Lincolnshire Ian

I think that I have seen one of your posts before talking about Town And Country Vibro, and I have enjoyed watching the video Our ground is very dodgy, below 3m it's very wet, the consistency of play-dough. I must admit I thought that the ground improvement route wouldn't work. Maybe it's worth a look though. Thanks for your input, much appreciated.

Poor soil. Clay below 0.5m, very wet clay 2-3.5m, and then we hit the hard stuff at 4m+

Just sense-checking the quote for our piles and ring beam (I know it is going to be expensive 😕). We have the first quote in for 34 piles down to 12m, and 102lm ring beam (excluding structural engineer costs). The quote is roughly £37k. Does that sound about right?

If you decide to go down the Velux route I would suggest sending your plans to Velux, then having a sales consultantation. Velux will send you a quote which will be very expensive. Send your Velux quote to your builders merchant and ask them to get a quote from Velux for the identical spec. I took this route and saved 25%.

Don't treat me like you are selling me a load of tarmac from the back of a flat bed that's "left over from another job". When I have been to the trouble to send you my house plans, spend an hour listening to your Account Manager tell me how good you are and then trawl through a credit application form don't treat me like a mug. I "tested" the BM with a large request for a quote for fencing timber. The builders merchant popped back and said they didn't have the dimensions I wanted but pretty close. I thought fair enough, let's see the quote. They sent me a quote for timber that was for "internal use only", I know this because it was printed on the quote!

Brilliant, that looks good. Thanks for your help.

Our soil investigation company is based in Leicester, so probably not much help. But as a cost comparison ours was for five 6m sample holes and three 10m resistance holes. The cost was around £2.5k. The testing found peat which meant that we needed two sampling holes which were gas tested every week for 6 weeks. This was another £2k.

That's an interesting take on it. You could be right. I don't think many people actually lock the windows anyway.

Hi We are building a TF house with a block and render skin. I am struggling to find weep vents that are long enough for the block + render thickness. Can anyone help with this please? Thanks

Hiya We have received the window schedule from our TF manufacturer, and it shows a ground-floor room with an escape window that isn't lockable. I understand the principle of it not being lockable, but I'm probably more worried about someone helping themselves to our stuff. It's also a question asked when you take out insurance: "Are all the downstairs windows lockable?" Can I insist upon an escape window to have a lock, or is this just something that we will need to do? Thanks

The HSE says that hot water is required https://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/healthrisks/welfare/toilets-and-washing.htm But does this get enforced on site by BC, or is it worth taking a risk that the HSE won't do a site inspection.

Hi all Do I really need hot running water for the portaloo? Can I get away with cold running water with soap etc. + sanitizer. Many thanks

We looked at this, it was my preferred cladding, but we couldn't justify the high price compared to other cladding. We are going with Proclad having looked at lots of alternatives.

The garden needs building up to the level of the house. By your comment above I am assuming that tamping and levelling with the bucket of the digger should be OK. Have I got this right? Thanks

Hi We have a plot where the garden will need building up in places. We have access to unlimited free top soil. When I level the plot will it be "good enough" to simply drive the 3T tracked digger over the land to flatten it or will I need to get a roller? Thanks

Thank you 👍

Hi We are looking for piling and ground beam contractors in south Lincolnshire, we have found East Anglian Piling, East Anglian Civils and WT Mini Piling and Groundworks. Can anyone think of or recommend any others. Alternatively, we could use precast ground beams, do these work out more expensive? Thanks

The Timber Frame company offer to put up the fascia and soffits, but this would mean installing them before the outer skin had been built. I was wondering whether anyone had any experience whether it worked better to install fascia and soffits before or after the outer skin is constructed.

Hi folks We are starting to plan roof tilers who will follow on directly after the erection of our timber frame house. The outer skin of block and render will start after the roofing is installed. Should I ask the roofer to install the soffit and fascia as part of their roofing visit, or is this something that needs doing after the block work and render has been completed. Thanks everyone.

My building spec is for 160mm PIR in the floor. This is OK, but I am struggling to find any insulation thicker than 150mm and to keep things simple I would like to avoid using two different thicknesses. Does anyone know where I can get 160MM PIR? Thanks

Hi Our Structural Engineer is designing piled foundations for our self-build in south Lincolnshire. Does anyone have any recommendations for piling companies, and also for groundworkers who can build the ring beam etc. Thanks

Hi all We are planning a new build with a plant room. The plant room is accessed from the garage, but is part of the insulated building envelope. The plant room will contain the ASHP internal components, MVHR, battery, UFH manifold and Hot Water Tank. Most of our UFH quotes exclude the plant room, which has a certain logic because this is a small room which contains equipment that will generate heat. Does this make sense, or should we be asking for quotes that include UFH in the plant room? Thanks

We want to increase the potential to avoid awkward questions from insurers and mortgage companies for future owners.

Hi We have spent lots of time looking at different types of cladding for our Fleming Homes timber frame house. The house is going to be 70% render on block and 30% cladding on battens. We have settled on Cladco and gave them a call for a chat. One of our questions was about fire rating, and due to it being a composite of wood fibre and plastic they aren't. We have a two storey house, 30% clad, on a large plot with at least 10m between us and the nearest neighbour. Do we need fire-rated cladding? Thanks

We have been looking at tiles for our self-build. We want a grey, flat tile and have been looking at Marley Modern and Sandtoft Calderdale. One builder's merchant said these two suppliers can have availability issues and long lead times, so they suggested we look at the FP McCann "Thin Flat Tile." It looks like FP McCann has been making concrete products for decades but is relatively new to the tile market. Does anyone have any experience with this tile? It seems to be quite a bit cheaper than the Marley or Sandtoft alternatives. Thanks