redtop

getting the level right should be easy as they are being marked out by Nationwide. Getting them square to each other is another matter, need to have a think. I am planning on getting the rebar cut and shaped. I just want to fully understand the job before i make the decision ? The bolts have an option of drill and resin or embed in the concrete before its set, which seems easier to me

i cant even see where bar mark 1 and 2 are lol. SE is away until end of aug so i guess it will have to wait. there are 41 piles and they are all the same

so it says:-

have had quote for pre-formed rebar which i was going to use, but couldnt really understand drawing. I get 51 shape, easy to google. But is it 3 per cap and are tey connected via bars? Just want to make sure i order right ? Pre-formed shuttering.... never heard of such a thing

no, will be under final soil level

had a quote for 7k, but this is just for the caps not the steels / ring beam. i can do it for less than half and will have time to do a few at a time as wont be onto main building until the spring

in particular what does 'locally dish' mean?

so we have the design for the pile caps, need to decide whether to do ourselves or contract out. on top of the caps will be steel posts which lift the building off the ground; all designed by a SE. In the meantime can anyone explain in idiot speak the process for fitting these? I assume: put some hardcore around pile shutter and lay binding layer, let it go off fit formwork for cap fit steel re-enforcement inside formwork pour concrete fit 4 bolts using template so they will fit steel posts later leave to go off rinse and repeat 41 times ? we are getting levels, etc properly marked out, but does the above sound right and does anyone know what the term 'dishing' means? Also any idea re the hardcore depth? cheers all

our retaining wall is 9M and around 2.4M high (we will have to remove some soil above to get down to that). Basic SE design, foundation with key, vertical rebar, 2 courses of 100mm blocks and 150mm gap filled with concrete. Had a quote for £16K and not going with that! The first 1.5M is rock so its only holding 1.5M ish of soil. looking at other options. Nothing above it except sloping (wooded) ground. oh, and access is crap, so anything that takes less concrete is a billy bonus

thanks, so that answers my question; its a more efficient use of the ASHP / MVHR combo. Is adding cooling to the ASHP an efficient approach (I realise cooling is power hungry but you know what i mean ? ) and is it simple or are we getting into 'plant room' territory

Just looking at this product. so its getting the MVHR to do the hot water, leaving ASHP to just do UFH, is that right?

so nexgen and no thermal mass is the way forward? ?

agree, if i could have PV it would be a no brainer. Last house we had, a 5 bed 1970's detached we changed the old combi boiler for a new Veissman gas combi with integrated (small) hot water tank. That ran 2 showers at once no problem and cut our gas bill down a lot (the old system must have been very inneficient). Now started looking at MVHR cooling using underground pipes lol, argghh (and yes i know they dont pump enough ait to make much dif but a slight cooling breeze would feel better). What we have to avoid is the grand designs trap of fitting new tech because its cool; it has to work, be simple to operate and be easily maintained. Remember the grand designs waste water capture system that involved a bloody great heavy tank in the loft with a few thousand litres of warm standing water used to flush toilets.......

of course. But then i am back to where i started. With gas close by and no PV to reduce elec costs which option is cheaper / easier to install and run. ASHP + UFH downstairs and upstairs + water - air coil exchanger for cooling upstairs + hot water tank V combi gas boiler + UFH downstairs + multi-room AC upstairs

ille have a look at that, i guess the only thing it wouldnt give me is upstairs heating (other than from MVHR)

really interesting stuff! I am still considering my options. I have gas close by, so be cheap to connect to that. We also have flat roof and nowhere we can spare as a plant room. We also cannot have PV (dont ask, just not possible) so no free electric. Lots of windows but in a wood so lots of tree shade. We will have to have MVHR as whilst it wont be passive standards it will be far more airtight than building regs require. We also tend to have windows open a lot ? One thing i cant stand is hot bedrooms! So gas boiler for UFH and DHW and maybe some form of ducted air con for the bedrooms. Now if i go down this route we could also def get rid of upstairs UFH as on the rare occasion we may need it the air con also heats. so would probably be a cheap system to install. ASHP, nut then there is some outside noise and while i can see there are clever ways to make them work well, without PV the cost of cooling in the summer would be high and i would need to run UFH pipes upstairs as well. I know Air con is power hungry but then we would only use it for half hour before bed, once asleep who cares ?

yep its the the hot water tank.

i think we have gone away from ASHP simply becuase the extra space required inside the house. Bizarly a worcester combi boiler gets us a better SAP score than ASHP. Only thing that might sway me back is ability to cool (we are using UFH). Also considering just having UFH downstairs and then ducted AirCon upstairs. It would be used very occasionally to cool the bedrooms and also occasionalyl provide heating.

no, we just used the ones we had used to buy the plot a few weeks before assuming the cost would be lower... anyhow, going to try again ?

thats all i wanted them to do, clearly they had other ideas...

we have gone through the application process, all fine. We now need to appoint a solicitor and had a guide price from ecology for 400 and it came back at 2K! What are other peoples experience of solicitor fees (not even sure why they are needed tbh), thanks

we 'started' by clearing the access and making some tracks to the house, all prior to submitting BC documents. I did contact the LABC and they didnt seem concerened at all. oh and we had services put on site by the DNOs.

thanks, i couldnt find any either. I think the biggest worry is how they get to the pipe if it breaks / gets blocked, under a drive is easy under a house not so...

there is a manhole cover next to where the drive will be, this was buried under 2M of soil and the digger man found it... The invert is probably another 1,5M + below this. It is roughly where its meant to be; the main thing i wanted to check was that putting a drive over a sewer pipe doesnt constitute building...