Spinny

Presumably the position of the water supply/stop tap is defined in the drawings and the builder's contract includes it in the work scope.

I am glad to hear of your recovery, and well done with picking up your build again. I think the state of the NHS is a worry to us all, and ever more so as we get older. Where it is all going awry seems impossible for anyone to understand or fix. I will say that the very elderly do seem to get a huge attention from the NHS. We find ourselves ferrying nearly 90's relatives to multiple appointments every single week. A neighbour is 102 now. I presume they did explain what the problem was and explain their decisions to keep sending you away again. I am interested to see how you cover your cavities as you go. Our builders had zero interest in ever covering anything that was built. Oh the happy times (not) we spent going up scaffolding to protect things. Tarpaulins, DPM rolls, buckets, mops, water pump, sand bags at 6am was bloody miserable.

Why not phone up the water utility company and ask them. If a new water pipe is going to be connected to their water meter I'd have thought they would want to be informed. We were not building a new house, but we did replace the lead pipe connection down our drive with a new MDPE pipe. The connection at the pavement was done by the water utility company and effectively connected the new MDPE pipe we had put in by a private contractor to the mains supply and removed the old lead pipe connection. We were increasing the bore of our mains connection, but: The Utility Company had stated requirements for the install of the new pipe. They had an inspector that was required to approve things before the connection/move to the new pipe. Either coming in person while trenches were open, or looking to see photographs showing pipe was at the necessary depth etc. This is also something building regs should be insterested in - for example at least knowing that the utility company inspected your pipe. Now it might be tempting to play dumb, not talk to anyone, and just connect a new pipe. But down the line when someone is buying the house and the connection was not notified, or approved, or passed, you might live to regret it. Also regs and requirements are there for reasons that help to protect you as building occupier and owner. Your builder may be very good, or may not be. Do you want to wait until move in to find the mains freezes in winter, or leaks etc. If builder does everything A1 then a utility inspector will pass it in a flash, if not then you would want to know wouldn't you. Show your builder that you want a straight bat, that you are asking the right people the right questions - good ones will expect that. Also when our new pipe was connected the water utility accidentally broke the connector - had to turn the water off to the whole street to fix it. What is your builder going to do if that happens ? scarper ? Honestly in the context of the costs of building something, then any charge involved in going by the book is worth accepting and paying.

I have 3 smallish access hatches in my suspended floor which is otherwise fixed down with u/floor heating pipes in. 1/ one hatch will be under the sink unit, not visible and inaccessible without removing the whole worktop and then the sink unit - access hopefully very unlikely 2/ one hatch will be under the washing machine, not visible, accessible by pulling machines out and removing a divider panel - access hopefully very unlikely 3/ one hatch in an alcove//cupboard area, visible when sliding door open - access very likely if any wires need pulling to the AV/network cupboard Floor is going to have leveller then LVT. Not sure how best to handle these hatches... Bury under the leveller/LVT floor and forget ? Create some kind of position template/measurements, then just bury under the leveller/LVT floor ? Create some kind of enduring hatch by having a break in the leveller and LVT and a hatch that can be lifted somehow ? By removing screws ? By using a sucker to lift the hatch ? By putting holes or slots in the floor and using some kind of lifting handle ? Anyone had or done similar ? Suggestions or advice ?

I don't think you are at fault. We do actually have a couple of single origin doors ourselves which we are very happy with. I wonder what exactly happened regarding your survey - did they produce dimensioned drawings afterwards and gain your explicit sign-off/approval of them prior to manufacture ? Did the drawings show or specify the distances to the wall as an explicit design constraint ? Did they change your cill design when they realised the wall mistake and adjusted the fitting ? Were you always going to have a traditional cill rather than a low profile one ? Looks like a 50mm error - did someone build the wall out of position ? I just wonder because if there was some clear evidence that the wall issue was their reponsibility to take account of and they failed to do that then I would have thought you would have been within your rights to refuse the original fit. I found there is actually quite a lot to think about for the sizing and positioning of doors and windows - exact FFL, handle clearances, reveal clearances, threshold fixings, lintel/steel fixings, plaster lines, render lines etc. I attach our bifold drawing to show the level of info specified. You almost need to be autistic about it all. ID Systems fitters came across country last summer and were still working until 8pm one summer evening to get everything right. I would query that seal and the gasket. I think both should be fixable. When new stuff finally gets installed it is easy to be euphoric and not check it all over. On the unfinished cut edges, you could go back to a showroom and examine the showroom origin doors - do they have the same finish - if not you could raise it. Does the fall angle on the open bifolds match the non-plumb angle on the frame install ? When you build up the outside with slabs where will your drainage falls go anyway ? Normally a fall away from the house. In the end certain things are fixable with different degrees of consequence: Changing seals Changing gaskets Replacing Framing pieces Reinstalling the whole frames and doors Cutting a notch in the wall for the bifolds to open into Fitting a whole new door set made to different dimensions Replacing with different bifold make or different fitters All depends how unhappy you are, and how much you may or may not be willing/able to spend to address it.

It is only a small area. A physical DPM is going to interfere with getting a good bond. Not very likely to get any damp but would prefer to use something rather than nothing. People must want to liquid damp proof floors and then use tile adhesive all the time - what do they use ? Mapelastic AquaDefence ?

