LA3222

This is something I've been scratching at recently, amongst other things. From what I can gather, in terms of joinery: 1st Fix: door frames, window cills, studwork etc 2nd fix: architraves, doors, skirting, stairs, kitchens There may be bits I have missed?‍♂️

Was going to tile the ceiling too. I am. The 'bathroom' has a shower/steam room one side, sauna other, bath in middle. Probably a bit excessive to have one, let alone both but what the hell, I'm only building one and I know they will get used a lot. Not something I'd thought about tbh. Going to have to look at the potential implications of this to make sure there are no potential clangers!!

Rog. There will be an MVHR extract in the bathroom, where steam room is located. I see what you mean ref the working conditions for GRP, but if you tile rather than GRP then the problem is solved? (I am assuming nothing needs to go behind tiles other than tanking perhaps in order to seal all the moisture in the steam room?)

I'm planning on putting a steam room in, must admit I haven't devoted too much time on the how but was planning on tiling the entire enclosure. Not sure what the craic is with steam proof wall panels - another thing I need to look into i suppose?‍♂️

I tend to find actual 'answers' from professionals to be very difficult to extract nowadays. They tend to be vague at best. I suspect this may in part be due to the fallout from Grenfel and not wanting to open themselves to potential accountability for something down the road. Not great, but seems to be the world we live in now. I too have pondered this issue. I decided that I'm just going to get some intumescent stuff - roll or something to wrap around the neck of all penetrations through the floor/ceiling, including soil pipes etc just as a personal belts and braces action. I couldn't find any specific guidance when I searched previously.

Looking good. Roof looks good, I had to have pantiles due to the location, look good but I think the integration between solar panels and roof always looks crisper with slates. Out of interest, are you side flashing units white, or have you deliberately left the peel off tape on them to give a contrast?

Thanks for the feedback @Nickfromwales, I've only just gotten around to looking at this again. If those in the know would be so kind as to give some feedback, does the new drawing look better? TIA

I checked a minute ago and it looks like they join together.

Excellent point, you're committed here, you can't stop so it makes no difference. Its probably the fact you can give yourself confidence prepour all good, but that doesn't preclude an issue happening mid pour you can do nothing about. They are pretty solid pipes, I walked all over mine and so did the concreters?‍♂️ I have the wunda manifold and my ivar pumpset arrived about 15mins ago. I assume that the two will go together, may involve the purchase of some additional couplers. I intend to look at it this week at some point. The kore joins will stagger themselves as you install it, dont worry about seepage, you may get a little at the top layer but it will be stopped by layer below it. The insulation will fill with water regardless of if it has a dpc or not. If you don't need to put a dpc in then don't, corners are a pita, leave it underneath. If it rains (before mesh etc goes in), just use a big broom to sleep majority of it to a corner and scoop it out. I found that a dustpan used like a shovel worked a treat. Dont worry about 'a bit' of water being in there for the pour, its fine. A bit of rain tended to dry up fairly quickly in the raft pre pour.

1. I attached mine to the top of the mesh, the thing i didn't like about it is where you have mesh laps it means your pipes are even higher and so less cover. I seem to recall thinking that putting the pipes onto the insulation first would be better. 2. I'd get the manifold. Position it where it will go, but higher so you have excess pupe allowing you to adjust once house is up. Better to have too much pipe. Also allows you to pressure test. I just wrapped some foam around mine during the pour. 3. Manifold and fill with water from a hose. 4. I did. The pressure will go up as concrete cures but you get the warm and fuzzy that they aren't leaking. Just dont let pressure go too high like I did....came out in the morning so see zero bar, took a couple of mins to realise the needle had gone right around and broken the pressure gauge. 5. I did mine same time of year as you and didn't use anti freeze, maybe should though as may freeze so not worth risk. 6. Spray paint on EPS isn't good - melts it. I was going to mark out walls etc. In the end I used wooden battens to show where walls were and cut out pieces to show location of doors. 7. I used cable ties to mesh. PITA as you get through thousands so takes a while and then have to snip ends off. Dont do it. Stapling to EPS get a stapler in for in, if tying to mesh use the same twist wires as you use to tie mesh. Hire a wire tie gun when doing the mesh, and then you can use it to tie the pipes too. Don't tie mesh together by hand, I did, its not hard just bloody slow. You can get a gun that does it for you, try and hire one of those. Doing your founds is easy bud, I'd say the key is try and make aspects of it easier for yourself if you can. Lazer level, wire tying gun etc are the sorts of things which can make things go easier for you.

Cheers for the feedback @ProDave and @Buzz. I was just mooching through my QS spreadsheet which is an amended version of what Estimators Online did for me. I never made much in the way of changes to the electrical tab as there is a lot going on in it but a quick tot of the hours comes up with 276, so the 250 i mentioned can't be too far out. Hopefully get some better pricing elsewhere!

