Iceverge

Be interesting to plot it against age.

To continue this thread. I would do a TF on site if going again. 25mm sand cement render. 100mm dense blockwork. 50mm vented cavity. Breather membrane 11mm OSB 220mmx44mm @600cc studs with cellulose. Airtighness membrane. 97x44mm vertical studs offset from main studs as service cavity @600cc filled with cellulose. 12.5mm plasterboard More 12.5mm plasterboard. Skim.

Something sadly often forgotten is the well being of the people on the site during the build. We have a concrete monster. 600mm thick cavity walls, 150mm hollowcore first floor slabs with 75mm concrete on top. 150mm concrete ground floor slab. Concrete is heavy, and sloppy and dusty and noisy, and unforgiving. I hated coring holes, chasing walls, fixing to blocks etc. At one point I was trying to make a 100*50mm chase for electric mains in a wall with a 9"grinder. I couldn't hear with the noise, I couldn't see with the dust, I couldn't feel anything with the vibrations and the couldn't breath with the respirator. Cruel and unusual punishment. Meanwhile my timber garage I really loved. Chiseling the timber, sawing the joists, hammering about 5000 nails in by hand. I grew a small beard, grinned at the swallows flying overhead, sharpened my pencil with a penknife and wondered why on earth Jesus bothered becoming a Messiah when he had a chance to be a carpenter.

All this factory manufacturing to the mm hype is pretty pointless unless you have good workmanship with the erectors.

You could stick frame it and cut out some of the costs of kit build like cranes etc. Not to mention the risks of handing £££££ upfront to a TF company.

Is this lintil and the blocks above it on the outer or inner leaf of the cavity?

With a timber frame you can mitigate the issues with the floor wall junction pretty easily with a normal strip foundation. Insulated rafts not as advantageous as they would be for a cavity wall or EWI house. What is your preferred TF buildup? What do you propose as external cladding?

I would advocate a good trial on any machine you are going to buy. Get it hot and use every function. Repairs on plant are often much more expensive than the equivalent fix on a car. Having let my heart rule my head a few times and discovering something was far more worn out than it appeared to be make sure you do this. Also write the price you're willing to pay on a piece of paper and DO NOT EXCEED IT. A good auctioneer will wrangle a small fortune from an unwary buyer. I bought a secondhand chainsaw from a dealer/hire shop recently, very pleased with it. He had obviously gone over it and made sure it was all kosher. Much less risky than a ln auction.

If you're rendering you'll need scaffolding anyway no? FWIW I regularly see block layers building the outer leaf from inside in up to 200mm cavities here . Their backs must be as strong as anvils. Could you not put a brick outer leaf. Lighter to Lean over and build. No need for render.

That beam is relatively simple to deal with. Any more info on the placement of the door?

Any pics of these L brackets? Why not just fix the 4x2s directly to the wall?

Looks good quality from the specs. Quite dear mind you.

I think it was untested aggregate that was the issue. Concrete blocks will initially appear sound but as the pyrite oxidises internally the completely dissolve. Plenty of videos on YouTube showing the scale of the issue. Children crushing concrete blocks much like rice Krispie cakes. I feel sorry for the people involved. Their houses are literally falling down.

It's amazing how forgiving houses with a mechanical ventilation system are at controlling mould and damp really. I suspect your situation never even came close to being a problem.

You could always just leave the joists in place and install a roof light over the top of them. Sanded and painted I'm not sure anyone would ever give them a second glance.

Those who caused it are long gone unfortunately. Concrete was probably too cheap for too long. In it's still very cheap.

This detail is ok. I don't love it however. 120mm seems a bit slack when it comes to insulate for the roof. I would improve on this. How are you planning on keeping the zinc roof on? It appears to be just sitting there. 22mm ply would be better for screw pull out strength if you're planning on fixing into it. Why the service void under the pozi joists? Why not run everything through the webs? That eave detail is very very tight to the wall. I know it's an aesthetic decision but if the chutes get blocked you are asking for water infiltration to the ICF or behind the ICF render and the timbers that hold the chutes on. It isn't robust enough for a moist climate in my opinion. In any case you'll get lots of staining on the render as is. Your logical place for an airtight layer is the ply, joined to the concrete core of the ICF via the wall plate. 1. Set the wall plate on a thick bed of permanently flexible mastic type sealant. 2. Run the ply to stop atop the wall plate. 3. Tape the wall plate to the ply. For the eave detail add rafters tails to move the chutes well out from the wall.

Can you switch to EPS beads or mineral wool?

5% levy on new concrete products to redress the houses of those who have mica issues.

Added thermal storage?

Ok the beam is annoying but not a huge issue. I think you are aiming for Eps Blown beads anyway. Box out the beam EXTERNALLY leaving at least 50mm at all sides of it to at least 1m long outside the door, longer is better. Blow it full of EPS beads. Something else of concern is the door placement. It looks to be entirely within the external leaf, am I seeing this correctly? It really should be sitting in the cavity for best thermal performance.

One window would get my vote. From a non SE I would say so long as you have at least as many joists per kg of roof including window as previously was installed the whole thing shouldn't fall down. Triple joists sounds fine. The ply should provide plenty of racking strength too. Fewer holes in a roof are always better.

You can sell most stuff so long as it's properly described. Rotten food could be seen as "compost material", defective cars as "parts only". On a technical note. I wonder would adding a layer of EWI and installing some mechanical ventilation halt the degradation of these blocks? It should reduce their moisture content and stabilise their temperature. We have the same issue here in Ireland with pyrite. A concrete levy has been issued to all new customers to pay for the issue.

There goes .

I did a pier building. Dug out some circles about 600mm diameter. Levelled the bottom with some gravel. Dropped in a used tyre as formwork, filled with stiff concrete, pushed in a 250mm corrugated pipe into he middle as a pier form cut off to the correct height. Shoved in an M24 rod in the middle. A couple of nuts and a big washer and horizontal timbers and a dead level foundation was complete. I wanted to avoid digging too much. Stupid I know - I have a digger. I wanted to avoid mixing too much concrete. Stupid I know - I have a tractor cement mixer. I wanted to have a suspended timber floor as it's nice and bouncy and pliant under foot. Check. I wanted to try something different. Check. In hindsight I should have just poured a concrete ring beam or strip foundations or an insulated raft and built up on them. The raised building invited some form of velociraptor or gruffalo take up residence underneath. I've since decided to block off most of the crawl space perimeter with blocks. It also ended up very high off the ground. Maybe 500m or so so will require steps.