jack

Morning and welcome. I understand that the passive slab approach works very well on soft ground. Indeed, when our (private) building inspector's engineer demanded a statement from us about why we chose this rather than more conventional foundations, MBC's (supplier of slab and timber frame) engineer pointed to the relatively low bearing pressure of the ground we're building on. We have an attached garage. There's a separate EPS upstand between the garage and the house so that the slabs are effectively thermally insulated from each other. The garage slab is still only 100mm thick on 300mm EPS, although there's a full width 100mm deep reinforcing rib every 1200mm or so from memory. One thing you do need to think about is the transition from outside to the slab (See here: http://forum.buildhub.org.uk/ipb/topic/416-handling-transition-into-garage-on-raft-foundation/). Feel free to drop me a pm if you'd like me to email you our passive slab plans.

I just realised that I started scratching the wasp sting on the back of my hand while I was reading this!

There are lots of youtube vids of people doing dumb stuff with wasp nests. Killed a couple of hours...

I walked face-first into a massive spider's web when I was about 11. I freaked out, and in the course of pulling at the spider's web, managed to wake up the wasps in the nest to which the main anchor thread was attached! Thankfully only one of them got me despite the number buzzing around, but I still remember how much it hurt.

Ha, haven't read Viz for years. Every year at the airport when heading off on hols, I used to buy Classic & Sports Car, Viz and Private Eye, and slowly read them over the course of the holiday. I haven't bothered with Viz since the kids came along (particularly since they learned to read!)

I do high intensity training three times a week and can't recall whether it's made a difference, but that might because I'm usually in a coma by the end of each session! Will take notes when I go again tomorrow!

Famous last words!

I was stung by one (a wasp, not a newt) on the back of the hand just over a week ago. No idea where it came from, and I smacked the blighter so hard when it stung me that I'm not sure where it went either! Took a week for the swelling to go down and the wound itself is still inflamed and itchy. Poor me.

I've tended to buy at the cheaper end of the Makita brushless technology, rather than higher up in the brushed range at a similar price. With brushless, you get more battery life, lighter weight for the power, and less heat. As someone said earlier, you're trading brushes as a failure point for electronics, but I haven't heard of any issues with the reliability of the brushless tech.

I was one of a couple who posted I think. I can dig the link out again if you're interested. They were just some well-reviewed 4Ah batteries from Amazon. Still going strong 18 months later. Having come from a very cheap 10 year old cordless drill, I still can't get over how much work I get out of a single battery (which is a good thing given that the second one I bought went walkabout from the site at some point!)

Definitely want to keep your hedge trimmed.

When it comes to battery power, you tend to stick with the first one you buy. Batteries are expensive, so once you have a couple, there's a very strong incentive to stick with that brand for other cordless tools. Most guys involved in building our house who had cordless tools used either Makita or Dewalt.

Makita all the way for me with this sort of thing. Their chargers take 20-odd mins to give you a full recharge - important when you don't want to be standing around waiting. There are also good options available for unbranded batteries.

Is the fencing his or is he renting it? If it's his, then I'd have thought it's his responsibility. Even if it's on hire, as you say, he should have been cracking on with the job. Not surprised you're annoyed, either way.

"your" issues? Check the welds? Has he actually seen what they sent you!? I'd just say no, you've had a year and several attempts, if that's the best offer you have, give me a refund. Did you pay by credit card?

Definitely possible although: - planning isn't really involved from this point on (and they're likely to be the ones holding any grudge) - they may be less inclined to take on someone who's clearly willing to fight his corner The danger is possibly that there's an aggrieved councillor behind this somehow, and they may not be happy with having lost. All speculation of course!

I knew you'd win but it's great to see it official. What utter pillocks the people at your council are. What possible advantage would they have bought their constituents even if they'd won? The money would be better spent on something productive, clearly. Anyway, this is great news. I was about to have a wee G&T, so I'll drink to kicking against the pricks!

I think that what this does is to reduce the resonant frequency of the system. It'll work best if the change in frequency is away from any frequencies the machine is generating. Theoretically, adding mass could make the situation worse if it "tunes" the joists to one of the machine's frequencies (or a harmonic thereof).

Same as ours, and it's a pretty expensive Brink unit (although admittedly you can adjust the volume/hr of each of the four settings).

Interesting theory. The Wilo pump we have in our UFH system is completely (and I mean utterly) silent, to the point where I can't hear when it's on. I can only just perceive a slight vibration when I put my hand on the pump. I find it difficult to believe that there'd be sufficient vibration to cause any problems with leakage. Admittedly our pump doesn't run at a very high setting. I didn't install the manifold until after the plant room had been plasterboarded. Until then, the end of each pipe was covered with a thick bit of plastic and gaffer tape. Since the studwork went up just after the slab was poured, the upcoming pipes were never out in the open for any length of time. It would have been trivial to knock up an OSB or plywood box and screw it to the studwork if the pipes had been in a more exposed place. Also, because we didn't fill the loops before pouring the concrete (risky according to some!), they had no fluid in them until we commissioned the system. There was accordingly no potential freezing issue. Still, if you feel it's a risk, there's nothing to be lost (other than costs) by going the separate screed route.

It's a significant distinction. When we were considering buying the bungalow we eventually bought and knocked down, we went to the local planning department for an informal chat. As soon as we mentioned the word "demolition", they stopped the conversation dead, told us we were "developers" irrespective of what we planned to do with the house once built, and that we'd need to make an appointment and pay a fee before they'd say another word. Seemed harsh at the time, but I can see why the distinction exists.

That looks like it might be for packaging strapping. The builder's stuff is quite a bit thicker.

I know for a fact I can do significantly better than this, despite having never welded and not having done metalwork since school some decades ago. As you rightly say, "custom" doesn't mean "can't be returned no matter what stench is emanating from it". If they refuse a refund on this, I'll be interested to see their reasoning.

Thanks for the great intro Russell, and welcome.