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epsilonGreedy

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Everything posted by epsilonGreedy

  1. epsilonGreedy
    Not sure I am following this advice. The problem as I see it is that the block & beam floor will be down before the outer wall reaches dpc height and it is time to fit the airbricks.
  2. epsilonGreedy
    I am about to lay the inner wall telescopic portions for my suspended floor ventilation. Should I think ahead and ensure that when these vents are mated with airbricks the positioning of airbricks occurs at whole brick boundaries in the outer wall?
  3. epsilonGreedy
    Lots of government spending however. The economy Northern Ireland is supported by the highest ratio of public sector spending seen in the UK. Given the parlous state of the State's finances with central UK Government debt at levels not previously seen since the end of WWII, the NHS breaking down before our eyes while it hoovers up every spare £ in the Government's budget and our pot hole ridden roads resembling a 2nd world country, I do not think mobile property wealth should migrate to NI.
  4. epsilonGreedy
    English regs might be different but my self builder neighbour has a temp connection housed in something that looks like a large postbox on stilts. The box is near the site boundary hedge similar to the temp builders water supply standpipe and inside there is a small consumer unit with a couple of RCDs. From this box he has a shallow conduit and mains cable running 15m to his static caravan. As my build is further advanced I am taking another approach. I am digging a mains supply conduit trench right up to the utility room foundation next to where the meter will be sited in the wall. My builder's electric supply will be in a temp housing next to the utility room but there will be enough spare supply cable left to route the supply cable into the long term meter box once the house has a roof on.
  5. epsilonGreedy
    Ok I was not aware of that. I will get the static connection done at the same time as the temporary consumer unit is wired in.
  6. epsilonGreedy
    I will be siting a static caravan next to my build for a year or possibly two winters. Site layout congestion and concern for neighbours means there will only be a 3 meter gap between the house walls and van (just enough space for scaffolding I hope). My cunning plan is to run a cooker-circuit sized cable from the temp electrical meter & CU cabinet around the external house footings trench before back filling the trench with soil, as a result the cable will be about 500mm deep. This leaves that short 3m span to the static. When the build is finished I will disconnect the buried cable and leave it there to puzzle an archaeologist 1000 years from now. Should such a temp supply be run through a conduit and will I need a special grade or cable?
  7. epsilonGreedy
    Update: My 1.5kg (3.3lbs) lump hammer was hefty enough. The splits are pretty rough with generally 10mm to 15mm of peaks and troughs in the split face. This is ok for footing blockwork but as advised above too inaccurate for block floor trimming.
  8. epsilonGreedy
    Erm there is some ambiguity here. Think you are saying that the end of the room with smaller (correctly) sized joists is the only part of the house with noticeable bounce or does the whole room have some bounce?
  9. epsilonGreedy
    Nope, you seem determined to invent my beliefs to provide subject matter for you to dispute. What I am saying is that the established culture of this forum does not see anything noteworthy in a no-frills value for money selfbuild. As a consequence the forum does not make a contribution to solving one of largest social problems in the UK today namely polarization of wealth and plummeting home ownership rates among the under 40's.
  10. epsilonGreedy
    That would be useful because I might end up misinterpreting the @PeterW description. Having learned how to use a chain saw this summer I began to appreciate that the main danger was not in handling the device, the closest I came to chainsaw wipeout was when I lost my footing and slipped a bit. Maybe this is why my brickies routinely put a boot on the block being cut.
  11. epsilonGreedy
    Table Build Route C (Main contractor + subbies) Region NE 2-story Large house Standard finish £833 Excellent finish £1340 1340 / 833 = 60% increase
  12. epsilonGreedy
    Update: A few weeks later and a lot wiser about the static caravan market. The big discovery is that it is a two-tier market. Many vans above £10k are sold sited which effectively means tied to ongoing rental and position in a caravan/holiday park. If the park operator feels a static van is too old and bad for the reputation of the park it will be discounted for sale to an offsite owner. We have encountered a few dual priced vans with a 30% difference depending on a offsite or onsite sale. Static caravans start to feel and smell old at about 10 years which currently equates to £10k offsite. 14ft vans are rare but seem much bigger than standard 12ft models. Blown air gas central heating requires a gas safe fitter with special qualifications. A mid sized static caravan has double the internal area of the largest touring (towable) caravan. Touring caravans are more salable at the end of a build and the offsite static market is smaller than park site static sales. Statics can be difficult to deliver particularly 14ft wide models though if possible they can be dismounted off an HGV in 15 mins and then maneuvered onto a tight site with a separate chunky 4x4 vehicle.
