LA3222

Nah, the use of MVHR for airtight house is a well beaten track. Moisture won't gather in the ground floor ceiling void if the rest of the house is only knocking at around 50%RHI. Dont overthink it?

I'm no expert but I would say it's fine - look like shrinkage cracks to me. Concretes dries out and it shrinks a bit, if there are no precut bits for it to crack into, it will crack where ever it fancies! I'd say carry on?

If you're clamping down on air tightness then you need to put MVHR in or else the house will be like a swimming pool. My house was a nightmare over Xmas for condensation, the windows were drenched - I had to get some dehumidifiers in for 3 weeks to bring the humidity down. I've got my MVHR running now so I shouldn't have that issue again.

Yep and yep. The semi permeable bit is the 'intelligent' VCLs I believe - something like intello plus. The vapour resistivity changes dependent upon the RHI in/out during the different seasons. For the small section you are doing just wack a 'dumb' VCL in. Put something better in on the walls once its up. The VCL will.serve two functions for you, vapour barrier and air barrier.

Yeah you just need to get summat like Siga tape. You have plenty of time, they won't wrap that bit till the floor deck is down and walls up. Looking at the pic you could get the membrane in. They working today? If they aren't working the weekend you could bob out and get some and do it quick time, will just need to lift each joist end up as you unroll. Any VCL will do at this point so whatever you can source. As you say, I left it hanging down the outside/inside if the house, once the floor deck went down I folded it back into the house and the walls went down on top of it.

Can you not get the Tony tray in quick? It sounds like the joists are just sat there at one end? You'll be in there way but sod it, get the membrane down where you can then pull it along as they move the joists to where they need to be. Distract them with food whilst you get it done?

Ha, I did the Tony tray bud but as you say, you've missed the boat on that one. I'd go with tape now. The area to be covered will be the the thickness of the top chord of the joist, the floor deck, the soleplate for first floor walls, so approx 120mm. If you add some fudge factor in I'd probably go 200mm. The issue you will have is internally taping/sealing the wall all the way up to the underside of the first floor deck where the joists sit on the wall. There will be a few mm gap between joist and wall that you'll not be able to get to. Airtightness you'll be fine, but the VCL won't be continuous. Technically, according to kingspan a VCL isn't required with SIP?‍♂️ Maybe you could use some blowerproof paint in hard to reach areas? I've used some on an internal block wall, very easy to use. The problem you have now is what can you get your hands in time as I expect the bods erecting it will be keen to crack on.

All I will say is I went round the mill with this on here when I was planning my build. Ignore it, all the talk of rot is a load of bollocks that people on here and GBF have used to argue against SIP (the same conversations are generally shilling the larson truss!). The soleplate setup in SIP is exactly the same as a standard 140mm stud build - its not different, yet I have never seen anyone mention the risk of soleplates rotting with that type of build! I have fixed 20mm of insulation to the outside of my soleplate, but I don't see it really doing much tbh and I don't care - I just don't rot this being an issue.

Question - don't the door linings go on before boarding out/plastering?

Fook me matey, that surface looks like the moon? - just kidding bud, looks fine to me. As long as its reasonably flat I can't see an issue. This forum tends to worship at the 'Power Float' alter but what the hell, if it works, it works! I did tell you about mesh heights increasing when you start lapping them? Did you wrap the bottom of your stubs in foam to let you get a coupler on there easily? Good to hear you are getting more relaxed about things now, I'm well and truly at the point where zero fooks are given. As long as it will look OK when plastered and decorated then I'm good. Bored of living in a caravan whilst staring at my house now, just want to be in! When does your frame start to go up?

Cheers for the feedback, I've no experience of what constitutes acceptable so good to hear its OK. The canber I've put down to a quirk of the slab in that area, just wasn't sure if it passes muster as a whole. Now I do?

Just had the plant room tiled so I can stick the UVC onto a tiled floor. I checked what he was doing every now and then. To my untrained eye the job looks 'ok', just after some expert opinions. I put a level on it and there is one bit where the floor is concave by about 4mm under the centre of a 2m level, but generally speaking everywhere else appears OK. Lines look OK, grout thickness appears consistent. My only gripe really is the corners where tiles meet aren't 'perfect. Minor imperfections but I checked and he didn't use levelling clips other than on one tile. When I saw it I asked and he said it being a pita to sit right. Personally, I would have liked to see levelling clups used everywhere. The floor is fine for the plant room, should I expect a higher standard for the main house though or is this work OK?