Well I've totted up a rough estimate of 'points' ala @ProDave recommendation to get a ballpark estimate and have come up with 212 points. Any switch, spot, socket etc was classed as a point. Allowing a 20% contingency gives me approx 250hrs or 32 days. Below the 40 days quoted. At £35/hr I'd be looking at £8750 for labour. I cant see that quoting for standard white hager sockets etc is going to add £4750 to the costs? I'm going to get a couple of other quotes to compare but how does this look to you Dave?

Timer of some description I reckon rather than PIR for a simpler setup. I need to crack on with fully fleshing out my plans - back at work (therefore living away from home) tomorrow so will have nothing to do in the evenings other than plan this!!

Yes, I'm planning on splitting the hots into two different temps. Basins will be on lower temp HRC.

5 bathrooms, kitchen, utility @Russell griffiths so probably same amount of outlets as you. I was planning on running seperate radial to each outlet, main reason to allow individual isolation/bringing online and to keep fittings getting boarded over to a minimum. Just looked, 24 cold and 13 hot at the minute. I have random stuff like a cold for drinking water near steam room, cold supply for steam room, individual supplies to appliances like fridge, dishwasher etc, I have two sets of outside taps with hot and cold supplies. Nothing is set in stone yet so I may reassess the huge number of runs I have ?

Without looking at my paperwork I think I'm 30 odd radials feeds for both hot and cold, I was going to leave basins and wc separate. Do you intend to insulated all your pipework? The reasoning for hot is obvious, cold though - will it stop condensation forming on those pipes? Just pondering these things after seeing your pic.

I agree, about to start putting stuff into my plant room but need to board it first. The consumer unit is already in there so will have to pull that off at some time to board behind it. So you will have to undo it at some point to get the finger hole piece in. With the loft above it helps as you can work top down. I have a room above mine so will have to work from below. More food for thought in terms of sequencing. What does that manifold do? Cold water? How many radials do you have total?

Looks good bud. Just trying to work out what you have going on - have you plasterboarded/painted behind that? Have you got them going up into the ceiling void before turning 90 degrees to go through a joist? How are you intending to plasterboard that ceiling around all the pipes?

That first picture appears to have a fair bit of flow coming out of the blue pipe? More than you would expect to come from ASHP condensate? God alone knows what is going on with this?‍♂️

I cant see how this can be simple like melting ice. For water to get past tiles, felt, and 300mm of insulation is more than just a simple drip from thawing ice. For the water to gwt past all this there must be a lot of it or it has been going on for a long time and is only now manifesting itself? In the old quarter I lived in EWI was put on and the tiles redone to account for additional wall make up. Took 6mths before water started coming through the bathroom ceiling from the chip shop work on the roof tiles. Started off as small drip, further investigation showed it had been going on for long time and caused all sorts of unseen damage - ended moving as loads of them got condemned (the drip caused asbestos to be disturbed). Went on a bit of a tangent there but my point is how can a drip coming through all that roof make up only be a bit of water - there must have been a lot more somewhere? The ceiling appears to be vaulted so the drip might not correlate with where the water is tracking from? Drill a hole to get access to the service cavity a use a camera to try and have a look? I can see the source of this issue as potentially difficult to locate unfortunately.

I haven't yet @Alexphd1, it is the labour element which has me scratching my head at the minute - essentially 320hrs. That seems way OTT, I can get a lot done working by myself on the build for that amount of time, will 1st & 2nd fix actually take that long for a 280m2 new build? He has quoted for basic fittings at the minute so labour must make up the bulk of this quote. I will use @ProDaves method of 1hr per unit to come up with an estimate for the work duration and see how it compares.

I've got no automation going on and I've already said I will do all the audio visual side myself so all sparky is doing is standard electrical work?‍♂️

This made me chuckle. Nothing complicated, pozi joists so easy to thread through etc. I think he is having my eyes out and assuming I'll just blindly say ok. Finger in the air, how long would you roughly say to wire a new build of this size Dave? My gut says half what the sparky quoted for?

280m2 build. Standard stuff, ASHP, UVC, Solar MVHR etc. Quote came today £13500 and estimate at 20 days total with two blokes on the job. Includes materials and hager sockets etc but the white plastic cheap ones. 40man days for 1st and 2nd fix - really? I'm new to this gig so it may be a pukka gen price but my gut feeling is someone is trying to have my trousers down? Whats the general consensus?

Looking to gwt the UFH up and running now so I can slow time the ASHP etc. Looked through all the info on the Willis Heater setup and it seems fairly simple. I've cobbled together a sketch drawing on the info found on the forum, if those in the know can have a look it is appreciated: