Canski

Is there any chance you could DM me the details of the moling company. It may help me get connected.

Did you have 2 separate companies for this ? One for the moling and one for the connection ? I'm interested if you did as my DNO for the electric connection have taken 12 weeks and are still unable to be able to get me a quote for moling.

Ask if they can mole the pipe. Saves some disruption and can work out cheaper.

I must be different. I hate working on ‘house factory’ sites and haven’t done it for many years. I only work for small developers, myself and self builders these days. Some of the most rewarding jobs have been for self builders and I don’t mean financially. I sense and share their excitement. I love helping them through problems and offering loads of advice on suppliers and trades. They appreciate it and I am now getting help from them with some finishing trades etc. This carpenter comes from a developer friend who has helped me through my build from purchase then planning drawings and he pops in every couple of weeks for an inspection, catch up and breakfast. He thinks this chippy is mint and is considering employing him as a site manager on his next project. I keep telling him he is making the wrong choice but it falls on deaf ears. If there is ever a 50-50 choice to make he doesn’t think it through and makes the wrong decision then tries to rationalise it with bullshit. ‘I’ve been doing this for 20 years’ is his favourite. It’s not the best phrase to use on me who has seen pretty much everything in my 40 years on site but I’m still learning. We tradesmen lead a blinkered existence on run of the mill projects. I have learned so much since joining this group about stuff that I’d never even heard of before. If I ever get there my next build will be different in style, construction and execution.

I already did the hard decisive work by setting it out. I also loaded all the CLS into the building for them even though it was included their price. I know I have done 50% of the brickwork myself. I just fancied a bit of a rest 😀

I tried to last it out with my chippies I really did but this morning our working relationship was terminated. After the joists and the feeble excuses I had the roof set out differently to the plans and several trusses blowing over because they weren’t braced properly. Today was the final straw. I had spent all Thursday afternoon setting out the first floor stud walls to get a better feel for the layout. Once I was happy with the layout I marked both sides of the sole plates to make it idiot proof. The chippies were working today and the first text message I got was asking me if I wanted the centres at 600 centres. The timber is 63mm x 38 CLS. So I asked for 400s. Confident that nothing would go wrong I headed down after breakfast to take a look. I was met with ‘I’ve had to move the walls from your setting out because the stair well is out of square’ ok it is by about 5mm in 2m but to continue this discrepancy over 9.5 m seems like madness to me. In effect the first floor corridor was 50mm out of parallel. I was in the process of measuring everything again to find out where the problem had arisen from with a constant barrage in my ears of I’ve been doing this for 20 years I know what I’m doing blah blah so I said yes but the wall is 50 mm out I’m trying to work out why. ‘If you don’t like it do it your f in self.’ Ok I will was my reply. Stud work it is for me next week then. 😀😀 The constant feeble excuses for his mistakes have been grinding my nerves for a while now. It feel that it is an insult to my intelligence. Why would I spend an afternoon setting everything out for it to be overridden without so much as a phone call to discuss / query a problem ? it’s not easy this self build is it ?

Ohhh grrrrrr if I wasn't already riled at the cost of Alutrix 600 my bat boxes arrived today. I am in the wrong game for sure. 1 x Plinth brick £2.20 a tile £1.20 2 shitty bits of concrete £0.50 and some glue. Add that all together and it comes to £160 The world has gone bat shit crazy.

You're getting off light. LTE premium here is 100% on top so you pay double.

So I received 2 council tax bills. One for 22-23 one for 23 -24. Total £9k+ The old house that I bought in April 22 was in shit state and was going to be demolished from the start. I ignored them for a while due to being flat out on my build then last week I got a final demand and threatened with court action in 14 days. After a few sleepless nights I took the bull by the horns and spent a couple of hours writing a letter and printing lots of date stamped photos and took on the next battle with my scanner and sent them a lengthy email describing why I think I shouldn't pay any council tax. I sent the hard copies by recorded snail mail then left it a couple of days before calling them. Result !! I don't have to pay anything for the first year and only have to pay for the time elapsed after one year up to demolition date. so effectively 2.5 months. long term empty rate. I will wait for confirmation of the first reductions then go back and argue the toss about the 2 and a half months which wouldn't have occurred if the council hadn't delayed me for months waiting for a section 106 to be printed out. They also said we get 3 months free after completion. This may take a while. 😜

I can't comment on the plasterers but with brickwork it seems that it is a new trend to price solid though openings. I don't do it but many do. I only charge for work that we do which includes laying lintels cavity trays and feature work above and below an opening. I think the market decisions will have a say on whether this trend continues or not.

I was just looking at my 2 houses cavity fill whilst working on some other stuff. I only used just under 3 m 3 of cavity fill for 2 houses. Are you sure your calculations are correct ?

Getting the concrete quickly into the cavity is key. Mine were 130 mm cavities and I made a hopper / trough out of timber to allow the concrete to be loaded in and guided down the cavity quickly. 6 m3 is quite a bit of concrete. I would have 2 x 3m3 deliveries over two days and would still want a mini digger and a dumper to get the concrete round to my trough then into the cavity.

Can you not lay a split block flat ? Most 100 mm blocks are only 95 mm anyway and with a tight bed you would be able to get 100 mm. I cut mine with a manual block splitter 100 would take about an hour and a half.

