MikeSharp01

+1 to that, saw it a few weeks back!

@IanThe passive slab will be engineer designed, they will know its to be the finished surface and it will have UFH. @jack Thanks for this, I will PM you for your details, the other half does not like polished (Terazzo style) concrete but would like us to end up with the shiny grey surface. We are leaving 6mm of headroom to allow us to put a very thin finish on if we need / want to with a sunken mat zone at the front door.

Thanks @Ian I think I just thought through the need to keep the evaporation rate down so keep it wet. I did cover it for the first three days and wetted it under the cover, but was worried that the tarpaulin would damage the surface. It does get direct sun and the last few weeks have been decidedly warm for the time of year on the Kent coast. This was a learning exercise and I have learned a lot in readiness for the main pour. I have it flat with +/-2mm (actually -2, +1.5) and the vast majority of the power floated surface is very good. I just need to take more care of the slab on the main pour. Every day is a school day after all!

Ah it was probably my fault as I could only wet it and cover it on a daily basis. So it was drying out. I will have to make a cover for the main slab and keep it misted.

Thanks again but this is supposed to be the finished surface there are no finishes. This is the garden room slab and has been designed to test the processes for the main house. I need to avoid problems with the main slab. Will keep brushing.

Thanks @Ian great link, I will get some acid and see if I can sort it.

Here is the data sheet by the looks of it ST - 50 glorious pages. https://ae-bst.resource.bosch.com/media/_tech/media/datasheets/BST-BMP280-DS001-18.pdf

Arrived at site this morning to find some weird happenings on my slab, see attached, I have no idea what this is all about but they all start on the edge of the DPC strip under the sole plate and were surrounded by salt deposits until I swept them to see what was going on. If I lift the DPC is does not continue under it! Any ideas? Wonder if I should lift the sole plate and let the concrete cure some more. DPC was put down 10 days after pouring and slab was kept wet for first 5 days.

My local Jewsons is very good for service, if I need it urgently they will drop it round directly if they can. Before xmas I broke a neighbours fence post and within an hour they had a new one on the drive for me to fit. I do check prices on larger orders and sometimes they don't get the order but I am learning all the time. I know the people there, recognise their voices and keep them informed of where / what I am up to. Their credit system is a bit odd but as long as I keep paying it works well and when I overpaid the other month, paid an invoice they had not issued yet, off the delivery ticket, they issued me a credit note which I then spent paying the invoice when it arrived. I guess it keeps their books straight.

Short answer: Probably not! Longer answer: It seems to me that the problem with trees is not that they are super massive but that when they fall they are travelling! Oak has a density of around 0.8Kg/m3 so a 200mm diameter length of say 5m long (forget the leaves and ancillary branches) weighs in at about 125Kg, assuming it is coming from 5 meters up and accelerating under gravity its will be doing about 10m/s when it hits your roof. So, sorry Jack, f=ma and so load / (force) is now about 1.25 tonnes (12.5Kn). The branch, at least in my experience, is round so the area over which this force will be spread is very small, although spreading rapidly until the full diameter is reached, at least at the point of contact, fractionally after impact the area might, generously, be 10mm2. This is probably well in excess of what you can get a timber frame to cope with at a single point, but even in the best case if it lands directly on one of the studs the stud will either buckle or push its way through the floor - everybody d..s! If you double skin with 18mm OSB, nailed every 50mm you might get to a wall that could take it, and spread it out along the sole plate if hit directly from above, but the roof, trussed or otherwise, probably won't. Hope that helps. This might convince you - although one hopes you won't be deliberately felling the whole tree across your hut!!

As the Guardian argues we need to beef up the consumer rights protection - it won't be easy because private (older) house sales need to be kept clear of it because of unlimited (cost of purchase + putting up the householder while the problems are fixed + stress on the family + fixing the problems) comeback in case of a problem and perhaps caveat emptor needs to prevail there but for a new build there really is no excuse. I think the problem may have its root cause in the way the big housebuilders (indeed all main contractors) are structured with a Coase's law boundary that is only a few layers deep and that actual work is carried out by a battery of sub contractors who have often / sometimes / not infrequently been screwed down on price and so are running on tight margins that drive cost reductions and corner cutting. Essentially you can argue that the shareholders, of the main contractors, dividends are driving the quality / size and supply down!

Thanks Jeremy, I thought it very odd that two CAD platforms have the same error, two lines apart. Maybe its actually one cad platform serving both masters. I am sure I got this error somewhere else yesterday - will drill back on my laptop and see what it was about.

Don't be daft, horse drawn transport is much more sustainable and was working well a few hundred years back, you get great manure and when they are no longer any good for moving you, or your stuff, you can eat them. No more landfill

Not using the Mr Bean exploding paint can concept then Jeremy

Been trying to download CAD drawings from Marley. Got this message: URL: http://www.marleyplumbinganddrainage.com/support-and-advice/cad/ Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e0c' Command text was not set for the command object. /CAD.ASP, line 367 Thought must be a Marley issue as this is an SQL error, so off I went to flowplast and got this message: URL: https://www.fastrackcad.com/CADFrame.ASP Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e0c' Command text was not set for the command object. /CADFrame.ASP, line 369 Looks like it might be me, but cannot see how? Have those damned hackers cut off our supply of CAD blocks?

Ours will have a bathroom - that was all the stuff here on the shower tray former, we included the building in our planning... not sure what rules prevent this although we have it as a condition of planning that it cannot be identified / converted into a separate dwelling.

Just doing this on our build - using the same technology as the main house to get my hand in with the techniques. Passive slab - does your slab ring, I joist portal frame, small MVHR, 34m2. Lots of fun

Cripes @Bitpipe are you still allowed to fight with black pudding or is there a law against it - I don't know, cruelty to pigs entrails or some such.

Mowing the lawns is great exercise Jeremy - but I am sure you could do away with it and install an automaton (robot lawn mower), imagine the fun you will have designing, building, programming and then watching it progress across the lawn leaving perfect stripes. You might have it mulching the cuttings or, with some extra work designing, building and programming popping up the manure heap and dumping its load appropriately. For ideas why not look at this:

Thanks for the link @Onoff noise just worried me, but by the looks of it is a good job as it does ring.

Working on my new garden room slab today and dropped a hammer, did no damage but the noise it made gave me pause for thought. It 'rang' - made the slab sound very 'live'. The slab is 100mm thick at this point and the outer ring is about 2.5m in three directions and about 2.5m from the crack prevention slot. It sits on 200mm of EPS at this point. I must confess I was expecting a very dead sound but didn't get one. Have I got something wrong somewhere or is this what I should expect on the main house slab?

People might argue that the washing machine is dependant on the nature of the guests. If it's going to be used by walkers / fell runners / hardy out door coves in general then it's probably more important than if the typical guest is a worn out electrical professional and his / her partner who just want to relax buy the fire and perhaps catch up on the latest shade of grey novel - no disrespect to any fellow buildhubers.

Yes access regs are important but there are a couple of things you can do. Perhaps use a widish pocket door and swap the glass screen for a shower curtain that can be drawn back to increase access to the WC. Assuming the room is bascaly a wet room.

Yes, sounds odd / interesting Peter - tell us more!

Yes perhaps get the washing machine by the front door at the bottom of the cupboard but in a little way, fix the boot rack to the door, uprate the hinges to take the load, just make sure the door doesn't clash with the front door and hang coats above to give small wardrobe as @ProDave says, in the bedroom. Also maybe the bathroom is quite generous you could probably get away with 500mm less length and perhaps move the whole central wall back that much, makes the bedroom that bit smaller, but the main space is 2m2 bigger