epsilonGreedy

Possibly but if true many self builders should buy a ready made Wimpy new build instead. There are patterns to success that can be identified by following this forum. There is the @JSHarris formula which is to understand everything in forensic detail and then contract out complete building stages to good people after extensive discussions. You and @ProDave show what is possible through doing as much as possible hands-on when time and funds allow. Others sign a big cheque and wait for Potton Homes to send them the front door key.

But he does highlight a reasonable point and problem with the forum. Kneejerk empathy with the plight of self builders in these situations may not help in the long term. I recall helping someone through a divorce 10 years ago, her gaggle of female friends simply reinforced her delusional view of the world and how dreadful her ex was, whereas I told her the truth. The ladies who lunched won the argument and today the divorcee is even more unhappy clutching to her disillusion views. The common thread to these problems occurs when self builders want to feel in control but lack the time, experience or intuition for the self assigned project manager role. My advice is either spend time comprehending every detail of the job and accept responsibility or hand over responsibility for a complete building stage and pay for a high caliber crew.

An illuminating photo thank you. I am curious about the function of the bitumen paint. 175mm high beams? Your mortar has a more sandy colour than mine, what is your ratio? Lots of flat blocks there, I only did that in the end for an intermediate dwarf footing wall mid way through the sitting room intended to eliminate risk of bounce.

Go low-tech, go local and keep traditional is working for me so far. No one who has worked on my site traveled more than 10 miles.

Crikey, just looked into the price of these. £500+. I could get 500 blocks laid for that.

Getting larger, have shifted about 15 tons of blocks manually in the last month. Swmbo accuses me of posing around the house like Mr Universe as I examine my new self builder's honed physique. No need still have about 700 onsite.

Contract informality has worked in my favour so far. I changed my foundation trench plan 12 hours before dig day which involved 11 meters of extra trench, the contractor did not charge for this probably because the whole job went smoothly and he was able to wrap up a few hours early. My plot seller did not take away 100% of the dig spoil as agreed but I did not hold him to that because extra soil was dug out. Later my self build neighbour needed some soil to build up his hedging bunds so I let him take away 6 m3. My plot seller passes by weekly for a chat and probably wonders why his crew did not take away more spoil, and so when I phone him in a few weeks to borrow a telehandler for a few hours to shift my floor beams I reckon the price will be soft. Informality allows on the ground workers to engage in spontaneous cooperation that is not seen on the HQ executive radar. My foul drain contractor got fed up waiting for the water company crew to arrive so he started digging next to where he thought they should dig into the road. The crew turned up and were happy to follow until they realized their digger could not reach down to the mains sewer, so my man loaned his larger digger to dissuade them from abandoning the job that day. In the software world such tactical cooperation would take a 50 page power point slide deck and a hoard of IT management committee room lounge lizards to approve.

Ok I will try this later today. How heavy a lump hammer? 4Kgs? And do I need a particular scriber to scour the surface of a block?

I was unaware of this option, the brickie team duo seemed to prefer shouting at each other when one got covered in cutting dust. Yes I am. I thought the beam layout would be designed to avoid cutting lots of blocks? What triggered the need for cutting in your case?

Ok I am swaying back to a real man's disk cutter, kicking myself for not thinking that water + 2kw motor = dead self builder. My water pressure is amazing.

@Onoff I had bumped into that YouTube video before, thanks for the reminder. If I could walk into my local ScrewFix and buy one I would try it out today as it suits my personal low-tech low-budget hands on approach to self build. The rough fractures at the split points look bad but in practice I reckon they would promote a nice grippy mortar bond in contrast to the glazed smooth surface of a disc cut. I fear obtaining this gadget will involve a PayPay transaction to some outfit in rural China and a 3 month sea delivery.

There is a contract. Offer, acceptance and engagement has taken place and so a contract is in effect. The OP tells us: Did they specifically mention a mountain of bricks would be left onsite? Probably not hence the OP's outrage. In a small claims Court I think it would be possible to construct an argument that it is impossible to "level and site scrape" without removing the a mountain of rubble left over from the demolition. The contractor is clearly a sharp operator who hoped that not mentioning the elephant in the room would result in an unfair commercial win. The court would recognize this and the default contract provides enough linguistic opportunity for a hostile magistrate to find in favour of the OP. p.s. I have no legal training. p.s.2. If the contractor offered "oversite scrape" I think this would sustantially weaken the claim.

What is the recipe for such concrete fill? I have seen references to a lean mix and semi dry.

