Big Neil

No idea, but as far as polystyrene based systems go seems quite simple Which ones do you mean, the Lavann hangers?

Morning Alex. Have you any pictures. I've been looking at the different hangers recently as I would never fully understand their installation. The link below seems to have an interesting options, in fact looks like what i have suggested above to a degree, i.e have hung the hangers on the chord before attaching it to the wall. Makes sense really. If you have a straight piece of timber you can evenly space the hangers without having to wobble around on a ladder, plus you have a margin of error i suppose in regards the retaining bolts http://www.ana-white.com/2011/10/momplex/how-frame-floor-inside-icf-walls-part-1

..sidebar - if hanging a wallplate off the simpson style hangers, would it possibly be easier to attach joist hangers to the wooden wall plate first before dropping it onto the wall.

Anyone used these or considered them? They seem (certainly in respect of polystyrene based ICF builds) like such a simple option. 2 slits, re-barred in from behind and bobs your uncle. Pour your concrete. there's a Canadian chap called Cody on YouTube who suggests using a length of wood once a line has been marked, to rest them on to avoid twisting during the pour.

Who wouldn't want to live in the Cotswolds, it's beautiful as a whole. I'm there fairly rarely but i never get angry when I am. Even shopping at Tesco is a pleasure there...

I'm inclined to second this. I kind of think put as many bits which service the house but which you neither sit on, store food in or sleep over, out of the way so to save space where you might later want space.

So if a sewage treatment plant dos this and doesn't cause pollution. Why on earth would it not be allowed? strikes me as very odd

bloody good practical example @billt, sort of why I want to know.

I am quite interested in why one has to choose mains even if one wants to go off grid. For example what about collection and treatment of water for personal consumption? Is that not allowed if you are near a mains water pipe? One is allowed to go off grid for electricity is one not? Why is that not governed in the same way? All questions of practicality aside, is it not one less headache for a local authority and utilities company if they haven't got to deal with extra load on the system? What should it matter to them? I could take a dump in an ice cream tub and put it in my shed, no one would have a clue. I'm not militant about storing my own faeces by the way, i JUST DON'T GET IT

stick it in, plead ignorance if anyone does complain (turn your plan the other way around) and look confused. If anyone comes over just temporarily board up the inside and say it's cladding, a modern artistic interpretation on the abolition of window tax ?

Fair play. So now i know how they work which rocks. If anyone knows about the Having to connect to the sewer thing though that would be good. Quick question though @scottishjohn, even if it turns out one doesn't HAVE to connect to an available sewer, why would you choose to INSTEAD of having a treatment plant installed?

so long as i otherwise have the buildup process right that's rock and roll - Consider dead load but otherwise i'm smarter now that I was this morning. I'm totally having a finger of fudge from the newsagent as a treat on the way home

rigggghhhhttt. All sort of makes sense then. So assuming you have a ditch/reed bed or whatever else to discharge into, and it's suitably sized, you don't have to connect your house to the mains sewer. And in respect of stuff like shower gel. toothpaste, dishwasher detergent etc etc, does this have the same effect as bleach as you mentioned above @joe90? Is the solution if SWMBO goes mad cleaning one day to simply have a massive takeaway or invite the neighbours over for a dump party one night, and top the bacteria up so to speak?

thanks @joe90 just read that first page and want to undestand a few things. 1. Does all waste from the house flow here, so all bath water, washing up water, human waste, bits of last nights rice pudding washed down the sink. All of it? 2. Is the 'clear effluent' that flows through the 'scum baffle' basically all the water with bits removed? 3. What happens with all the stuff like toilet paper etc, which gets put throuhg there. Does it have to be emptied periodically. 4. Does it not fill up after a time such that it has to be emptied?

Now then. I know better than many, how to take a curry in one end and put it out the other. I can perform a similar trick albeit from a different waste transfer process, with Erdinger. Also i understand the words sewage, treatment and plant. Don't really understand how they all work together though, in either the absence of or in compliment to, other words like soil stack, mains sewer and so on. For example; in my house currently, after i have a heavy night down the Bilash Balti House, I take a seat and see how things go. Thereafter i flush a nice shiny handle and if she's unlucky enough to be near a pipe outside my missus knows what's happening. We rest safe in the knowledge that my kids have taken a nice long trip down a very well buried waterslide to the pool, joined by the blankets i wrapped them in before they left. What now happens, when the man from the depot, drops off my nice shiney new treatment plant? how does the whole process change?

