Ashdown

Had a delay on this project for all sorts of reasons so the doors are not in yet. The door company is going to supply Purenit which at 40mm thick is going to take the load and span the cavity but I am a little concerned about cracking in the floor as raised by Russell earlier. I will try and upload the dwg later.

We have just been through the glass door pain and have recently placed orders. We are not far from you and happy to talk if you like . Peter

Under sliding door sketch.pdf

Thank you for the useful data - the Leca insufil is a version of the lightweight expanded clay aggregate used under roads and bridges and has a compressive strength of 0.7MPa which we were considering using just in the cavity directly under the door track (PIR elsewhere). https://www.leca.co.uk/sites/default/files/DoP_DK_15210000xxx_EN 15732_UK.pdf The Purenit is a very dense PIR product which claims a compressive strength of over 5MPa and shear strength of 1 to 1.5MPa. http://www.cfsfixings.com/products/purenit This we are considering fitting across the cavity directly under the track - sketch attached. One concern is that if the Leca settles, then the Purenit will be asked to bridge the cavity, which is where there will be a combination of shear and compression on the edges. Not being a mechanical engineer I can't really tell what would happen but I expect we may need to try some and test it. It it works though it would be an easy solution for anyone to use. I will go and look up foamglass, fibreglass and marmox!

I am reliably informed by my son that the drone is a DJI Phantom 2 Vision Plus... (He made the video) Apparently the average age for a self builder in the UK is around 51 and we are no exception - a classic case of living here for over 20 years and only now do we have what it takes to sort the house out, just in time to see the kids leave home but before they do they are helping us with the project. Unlike my wise sister who is downsizing we are doing the opposite and the kids worked hard all summer and once finished on the site for the day went on to bake the team cakes etc. Now with the wet weather and university terms started things are a bit different but we are nearing wall plate level so hope to have another video soon. Even though the family has moved onto a different stage from playing with the zip wire and other things we made in the garden, this house has a lot of life left in it for us as. ... I take that back apparently we need to put the zip wire back so nothing has changed really. And oh yes - it looks like none of them want to go now so we are landed with them for a while yet - better build a bigger house then! The aluminium truss is typical of the stage lighting industry and we just used a piece for marking out levels for the steelwork etc of which there is plenty. It was only there for a couple of days and held up by Boss tower outriggers. So not very exciting I'm afraid!

Hello. We are Peter & Julie from East Sussex extending a 1950s cottage which has been poorly extended before, so we are removing part and rebuilding. You can see how we are doing here:

We are using sliding doors (Reynaers CP130) fitted into traditional cavity walls - 100mm brick, 100mm full-fill PIR, 100mm blockwork. The challenge is to adequately support the track which will largely end up over the cavity. The aluminium track has a plastic thermal break meaning it has little lateral strength and cannot bridge the cavity and carry glass up to 200Kgs without a substantial substrate beneath. Ideas have included mass-filling the cavity with concrete and steel plates across the cavity. However these will both provide significant thermal bridging. A solution we are currently looking at will be to fill the cavity under the track with Leca Insufil and compact by light hand-ramming (it will compact by around 10%). Above this a layer of CF board (Purenit) 40mm or so. Hopefully this combination will provide a firm base which will have low thermal conductivity and minimal impact from moisture, but we are not familiar with these materials used in this type of application. Any thoughts please? Many thanks Peter