Adam2

We're planning for the next phase on our elevated driveway. So far we have a steel frame and beam/block installed. Next is the concrete which we'll be going to fall into the intended drainage areas. As the finished surface will not applied for a long time (don't want it getting mucked up), we're not putting the drainage channel in yet so will put timbers in their place during the concrete pour. My question is about our drainage solution - as the resin bound (which we think will be more durable than resin bonded) is permeable we need the water that will be ~20mm below the finished surface to drain into the drainage channels. Naturally we need the channel surface to be slightly below finished level so need a way to get the water into the channel. We have a couple of options that I can see 1) Use Aco freedeck - seems to be designed for balconies and has side entry for water (~£40/m without grill so maybe more like £45/m) 2) Use regular resin Aco channel and drill 10mm holes along the side about 15-20mm down (£11.04/m) The Freedeck is fine but will cost about £400 more for this area hence looking at creative options. Would appreciate any feedback on the idea of drilling holes each say 250mm into a side of the resin regular channel Regular Freedeck

They've done some before - but maybe guilty of being over cautious, hard to tell - it is a challenging site. Thanks for the offer (EPS BTW) but at this stage, even if steel requirement was reduced considerably it would cost time + another SE cost and just image the drama over liability if you get 2 x SE firms involved ?

Using a co that specialises in ICF building for all concrete pours, wall build, steel install, concrete plank floor install and waterproof product install - they have priced for the build I'm sorting materials - no matter what people say they never seem to get prices as good as the person that actually has to pay can (if they have the time of course). Ground workers are doing rebar install.

Not crazy large but on a hill with 2 floors having slabs that are 300mm thick with 450 edges, a few thickenings under interior walls and a 1.5m deep toe. That and the walls are 200mm thick concrete. All seems to add up to a lot of concrete and steel - should last a long time ?

about 260

Yes hell of a lot, ICF on a hill so walls have a lot in them as well.

Hi - am about to press the button on rebar purchase (>40 ton) and thought to check in here first. Would appreciate info on price ranges for rebar inc bending on a loose bar per ton basis which seems to be how it gets priced up. I'm on south coast so accept prices may be bit higher down here that outside Port Talbot steel works - assuming it is still running! cheers

In mine there was a fair bit of hard standing that will likely drain to acco that increased the area a lot. Ended up with about 12m^3 of crates. And this was on sandy soil so perc test showed good drainage. Private building control just wanted to see some calcs and i used the supplier rather than my SE as his initial thoughts were much higher vol and he wanted a few K extra ffs.

Interested in this as also planning the garage structure - it's attached to the house (well will be when we build something) but will never be a habitable space or built above so wondering what is most appropriate - like above single skin brick or a single skin larger block as will be rendering the outside or is this a bit flimsy? Will have a mono-pitch timber roof with single ply membrane so that's not very heavy.

Hi - yes it is. Which I think is a shame as I would happily plug a LAN cable into each component to control it. You can (as others on ere have shown) wire the switches etc all back to a central point, or to somewhere with best wifi if that helps. I'm testing it in a house with concrete floors and no issue and instant response from the front door sensor triggering a light to come on in the 1st floor. I've found it fun to setup and experiment with and was also originally looking at a wired system (C4 as in the above post) was of interest until I found thta I could buy this and have fun with it so easily in our current house ?

