mvincentd

I'm no expert but I would respectfully encourage you to closely examine the suppliers fitting plan for the posijoists to rule out any misinterpretation. I hope my concern is ill founded given all your hard work fitting the wall plate. IF you mean your posijoists are designed to be top hung surely you should have more length on the top chord, but they don't look like they are anyway to me? Are there joist hangers in the case of top hung? I do actually have some posi's where they are in hangers that are 'free' at the bottom but the hangers are bespoke, much heavier gauge and coach bolted. My SE and Crendon (posijoists) were quite specific that its the lower wall plate of the two (image attached) doing the work, and the upper one is relatively speaking just a filler. Hence the bottom of hangers match bottom of wall plates and the 'excess' height of the posijoist protrudes above top of hanger (in my case to match top of concrete). Regarding the 100mm short issue, I don't think you should even begin to put your own thinking cap on.....Posi's are an engineered solution and the supplier needs to warrant the integrity of the solution so the answer surely MUST come from them...to that end I don't see bco wanting to stick their neck out.

I can only speak from the experience of a single self-build but the lack of true detail in my building regs drawings has resulted in ongoing pain and expense. Maybe its just because my house is non-standard (but I doubt it as most self builds are) but the B-Regs drawings are woefully lacking and assume 'the builder will know how'..but he won't! The 2 extra months for enhanced drawings can easily by clawed back by actually knowing what you're building compared to guessing day after day!

Im sure in practice your marmox will work as shown but just to check you're aware you cant build in multiple courses with them.

https://www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk/products/compacfoam-200/ I planned on using this but had enough Marmox left over so went with that. A 6 metre long course of marmox though doesn't exactly end up dead flat and level so check the requirements/tolerance of your sliders...you may end up needing to top it off anyway with something more flat and smooth like marine ply.

cooool

My window fitter 'has done em all'...I asked him what he'd choose for himself....Rationel. (I offer this nugget as someone who didn't choose Rationel, knows little about them and is totally happy with his 'other' windows and the fitter)

+1 to thunderbolts, by default my structural engineer specced Hilti which were £6 each versus unbranded at the merchants for circa £1. SE said smiling that they always spec those but never know what builders actually use. Further research showed the Hilti were approx twice as strong (cant recall by what measure now). Follow the instructions for pilot hole size versus thunderbolt size and be prepared to use a few sds bits rather than soldier on with a blunted one. If you screw in using a pozidrive and things get tough try a spanner to get through the tight spot.....approx one in 8 of mine ran tight to rebar making things harder but i think i only actually had to give up totally on maybe 4 holes out of 130. Framing screws do work ok in concrete, but i'd not feel safe using them for a wall plate.

I believe the reasoning is to prevent a situation where a 'slumped' person might prevent opening...in which case clear space wouldn't be relevant.

I think your internal leaf will be load bearing, not the external leaf...so your original proposal of 3.6n thermals for inner leaf might bump to 7n depending on the house design.

'turf roof'.....are you using this term quite specifically as distinct from sedum or wildflower roofs for example?

Couldn't you just hang a false panel of say 25mm thickness, carrying strips of leds that have i guess 3mm of height.. ..i cant see why just a 25mm hanging gap wouldn't suffice to create enough light and shadow to delineate. Total height loss 50mm.

Thanks, it's sounding like the simpler approaches might be better........thats refreshing for once!

Resilient bars have just come on my radar along with the realisation that having posijoists separating ground and 1st floor makes for a potentially fiddly job. If i'm understanding correctly, I've got to stuff maybe 100mm of acoustic wool in there, but unlike solid joists the metal webs create loads of awkward spaces that a simple slabbing approach won't infill. Do people generally bother about this or settle for a less discerning job......and does it make a tangible difference? Likewise do resilient bars make a tangible difference.......theyre not specced on my drawings but the theory behind them is attractive given I feel my posi's at 600 centres in this position exhibit a tad of bounce/vibration?

I guess you've been in the tank rooms at the Tate Modern Jack.....fabulous. I think so...would probably suck up another £25k to make it more pleasing overall to my eye, but a fair bit more to elevate it beyond just getting 'over the line'. Meanwhile I suspect the owners love the fact that most conventionally minded people don't get it.

I don't blame the concrete...it's just used too relentlessly.....a bit like white rendered houses with white painted interiors only accented by grey framed windows and grey roof tiles. Taking all the colours of the world and rubbing them out to near nothing.

Don’t know if it can open up any other possibilities for you if you reduce the fall.....it looks unnecessarily generous...at least twice mine?

But is that stuff uv stable....don’t want it falling apart after 2 years. I couldn’t find any that was so went for black coated metal insect mesh in that position......though the black coating will probably degrade too. It’s then tedious consistently spacing each board, with nothing to push up to in order to automatically create the right spacing (so make a spacer I hear you say). If you then view your wall from 45 degrees, with 20mm thick square cut cladding you’ll need a 20+mm spacing to appreciate it...... If the meeting board edges aren’t both square cut but at different angles they’ll stand off each other creating a deep shadow gap but also be fully ‘closed’. The perception of gap will be there. Or buy cladding that’s profiled for a shadow gap like https://www.vastern.co.uk/cladding/halflap-cladding/ , but these generally only chop back half the depth so seem to me less convincing. I might be talking rubbish on all this but it’s where my limited experience so far is leading me.

I’ve also struggled with the ‘contemporary’ designs of most front doors that have modern construction meeting insulation and security requirements. I’ve ended up going with a Hoorman which is quite uninspiring, but was able to match the garage and personnel door that sat alongside. RK offer flexibility to bespoke many elements and could have improved on my chosen aesthetic, but not substantially and at an approx 80% uplift in price. If it’s exclusively the front door and you’re not trying to align the design with garage I think RK are a good starting point. Www.urbanfront.com is good for inspiration but you’ll need some quids to go shopping there!

Maclennan (for example), (using Newton waterproofing) refused to waterproof externally and would only do an internal cavity drain system. This is what most of the houses further along from you on Banks Road use where it's an extreme case of sea on both sides and built on sand! Basically the system admits defeat, lets water in, but then guides it away.....all of which is going on just behind your plasterboarded walls. I hate the thought of it but by all accounts it is effective. I am happy with my experience of using Godsel Arnold Partnership... @vivienz dealt with them too, I don't know her final opinion...they're local to you, Broadstone.

@Ian if you're in conversation with the Sika inspectors it would be interesting to ask them if Sika have now "withdrawn from waterproofing icf below ground as a result of getting too many problems associated with it." These are the precise words my Sika inspector said to me last week.

If your on the same footprint do you mean the excavations already exist as required. Is any of the existing building acting as retaining these excavations. If so can any of this viably remain. If it is ALL to be removed what then protects the excavations. It's very typical of Poole given land prices, to utilise every last inch of plot and so ‘real life buildability’ becomes a question to consider with your Principle Designer amongst others. You could find a logistical consideration around how a builder physically achieves a task, significantly steers what tasks you should present the builder with....so you might get a great price for icf, followed by an insistance on sacrificial sheet piling to make it safe to then waterproof it externally, followed by a monumental quote to have a waterproofing system that comes with a guarantee worth its paper. Be wary of the headline price of icf. I love the concept of icf, researched it a lot, went on the Nudura course, pushed my SE at it and had my builds working drawings done based on using it, got quotes for it and for waterproofing it. I’m definitely not against icf....but the project has to be right for it. Walking away from it crushed my aspirations to literally self build my house, and drastically reset my budget before I’d even dug a hole. Unfortunately most SE’s, architects etc are still quite inexperienced with it so aren’t best placed to instantly know if your project is right for it...they really need to engage with YOUR situation rather than just shoot back some generalist reticence about icf. By the same token, and with the greatest of respect to those who have used icf above ground and express general enthusiasm for it, Its useful info but I don’t believe it gets you any further forward...below ground retaining walls are a very different kettle of fish. Are you going to actually build this yourself.....do you actually need a lightweight, low skill product to get to the end result of a poured in situ concrete wall with insulation either side. Icf is not THE way to get a poured concrete wall....it’s A way. I used built in situ shuttered concrete, carried out by a specialist contractor, which is slow, wasteful and soul destroying, and I wouldn’t as a generalisation recommend it, but I’ve yet to be persuaded it wasn’t the best option for my project. I honestly hope you can conclude that icf is good for you (but I doubt it) as I love the concept....just don’t let loving the concept lead to a blinkered determination to use it. My build is 25 mins from yours...you are welcome to come look, just pm me....I think I can show you stuff that’s pretty relevant to your project.

Well on Wednesday they tried to tell me SA couldn't do heating AND dhw....then said they'd check with technical, and i've heard nothing since. I don't see these guys solving any time soon the difficulties we're all having with the communication of good information on Sunamps.

Adam, just off Lulworth Avenue right on the corner of the Hamworthy Park carpark there's what i'm 99% sure is a durisol build going on....blocks going up currently...you might fancy being nosey. Don't allow your love for the concept of icf to get in the way of your hearing what might be legitimate concerns of your architect...he might have little experience of it but correct me if i'm wrong, you have none? Seems you're at a pretty early stage in your design process still, so it might pay to remain open minded.

hah, well at least today my building inspector has been pragmatic about the adjoining door; says a bog standard old style solid wood fd30 will do with a lock on it, and the garage doors will surely be secure enough. It's a nice easy going response.

Vivienz, what's your final floor build up consist of on top of the concrete slab? I'm hoping there's a degree of 'optical illusion' going on in this photo.....the slab height relative to the window unit looks somewhat 'marginal'?