G and J

Just to make you feel better the person fitting our solar battery anf just drilled right through the garage wall and popped off a chunk of our new (and difficult to repair) moncouche render......he dud confess straight away.....

We had this on a large fixed pane. The fitters took out the pane, re did the gaskets, and reglazed.

@SteamyTeaHope you're ok , J

Our rate in East Anglia (likely to be cheaper) 900 per day 2+1. Our 55 linear metres to first floor took 14 days, majority block and they were lightening quick. (This was also round a timber frame, so apart from garage not structural/load bearing). We employed on day rate, they came recommended, if they had "qouted" they would have put some "saftey" in for time. Our bricks Ibstock blues are nothing particularly special and they we just under 1 a brick to us (not list) and that was a good deal. How many days do you quotes think it's going to take?

Sorry for the potentially numpty response, but assuming you mean first floor wall plate, for comparison. 55 linear metres in Suffolk to first floor height, ie just ground floor from below damp, brick plinth average 4 courses, then blocks, labour only 12.5k. Excellent work. From your pictures, in previous posts, your brick work is going to be huge part of your overall design so may be "simple" but the quality required is going to be high...........was your estimate realistic, are your quotes labour only? On the former we had a take off done, and they assumed pretty basic everything (apart from a contractors profit!)

Snap......is working well, again fast delivery good price

We've had good service, price and fast delivery from envirogaf directly...you tell them the size of the cavity and they specify the cv size you need.

@Paddocks532 @Iceverge our architect obviously had the same kingspan salesman! We decided to move away from pir (converted to mineral wool) as having read (copiously) here on BH we realised why a room we had built in the roof over the garage felt "dead", bit echoy. Was plenty warm enough but just not quite right, all this without even getting into the issues of pir being horrible to work with and more difficult to ensure a tight fit. So far so good.

Why not use smaller screws so they don’t go through both layers? i.e. 25mm plus payload. I’m trying to get my head round airtight. To check my thinking: We test at 50pascals. I think that’s equivalent to less than 6mm difference in a water manometer. So it’s sod all in pressure terms. So unless an ex screw hole is huge and ragged, even if there’s a few dozen of them, would that make a difference? Have I got my sums right?

Ummmm, isn’t that a but too big for a domestic plant room? 😉 Being serious I am sort of facing a similar set of worries. Our airtight layer is our VCL, and we are stapling that up. OK, where we can we are putting the staples on the edge outside the tape so on the non airtight side but still, there are a good few places where the staples pierce the membrane. Where a staple is removed or pulled out we should probably put a bit of tape over it, and that’s ok as none of our membrane will be visible. But your walls will look like they’ve got measles lol Presumably you’ll be painting your the PPB, so can’t you simply fill and paint any screw holes from removed screws? I suspect comments about air gaps in mortar are more relevant as there will be thousands of ‘em and they add up. But I’m sure a grown up will be along shortly to confirm. As for plant room and a service void isn’t it just your preferred aesthetic?

Isn’t that the root of the cladding problem with Grenfell? I can easily see me falling into that particular pitfall. Trouble is, when one is scribbling away, it’s so seductive thinking one has come up with a really neat solution (“why had nobody else thought of this? Gosh I’m clever!”). Sigh.

Now he tells me......

The screed was 100mm thick, they used a pump, but it was a dryish mix, Josh shovelled sand (16ton) and cement to match like a trojan....and Jason achieved a really flat result, very happy with the job they did. No we didn't staple the upstand at all.

We used the u heat version (yellow rather than blue, but looks identical) the upstand on our was stiff enough to be self supporting Apologies for poor image but there's nothing supporting it in front of the sliders and we didn't staple, but as you can see screed was traditional sand and cement

Sorry to be über boring, but how bad is the existing building?