jack

Update on this: In the end the roofing company decided to put it through their insurance. After three months of being dicked around by Aviva (I'm happy to name and shame them given their appalling attitude to date), they've finally come back with the following in response to a detailed timeline, photos and explanations, including pointing out that their client had admitted liability: "It appears that to date you have not provided any evidence into the cause of the leaks. You have only provided pictures of the damage and your assumptions of the cause of the leaks. You have not provided an independent expert report to confirm the cause of the leaks. Our Insured states they don’t know what caused the leaks from the aluminium outlets but don’t feel it was an installation error. They state it could have been caused by many sources. The onus is upon you as the claimant to prove your claim. I look forward to receiving expert evidence from you. I would also remind you that you are at liberty to seek legal advice in the pursuit of your claim. You are able to seek legal advice from a solicitor or from your insurer and any other legal professional. Alternatively, you are able to seek legal advice free from your local Citizen Advice bureau." Just to be clear, the roof installer has repeatedly put in writing that the cause of the leak is the scuppers they provided and installed. Examples: 18 October 2017: "If unfortunately, another leak occurred; <we> would inspect and deal with accordingly. I am confident that the new scuppers installed will be totally fine. It was the aluminium scuppers which seems to have caused this unfortunate problem. We have since installed pvc scuppers and as I understand there has been no further problems." (ie, source of problem admitted) 13 October 2016: "Please find attached our agreement [for internal repair works]; as we would like to settle without using our insurance company." (ie, liability admitted) 11 July 2016: "Regarding the damage work; can you please get some quotes and depending on the cost we can make a decision as to whether you need to claim through our insurance company." (ie, liability admitted). 10 March 2016: "We’re all still baffled as to why the liner is leaking." (ie, admission that the leak is related to their installation of the liner/scuppers) My plan is to forward these quotes to Aviva and point out that their client has already provided evidence of fault. I'd say that the evidence I've provided so far, in conjunction with their client's admission, must at least put the ball back in their court for rebuttal. I also don't understand this statement: "Our Insured states they don’t know what caused the leaks from the aluminium outlets but don’t feel it was an installation error. They state it could have been caused by many sources." If I read this correctly, it appears they're admitting that the leaks came from the outlets supplied and installed by their client, but are trying to avoid liability by saying it wasn't an "installation error". Surely if you supply something and it fails despite you installing it correctly, you're responsible for the damage caused? Bear in mind that the total costs they're up for are something like £2000-2500. I'm really surprised that Aviva is behaving like this, but maybe I'm expecting too much from an insurance company. Anyone have any thoughts about the best way to tackle this?

I had a similar conversation with our solar installer the other day (I'd called them with an enquiry about something else and talk eventually turned to the new Powerwall). The problem is that I think we used something like £650 in electricity last year, excluding FITs. That's with zero optimisation, not using the cheapest electricity provider, and only one person in the house (me!!!) making any effort at all to reduce energy consumption. Given that showering is the biggest consumer of energy in our house, and that we already get "free" hot water via an immersion diverter for at least 6 months of the year, I can't see how we could save more than £100-200 per year with a system like this. The solar installer had to admit that it's hard to make the numbers stack up once you get into low energy houses. I think he was genuinely surprised at how little energy we use, even though he knew about our house's construction.

I actually measure the surface temp at one point of our slab (under our kitchen island) using a one-wire sensor held against the slab and covered with a weighted-down offcut of PIR. From memory, the highest temp we've seen is 24C. That was fairly early on, before I did anything at all about temperature control (not that I've actually done much more since!) It's amazing what a subjective difference even one degree of slab temperature makes to the perceived temperature of the house. 24C left the house feeling uncomfortably warm. 23 is too warm, 22 is borderline, 20-21 is pretty comfortable, 19 starts feeling a little cool but okay, below that seems too cold.

This is cheap and has good reviews: http://m.costco.co.uk/view/p/versaroll-pro-pvc-flooring-228-x-610-cm-174714

The one behind it, and possibly the one directly opposite (not quite in frame), are exactly the same.

Aren't you still there from last time?

Says more about them than your house.

If I remember correctly, our town council spends something like 10% of its annual budget on flowers, while pollution levels in the town centre have been at the extreme danger level for years without anything having been done about it.

