scottishjohn

As I have not built my house yet or indeed any ICF house I can only tell you what system I intend to use which will be a woodcrete type system ISOTEX or DURISOL I add again it is only my view and if there were no woodcrete type ICF systems ,then i would be happy using a poly icf system ,but not as confident that the walls would be as true . the main difference being no need for serious bracing systems and you can glue ,screw anything to the woodcrete blocks very simply anywhere -not just in certain places like some poly block systems. you must do your own investigations - and if including the hire of a full bracing system for your poly block system is as economic as the woodcrete types --then there should be little to choose , other then cladding should be easier to fix to woodcrete -my cladding will be granite slips mortared directly to the woodcrete -

so how is he attaching "slips" -thin bits to your poly ICF- mortar direct to poly icf or mounting system which slips are then attached to --. I just don,t see slips sticking directly to poly icf . link ot type of slips you going to use?

how much a sq m ? and then of course you have to fit them as things stand intend to clad my house but i will be using isotex or durisol --which means I can just use mortar direct to the icf -most pol icf will need some sort of backing system I thin --I would check with your ICF supplier unless you are not really talking about "slips " which are 7-20mm thick ,but really another wall with ties to the poly ICF

and of course your "aga" can heat the water for UFH as well-depending on type Is this AGA going to be oil ,wood ,gas or electric or combination of them

depending where you are here in scotland you will have to have a treatment plant now .not a septic tank ,but maybe they will accept the old tank -- planning will be the only ones to decide that you must having planning --so what does it say on the PP and your plans ? your answer is there

advantages of basement -same roof size for more house space - ideal place for all services -so house is all living space maybe important if plot size is small If basement is definite ,then ICF construction for house or at least basement should be top of your list how soggy and soil type of your plot will make a big difference on price or sensibility of having a basement at a reasonable cost -are you on a flood plane? then maybe garage and services under main house --like a basement lifting house away from flood risk so what i am saying is you should not make construction type or design choice until you know where you are building - all systems can make a house any shape you want and of course what is your budget and is it your forever home that could decide choices alot If not forever home then you might want to think about if you could sell it when its built for more than it cost you in a couple of years time I would not underestimate the effect of corvid on house prices in cities in the next few years. If I was young i would not be starting a house build now unless I could do it mostly myself --the house price bubble I fear may be popped if we get a long extension of this pandepmic -in cities at least. here the house prices are jumping up -due to townies wanting to move out-especially houses /renovation projects and plots those with land ,just in the last few weeks -yes they are lower than cities even now --but is this the start of a big trend ? I do not know - no one does --so i would not pay over the odds just to get a plot in a city --wait and keep saving

how is a joiner going to fix rebates that are too big?-unless he is going to fit larger door furniture

your definition of an investment is different to mine -normally you can cash in an investment - No invertors to go bang which totally upset all your careful calculations on pay back of a system I understand your comparison --but its not an investment ,its a choice of how to possibly save money by using diffrent tech -not something that earns money you could same savings by just turning down the heating and wearing a jumper . I am not anti PV -far from it --but don,t call it an investment please

you mean a POSSIBLE not a gauranteed 7-10%----providing corvid don,t make everything crash when second wave hits

sounds like the old joke "doctor i have broken my hand --will i be able to play the piano when its healed doctor--yes thats funny couldn,t play it before-- bbbum

this road has been in use for over 200 years and where the water ate through it you could see many layers of tarmac+ and hardcore+lack quarry waste mix --which is still as hard as hell even the deepest ruts still had well compacted hardcore at the bottom --so once it drys up enough for me to vibro roll the top layer back in I, m sure it will need nothing more than a hard water proof layer the reason it broke up to start with was due to 40 years of tree growth on the surface and root penetration and my clearing of it which meant i had to break through parts of the original hard top to remove 6" roots from the 30ft trees that grew on it my guess is a 5cum jigger of concrete will do about 10m of road more planning required and good weather my thoughts are to wait till house is built and heavy road usage by big trucks and construction equipment is past I will need a nice little lottery win to tarmac it all the way

