Nickfromwales

Who has asked for this? Usually the standard plasterboard with a skim plaster coat attains 30 mins, without needing to then dress the steels behind it. Have you been asked for 60 min as your multiple stories? Can be easily achieved with 12.5mm FR plasterboard, possibly 2 layers if BCO requests it, and just accept a slightly lower ceiling. Much easier and quicker (and better).

I get apprehensive, still, after 30 years on the tools. Concrete pours are quite full on, even for the initiated. Maybe it’s time to reach out to a local groundworker to support? Would be money very well spent, because if this goes tits up it’s a 4-figure ‘catastrophe’.

It’s got to be cheaper and simpler to just whack in more fixed panels, and either go 50/50 East/West, or all true South? Maintenance and cost are big turn offs for automating this type of rig.

It doesn’t need a tundish as it’s not potable water. The reason you have a tundish on potable is that it’s a constant pressure, so if you’re letting cold mains water go to outside / drain then it needs to be visible so you do something about it. WRAS requires this. With your heating system it’s only got the pressure held within to release, then there’s nothing else to come out until you open the filling loop back up to refill it.

Have you worked out where they’ll clean the wagons, and where to dump the end of mix? They’ll drive through slops etc so you need to have a hose set up to clean the road if any concrete / residue gets on it. I’d get another pair of hands on site as you’re not going to be able to be in two places at once. Concrete pours are very much ‘full on’, so don’t relax too much.

The apprentice will soon become the master. Then you'll be all geared up for the next self build, as you'll be clever as fook.

Osmo oil is what we used in the last job where the client wanted oak 'everything'. The pre-finished Deanta doors we fitted had some sheen to them, so there was a little difference to them and the surrounding rebated linings / architraves / skirting boards and stairs (those were all raw oak and hand-finished on site to the clients preference). Satin was the suggestion, which I think is better for the generic stuff, and the doors (with the bit of mid-sheen) seemed to steal the show which I think is right. I'd prefer people to say nice doors, vs the rest of the surrounding material looking better. Attempting exact matches will put you in an early grave, so manage your expectations here, as I did with my redonculous OCD! Once you've moved in, you'll barely give these things a second more of your brain-space.

Make up a staff, with a 6' long piece of 2x2" and fix a square piece of plywood or other to the end, 150mm x 150mm as a pad to rest on the concrete. When you then rest on the surface of the wet pour, to get a level off the laser, it'll 'float' vs using, say, a bit of 2x1; this just pokes into the mix and sinks in, and is a PITA to keep still to see 'what's what'.

Even with an excellent power floater, nothing is good enough for a domestic setting imho. Bare concrete will always be bare concrete, and as it has no shine / sheen the unevenness is masked from any untrained eye.

It's fortuitous timing, as I've literally just witnessed an MBC pour where this was used, and it went well. Went to site to collect some of my stuff and the pump truck was just setting up! I stayed for the spectacle out of curiosity more than anything (plus I am sad so like that kind of thing lol). It was quite a thin 10mm aggregate mix, quite free-flowing up until one not-so (mix but last), and then all it needed was raking out and hand placing to within 3mm with the laser, and then a 6' dapple bar to get it to settle in it's final resting place. Finish was much like an SLC, and as the chap was dappling it, another leaned over him and sprayed a Sika sealer over it; this acts like a layer of cling film to stop moisture being released too quickly. Cost-wise, MBC asked no more money for it, but they avoided having to power-float so I doubt the difference was worth any proper quibbling over. Cemex provide the goop, so maybe check in with them if you require the nerdy stuff like additives and so on. We looked it over after the pour and noted it had fibres in it. It's due to have 3-5mm of SLC / feathering compound to then accept LVT (Kardean / Amtico or some such) and I doubt this will need much attention at all after these guys did their thing. As with anything, the right guys will do a great job, cheap guys will do shit jobs, and you then have to pay to put it right. These guys made it look easy tbh.

