MikeSharp01

This should be fun... Actually I think the former is actually the pattern, pattern for the shape I want to form. The mould is the thing into which you pour the, for want of a better word, stuff you want to form into a given shape. Dictionary definition is: 'a hollow container used to give shape to molten or hot liquid material when it cools and hardens.' So, @jack would say never start a sentence with so, now the mould in this case is the expanded polystyrene slab former supplemented by the shower tray former, which together FORM the mould. Ergo, ipso facto, inter alia and among other things and to be perfectly pedantic - until @Nickfromwales or some other master of both English and the language of the technology of casting concrete tells us otherwise, the former is just / only part of the mould and as such is FORMING part of said mould. Let the fun commence, I will look for a pin the head of which I can throw some shapes upon

Yep - sorry my bad should have worked out that you guys did not know what I did that the former is for a ready made tray, very poor assumption management only beta+ - see below:

There is no fall in the former as such because it creates a groove in the slab into which the outflow pipe will drop when the tray, with its associated trap is lowered into the pocket created by the former. I can then backfill under the shower tray with concrete if I wish around the outflow pipe.

Hi Ian @recoveringacademic. The former is designed to be the full size of the wet room (1200 x 1600). The foul drain stack is, will be, connected to the shower trap by a short length of 40mm pipe on a slight - but correct, fall - the former creates a cavity in the slab for this to run through. As you say the holes in the former allow me to ensure the concrete is fully under the former then I close them up and Fill around the former to the top of the former which is flush with the finished (we are having a polished concrete floor) concrete surface so there will be no floor make up in our case. Where the shower tray goes the former is 42mm thick the shower tray unit, an AKW component (1200 x 1200), is 20mm thick leaving me 22mm for tiling on the tray to the trap unit which has a fall built into its 20mm depth. The remainder of the former is 22mm thick to provide a pocket for the tiles that will be 'on the flat' in the rest of the wet room. The wet room sole plate for the walls sits directly onto the polished surface around the pocket in the slab created by the former. Hope that helps, I have a section drawing back at base I can paste up to show you if you need more.

Once I lift the former the space for the pipe run across to the foul stack will be in free air until I back fill, once the tray, trap and pipe are in, and the levels do change - so yes, and I have tapered the sides of the former so I can get it out easily as well. It now has a sheet of plastic covering it to help it release as well - belt and braces. Might get a better idea from this, with it in place.

Here is the former I have made for our wet rooms 1200 x 1200 tray and 600 more of flat tiling (upside down here). Holes all have screw down plugs that will allow me to check the concrete in the slab is everywhere I want it and they will then be closed. The boxes are for the trap and the outfall pipe that runs to the main foul riser. All I have to do is ensure it doesn't float when we pour the concrete on Thursday. No UFH under the first one but there will be in the second one in the second slab where hopefully this former will get a second life - what ever happened to second life?

Ahhh the old money / tax laundering rules. I will ask my friendly advisor when I get home but I suspect you will need to find certificate although you can get the same details from land registry providing the dispersments were not complicated this will show that you were paid such and such on the given date. £7 I think for the info from LR.

Usual to get the land first as the design will usually only work in one place so needs the place. Buying usually needs the solicitor so at the start seems right BUT before you buy the land you need to know what the chances are of obtaining PP would be. Although in theory you can go for planning permission on land you don't own because it's an open process others will spot the PP and the value of the land will probably go up. I think the general experience here is get the land first but either pay very little for it if there is a risk of not obtaining PP or compete with others on price if there is a reasonable expectation that PP will be granted. We solved the problem here by buying a tumbledown shack and then obtaining PP when we owned it. On our case the plot is not big enough to split.

THURSDAY IS big day for garden room slab concrete laying. My plan was to use poker and vibrating bar to get it level and flat is then bull float and finally a powered float with pan and blade to get the finish (polished) but I have read that a roller striker on place of the vibrating bar would get me closer to the finish I want at that stage. I have the edge of polystyrene former to run it along but was wondering if anybody has experience of using one of these machines.

As I mentioned last week somewhere else on this forum it is possible to see that the problem is not directly one of cost but perhaps one of relative cost. Energy is way down the average households list of costs below mortgage, council tax & car lease for start. So looking at things that way energy is too cheap to be noticed as a place where serious concern needs to raise it's head.

Link works for me. You can only have an appeal heard once as @ProDave says and that's what happened here by the looks of it as the first was rejected on a technicality. Once I finish here I will join you in a pub 250 miles south.

The Edinburgh uni doc is for thinkers and students trying to impress their tutors. Sadly, or perhaps happily if you are one, several of the tabloids provide upto the minute validity for its readers.

Hedges are such a source of fun. Our local wildlife trust (Kent) has a list of all the different types of hedge row, what mixes of plants are in them and why and even how to lay them out. When we get to it we will have a Kentish coastal mix here. Link to Kent wildlife hedging doucument Kent downs hedging

Does there need only to be one, it could be that they are all around us and we wouldn't know....

