Tosh

I've heard and read very good things about Mafell though never used any of their kit. I only use mine on 1st fix, any inaccuracy in the kit would be more than offset by my skills 😬

Same here, very happy with the tracks and good resale prices should I ever want to get rid.

I've seen a nuthatch wedge peanuts in nooks and crannies, then come back later to eat them. Not sure about a lump of chocolate though..................unless there was a nut inside 🤔

I would agree with these figures for your budget needed. I think I'll come in slightly lower than £2k/sqm but doing mountains of work myself to get near that figure. We had full planning to convert so not Class Q but still had to retain the steel portal frame. You can almost be certain that the steel frame will be of no use whatsoever structurally hence do your best to get permission to take it down. Then you should be back into some sensible cost/sqm figures as effectively a new build. As I said we couldn't so had to tie new foundations into the existing pads, work out a construction strategy to work with the steel frame etc etc. Been a right pita for absolutely no benefit other than to meet a planners policy.

4 x 1 and rip it down 6 x 1 and rip in half 2 x (2x1) screwed through their sides to hold together

i used rawlplug r-kem ii and threaded m16 rod cut to length, 18mm drill marked to depth. bristle brush and puffer to clean out the holes and marked the resin nozzle so I had an idea how far to place the nozzle, i also marked the bar as well so when 'turning' it into the hole again knew when to stop. I'd suggest getting a good gun if you do it this way and you've lots to do as it can put a lot of strain on your hands. Not sure if you can zoom in but here's the ones i done, ring beam i think was 10 x 1 3/4.

I don't see the point having a surface drain along with a french drain, at least not where it is on your drawing. I think the decision for a surface drain will be somewhat driven by your final paving surface. You could have permeable paving allowing the water into the french drain or non permeable leading to a surface drain. If your french drain is going to deal with storm water (in addition to ground water) have a think where it's all going to go i.e. storm drain or soakaway. If your walls are dry then sounds like you don't have a ground water problem and the concrete is dealing with surface water already. If you're going to open all this up then you're in effect encouraging water against the wall hence your solution needs to be robust.

Assume this copper pipe still has its double check valve in place as you mustn't allow mains water to get contaminated.

If they are quite bespoke then Velux commercial potentially. That's who's doing our ridgelight.

I must say I'm surprised as well. I've converted a steel portal frame commercial to residential and each engineer that looked at it proposed additional steel to stiffen the frame even though that extra steel would be performing almost zero to the load bearing elements e.g. roof, since the new walls would be carrying the new roof rafters. In the end we went with ICF for various reasons so all the columns are embedded with concrete but the issue is deflection of the frame. Even with half the columns in concrete the rafters are moving around fairish. You might be surprised how much that frame moves around - try and borrow a magnetic laser level and clamp it to the steel. Even in a very mild breeze I wouldn't be surprised if that laser line jumps about like a frog on hot coals as the steel sways. Once we finish the next pour and put the glulams between the rafters then this will stiffen the whole frame up but we still had to put a couple of steels in as well to prevent all this deflection in different directions. Also at design stage when we looked at timber frame as well as block construction it was generally accepted if we went down that route that we would need to tie into the steel with special slip ties so that the steel could move under expansion/contraction without causing the blocks/finishes to crack. Appreciate you've had an engineer look at it but just passing on my experience.

I picked up an optical level/staff/tripod from auction quite a few years ago, iirc £75. Been great but purchased a 360, 3 plane green laser and receiver last year with obvious benefit that you can do it alone + the 2 extra vertical projections. The latter have been useful for checking plumb and alignment of existing steel building plus setting out stud walls in future. You could get away doing your land survey with optical level but I think the extra benefits of the laser later in the project should be worth thinking about.

I recently paid £200 grab and muck away (west midlands/powys). That was for a 6 wheeler circa 16T, £220 for an 8 wheeler circa 20T. Material would need to be accessible by grab lorry and heaped (used my own digger to pile it up).

@Trw144 we're not far a way from you and at first floor with Nudura, you're welcome to come and have a look/chat if it helps.

Yes I could see in some cases that would be a good idea however for us we actually wanted to get as much as we could to the pond to keep it 'topped-up' for the ducks 🦆

We used solid 4'' slotted pipe around sides of the building with high water table, connected it to storm water downpipes and switched to 4'' solid from those all the way to the pond. Rodding eyes along each elevation to allow jet washing slotted pipe as a precaution. That worked for us as building/site layout allowed that solution. No issues from BC.

What is it you're trying to solve? High water table/poor surface water drainage or both? Protecting foundations/walls? Will it be just pedestrian traffic or in a driveway? Where will it go to? I put ours in at 700/800mm deep, that was to deal with high water table and to help get water away from foundations (900 deep)around 2 x sides of our building, basically like an interceptor moat around the house. This is then connected into the main storm water that runs down to our pond.

As mentioned above they'll negotiate first before laying it on heavy. I worked on a large project where we had BT supplying leased lines to mobile masts that didn't have any line-of-sight option. We often hit 3rd party wayleave issues. BT would go in softly to begin with before pulling in the big guns if it wasn't going as they wanted i.e. compulsory orders. However they were reasonable when it came to agreeing the actual route. Something to consider, which we often found, was that the landowner had often given in to a wayleave for power only to find out a few months later that BT needed a wayleave for their fibre/copper so their land had to be dug up twice. I'd imagine there must be some sort of comms infrastructure for these turbines e.g. data recording, system monitoring etc so you may want to ask the question during their 'survey' who the turbine companies acquisition agent is and contact them to try and get clarification. Of course they may just use a 3/4G data station but no harm in asking.

When this gets replaced, which I think your SE will tell you to, check with your builder whether the fabricators need to allow the replacement beam to finish top or bottom flush with the beam its connecting to. It looks like you're running a 203 dp beam into a 254 dp beam so detail A is wrong as it shows a 203 to 203 detail and it all looks nice and flush but in reality you won't get that as the beams are different depths.

If you go down the route with screws then use heavy duty Tek screws for that thickness of steel. You can use a normal combi drill.

I've just ordered some, the Triton TT Vapour Membrane 20l tubs. Think they do 5l ones as well. I got mine from here http://sumpsandpumpsdirect.co.uk if that helps.

so true...before we done our pour I tried taping up all the nibs on the top of the blocks to try and prevent concrete filling them up. I got some fibre reinforced tape which wasn't too bad, it did the job but was far from what I would say really sticking to the EPS.

@Russell griffiths that's very interesting, thanks. I didn't use it in the end but was planning to on another aspect of the job. Will look at the Triton instead. ?

very true, Blackjack BBA cert covers use on insulation

we thought about doing a pour up to the top of the 1st course of ICF then coat it with this stuff or similar, then build next lift up to 1st floor followed by 2nd pour.

yes there's been plenty of those..............unfortunately some have been successful! ? Hindsight a wonderful thing. I pondered whether to use it, in the end had to come up with something to appease the BCO. Uplift of a couple hundred quid to the 1st load of concrete achieved that so seemed a good idea rather than some other solution for DPC. I did contemplate just black jacking the top of the 1st course but that would mean changing the approach i.e. 2 x visits to 1st FL rather than 1 x visit. Pump/labour etc which would have gone close to extra £1k.