IN one thread with two posts I think I think you guys have unwittingly helped me understand things re fit out way better. So if having underfloor heating upstairs, on an ICF build with posi-joists... Run cables and pipes in and around joists, then EITHER lay down a working platform with maybe OSB, put up stud walls , batten floors, lay pipes and fill with 'biscuit mix', allow to dry then put final subfloor on top, affixed to battens, OR; attach spreader plates to top of joists as visuall;y shown below. Board out whole of first floor whilst taking care to mark position of pipes THEN construct stud walls. have I finally got that right?

aaahhhhhhhhhhhh I've just been poking around @Redoctober's blog (loving it by the way) and again even though not ICF, in relation to the floor system/UFH buildup/biscuit mix - is this what you mean (check pictures)

It has been a few years since i actively used release forms but broadly speaking it your subject of filming is to catch the build itself not the people doing the build, they are considered incidental and you don't need to seek permission. HOwever based on what your saying if you want to document everything for interest then arguable that means the people working are the subject of the footage, therefore you have to get them to sign a release form even if you don't ever intend to publish the material. Just Google, 'actor release form' and it should get you what you need. CCTV I know less about but again broadly if your purpose is security you have to define the area being monitored and if anyone requests a copy of footage of themselves whilst on site, you are obliged to provide them with a copy, but can charge a fee for this. This might have been my first useful - semi educated reply on here - yayyyyyyyy

Might have been on here, but the simplistic advice i was given in regards VAT reclaim was imagine if you could easily detach it from the house when you move out. If yes then no reclaim if NO then claim the VAT. Obviously read the rules, but it seems to have worked quite well for all the examples i've checked.

Fair point- I hadn't considered that. really glad you mentioned this actually. I had a thread going a few months back i think because I wanted to understand the process for stud walling, as it had seemed to me at the time that installing studs on top of the joists where possible would work out better in case floors ever had to be taken up. I grew up in a house with oak floorboards and having seen my dad take loads of the up in the past, none ever went UNDER the wall. I get it though. Nice to know there's an option So in this scenario the OSB floor would get screwed down over the whole floor (now you've a working floor for the second lift etc), stud walls up on top, battens along the lines of the joists as you mentioned effectively creating a void into which to put your UFH yes? then chip/ply or whatever you shoose over the top. I sort of like that because it covers a number of eventualities. I guess in that you could use something like the attached like below for the ufh yes? http://www.theunderfloorheatingstore.com/water-underfloor-heating/insulation-boards/prowarm-foiled-faced-in-joist-batten-system

I think my biggest sticking point centres around floor boarding the first floor, i just can't get my head around it. The Accepted norm so far as i understand it, is to board out the first floor once the joists go in, then once the house is up and roof on, throw the stud walls up securing them to the boards below. Well if that's the case when should I be laying UFH on spreader plates on TOP of the joists? Yes i get that you could allow for room height during design and have a system that sits on top of your sub floor, or put spreader plates into that floor from beneath. Now i know that example only mentions UFH but maybe it gives you all an idea of my line of thinking??

So basically take caution in regards cutting those boxes. I did discover a tool called a Quadsaw which looks like it might do the job, albeit at rather a price. Looks quite decent

that's rock and roll is that Peter, thanks. did you floorboard the first floor before or after your first fix, and then just drill through/lift the boards if and when required? Whilst you were boarding did you simply mark the boards in the appropriate place so you knew where the wires for all the lights and sockets were, to make it easier to then go and cut holes and pull them through to connect? If so, how does this part intersect with skimming? Does it make no less sense possibly to skim THEN cut out so as to avoid having to adjust, or are you only inserting boxes after that point anyway?

To firm up my understanding of this phrase do you mean that you ran the wires for all electrical systems/pipes for plumbed items to where they were required in order that you could then access them in approximately the right plac, once you had performed other tasks? I assume you mean with plasterboard? If I recall correctly you've got a timber frame over an isoquick slab. Assuming i've remembered correctly, i therefore assume that all your 'wall boxes' are of the plastic variety where you can insert them into a holes you cut after feeding the wires through, then push those little tabs out so they grip on behind the plasterboard?

The damage bit is the key thing i'm starting to understand as with Declan's advice on the part 1 topic. I'm interested to understand your thoughts on what work it would make, because actually that's the key to what i'm trying to understand, i.e. what is the BEST way to do things irrespective what is USUALLY done. Hope that makes sense. I absolutely get that if you were throwing blank cheques out left right and centre then you let people do things broadly speaking how they are used to, but i really want to know how things might be done differently if one were doing most work oneself one job at a time, instead of having swarms of workmen doing things all at one. I wonder in some respects if this might negate some of the damage aspect, if there is only you in a house doing things slower or more methodically and not HAVING to consider other people around you.