G and J

Good to hear and exactly what I was hoping. Would hate to be standing in my hall, listening to odd noises wishing I’d asked more questions.

So, the project moves in and we now have a foundation design. We’ve an A142 reinforced 100mm oversite (slab) on the asymmetric strip foundations to help make it all work. Then 250mm of EPS, in which my poo pipes sit, then 100mm of screed with UFH pipes. The poo pipes can’t be buried in the oversite, so when they enter the house they will have to be at an invert level of 350mm below FFL. The longer of the two pipe runs is just under 6m, which is a 75mm fall at 1:80. That means at the worst bit, which is the base of the soil stack, there will only be 65mm of EPS between pipe and bottom of screed. In terms of scheduling, I can put the poo pipes in just before insulation just before screeding, so I shouldn’t be tripping over them for months. So that sounds good. However, I’m having a fret about them. Should I use special acoustic pipes? Will they creak in the EPS when I empty a hot bath to make the pipes expand? Are there special expansion joints I should build in? Should I wrap them in mineral wool? Will the 100mm screed adequately muffle the trickle of water when someone pees? What else don’t I know that I should know? Etc.

OK dumb question alert: what’s the difference and which does rainwater count as?

I didn’t trust my span of attention. I videoed it so I could check after, which is just as well as I got on with other stuff and forgot about it. The first one I did was over 4 hours. Bugger me that was boring to watch afterwards. Almost as slow as ‘Dances with wolves’.

Pipes will have the fall to run to the road from the road end of the house no problem, except AW want a restriction which implies/requires storage or overflow. Even though it’s a combined system they require separation until the last manhole, which makes the falls a bit more tricky. If I put a tank in the drive it would indeed need a pump and I’m rather keen to avoid that, because I’m tight, I’m lazy so want less maintenance and Sod’s Law dictates that such a system would go wrong when you most need it, e.g. a power cut during a mega storm. (Seen it before, not going there). And as for the end of the garden being able to soak it up, yes, that's a big part of the cunning plan I am hatching (maniacal laugh, as I stroke my Dick Dastardly style moustache!)

We haven’t got a site loo at the mo, but I didn’t think that was what percolation tests meant…. 😕

Crumbs, thank you for all that. In fairness I’ve calmed down a bit now (me meds finally kicked in!) and I’ve gone back to first principles. I’ve got to come up with a drainage plan that satisfies both Anglian Water and my BCO. AW don’t care what I do with the rainwater as long as I squirt a maximum flow (hopefully 2 x 1 litre/s) down the sewer. I’m guessing my BCO cares that I don’t flood anyone. Simples! (I wish.) If our new pad wasn’t there, rain would fall on the plot and what doesn’t soak in would trickle down the garden away from the road, and crucially, peep’s houses. We are in a row of houses where each has a long, parallel back garden with the far end of the garden being circa 1m lower than the road. Plus the light soil is a lot deeper at the far end of the garden, circa 1.2m deep. Perfect for rainwater dissipation methinks. My foul invert level is about 650mm at the road, and as the road is the highest point the invert level with respect to ground level gets progressively worse from there. A couple of phone calls identified quickly that the requirements for a tank under the drive meant that any tank would be way too low to drain into the sewer without a pump. Bugger. No tanks then. So, we are left with the notion that I have some form of overflow that takes excess storm surge rainwater and lets it wander off down the garden and stagnate and then seep away like me with a Pimm’s on a summer evening. That’s what I’m currently working on. So, no thanks to tanks. If and when I get thumbs up from both AW and my BCO you’ll feel the earth shift with my sigh of relief.

I’m under the impression that solar inverters will generate heat, and perhaps therefore might benefit from some airflow which would negate the insulation. Why insulate such a cupboard?

That's we're planning, which sioox did you use original or one of the greys.....cheeky but any chance of a piccy (sorry to divert thread)

Ah, we are going the grey route, not for everyone I know (and we're even paying money to get there quicker and more evenly 🤣), but we are fairly close to an estuary/conservation area (60m) and one of the things the planners seemed to like was the "referencing" of the cladding to the boatyards which is old and untreated......oh, and we're planning to get lazy

😱 we're planning larch cladding to reduce the upkeep from our current cream rendered house........what do you have to do??

My cunning plan is to regale the one who asks with a long winded litany of toil and woe and injustice and everything else I can think of. Two helpings of that, leaving them wishing they’d never asked, and they’ll not ask again. See, being a boring old windbag has its upsides.

Forgive them, they know not what you are going through (albeit voluntarily). Many years ago I ran (meaning jogged, slowly) a half marathon. In the pub a few days after I was asked my time. It was an hour forty. So one of them piped up ‘that’s not very quick’. It pissed me off. Especially as the guy doesn’t run. Took me a few days to remember to be proud of my achievement. So smile, shake your head and pity the incapable. Their inability to grasp the enormity of your achievement because they don’t have a clue is their problem. But I feel for you. I know I’ll be emotionally exactly where you are now.

Could it be as simple as just too much water has been mixed in?

Fortunately I’m too young but I could drink pints of crème de menthe! @LSB Looks like we need a table for three lol

Jeepers. Turns out I too have the required attributes to be an SE. A new career awaits…..

I think that works for when the percolation rate is in bounds. Outside that - nil points

I thought they were different tests. Every day is a school day it seems. But, for the want of a few minutes with a bucket and spade you might discover something useful and save yourself some money. I’m not talking sandcastles…

And if emotionally you do need to understand the logic behind such rules (as I do) think about the potential erosion that uncontrolled rainwater flows could cause. Houses with rainwear are very good at concentrating a benign rainstorm into a damaging localised flow.

Is this personal pref. Or a space concern? If the latter we are not having a shower unit, just a glass panel between basin and shower and we are using the wall between cloakroom and coat cupboard to take cistern.....hopeful makes most of space (which tbh is a bit of compromise but works with rest if design vs £) and means we don't have to see the wc every time we wall past the door, but always willing to consider ideas....

I did wonder. Trouble is, at the road we have an invert level of only 700mm, and the site has a slight slope downwards from the road. So if we have any form of tank the outlet will have to be pumped, which is a pain. The site is only 7m wide, so with the drains going through one side and the garage covering the other I think we will struggle to make room for one. How would I calculate how big a tank I must have?

We have a surface water drainage problem! We have just demolished a bungalow where rainwater was dumped to the ancient sewer. We are required to reapply for our sewer connection. After much too-ing and fro-ing Anglian Water have finally accepted that a soakaway won't work, as we have very poor infiltration rates. So we are going to be allowed to connect our surface water outflow to the sewer, as long as the surface water only joins the foul drain at the last manhole before the road. BUT! They are telling us that we need to resubmit a drainage plan that chokes the flow to 1 litre per second. In further discussion as we have very shallow drains they are minded to accept two outflows (one either side of our foul drain) each of which is choked to 1 litre per second. They helpfully suggested that we need to design storage on site. They also accept that as our drains are v shallow that will be rather challenging. Having spent some time googling and reading past threads we are still none the wiser as to whether this means two water butts or a 20m3 underground tank (which would be impossible due to it being a narrow site and close neighbours with virtually no foundations). Help! Where on earth do we start?

Office Christmas Party Syndrome. Everyone knows they could have done it better than ‘that idiot’. Till they try and do it.

I recently used a rental e-bike to get from Liverpool Street station to Victoria. Wow. Half the time of any other method, cheaper, and really lovely. I wonder if some bright spark (sic) might deploy a fleet of short term rental Citroen Amis in a town like the e-bikes.