  13. epsilonGreedy
    Not true, £ per sqm is a vital self build metric and why it is oft quoted here. If London is excluded I think regional build costs vary by say 15% across England and Scotland. Eye balling the data here https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/homebuilding-assets/prodwebsite/content/uploads/2011/09/16093731/Homebuilding-Build-Cost-Table-April-2018.pdf indicates: Level of finish accounts for a 60% cost variation. Build route (diy or main contractor) is surprisingly small and per meter costs drop 15% between small and large houses.
  14. epsilonGreedy
    So you keep telling us, from what I understand your house is a cavernous mansion which distorts the significance of the per sqm cost.
  15. epsilonGreedy
    My first experience of these foot amputation devices was in adverse conditions. No water = clouds of dust. +30 degrees weather on the day. I was already knackered keeping up as brickie's mate to two pro's. When they cut blocks they could almost control the cutter with a single hand by letting the cutter drift through the block on its own weight. Could I buy some sort of ground based vice to hold the blocks allowing my foot to be kept out of the way?
  16. epsilonGreedy
    You do at least provide the evidence some requested ? I feel that an endevour to produce an ordinary house within 18 months for under £1000 / sqm is significant but not here. Had I arrived on this forum with an intention to create a passiv house bolted to the side of a Scottish sea cliff, insulated with Mongolian Yak wool and featuring a roof garden fertilized with unpasteurized Andean lama milk I would have been fast pathed into the forum cool gang.
  17. epsilonGreedy
    I suppose this depends on the survey sample which for me is large clean sheet programming projects with IT team sizes over 15 and overall timescales of + 1 year (yes I know in the era of agile all projects restart after two weeks). My definition for an IT project failure is running more than 30% over £££ budget or 50% beyond scheduled delivery.
  18. epsilonGreedy
    Nice uplifting prose and sentiment but getting down to brass tacks. If failure is the most likely outcome for a self builder then I think it is wise from the outset to comprehend the patterns of failure and how one's own build will avoid these patterns. Failure is the norm with software projects and as a result practitioners will state at the start of a project how prior mistakes are being addressed. In your list of motivations to self build you do not mention the No.1 objective which is to put a better value roof over ones head than would otherwise be possible shopping for a house on the open market. Such financial realities do not figure on this forum and as a result of this culture I doubt the forum will ever represent the mainstream of self building. This forum is not particularly welcoming to the individual who intends to roll up his or her sleeves and build an ordinary house using traditional methods. The forum is very accommodating as soon as such a self builder stumbles and needs specific help. Maybe it is a British thing, stoicism in the face of adversity is regarded as noble whereas positivity or success triggers cynicism.
  19. epsilonGreedy
    I would add "Pile your spoil in sight of a public road and they will come with offers to take it way". I had two requests to take some of my trench dig spoil away within a week. Yesterday evening while laying trench blocks and enjoying the local bell ringing practice a bloke appeared and asked if I owned a 4m3 heap of heavy rubble on the edge of my plot which he wanted for a garage project.
  20. epsilonGreedy
    Thanks. I have been told this is one large purchase where it is best to sidestep a builders merchant. The Longley Concrete have been recommended to me. https://www.longley.uk.com/
  21. epsilonGreedy
    Shock horror, in a self build forum it is offensive to detail personal hands-on accomplishments to illustrate one end of the personal responsibility spectrum.
  22. epsilonGreedy
    No I was thinking of recent threads where my tough love contributions upset the forum's inner corum.
  23. epsilonGreedy
    Indeed, I was responding to a specific challenge as to why I had not signed a big cheque and let a kit home contractor deliver a complete house. You missed the biggest source of self build satisfaction, it is the people one meets on the journey. You sure about that? Having described how hands on my self build has been I get...
  24. epsilonGreedy
    What is wrong is when empathy halts and just reinforces an OP's sense of victim status.
  25. epsilonGreedy
    My point is many self builders do not have time to fully comprehend how to build a house, which raises a question as to what such self builders should do. Money. I could not afford the whole scale kit contract out route so I decided to dive fully into the hands on process. So far I have done my own setting out and levels. Tweaked the foundation design to my own requirements. Done my own foul drainage fall calculations. Ordered my own concrete. Formed 30% of the concrete pour team. Helped lay my footing blocks for a total labour cost of £500. I am laying my own garage footing blocks. And most important of all I am thinking all aspects of the build n steps ahead.
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