Are you sure it’s live ? When you say in the corner of the trench is it under the load bearing part of the structure or could the concrete be trimmed back from the pipe ? Can you post a photo ?

Roofs completed, gables built on one house and half way up the other. The roofers start on Monday after a delay in deliveries due to me changing the roof tiles. I had both the LABC and the warranty inspector out on Tuesday and they have passed the houses off with flying colours. 😀 The LABC inspector was there for about 7 minutes and the warranty inspector for about 2 hours. I now know all about the LABC guys divorce 😂 Onwards and downwards now. I can't wait to see the back of the scaffolding and regain access to the rear of the site for the landscaping before I say goodbye to the forklift. My next battle recommences with the DNO. It is now 19 months since i first applied for electric connection quotes and I feel that I am no nearer getting connected now than I was 19 months ago. Oh and I just had another council tax bill for a building that was demolished in July.

I'm glad it's not just me that experiences this. Even some of my own guys have been really disappointing despite being pre warned that this is MY house and I want it doing properly. I have told them that i have had enough and there are going to be some big changes. I ended up having a full blown Victor Meldrew / John Cleese hissy fit the other evening. Walls weren't covered, brick stacks weren't covered and the sheet of plastic that I had to cut myself to put beneath the mortar tubs on the pavement had been carefully placed beneath the mortar tubs on the muddy site. Sometimes they just can't do the 'what happens next' thought process. My carpenters have lost the job of doing the flat roof to me now. I don't want to hear 'thats how we always do it ' ever again. I want it right and I'm going to get it done right one way or another. It is an uphill battle. Roofers start on Monday but they have been excellent in the past. This doesn't mean that they will be excellent this time and I'm not lowering my guard.

Mine is 30ft up in the air at the moment on the top of the scaffolding. I will dry it out when the scaffold comes down at the end of the month before repositioning it to watch the front of the site.

Hi John. Can you tell me where you got these from and how they perform please ?

Set your video camera up and wait.

I've got about 150 pallets spare if you want to collect them ?

Sorry guys I should have stated that I'm handing the GRP over to the professionals. I still have nightmares after the first and last time I did it. I looked like the abdominal snowman after an hour. I thought that if the firings were running perpendicular to the joists then the minimum depth needed to be 50 mm to support the 18 mm sheets ? Also if my joists are at 600 mm centres shouldn't I be using 22 mm sheets like in floors ? I know that the load isn't great on flat roofs but as Gus has kindly pointed out in his very informative reply there are snow loads to consider. Would it be wise to use diminishing strips directly fixed on to the joists to create the fall rather than firrings ? I'm not kitted out with the fine equipment for cutting firings to the standards described on here. I thought that if I started with zero at the outfall position and fixed a 62 mm timber to the high end I could string a tight line and infill with pretty accurately infill timbers to suit. This would save me some depth having negated the need for a minimum 50 mm firing ran the opposite way to the joists. Regarding the kerb at the bottom of the drawing I had already thought about that and was considering packing the firings / diminishing strips up slightly at the middle of this to create a gentle sideways fall to each side of the lantern. This obviously will entail getting a good fix between the top and bottom sheets to pull them up tight. I was thinking of these Fixings to use and hoped I would be able to sink the 'mushrooms' in to the sheet slightly to avoid seeing them afterwards.

I have been ‘queuing since April 2022 for a quote for my electric connection. It started at £4300 and I was unable to proceed then it went to £15k then back to £10k and now I have been waiting for 8 weeks for a quote that includes moling.

Thanks ST it just seems daft that we have to design a 1:40 fall to end up with 1:80 when GRP is flat. I could understand it if there were lumps like with felt. Especially at the run off point. Is there a lump where they join the preformed run off thingies with GRP?

Hi Guys I am currently in the process of re designing my flat roof which will be covered in GRP. I note from NHBC that the roof should be designed with a 1:40 fall to give a finished 1:80. the build up (top to bottom) is GRP 18mm T&G OSB3 200mm PIR Alutrix 600 VCL 18 mm ply or OSB ( unsure about which to use) massive firring strips 225 mm pozi joists vapour barrier 15mm plasterboard The rectangular roof is sandwiched on one long side of the rectangle with the first floor cavity wall, the opposite long side is a cavity wall parapet and one short run also has a cavity wall parapet the other short run I’d like to run straight off into a gutter (at the top end of the drawing ) anyway the rectangle is 4.7 m long and needs firings perpendicular to the joists which run across the short length. If I make these at the 1:40 fall that NHBC recommend then they will be from 50 mm up to a whopping 167 mm. This would give me a total of 628 mm at the ‘high’ end. I have 675 mm to the cavity tray outlet leaving 47 mm upstand from the roof to the cavity tray and weep vents instead of 150 mm. I know this not viable. Here comes the problem ….I’m late to the game in planning this and it seems that if I do this then the high end won’t have a 150mm upstand against the house wall due to the cavity tray already being positioned too low. Is it really necessary to have a 1:40 design to achieve 1:80. I spoke to my designer today who suggested (if it’s possible)reducing the pozi joist depth to 150 mm and slightly reducing the firings to 114 mm giving a designed fall of 1:73. I would like to keep the runoff to the short end rather than have unsightly penetrations and down pipes to the long side. Any suggestions ?

I think the motion sensor has given up the ghost on my Reolink though.