MikeSharp01

Der - I wonder how many mountains are held up by granite, must be erzatz granite as this link I think shows you can explode nuclear bombs in normal granite quite safely! Oh and take a look at here, because it says that Concrete crushes at 3T / in2 while Granite is at 10T /in2. All that aside if they say you cannot use it structurally and it fails then you cannot blame them.

Well after a few months of work from laying the concrete around the mould / pattern or whatever the time has come to fit the actual wet room shower tray base and I am looking for ideas on how best to do this and what compound to use. The pic shows the underside of the tray with a lattice of ribs. The recess in the slab is flat bottomed and concrete. The tray fits into the recess in the slab perfectly but I now have to bed it down and I can see some possible issues. I have 5-8mm of height I need to make up so whatever I bed it down on has got to make that up or I will have very thick grout under the tiles. What would be a good compound to bed it down on. A sharp sand / cement mix or some such? My second concern is / are the air pockets that will form in the lattice structure and may make getting it to bed down a problem and indeed might cause it to move if the air expands while the bedding material is drying. I could fill the pockets with the bedding compound, whatever it is to be, before I lower it into position to cure that problem but whatever happens I don't want it moving off level while the compound dries. Any thoughts welcome.

How do you go about controlling the scale of her to do lists? You know: Bring about world peace. Discover a new antibiotic. Make me happy.

PS just think yourself lucky that you are not the poor client who just got told on this otherwise glorious Monday that the project cost has just risen by £1.5 Billion (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40479053), oh sorry, just worked out that we are!

People say that when you retire there are no more Monday's! Don't you dare believe them, in several ways Mondays are bigger than before. For a start you are now fully responsible for what Monday brings.

For a timber frame sitting on a passive slab you will need the structural drawings and signs offs for both as well.

looks great!

Poor old Ferdinand obviously still suffering from last evening imbibing of 'the' cocktail...

Great work Dave. How did you detect the leaks?

Wonder what 'cheese' is in the sunamp thingamajig! Its made in Scotland I believe, they do some good cheese up there

Are there any 'better' cheeses for this application? I am a goats cheese man myself but suspect it will be worse than cheddar so perhaps a really hard cheese might have improved characteristics. Other substances one could think of include, fudge, chocolate and a gigantic humbug!

Did anybody read this? If this is true then Building standards are meaningless, NHBC may have some rather large problems and the Construction industry as a whole is going to need defibrillation. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40418266

Get some proper drills, EG These and start with a very small one and working out to the size you need. Tun them slow to start with and you will be fine.

Yep, +1 to that. You will be able to get the CE paperwork for all the bits, steel, bolts, welding rods etc but you won't need one for a one off winter garden, or at least I can see no reasonable path through the CE process that would be usable unless the whole winter garden was a product in its own right. If you think about it the CE process was designed to ensure that products arriving and circulating around the EU met the various standards. Your product is being built to a local standard (building standards) and is not destined for resale as a retail product so I cannot see how it might apply although the last time I had to take a product through CE marking was 2003 I think.

Sorry for the delay. It's about the use of materials to form walls and the use of Thermoplastic. I see no reason to think you cannot do what you want. The relevent sections are part B2 section C. Table 1 para 3.2, 3.4 & 3.8

Why would you class it as structural @MikeSharp01 If any fixings pass through into the timber frame is it not just a packer or filler just the same as expanding foam would b Structural because you need to meet a number of constraints keeping the frame fixed in place mechanically. The longer the fixings are through insulation the more flexible they will be as the insulation offers no support to them in all three planes - as you tighten the fixings you will crush the insulationand bend the frame as the insulation deforms rather than tighten. Wind pressure will cause, at the outset, slight bending of the fixing and, as the suporting insulation deforms, more movement. Also ensuring you meet the fire regs which I suspect might depreciate too much non fire rated material supporting, or not, the frame.

If you think you will need to let go then you perhaps should have clamped the vice down, much the safer route anyway. Essentially you have to be sure the drill will break before you do, if you are not sure bolt it down.

Welcome... As @Onoff says don't leave it too late to start. His mention of a great / understanding partner is also valid as a self build will absorb your time, physical & emotional energy and shed loads of money. For all that you get massive sense of satisfaction. Your skills sound like the ideal ones for such a project and you might even have a way of leveraging your colleagues in on the job.

Sounds like a plan but you will need to check that the insulation, which will be structural in this application, can take the strain!

The skylights will probably need planning permission, rules may differ so need to check with planning and see if you can squeeze it in under the wire, as it would be a material change to the permission granted, but I doubt the BCO will be worried if your structural engineer signs them off.

Yes we have one reasonably local to us, in Maidstone, good idea.

Not many of the cheap pillar drills will have geared heads and 12mm forsner bit or standard drill bit can be turned by the larger pistol drills. Agree that a good pillar drill is a joy. This machine would be / is my weapon of choice.

Can you put the unit in the room below then you can sink the tray down.

Great you have a son who is interested in making / mending stuff. Ours, and his sister, appears uninterested - wonder what he / they will do when they inherit my workshop! Just scap it all I expect, probably in the same skip with my CD collection. Have not made it easy though biggest machine weighs in at 750Kg In pillar drill terms you might find that buying a pistol drill with the right attachment points and a drill frame for it will do just as well and your can use the pistol drill without the frame. You will of course need 110mm of travel and 210+ clearance in the throat to drill 100mm deep.

I will keep an eye out for it and park elsewhere or have Scoty (been with us since I was a lad) drive around the town while I do the shopping would not want to lower the tone.