that would be £15k then for that bit of the road!! in tarmac and that depends on how thick they lay it - my guess using same dimensions but a 4" thick concrete top is £5k for the concrete maybe less . maybe not the rigth way 0-but my thoughts so far are to lay the concrete in two sections centreline of road to one edge with a 1" drop to edge -then do other side same --that should give enough run off and grip if laid with rough tamped finish ? or maybe just make up a tamper bar with the shape higher in middle than outside and do sections at full width to give the camber --just going to be very heavy to work

road now put back injust need roller and also remade the waterfall and culvert area where the burn crosses the road think Ii should rename this area as"timotei falls "--looks just like the advert with this flow and of course such a nice night -got to have some piccies of the view --its all that keeps me going when i,m feeling tiered and its too big a job also spoke to farmer and we modified his bit of the burn which caused the problem -- fixed I HOPE for my lifetime

If I was keeping the qaurry and building a house on a high plateau at the rear of it --then yes the lake is 20-30m deep --never freezes and a hydrologist has told me tha catchment of it is good for 5kw hydro . gshp on my house 300ft+ above it is a non starter as the insulated piping required is over £100 a meter . next your going have me using a solar pv to pump water up from lake to a holding pond + excess water from my water supply in most times of the year and then use hydro with 300ft drop to make power at night . I certainly can accommodate someone if the buy they quarry and want to do that

I,m hoping ,maybe dreaming ,that by the time i get to building my house it might be viable to go totally off grid no problem with space for panels or battery storage and ?or stand by generator etc . last time i got a ballpark quote for power supply it was around 25K any big movements on battery pricing ?

my guess plywood by its nature is more stable --so no need for gaps maybe?

we will behaving discussions on this very soon with him , lack of cleaning out of the burn -dead tree in it etc

the disadvantage of just using batons is you are limited to where you can nail your slates -with sarking and even if you decided to use diminishing slates then you can nail anywhere https://www.tntroofingspecialist.co.uk/portfolio/random-diminishing-slates-6/

first picture was what the road was like on monday of this week. the othe pictures are the road after the monsoon which caused a burn to burst its banks in farmers field and then cascade over his wall onto my road the piles on the road are what we recovered from the bottom opf the council prad and hauled back up . today digger arrived and we started to remake it

digger coming tomorrow and most of what was washed down has now been hauled back up by farmer and umped for me to work with it -get it back into place as afras being hard you will see when I get pictures that is not a problem -we have 12" DEEP GULLY in it and its still granite waste below that and then 2 or 3 leayers of tarmac above it --so hard fill is not the problem --jusat need to divert water --but where is the problem to be fair is was a once in 40 year event yesterday local farmer says last rain like that was 1954 -- -A75 was closed in parts due to fields washing on to it further along to gatehouse area

my road has just been washed out with the monsoon we had yesterday -water coming off farmers field on upside of the road- so yes i got to repair for time being but thinking of concrete the road in bits --but what sort of surface to put on it to make it usable in freezing weather --tarmac sounds like it will be more expensive +just as slippy with the hill suggestions pictures of damage to follow later

I am a milwaukee 18v tool man -and have now tried 2 different non genuine makes of batteries for my tools --the problem is the tools are so powerful that the batteries over heat when you work the tools hard -- they start smoking and eventually burn out the strap connectors inside the pack --the cells are good --just the joining straps are too thin so yes they are half the price --but not up to what the big power tools can draw - buy genuine ones we live and learn

a blind man and his dog will pick up on most things your normal survey will find ,probably more waste of money in most cases ,if have normal reasonable knowledge of buildings and yes you got no chance of any sort of claim -forget it ,move on .

you tell them to swop them for flat ones same as you looked at sale of goods act --merchantable quality

then you know what to look for when you go shopping --take a straight edge with you to check my guess is it will depend on how much you pay for them and are they porcelain or just ceramic tiles