I know this thread has gone down a Loxone route but if the OP is interested, I've found my Z-Wave based Fibaro test setup (in current house while building new house) to be pretty good. Very robust, easy programmability with a graphical interface but if you want you can get into coding extra features, doesn't need a permanent web connection (if that is a concern). Z-wave isn't cheap as the radio transmitters are (for now) from a limited supply base but the brains is a few hundred and per light switch or per socket is a low incremental cost. I've tested out basic programming using the graphical interface to have different lighting scenes running from multi-clicks on a switch, using a wall switch to turn on a plug socket, using a motion sensor to turn on a light or do something else based on temp or ambient light levels, have a door open activate a light etc etc - all pretty easy and has been very robust. The thing I like is that even if the server crashed (hasn't so far in >12m) the switches all still work. Always a risk of some form of lock-in but this is mitigated by using a std with many players making kit and you can always wire the switches back to a central (or a per floor etc) local point to simplify any future swap-out. The components create a mesh network so even though it is a wireless system that model extends the reach I'm no expert on this but happy to share my experience if helpful

Depending on size of bathroom - you could overboard the existing tiles and tile on the board? In my last house we pulled the old tiles off and the wall was a mess so boarded the bathroom and tiled on that to save plastering - may not have saved money but was quick and needed limited skills/materials

Interesting to see a product in this area on dragon's den. Think it was a plastic/polymer combo fired from a gun over the cable. Looked a fast way to install. BUT their claim seemed to be that by being non metal (some polymer IIRC was used for the pins) it was safer!!! Of course the dragons didn't have the building insight to challenge any of that. Though I don't think they got funded. Ahh here is their website https://www.graysclip.com/ Not sure if these would be safe in the above fire safety scenarios

Great will follow with interest

Hi @Russell griffiths - interested in this as also building with ICF (one day). Did you just screw the OSB into the webbing on your ICF then screw the plasterboard into the OSB or did you batten things out - which I understands also helps to some degree with U values?

Yeah, I'm not sure either ? But totally innocent, the U is next to the I and the B is next to the N. That's what happens when I try and type on my phone. Better not use my phone for work emails!!!

Cheers @Taff we're happy with things so far. The brown building is a neighbour who temporarily has an upgraded view ? It's a bit hard to tell the depth of the site from the photo but there is plenty of space up there our house.

Here you go, that must be about 12m overall in gabions, am standing on the soakaway which is below 2.5m! House will one day be on top of the sandpit! ?

Extra pic added showing 10% of the gabions. In that area we were careful to maintain ground level near the pine trees. [fixed pine typo!]

Yes not the easiest site but steep sites can bring some nice views though also plenty of risks. In an earlier blog post I'm standing in front of the drive entrance and this is to the left of that - this platform expanding the drive/parking area by about 75%. The house will be to the right of this and I'll dig out a pic and post up how that's looking from my phone. So far I've been juggling the platform and the garden as that is also a slope so been stripping that and adding in improved retaining structures using plenty of gabions. Fingers crossed will be digging founds for lowest floor of house over next 2 weeks.

Following the screw pile install this week we had the steel framework installed. Lovely job. Only 1 issue where 1 beam which is below current ground level was blocked by a large concrete slab that we didn't expect - solution was to fit it about 50mm higher than the rest which will be fine if we cover in concrete. Now that's in, we can order the beam and block. Just waiting on SE to confirm a slight change to that. So probably 2-3 weeks until the area is ready for storage etc but great progress. Even got a hornbeam installed to provide some screening for the neighbours.

If SW = Surface (or storm) Water drainage - just checking you're OK with disposing that off-site? Our planning app did have that as our intention and was approved but even though this was the case, the over-riding requirement was compliance with the policy for on-site drainage (or something else other than using the existing off-site drainage for the house we demolished). So a bunch of soakaway created came into the equation which worked out fine but we dd not anticipate this and the architect didn't either so was a little later than ideal to make the discovery for us.

Thanks chaps, much appreciated

Yes I had the same experience with my engineer co. Architect is fine but the SE was a total nightmare - trouble is they know as a private client you're pretty stuck as moving to a new firm is such a barrier and they may be worse!!!!

I'm building a driveway that is on a steel platform with beam and block on top of that. Is it OK to screed this and use it for storage (no vehicle traffic) before putting the concrete / mesh top on it for a few months? Or should I wait another couple of weeks and get the concrete on first? Just not sure how stable this is with a screed on.