GEO-PAR

Cheers for all the feedback guys. I don't know if this makes much difference to your suggestions above but my lintels are going to be chunky beasts (I want the traditional cottage look where you get very deep external reveals). For the doors, they're H210 x D325 and for the windows they're H210 x D230. I'm currently exploring two options: 01: Purchase stone in 50mm thickness to act as a veneer. There will be a joint to the underside but i'll need a drip detail anyway so I'm thinking I can obscure as the drip. We did this on a big commercial project I worked on where most of the facade was stone faced precast but we had traditional hand-set stone for the two entrances. They made timber moulds, placed the stones in the mould, and then pour concrete over the top. Unfortunately I'm too small fry for the company that did it to be interested but I have found a much smaller pre-caster that have said they'll price it up. Not 100 percent sure this is going to be the cheapest option but exploring it at the moment. It feels like the most robust option and will enable me to put lifting eyes in so I can telehandler them into position with less risk of damage to the stone. Option 02: This is based on your suggestion above: Metal angle that is cut into the stone. I'm thinking it might be a good idea to weld some rods to the angle and chem fix them to the stone to prevent any rotation or slipping (or am I over thinking / is this a bit daft?). It feels to me like this could be a much cheaper solution to be fair. Not sure what size angle I'll need for my size of lintels - Will have to ask the S.E I guess Cheers

Not really sure what you mean - Are you able to sketch? Did you just cut the slot about an inch above the bottom of the brick?

Sorry - Didn't see these additional comments until now. I'm attempting to go down the precast route... 50mm stone veneer to the front and underside (using the joint to form a drip detail) pinned into a reinforced concrete lintel. This way the stone will only need to oversail the opening by 50mm and the concrete can oversail by the typical 150mm. Just exploring the option not so not sure how expensive it will be.

Yeah I think I'm going to boost it up to at least 100 if not 150 like you suggest. I found this picture where the bearing looks about 50mm, but it's granite so being a harder stone, I guess this makes it possible

Yeah I appreciate it will make it a whole lot cheaper but it's not a house I'm intending to flip, so want to get it right. But equally think what I've drawn may cause issues. I'm wondering how they managed to achieve this - Super deep reveals with no exposed lintels. My guess is that they cast the stones into some kind of concrete lintel.

Okay cheers

I did wonder this. I've seen it don't before where the edge of stone head aligns with the opening reveal (I.e so no bearing at all). No idea how you'd do this.

Because then you'll see the underside of the steel when you look up below the window

I need to order my stone cills and lintels asap but getting cold feet on how I planned to do it. Interested to know what others think - Whether I'm being a little mad or if it will be okay? My intention was to have a natural limestone lintel self supporting. I only wanted it to bear onto the stone walls either side by 50mm (for visual reasons) but now questioning if that's enough. I'll then stick a Catnik CN71A (or similar) above it with a 10mm gap for deflection (so the steel doesn't crack the stone if it deflects). This steel will have your typical 150 bearing each side. I want to keep this above the limestone lintel so when you look up at the window, you don't see any steelwork.

Reposted here and cannot delete (links don't appear to be working on this post):

Hi All, Reposting this as I originally put it under 'General Construction Issues' and haven't received any comments. I'm just looking for a sanity check on my foundation detail (to hopefully provide some peace of mind before I keep building up). I'm constructing a highly insulated new build (200mm PIR above DPC, full fill XPS below DPC). My foundation detail is based on a Greenbuilding Store case study: https://greenbuildingstore.co.uk/golcar-passivhaus-ground-floor-foundations/ I originally designed it as per below, where the Surecav meets the DPC: Full fill XPS below cavity tray. Then the offcut pieces of the XPS are used above the tray below the first wall tie. Kingspan PIR is then used above the first wall tie up to eaves. The problem occurred when attempting to add the XPS back in above the DPC (to fill what would otherwise be a triangle cut out). The thickness of the DPC caused the XPS to get kicked out compared to the PIR above. This meant that there would have been a step in the SureCav. To get over this, I introduced a second cavity tray that lapped up the face of the bottom board of PIR and effectively did a solid fill cavity below where the stonework just got built up to the back of the XPS. Does anyone foresee any issues? My worry in hindsight (after building up past this to about 4ft, is that the cavity tray I inserted only laps up the face of the insulation. Any water ingress behind the insulation has nowhere to go. Am I over thinking this and it will be fine, or do people think I may have issues in the future?

Hi All, Just looking for a sanity check on my foundation detail. I have a highly insulated build (200mm PIR above DPC, full fill XPS below DPC). Based on a Greenbuilding Store case study: https://greenbuildingstore.co.uk/golcar-passivhaus-ground-floor-foundations/ Cutting the insulation to the falls of the DPC cavity tray was an absolute headache. We ended up setting up a jigg and then using the offcuts to bring XPS up to create a flat ledge below the first wall tie. We then started the PIR above this. When installing the XPS above the cavity tray, it kicked out compared to the PIR above. This meant that there would have been a step in the SureCav. To get over this, I introduced a second cavity tray that lapped up the face of the bottom board of PIR. Will this work? Does anyone foresee any issues? I've already constructed up to about 4ft along one wall so hoping this works but equally stressed about continuing as it will only get more expensive to rectify if there is a problem. Kind Regards, George

I had the same issue recently and was quoted 13.5k to move it. I asked about wayleaves and she said they'd move the pole for nothing but wouldn't allow me to connect into it for the new property. Managed to solve it in the end for much less (just putting in a taller pole which isn't ideal but gets' me out of trouble). I would suggest getting clued up on wayleaves before having NatGrid out.

£18 an opening sounds crazily cheap?! Do you mean per length? When I priced it up in Timloc, it was about £30 ever 2.4 metres. Worked out about 1k for the whole job and I feel I don't have that many openings. That's also not including the cavity closer at the eaves, but I was thinking of just closing that off with cementitious board?

Building Control were happy with this? I thought it had to meet certain fire requirements, which the cavity closers you buy have been tested against?