Long story but I've ended up with most of my 2nd fix oak being delivered when I only wanted the 1st fix stuff. I now have to store it for a few months. My concern is warping etc over that time. What would be the best way to store it? I've stacked it all at the minute, I was thinking to cover it over and then chuck some bags of cement on tonweigh it down - unnecessary?? Wood is a PITA at the best of times, leaving this on my floor for 3 or 4 months doesn't thrill me but it's where I'm at?‍♂️

Is this an issue? Just taken delivery of the UVC etc and noticed the tundish is a bit Wang eyed. Not sure if this is an issue - clearly not vertical as per regs?‍♂️

I had 40 leylandii to get rid off, all of them at least 30ft tall. I paid a tree surgeon 600 quid to chop them all down and chop them into 2m chunks. That was it. Over several months I chopped it all up and burnt it all. Even the green, I cut all that to one side and let it dry as much as possible before burning. I burnt the green stuff at night. T'was an epic task but very little cost. You can see a small section of the offending articles behind the excavator.

The schedule is dealt with by the company. The only part you need to meet is getting the foundations ready in time for the frame. You can easily give yourself some buffer time here, the same with getting the scaff up. Once the TF starts going up its over to the TF company to manage the schedule. You take over again once they've finished. It's not difficult at all, get all your trades in hand 6 months before with a rough date they are required and keep refining that as you go along. When it comes to, they probably won't be able to start the exact day you want, but within a week or so they can as long as they're kept informed of progress. Not sure where the difficulty is here. You'd have the same 'management' issues to tackle with a traditional build?‍♂️ I messaged plasterer yesterday to say hopefully start at beginning of June. The last time I spoke to him was the start of Feb - he's happy enough. Sparky started Monday, I booked him at start of Jan with rough date, messaged him in Feb, again at start of march and he was able to start week after I was ready for him. Nothing difficult about any of this, finding good trades is the difficult part but you won't know until they start as to how good they are! I've being doing a lot myself, I dare say it is a lot busier if you have multiple trades on site at the same time. A lot depends on personal timeliness and the quantity of work you do yourself I expect.

@Birk57 you will find that staged payments upfront apply to all TF companies, as suggested just research them, see what their cash flow is etc and stick to big well known companies. Don't be swayed by nonsense about having to pay particular attention to soleplate interstitial condensation when using SIP. The same issue applies to standard TF construction as much as it does SIP. I had this back and forth with JS Harris a couple of years back on here before he acknowledged that I was right in that the issue is not unique to SIP. SIP doesn't seem very popular on here and that is always the 'go to' reason why. There are however a few of us on here using SIP, @SuperJohnG being another. As for Point 3. from @PeterW (great contributer) but I disagree. The management required is bo different to any TF construction. Cranes etc are all dealt with by the supplier provided you go the 'supply & erect' route. All I did with regards to the SIP frame is stand and watch while they cracked on?‍♂️

If you do a temporary fix I hope you have the integrity to inform potential purchasers of the hidden problem?

I got mine from Wunda. The sticky bit was a bit like double sided tape, probably works on foil faced insulation etc but useless in wood and probably concrete I expect.

@MortarThePoint the clips don't stick for toffee! I did my first floor ufh a couple of weeks ago and used clips, had to screw them down.

When my goalposts were put up some hilti resin was used and I did the grout myself with sikagrout 111. I've got one of the resin packs knocking about the house, I can take a pic tomorrow if that helps. The sikagrout was a doddle to use, I mixed in big bucket with drill and paddle mixer, not too much and then literally pouted it in. It flows really well.

If you do a search of this forum for this type of insulation there have been a fair few discussions and it generally gets described as snake oil. I'm no expert but that reads like a bit of tinfoil, a bit of foam and a bit of rock wool. My preference would be 100mm of PUR insulation.

I did consider the side of the window but then I was questioning whether I would ever fix anything there and forget! Looks like that is the winner though, cheers gents. The things you start questioning yourself over when self building is crazy, I was literally sat for 20 mins staring at that wall pondering all the permutations, should have asked the question sooner!!

Now then, running my pipes out, going up is easy as I can bring then up exactly where I want. Downstairs is not so straightforward as they need to come down from the pozi, run across then up into the sinks. Where is the best position for the vertical section of pipe? Right in the corners?