Make your own manifold - what a great idea Joe, you could make an MDF box and cut THESE in half and glue them into suitable holes to make the flexible duct connections. Spend some time saving money and you get exact the number of outlets you need.

How are you proposing to join the lengths together to make the 6m length as the join has the potential to be a structural weakness? You can get 6m timbers or switch to an engineered I-joist as you can get them upto 15m!

Call it a site hoarding - that you have made to look in keeping rather than a somewhat crasly painted OSB thing. They defo cannot stop you then as it will say somewhere in your PP / BC pack that you must erect and maintain a secure boundary I suspect - it does in ours (Kent).

Yes I was awake at 2:00 AM wondering about concrete polishing - its all booked for next Thursday - I hope I have all the sums right!

We have about 30m2 of matt black vertical hung tiles on our south wall and I have been wondering if there is any mileage in making this into a Trombe wall and ducting the air into / through the MVHR at appropriate times. My research into the subject has led me to put this question into boffins corner because there are some 'views' out there and I know, cos I can read and once you put something onto the internet it has a habit of being there for a long time, that both @SteamyTea and @joe90 have had some input into such ideas in the past HERE (2010 ish). Interestingly the WWW is well furnished with opinion but very little science. Perhaps there is not much but I wonder if anyone has any pointers to the / any new science or technology in this space? Clearly there will be costs both financial and thermodynamically but if it can be controlled, IE you can switch it in and out as required, the question comes down to the positive or negative effects / efficiency on / of the MVHR unit when feeding it with warmer air and the engineering of the wall to avoid build up of nasties like fungi. I think I can see that just feeding it into the supply input will mean any heat produced will mostly (depending upon the efficiency of the MVHR heat exchanger) come out again immediately in the exhaust air - however the remainder is a (the) contribution. I have also read that injecting the air so heated into the exhaust line before the MVHR, where its temperature is above that of the house's exhaust air, might be a way forward as this air's heat will then be added (in some proportion - heat capacity, volume, T delta, humidity dependant) to the naturally aspirated air coming into the MVHR system for supply to the house. Controlling all this won't be simple though I suspect. Given all this, and the fact that since our fellow forum members were talking about it 7 years back and it still is not mainstream, it sounds like a non starter but I wonder if the world has moved on around it enough to make it possible / feasible! (PS I appreciate that the basic laws of thermodynamics have not changed.)

Yes I tend to agree and find exhibitions as opportunities to see what is out there and ask particular questions but I think I had hoped that there would be more of the small scale stuff on view today. Rather I felt it was aimed at the commercial (Industrial and Office block) builders rather than the house builders and very little of it was applicable directly to self builders. That said its all grist to the mill.

Went today - not sure I got value for my time and the £20 parking fee - I know I should have taken public transport but for reasons I will keep to myself I was not able to do this although I did set out to use it. Loads to see but mostly vanity show casing of products which the likes of most of us probably won't need. I think it is instructive to see who exhibits at these events and you can spot the sales patter of the organisers at work when you see who is there and who is not. Some excellent talks though and if you are wanting to build in straw bales there is stand showing it off and delightfully passionate they are about it. Did see some great little plate heat exchangers from ZILMET which I can find a use for I am sure. Windows for domestic projects had only a couple of offerings INTERNORM and DAKO where all I spotted. The 'alternative technologies zone' was well supported although again its interesting to see how the ideas they were pushing 20 years back have become mainstream and perhaps a bit too commercial in terms of bells and whistles. The controls and instrumentation stands all look to be doing good business as did the solar heating (PV and ST) but the GSHPs may have passed their sell by! Interestingly not much MVHR stuff to see - unless you are on an industrial scale. There was also the Kitchen and Bathroom showcase but that was a big let down I am afraid.

And I meant to add that this is a public forum not on the dark web Nick....

Is that a 30Kw condensing (liquor only) meeting or a combi (beer & liquor) meeting - now let's put 2 & 2 together and make 5, this morning the boy went off for few days and now you're in a high powered business meeting and it's international women's day....

I have never been confident of compounds as it seems to me that most fittings should have well designed / engineered seals. If it won't seal at the design pressure without such compounds then perhaps you might want to wonder if a better design might not be available or has it been put together correctly. In the world of parallel threads I have a box of Dowty bonded seals (1380 bar max - see here!) I use in face sealing otherwise the olive has to do the work. In the tapered thread world it does get a bit more complex but for most things I think good old PTFE tape is the way forward (There are places this is not appropriate) and in petrochemical applications some compounds are available. I guess we need to await Nicks views though - obviously Wales is not awake yet!

If it never pays back the market must be very limited probably to users like: 1. People who have to be off grid. 2. Die hard eco warriors who want to max out their PV system and can afford the cost. 3. People who don't get the 'economics'. 4. Early adopters who want the latest widget and where they get 'value' out of the plaudits of others for owning such widgets. 5. Any others? The quicker they get the glass / sodium battery out of the lab and into production the better because only when battery technology and associated parafinallĺilia can match grid prices will they get real traction.