively, find a way to mitigate the inevitable. Im not saying my way is the only way, and clearly yours is complicated by the void, but please dont try to waterproof your walls.

If thats the case, then it would certainly explain the standard of work. Question then is, how did we arrive at a postion where one group of people working on houses can self certify, but others, including the major house builders cant. Has the distinct whiff of corruption. Either way, the results merely prove self certification doesnt work. Mind you, nor does building control!

The interesting thing seems to be, that those works carried out under eco4 scheme do NOT have building control sign off. What i simply cannot find out, is how that can possibly be. Its notifiable work. So how can work done under eco4 not have BC sign off? Of course, its no surprise that such work is generally poor, to put it mildly.

Good. About time they started looking into this. Meanwhile, they wil announce another scheme!

The fact that most are poorly installed cant be a surprise, except to the morons signing off said schemes. Everytime free money is on offer, the cowboys arrive. Every, single, time. Of course, with EWI, its compounded because its a job that really does need careful analysis, and fitting. And the potential damage of it not be so, very significant. The visual aspect is valid, but we cant stop people upgrading houses, otherwise noting will ever change. But i certainly wouldnt do it to my house!

Good thing you dont live in wales then. Plaid affiliated quangos are pushing this one hard. Ie, support destroying the countryside with windmills and pylons, and offer token bribes of free money to not complain about them. Under the cover of claiming they will be "community owned". Given that Plaid will likely have more seats after the election than anyone else, there a possibility it might happen. We will gloss over the "interests" that various key figures have in said energy companies. Quite why a small community wants to own or part own a liability like a field of wind turbines is beyond me. The liabilities will be huge. Anything serious goes wrong, said community will be bankrupt. Still, if we elect lunatics, then lunatic ideas get implemented.

Premixed lime putty.

Ive found it great. You can send a sample off and they will match it for you too. If you are exposed, you might want to add some pozzlan, but given you loction, i guess that doesnt apply?

As above, this isnt the great breakthrough that we both know is actually required. Essentially being seen to do "something" whilst allowing business as usual.

Indeed. and if they think its good, you can 100% sure, its not good for the consumer. And it isnt.

In other words, no meaningful change. Just a few %. That not much more than background noise. They could have completely de-linked it. They still choose not to. This is another classic case of the PR and reality being worlds apart. And they choose not to, as too much money is being made.

No ongoing costs on mine (kress)

A lot of mower for the money. Support is woeful though. Cant speak to anyone. Ticket system as i understand it. Being able to pick up the phone and talk to someone narrowed the options down. A lot.

No issues at all.

Ive got a pair of Kress mowers bought in last years grand 70% off sale. Between them they cover circa 2.5 acres, 2/3rds of that is a fairly rough field. Hardware is great, customer support, great. They updated the app last month. Now utter garbage. Was fine before. Hopefully they will sort out the app. Their business model is 100% via dealers. So if you are an IT numpty like me, thats a result. But comes at a cost V cheap chinese ones, where you are the support. Pic here of the first cut of the field. The main reason for getting them, is its simply too waterlogged to get and machinery on it until late may. 2 years ago it was still so soft in August i buried the tractor up to its axles in mud! The mowers are quite happy as they are light.

I cant imagine a recession will result in a relaxation of any rules or regulations. As a wise person i worked with on the railway said, regulations are like a ratchet. Theres no way back.

They dont care about that either. Judge by actions, not by words. House building has reduced. And so prices stay high. It is in no ones interests, those who influence/ontrol government policy that is, for house prices to come down.

Yes! The only really difficult thing in the manual is the need for E marked glass. Fortunately a company in america have sold that problem for me by producing suitable glass anyway. The rest is mostly common sense and in some areas, like lighting, seems surprisingly lax.

If supply increased, (not that it will) but the next issue is the cost of actually building. As many on here have found out, the cost of building a house has escalted to the point where the costs in many parts of the country exceed the final value. House prices reducing will rapidly cause us to arrive at that point. We are regulating ourselves to a point where we wont be able to build anything. Its about the only thing the UK is good at. Of course, if normal rules of competition worked in housing, then the "factory" built housing we started the thread with might actually get developed properly as building the existing way will simply be unachievable financially.

Which particular part is more stringent. Having studied the manual from cover to cover, nothing springs to mind.

All very good, but you are daydreaming. Government doesnt want cheaper housing. So there wont be any actions to create cheaper housing. Indeed, most actions increase the cost of housing.

Hmmm. Ive never seen any door on a house that doesnt require "locking" if i can call it that, raising the handle up or other similar function to compress the seals tomake it fully weather tight. Maybe they do exist, ill take your word for it. There is no car available to buy new that doesnt have properly working door seals. No matter how cheap.