Declan52

Anything basically below finished floor level has always been referred as the great unknown. Nobody really knows what's under that lovely green grass until the digger comes in and starts working. You could be lucky and hit hard earth/rock pretty shallow or end up with 3-4m of trench fill or piled to 15m. That's why you never get a definite price for a job until your at FFL. If you get a SI done and they come back with bad news that it has to be piled to beyond 6m would this make the build a no go?? Have you contacted a SE to see if a series of trail pits to 4-5m would be suitable. Would require a much larger digger 8-10t but would still be cheaper than a full SI.

You can't use that sample for anything as it's classed as a disturbed sample. They can check it for organic materials is about the height of it so waste of time. When you do a borehole you use a hollow pipe/cone to perform a spt which is basically counting how many blows it takes to move a set depth. If it takes under 10 blows the ground makeup is very soft and on the other hand you can get over 50-60 blows and even refusal where the tool just bounces, usually when you hit rock. You can see on the logs above they have performed 2 tests, with 7 blows and 50 blows. So a massive difference in the bearing capacity of the ground in a few metres. Did building control come out and look at your trial pit or just you and the digger man??

They are just being safe by asking for all the information so they can correctly give you a solution. Are you any way handy with a spade and a set of post hole diggers?? Easiest way to figure the first step out is to dig down at the side of your house and see what's there. Remove around 1m square of material to give you enough room to get at the foundations. You should either find rows and rows of blocks then a ledge of concrete. Or a ring beam with reinforced concrete. I used to do this it's not that hard and will take an hour or so. You do look like you have enough room for trail pits which could be an option. 1 day hire of a digger and dig a few holes. Ideally if access isn't an issue a 5 ton digger will get you 3.5m deep. Which might be enough as you will be into the firm clay going by the borehole logs. The different water strikes are just the depths the guys doing the drilling hit water. Nothing unusual with that. By getting a SI done you will know what method is available. It's really the only way to find out exactly what's there and include data to let the SE perform his calculations correctly.

If they won't replace the window due to the lines on them, they will if the seals go and they are under warranty.

Leave it as it sits. To remove that wall is a massive job with that bank it's holding back. Any replacement with be either at least 200mm wide reinforced concrete with a footing off over a 1000mm wide with lots of steel or block wall 1000mm wide at the bottom and stepping up to at least 450mm at the top. Either option is going to be very expensive. I would use battens and clad it in something nice. You could even use thin real stone cladding that won't be much more than 50mm extra.

My kress will go through a corridor of 60cm.

The dealer where I got mine was telling me he couldn't give away ride on mowers anymore. No one wants to pay more upfront and then all the fuel and servicing that they require each and every year. A replacement battery for mine is £55 so easily replaced. A set of blades is £10 and that should last a year.

Think you need one with rtk and 4wd which is code for expensive!!

Most don't cope well with slopes unless your spending major money £2-£3k.

It only cuts a tiny amount of which falls in to the ground and is like compost eventually. You use one to maintain the garden more than cut it. After your first cut then you can reduce the cut height week by week till it's at what ever suits you. Mine is at 45mm.

Looked at them but if I was spending that amount I want a specialised dealership network I can call if I'm in trouble.

I have a kress nano which will cut up to 600sqm with ease. It requires a boundary wire to work. It takes a little time to peg it out and wire the charging station in, maybe an hour depending on the perimeter of your lawn. It will require you to do the first cut each year plus the edge needs strimmed every 2 weeks. Apart from that mine has worked this past 2 months with no issues. It was stuck in demo mode when I got it but the dealer sorted that out and it's been working away ever since. You use an app to set it up and control it so needs WiFi access to fully work though but it means I can send it out to work from anywhere and track how it's working. Mine cuts for 90 mins then goes and finds the boundary wire and returns home to charge and once charged heads back out again to cut until it's finished it's program. If it's raining it has a sensor, which you can turn off, and won't go out. You can set the wait time so it lets the grass dry, mine is 3 hours. Once that's up and it's not raining it will go on out. What robot you pick will depend on your area. From this info then you can see what is available. It will either be a boundary wire or a GPS version. Some have cameras but don't think they are as good

Alderwood studios in Lisburn do slabs of various different types of timber you could use as a table top. They do resin tables as well with the live edge timber. https://www.alderwoodstudios.co.uk/

Floor insulation is tested to industry standards to get it's compliance certificates so if it says it's ok for floors it's ok. Your buying it from a reputable builders yard not some guy at Nutts Corner market. You don't put cavity wall insulation under a floor for his reason. Standard height would be 2400 so your not exactly adding massively to it. Mine are 2500 and it just gives a much nicer feeling of space. They won't be using a hammer and chisel to do the tracking so will take a few seconds extra to run the saw the trackers use. Keep the wires in the wall where possible. You don't have to use kingspan. It's just a brand. I have a house with not one kingspan board, it's all celotex. How much height have you from the top of your sub floor to your finished floor??

It's only tiny staples so no massive hole for the screed to follow into. Before your floor gets poured they should check each room and if needed a bit of tape will cover many sins. Never seen the ground floor of a house wired from the floor. Your just making more work for yourself when the insulation needs to go down. How high are your ceilings?? 25mm coverage on ufh pipes is standard. Pipe is probably 16mm then your 25mm so 41mm depth. How thick is your screed.

Generally most of your services on the slab will be no more than a 50mm duct. You then use 50mm PIR floor insulation to cover the floor with tracks cut out where ever the ducts are going. A weak mix of sand and cement fills the gaps of the ducts and where you have cut the insulation and then whatever you have left goes on top, 100,150,200mm of PIR floor insulation. Unless your parking tanks on your living room floor then there is no chance PIR floor insulation will sink. I have 150mm of PIR then a membrane then my ufh pipes and 75mm of sand cement screed. Takes around 90 mins to you feel heat but once you turn your heating off it will take hours to cool down.

I have had my baskil windows in for close to 10 years and they have been 100%. I had a seal go after 7 years and they come out and replaced it straight away. You do have to pay the call out fee which I think was £80 but the window was 8ft * 6ft so easily 4 times that if not more of I was paying for it. Most of their bad rep is from the cheap windows they install for builders. The builders want cheap windows and they supply them. Like everything else you get good and bad installers.

Should be at least 18 inch at the bottom then step in to 13inch then step again to 9 inch then your final course can be 100mm. By doing it this way your giving your backfill a ledge to sit on which adds weight to the wall and stops it tipping over. Don't forget to lay a drain behind the wall to divert rain away. Do it once and do it right. Not a chance a single skin wall built 4 course high will be able to hold anything back. After it rains and settles it will bulge and bulge then burst and collapse.

I used softwood for the main timber and painted it white and used oak treads to make it a bit more fancy. 10 years in and both are holding up well. It kept the cost down a fair bit as well. I used a temp staircase until the last few days to stop the nice one getting wrecked. Just made it out of 6*2. Wrapped the oak treads in carpet to protect them until the day we moved in.

To be fair there would still be very limited access to quality installers of heat pumps in NI. Oil would be widespread here with a multitude of options for installing and servicing. The price of oil is low now but it fluctuates yearly. Electricity prices have been fairly consistent until this past 2 years. Have you got proper as built heat/dhw demand calculation done yet?? You could always install oil now but with pipes/electric connections already installed so in the future if you wanted to install a heat pump it would be a much easier option.

Down the cavity and I assume to an earthing rod.

Wouldn't have the first clue.

Other side of that wall approx 2m away.

I take it a cable comes from that rcbo and goes into the house, 2m approx, to my CU. Wouldn't have a clue what type of cable it is. Have a multi meter if that is any use.