I have sunflex bifolds installed by ID Systems. I think it is very important that installation is done very precisely - everything needs to be exactly plumb - that takes time and extreme care by experienced installers. ID Systems did provide that. I don't trust a builder to do that TBH. All my window seals are very good. I did have an issue with a seal at the bottom edge of a door but it was put right. I did have some issues with wrong parts being supplied, and with my builder screwing up the opening, but that is a different thing. Drop on your doors could be install issue, or might be a 'design feature'. Yes I was told to open them as you describe, doesn't seem too much of a problem. Mine do slide right across the opening to hang at either side. I don't have a any cut ends exposed. Opening was surveyed by the fitters and dimensioned manufacturing drawings then provided for buy off before manufacture.

So I want to use tile adhesive on a horizontal surface after applying some kind of damp/waterproofing to it. (Yesterday AI recommended DryBase Liquid-Applied DPM saying I could apply tile adhesive while it was still tacky. Today it says the Drybase has to dry completely and then I may need a primer. Useless thing) What can I use and still get a good tile adhesive bond (Using Mapei Super Flexible Tile Adhesive - powder S1) ?

@Andeh What exactly have you used as your soffit material, it looks very good. Is it actual timber, or something man made ?

Not sure how Open can have any right to dig up the neighbours drive without his express permission. Would have thought to do so would be criminal trespass and damage.

@Alan Ambrose Another retrofit smart window sensor I happened across here... https://shop.siegenia.com/siegenia/en/Smarte-Systeme/Smart-Home/Smarter-Sensor/SENSOR-SET-RAL7005-GRAU-K1/p/ZUFS1000-0J9010 Interestingly they also do smart window handles that can be automatically locked and monitored and also tell you if the window is open or not... https://shop.siegenia.com/siegenia/en/p/ZHSM0020-002011

Why insulate the slab, are you heating the garage ?

Dot & Dab brings the plasterboard off the blockwork anyway. 12.5mm plasterboard with 2.5mm skim = 15mm. Dabbed off the wall by 10mm and the front of your finished wall is circa 25mm off the block work. Why no skirting board ? People do use flush skirting with shadow gaps and stuff - is that what you mean ? We have a 25mm upstand but levelling compound and flooring will cover it. Laying the top part of the screed to cover the top of the upstand could be one answer. Yes creates a small thermal bridge between floor and wall but does this matter much ?

Yes agree also. Council budgets are overwhelmed with care requirements for the ageing baby boomers. Funding for planning and building control therefore seems to get stripped back. No doubt the desire to automate and go more electronic is borne out of this - i.e. cutting council spend and cutting planning and control services. In addition the previous generation of baby boomer planners with many years of experience and knowlege are disappearing to be replaced by youngsters on low wages and little to no actual planning knowledge and experience. And they struggle to even recruit these youngsters with constant staff shortages. Planning officer I dealt with had zero knowledge of all the issues around building at boundaries - party wall act, boundary dispute law, trespass law, right to light, etc. You won't solve this by thinking you can reduce it to a monkey pressing a keyboard on 'the system'. The planning system is poacher and gamekeeper. If you reduce the gamekeeper to a monkey on a keyboard you are going to get huge amounts of poaching, bad buildings, and huge public dissatisfaction with planning decisions. (And I strongly suspect this is like so many cost cutting initiatives I have seen, which actually amount to just transferring work from a department out to the user of that service. Moving the work of using the system from the planning and control departments to the planning applicant will be a disaster for the planning process - some planning applicants do lie and deceive their way through the system you know.

Hi @Nickfromwales and all, I get that you want me to fill the cavity with concrete. But have some concerns that mean I don't really want to do that. The DPC is above the bottom of the door cill and has been stepped down to run under the door cill. Note the door is only a single door so the reveal is 890mm wide only). So the cavity wall below the floor level is below the DPC. It has grey jablite type insulation in it. I was able to pull one piece out to have a look and found there was some moisture at the bottom of the cavity there when we had very wet weather. Clearly some moisture from the ground/hardcore outside the door can work it's way through the outer leaf to the bottom of the cavity when it rains a lot. The jablite was used at that level rather than PIR because it can cope with any moisture better. So I don't want to remove the inner celcon leaf (which would be complicated now the rest of the floor is in now anyway) because it would remove the cavity 'protection' from damp, and the jablite insulation. The inner leaf is also thermal blocks and provides a point of support for closing the cavity with a board over. The cavity is also probably 450mm deep there so would be quite a bit to fill with concrete and have dry. The fundamental problem is the lack of any support on the outer leaf side of the cavity, and the fact this is difficult or impossible to access with power tools because there is only the 100mm cavity to fit any tool into. Therefore my proposed approach of bonding a support piece to the outer leaf, which also has to be insulative. To deal with the stilhetto issue I am now thinking I could put 6mm No More Ply cement board over the 20mm XPS backer board to provide more rigidity and spread any point loads. (Not sure on the best thing for bonding the two together ? No more ply adhesive ? flexible tile adhesive ?). Then the. cementitious floor leveller should go on the top of the cement board quite happily. New diagram attached. On my test piece I bonded the XPS support strip to the concrete outer leaf with Rawlplug bonded anchor R-KEM 2. Chat GPT is suggesting there might be better alternatives to use for bonding XPS to concrete - thoughts. The biggest risk would seem to be this support debonding down the line. (I have some metal angle brackets but there is no way to screw them into the outer blocks.) More thoughts comments please as I need to close this out nowish.