You should really hire a laser for the day tbh. Sooooooooooooooooooooooo much easier.

Yup. These should be bent over and sprayed white. Then mark the depth with a fat permanent marker. There’s a high risk of someone slipping and falling into the trench, and if they land on a rebar it’s game over. 🪦

You could just use self compacting / levelling concrete. Completely negates power floating altogether.

Use the force.

Indeed. A good company to deal with, and from my most recent direct experience, certainly not shy of pouring the requisite oil onto the cogs. The lads from Elite were great too, and I’ve suggested to my current MBC TF PH client (who’s engaged with Norrsken) to ask to nominate Elite for the installation.

These are better than the push in ones imho, as once the band is locked and you’ve glued the face of the fitting to the soil pipe, it’s there for life. You need to abrade the surface of the pipe, and clean it with some solvent cleaner (made by the same people that make the glue). You need pipe cement filler not glue to do the join. https://www.wolseley.co.uk/product/polypipe-gfc100-gap-fill-cement-140g-gfc100/?srsltid=AfmBOoq47EOGcFFkFm0UUHAaMl5ntEYtF1-s87NcOwN9r8P9w6VwYv6WVTI

Can you get around the soil pipe? Id go for one of these, that clips together at the back, and solvent weld the lot in then. 👍 You can buy these with solvent reducers. Just a pic of the fitting for an example

You need to mark out a bigger area, as you’ll need temp hard standings for most scaffold companies to put their stuff down on to. Also, you need that perimeter for the stubs of pipes / ducts that get left projecting until you dig back out for groundworks / drainage / services etc.

You need a setting out agent / engineer, and just get them to peg the site. You need a dumpy site set out laser and receiver + staff for inverts etc. Use the laser to mark out TOC (top of concrete or DPC) and then transmit this level to a metal post or tree or fence post etc so you know you can always use that as TOC + 1000mm; helpful later on when you start removing spoil and you get lost when your reference points have vanished all of a sudden.

What area, if you don’t mind me asking. Always looking to add names to the little black book as I’m working all over the place and often need good people who are ‘local’.

Go for a twin wall Larsen truss or I-beam, and lose all this unnecessary complication. PIR is a complete and total PITA to cut and fit (properly) so just go for blowing cellulose and gain the benefits of a one man insulation process (roof and walls) and also the hugely improved sound-deadening that you lose with PIR. Your initial proposal is hugely over complicated, sorry. KISS wins every time, and will get you to PH targets quickly and simply, with far less to go wrong. The biggest issue will be getting all these layers, materials, installers to do their work meticulously, which most either can’t or don’t.

I can PM you Gordon Lewis’s number if you like? He does the majority of MBCs cellulose work. Maybe you can get him to undertake the whole job, as he’s capable of cutting into and reinstating the airtight layers.

I’ve been very busy sorry, and it’s a complex situation so I’ve not bothered giving you bits of answers in my spare time as it would be of little value. I’ll reply asap, and I suggest you hold off doing anything until you fully understand all the options, actions and consequences. Whoever is advising you currently needs to be shown the door though.

Find some sample images of houses with the same windows in that you are considering, then send the questions and ask directly. Often depends which way the wind is blowing, unfortunately.

You're not alone in getting poor advice. For someone to recommend what I assume is through wall MVHR in any house that's not designed to compliment or benefit from it, is just bonkers. This isn't a dig btw, just another example of the nuts advice handed out by 'professionals' who just don't have a single bloody clue. Borderline embarrassing for them tbh. Take the replies given here with a spoonful of sugar, we're a good crowd and are only well-intentioned We just get frustrated seeing good people being given shit advice and having to pay the muppets for it. Keep posting here, and you can get a good end result. Whoever said that a through wall MVHR unit should replace the adventitious airflow to the WBS whilst your cooking is extracted needs a poke in the left eye, followed by one to the right. Such unqualified tripe is hard to hear without a coarse comeback, sorry.