Digmixfill

Thanks for all the info so far. I suspect i'll go for a combination of trestles and small tower sections. The trestles at toptower are rated at 450kg and the draper one I in my original post only 150kg. Not up to it. The 9 blocks an hour probably isn't too far off. I spend an age making sure the end blocks are square, level and to gauge. I'm at the stage where I still check everything far too many times and I remove and re-lay many blocks because i'm not happy with them. Returns and reveals also take me an age. Fortunately i'm not on the clock, so it all takes as long as it takes.

I had spotted these and wondered if they'd be up to the job with planks. adjustable trestle They'd come in useful for other stuff too.

I'm putting up the inner leaf inside my barn. I've almost done as much blockwork as I can without using a lift. I'm looking for suggestions for a platform. The longest wall is 4m and i'm thinking that I'll need to lay blocks to around the 2.5m mark from the platform. After that i install floor joists and then move platform up to the next floor - happy to be steered otherwise? What would you recommend I take a look at for a platform?

Perfik!

Thanks for that. I've downloaded it. ?

I mentioned in a thread a while ago that i had a fair bit of external temperature and humidity data for my site. (I've got external temperature, humidity and pressure recorded at minute intervals for many years) I've been playing with sap figures trying to decide which insulation to opt for and would like to take sap numbers and try to get some annual electricity figures for GSHP/ASHP etc. Sap W/C x delta C / CoP for heating duration seems very simplistic and won't take into account the internal temperature change as the building heats up. Not sure if i'm overthinking this. Any pointers to reading greatly appreciated.

Is there a rule of thumb percentage add on for tongue and groove pir cavity board ordering? I've had a quick look around for wastage figures for t&g pir in cavity installations but haven't turned up anything yet.

Your floor looks very unspoilt. Did you use dust sheets or did it just not splatter during application?

I approached icynene about DIY and got the reply "Thank you for your enquiry, our products are only fitted by specialist contractors and do not come in DIY format" Which spray foam are you using?

Definitely a massive lift. :) Really nice not to have dirt and rocks under foot. And it's so clean, but i'm sure that won't last very long. Yes, insulation and screed with UF pipes to go on top of the base slab.

I think i've been at this conversion for too long. I'm quite pleased at seeing plain concrete and i needed to share. Behold

I've pondered pir boards with foam as the additional filler to take up the residual. I don't like the idea of the beads being blown in from outside. I think the holes required are too large and would look a bit naff. I suppose they could be blown in from the inside if drilled through the block and pir. Ideally though i'd like a DIY solution and so far the only way i've found to do bead DIY is to buy a blower machine

Thanks for the blog link. I've considered either building the inner leaf to roof height and then injecting foam from the inside, or filling behind a couple of rows of block before i resin the ties in for the next two rows.

I'd be very interested to hear how you got on with this, and what the cost was?

Obviously i've been looking at this with my irregular cavity in mind, but it should fill all of the void and would give a large difference in u value over blown bead for the same cavity size. I thought it would be particularly useful for people with an old slim 50mm cavity to fill. @Onoff i did look at icynene but i didn't spot any DIY option with them. Edit: It's about 4 times the cost of dritherm 32.

I've come across two spray PUR offerings a couple of times while searching for things insulation. DOW froth-pak Foamseal On the surface they seem like they'd be useful. Good insulation values, closed cell, DIYable. What's not to like? Is there a reason (other than cost) that they're not a popular choice for DIY?

With the 110mm in place there is plenty of room for me to slide a length of 22mm foam pipe insulation over the water pipe once it is in place.

Put the 110mm pipe and bend in over the weekend. A test piece of water pipe goes through without too much force.

I'm looking at the trenching needed for the water supply into the building. My supply is from a well so i don't need to comply with utility requirements, but i'd like to have something in place that could be used for mains if needs be. Most of the details i'm turning up suggest a minimum of 750mm for the trench holding the pipe. Some form of ducting through the foundations and insulation in the ducting if the pipe penetrates the floor at less than 750mm from the edge of the building. What i haven't managed to determine yet: Does the supply pipe have to penetrate the foundations at 750mm? How much insulation is needed in the ducting?

They've not had at a car here yet, but they once made quite a mess of a corner of a tin shed that they seemed interested in. @JSHarris I've got temperate and humidity records. Just had a quick scan through the database and the min and avg recorded temperatures between August and March for the past 5 years are: 2014-2015 min -2.9 avg 14.36 2015-2017 min -3.0 avg 13.23 2016-2017 min -3.8 avg 9.46 2017-2018 min -7.4 avg 11.74 2018-2019 min -5.3 avg 15.16

My better half needs no real reason to add £K to anything. Her point is reasonable though. When a badger wants into something they can make quite a mess of things. The ground here is pretty moist marl. If i were to install a ground loop it would be straight pipe about 5ft deep. I've got a few years worth of recoded temperature and humidity, it might be useful for some ASHP number crunching. Are the above ASHP COP figures of 4@7°C and 2.8@-3°C sensible to work with and achievable with an average install? (By average i mean one that isn't specifically tuned to achieve maximum figures)

Now that our floor has 200mm of insulation i'll need to rework the calculations, but originally it was proposed that we needed a 10kW GSHP. Installation costs won't be a factor because i'll self install for either. I'm right in the middle of the fence regards one over the other. SWMBO is on the side of the GSHP at the moment. She thinks the ASHPs look a bit flimsy and wouldn't fare well against a badger etc.

I'm going to have underfloor heating and am still undecided on ASHP or GSHP to feed. Periodically i hunt around for new learning and make some notes here and there. Hunting around this morning i came across this pdf from Kensa. GSHP vs ASHP V4 "Conclusion ASHPs appear to be a straightforward and easy technology for salesmen to “box shift”. There is a lack of expertise of those selling and installing ASHPs – and this extends to those that are buying them because the technology has been “over-sold”. In practice, GSHPs are likely to be the better choice, for the longer time, in most applications." ASHP must be competing favourably.

The 10mm movement joint for the base slab is in the floor detail on my plans.

Yes. Just an expansion piece for the base slab. 200mm of insulation to go on top of the base slab. Above that will have whatever the maximum width of insulation i can use around the perimeter of the heated top slab.