When performing the role of brickie's mate recently I had a crash course in how to cut dense concrete blocks, these cutters are evil and at the end of the day my house oversite gave the impression of 2" of fresh snow from all the dust. I was already tired keeping up with two brickies mixing mortar and shifting blocks, the temp was over 30 degrees and I barely managed to keep the petrol powered cutter under control. Would an electric powered version be lighter and safer to use? Or should I invest in a workbench/jig based cutter?

Good tip, duly noted and will be added to her safety briefing. She has taken to the cement mixer like a duck to water and calls herself the Mary Berry of mortar mixing.

I will book a nearby pro builder to supervise my first hour behind the controls. Yes my first half day of hire will not be cost effective but I feel it is a worthwhile learning curve because I will then be self sufficient for the rest of the build when finishing the drainage. The ground is firm and I will insist that Swmbo dismounts from the dumper and stands back while I fill it. I had been wondering about fuel consumption, all those digger decibels require fuel. Just two of us on a fenced site. Visiting pro's (foundation dig and foul drain dig) have already drilled into me the importance of approaching a working digger from a head on eye contact angle.

Your photo convinces me to go for a full block gap because this would allow a more direct run between house and garage, just a 45 degree bend in this case. The electric meter box will be in the house but even so I suppose routing the mains cable up the empty cavity to the garage spur consumer unit results in a more tidy job and no need to armour the cable up the inside of the garage wall.

Ok a lintel it is. Basic cast concrete or with reinforcement rods? This part of the garage structure is single story and with a ground baring concrete floor slab. Is the water supply ducting specific to routing the water pipe through the building foundation? I ask because I thought the pipe could be laid in p-gravel in the main external trench. Anyhow maybe I should duct the supply from house to garage because we are only talking 3 meters between external walls.

Well yes I think we all accept this basic fact. My point is that when demanding more than standard minimums is the BCO obligated to explain why? I guess he did but the OP does not have the experience to recognize the trade language. I acted as brickie's mate to two pro brick layers the other week and encountered a new strange language.

Would a 3 ton hire excavator with a wide bucket be man enough? This will be my first digger driving experience though I am hoping my level site reduces the risk factor. I anticipate opting for a 3 day weekend hire so that Swmbo can drive the dumper in order to give the job some momentum, she does not know yet she is about to be press ganged into Greedy's Ground Force. I am about to start this job in order to establish some site stability before the autumn weather arrives. The scope of the job has expanded to include prepping a future patio of about 50m2 so about 160 m2 in total. My first step will be to scrape back the top 100mm of turf and topsoil prior to geotex and a first 150mm of Mot-1. There is also a large shallow dip that I want to rise up an extra 100mm with more Mot-1 or whatever is one further notch up the aggregate lumpy scale. Some quick maths suggests I will be spreading 30 tons of aggregate.

I plan to finish laying my garage block footing trench blocks today and I need to incorporate a gap for the entry of services. These services are: Mains water. Mains electric in a conduit. Telephone & ethernet cat-6 cables. Central vacumn system pipe (provision just in case I fit one with the main unit in the garage). The gap will be in the first course above the poured concrete to ensure the services are at regulation depth and the course above will be in dense 19kg blocks which I hope can be used as lintels to bridge over the service gap. How wide should this gap be? My hunch is 100mm or up to 130mm. I have already done the course bonding maths for the second course to ensure the bridging dense blocks will have a 100mm support either side of the gap.

I thought the opposite was true i.e. Building Control should explain why default foundation minimums are insufficient in this specific case. My building control inspector told me that my plan for a 600mm x 600mm concrete pour was in excess of mandatory minimums after he had inspected my dug trenches and examined the sub soil type.

I can see how this happened, you commissioned a roofing job and it started turning into a structural renovation. £130 a day is not a lot for someone who is expected to cover all those roles I mentioned. Will you now have to submit plans to your local building control office as the scope of the job has grown? Playing the role of small claims court magistrate, my first question would be "what contract was established" and then "did you gain any benefit as the daily rate odd job man worked under your supervision".

Reading between the lines here, from the outset of this project you undertook the roles of surveyor, structural engineer, building control inspector, quantity surveyor and project manager. It is unreasonable to blame the solo low-end 130 quid a day bod who decided to work for you, he probably wanted out by the end of day-2 as the poor condition of the structure was revealed.

The procedure I have seen is: Forget about the DPM until the masonry walls are up to gutter height and the roof is on. The DPC is installed from a roll of extra wide material and this is left as a loose flap on the inside. Pre screeding, you lay the DPM, install the insulation sheets and create vertical upstands of insulation block around the outside perimeter of the wall. DPC and DPM are lapped together at this stage. This process is not 100% foolproof and so during screeding an extra pair of hands is useful to tuck the materials together until the weight of the screed holds everything in place.