From discussions with Irish builders and suppliers, it's exactly that. The pendulum has now swung completely the other way, not just with higher standards, but with quite onerous requirements for certifying that the standards are met (something the UK could do with a bit of!)

New avatar proposal for @daiking

Have read of the "concrete" section of the Hoover Dam Wikipedia article.

Anyone with an MBC slab (including me, @JSHarris, @TerryE and several others) have just this arrangement, although ours are reinforced and sitting on 300mm EPS. Works very well with decent insulation under it. What's your floor buildup more generally?

Bit late to the party but just to add: we've had a Quooker for just over two years, and it's mostly been pretty good. The one thing it occasionally does is turns off by itself with some sort of flaw. You just click the button on top of the unit to reset, and it seems to be fine. It did it about weekly for the first couple of months, then went away completely, but has now started doing it once every two or three weeks. Might need a descale - will be contacting the manufacturer for support shortly.

Welcome! Yep, several of us have installed them (including me). If you have specific questions, it's best to post them in the relevant forum where they're more likely to be seen and answered.

I think you're right. Surely a whack hard enough to open up a crack like that across the full height of the hull would have done more damage to the superstructure.

Tipped over a huge trampoline we only bought last year and bent several of the poles that hold up the net.

That is such an AWESOME tune! If you want to feel really old, it's nearly 23 years since Kurt Cobain died (he would have been 50 this week had he lived).

If you're really worried, you could add back a slice of 100mm of EPS to make up what you've lost, and cover it with whatever step, deck or whatever you're planning for the external transition from the door.

Awesome work! Based on past behaviour, are you out looking for a new plot to start the next build yet?

We were lucky that the groundworker we were recommended happened to have done one of these slabs before (not for MBC), so had a good idea what was going on. Then again, we also spoke to a couple of others and explained what we needed (grade of stone, pipes and conduits coming up in place) and they all seemed, at least on the face of it, to understand what was required. Hillard Tanner's foundation drawings are pretty clear, so I'd be concerned if they couldn't understand what they needed to do. I found their needs pretty clear, and any questions were always answered quickly and completely by phone. Of course, trades definitely gave us the eye you talk about, but we had that from almost everyone along the way (including people who don't even know how things are done traditionally). I think the electrician was the only one who was completely positive and thought the whole "different way of doing things" was wonderful.

From memory we just gave them a FFL mark and a site plan, and they worked from there. I suspect that even if you mark it out they'll double check anyway, and since they're doing drains as well I suspect they'll be even more sure to carefully measure everything.

We get it, he's Welsh. Give the guy a break!

We have exactly the same detail, which was suggested by our architect and tweaked a bit by our window supplier. Do note that the recess and step formed in the slab isn't as precise as the rest of the MBC's work, as as it's formed onsite by offcuts of wood and foam before the concrete pour. I'd suggest forming it slightly deeper than needed, and making up to final level with something like a reinforced screed product. Ours ended up being a lot deeper than needed so we used reinforced self leveling screed to get within 25mm of final depth, then made that up with a layer of exterior grade plywood. Personally the plywood aspect of this worries me a bit from a long term perspective. I now wished we'd been able to get the depth right just with the reinforced screed.

The PRV isn't adjustable and I have more than enough to do to complete the house without having to replace the PRV and go around fitting flow-limiters everywhere! I'll get the PRV replaced (with an adjustable one) once the house is signed off. It isn't that big a deal in the meantime.

I didn't go into any of this myself, as all the calculations and design were done by the plumber. Our situation is a little odd. Our plumber wanted to make sure that if the building inspector decided to test the flow rates of any outlet, they'd all definitely pass. Rather than fit flow reducers at every outlet, he (with our agreement) temporarily fitted a 1.5 bar PRV on the incoming main. Over a year later and it's still there! The result of this low pressure is that if our water softener decides to run a cycle while you're in the (upstairs) shower, there's a very marked drop in water pressure. That's with a single shower and no water being supplied anywhere else. The shower is still usable when it's like this but it's not great. Similar to Jeremy, we binned the "full bore 22mm" flex hoses when we saw how small the actual apertures were. The unit was then plumbed using 22mm copper and plastic, so there shouldn't be much restriction. I don't know whether this helps at all, but perhaps it shows that even at 1.5 bar you can at least have a shower while the softener is recharging, as long as you're patient!