epsilonGreedy

Self builder's site insurance is a near necessity particularly if you are responsible for employing people onsite, though you would not be breaking any laws in skipping it. If you hand over your site to a main builder then his insurance should cover third you. Structural warranties are optional for those self financing their build without a mortgage and are now viewed more critically as people have become disappointed by: The superficial level of inspection carried out by inspectors on behalf of warranty companies. The fact that one such warranty provider (or intermediate agent) recently went out of business. On the rare occasion the inspectors do a thorough job they can make bizarre additional demands that contradict more experienced building control inspectors. What risks do you anticipate that will involve your neighbours beyond 3rd party public liability?

It could be instructive to list outstanding elements of a build that are not relevant to building control sign-off. Decoration. Tiling. Carpets. Landscaping. Alarm system. Anything else?

Do you need to act? In my part of the world over the past 4 days (Monday to Thursday) we have had nearly 4" of rain or about two times the long-term average total monthly rainfall.

Are the screw holes in that box designed to accept a light switch faceplate, or put another way does the Wago box function as a 1 gang wallbox?

My pro self build neighbour said "just phone Henry and tell him you want a garage floor mix". I need to enquire further about what national standard Henry's local Lincolnshire garage floor mix equates to. Anyhow it is good to have some realistic expectations set as to what I can hope to achieve with sloopy English concrete.

We can be thankful they were using another financial equation in 1940 during the Battle of Britain, recovered pilots gave us a useful advantage over the Luftwaffe. Which entirely overlooks the fact that confidence in the organization and self belief in the cause is what gives a military organization an quantifiable advantage. Without that you get Mussolini's army of 1941.

Despite the procurement screw-ups I think you are right about the Mull of Kintyre crash. In the same period the SAS suffered another full passenger load tragedy in a Chinook off the Falklands, I imagine with their direct links to upper echelons of power the Regiment put the MOD boffins under pressure to sort it out. Even more depressing is that 10 or 20 years later the grounded batch of Chinooks was still mothballed just when the lack of heavy lift helicopters was killing troops in Afghanistan.

I reached the same conclusion few years ago, when they decide to be serious on R5 the level of discourse and subject discovery is far superior to R4. It really is time to make the Beeb tax as optional as a Netflix subscription. Edit: Whoops I jumped back a year.

Actual rainfall must be the hardest weather statistic to gather or automate hence the recent actual data is sparse.

Though not good it appears to be the best option, how much does the Government and BBC spend in weather forecasting! Most Weather Underground sites offer precipitation forecasts but not actual historical readings. Holbech is an exception and it records 68mm of rain over the 2 days many roads were closed in Lincolshire due to flooding. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/climate/u12n8bern This site offers location specific monthly rainfall averages over 30 years and the highest monthly total rainfall average for all months of the year between 1981 and 2010 is November at 63mm. No wonder my foundations are a bit swampy, in 1.5 days I suffered more rainfall than the 30 year November total rainfall average.

Their web site does exhibit some strange numeric behaviour when non typical quantities are fed into the premium calculation routines. I investigated green-field only public liability via the Protek web site using a house size of 1 m2 and build cost of £1 and it quoted a similar premium.

I guess only well paid full time concrete pro's buy these infrequently hence the market does not question the price. I note there is zero customer review feedback on the Screwfix site.

Intervention over 23 hours! I had assumed 2.5 hours after the pour there would be no further gains to be made from manual surface smoothing? Did you lay the planks directly on the semi cured surface during the smoothing operation as did the YouTube guy featured above with his large Styrofoam tiles?

My guide is this YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6fiqAoLSRQ At time 3:05 he is using a bull float with a long handle. At 3:30 eighty minutes after the concrete delivery he begins hand troweling the semi set concrete to get a more consistent level with a square edged trowel. At 4:00 he does something unusual and moves over the setting surface using a pair of thick Styrofoam tiles to continue the first stage leveling. At 4:30 a second similar size hand trowel with rounded corners is used. At 5:20 a larger long (700mm?) narrow hand trowel with an off centre handle is used for large radius smoothing sweeps. Finally 1 hour 40 after the pour at 6:11 he returns to using the rounded edge trowel, the sound track indicates the concrete is getting dry at this stage. I cannot afford all that so taking the advice here I will hire a posh bull float with the remote head pivot feature and buy two hand trowels, one square for the firmer leveling stage and a round edge version for the final dressing/smoothing.

I need to buy some tools for my first diy concrete slab pour, it is a ground bearing slab of just 25 m2 and 150mm deep. Following advice received previously on this forum I will be pouring the slab into a concrete block walled pool where the top of the blocks will be just 30mm higher than FFL. Access around the perimeter wall is unrestricted. I would like a finish something better than a basic garage floor should I return to doing basic car servicing in future years. I thought a long handle float about a meter wide was essential for this job but having seen the price? £300 to £400 for a metal floor mop, they must be joking. https://www.screwfix.com/c/building-doors/concrete-floats/cat8730003

Mine was around that figure once I had eliminated the extra insured items that did not apply to my self build.

I reckon they must be intelligent but dyslexic Magpies, they read his post and wanted to demonstrate their preference for ITV children's programming. "Go with Noakes, that will learn him, squawk squawk".

I need to establish how exceptional the rainfall has been this week with a view to possibly implementing a foundation re-design to allow pumping out of a flooded void under a ground floor block and beam, as a few other forum members have. The weather sites I can find are good for historical monthly rainfall data but not daily rainfall over recent days. Does such a source exist?

Try Protek for a better site insurance policy cost.

Ok thanks. I assume you would not have done this if the Wago connectors rattle at the back of the box each time the switch is flicked?

I recall a different version of events. Computer Weekly made this one of their main subjects of investigation for years probably because malfunctioning software killed military personnel. The MOD could have purchased Chinooks equipped with the manufacturer's own cockpit control software but instead the MOD decided Britain's domestic industrial/military complex could do better. The Chinooks were delivered minus cockpit control parts and the British developed alternative fitted. The British software then attempted to murder crew and passengers by issuing random instructions to the engine, the most notable was a call for maximum engine power. Handling the uncommanded max engine power problem was added to the pilot's type education course. Things got so bad in the end pilots refused to fly them and the national maintenance base for Chinooks had to dispatch their gun-ho test pilots around the country to collect the abandoned giants. The SAS continued to fly them which led to the crash in Scotland that wiped out the core of the UK's counter intelligence team combating the IRA. The RAF blamed the pilots until it became known the deceased pilot had called home days earlier to review arrangements with his father in law for the financial support of his family in the event of his death, such was his lack of faith in the reliability of the Chinook software.

Trying to visualize this. Putting aside the exact circuit details do the Wago bits just sit loose at the back of the deep wall box?

Watch how a Wago copes with 150 amps or a 5x rated overload. Spoiler alert: Keep them and sleep well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP0qHyVAymU

France would be my guess.

Ouch. Even my temporary telephone cable to the static caravan is routed through the garden better than that.