Conor

This is Northern Ireland CDM16. Slightly different. It seems clear that if a domestic client employs anybody, there needs to be a principle designer and contractor appointed. I doubt the brickie that's coming round this week would take on those roles lol That's my understanding of this anyway: https://www.hseni.gov.uk/sites/hseni.gov.uk/files/a-simple-guide-to-the-cdm-regulations-ni-2016-updated.pdf Also from HSENI: Domestic clients Domestic clients are people who have construction work carried out on their own home (or the home of a family member) that is not done as part of a business. Though in scope of CDM 2016, their client duties are normally transferred to: the contractor for single contractor projects the principal contractor for projects with more than one contractor However, the domestic client can instead choose to have a written agreement with the principal designer to carry out the client duties. Remember CDM 2016 applies if the work is carried out by someone else on the domestic client’s behalf. If the householder carries out the work themselves, it is classed as DIY and CDM 2016 does not apply.

So Far our build has all been through our main contractor so H&S (or lack of...) has been with him. As he's now finishing up, I'm about to start getting trades in to finish off the build. From my reading of this, I'm assuming as a domestic client, CDM16 applies to me and I have to assume role of principle designer and main contractor? The architect and SE have effectively finished their jobs so can't ask them to take any responsibilities at this stage. Is my assumption correct? Ultimately, somebody has to manage the site and safety, and that can only really be me.... Unless I'm missing something? must plan, manage, monitor and coordinate health and safety in the construction phase of a project, including: liaising with the client and principal designer preparing the construction phase plan organising cooperation between contractors and coordinating their work They need to make sure: suitable site inductions are provided reasonable steps are taken to prevent unauthorised access workers are consulted and engaged in securing their health and safety welfare facilities are provided

It's the number of people that matter, not the size of the house. 2 people, 20 people??? Plus usage patterns. We're building a 5bed, 4 bathroom, 2 utility house, but as there are just two adults and one child, 200l is enough for us.

What about insulated plasterboard? Basically another 50mm of PIR, and reduces any cold ridges through the cavity.

Should be able to sell the UFH pipes easily enough on gumtree, looks like you've a fair amount. I searched high and low for EPS recyclers and found none in my area at all. Very disappointing as I've disposed of several cube bags worth of ICF off cuts.

One of my regular merchants have stuck the arm in with price rises. Quote from them for a load of insualtion, timber and blocks was £4800 ex vat. Got a quote from another merchant and they were £4k near enough to the penny ex vat. I've priced around before and found the local companies are pretty much all the same so gave up and have just been using the one. No more!!! Only issue is the insualtion is unavailable for at least two weeks....

Just an FYI, any air quality sensors I've worked (esp oxygen and organics) with in the past have been unreliable and require recalibrating or replacement annually.

Keep ducts big and short and you can't really go wrong. Two companies I enquired with offered to design for free, I went with one of them, but ended up redesigning it myself as I couldn't face going back to them for the third time after moving the plant room lol. They still got the sale tho. In the end I think my design is better, I've calculated the pressure drop as only 80kpa in each unit on full power. I've lots of 160mm steel duct to install tho... Fyi I'm taking a gamble on a pair of Salda Smarty 3x units from BPC. Fraction of the price of Zehnder.

This explains why our builder stored all the blocks under weighted DPM...

I'd spend the £2k saving on the steel ties and spent it on an extra 50mm PIR in your floor or roof... much bigger benefit.

You free on Saturday to help me drag a 150kg steel to the first floor?! ?

By the sounds of it it might be worth buying or long term renting a small telehandler. There will be many, many more heavy and bulky deliveries during your build. Think of all the blocks, sand, insulation, steels, slates, stones, paving, kerbing etc. We had a 7m manitou for a while, was brilliant. Stable and powerful enough for buckets of stone, pallets of bricks etc. Foot print no bigger than a mid sized car, but far more manoeuvrable.

Odd number of panes is a good idea as you will have a "normally" opening master door at one end, a good idea if you plan on using it regularly as an access/egress door. Leafs are normally 700-1000mm each. So for a 4200 opening you could have 5 840mm leafs. Either that or 4 as above would be smashing. We've a 5 leaf, 4620mm door arriving in two weeks time!!!!

Nope, no obligation to draw it all down.

100mm floor insualtion was £34 a sheet last week, it's now £39. Really regret not buying last week!

I'm playing around with loopcad. I'm assuming a standard serpentine design is the easiest to install? I can see how part of the floor would be warmer than other parts, but does this matter with 100mm S&C screed? We're building to passive standard and I know the UFH won't be used much. I'm struggling to get less than <10w/m² output from the system with an 11c delta and 200mm spacing. I can see rooms overheating very quickly. 300mm spacing seems to work much better. I know it's wider than standard, but any reason not to if I don't need the heat output?

I'm not sure if I could cope knowing this was the mess under my ceilings...

I've started my first fix plumbing by screwing my water pipes to the underside of the concrete floor slabs. I spoke to the MF ceilings guy last week that suggested that plumbers and sparks just lay their services on the topside of the ceiling bars. These are about 1200mm. I'm not sure about this. Would save me a shed load of work but doesn't seem very secure?

@Barryscotland as it was dry(ISH) we just filled it with a few cubes of lean mix concrete. In the end, the engineer wasn't satisfied and we ended up having to construct a 3000mm long, 600mm deep and 1200mm wide ground beam with 20mm rebar cage to span it. If yours is hydrogeologically linked to a ground water system then you will have to follow the EA best practice for filling wells and boreholes- usually means filling with clean stone to near ground level, then capping with concrete. Speak to your SE.

I'm paying £1.98/m for C16 regularised. so that's pretty good.

@kxi you don't need to worry about gaps unless they are more than 25mm or so. If you use a drier mix and are gentle with the first few shovel fulls, it'll most stay in place. For the bigger gaps we used a sheet of OSB propped up with a couple scaffold boards. Takes a few minutes. As we were doing an ICF build, we were able to do all the grouting with the left over mix.

Congrats. That's the easy bit done ?

As above, I paid cash for the erection, no VAT. Hire is paid monthly and there is VAT on it. IF you can pay cash like this, suggest paying first month of hire at the same time to save a bit of VAT.

Both my neighbour (ventilation specialist) and two other companies have recommended two units. I had one company do a design (they insisted) and tbh I wasn't impressed and have done a much better job myself. I had initially wanted a single Zehnder but with the layout (three stories) the pressure losses would mean the unit would struggle and be noisy. I come from the water industry where we routinely oversize pumps for longer life, better efficiency and future proofing... Taking the same approach to my ventilation.

Yes. 315m², air volume of 900m³ means I need an overall flow rate of about 600m³/hr. A single unit would struggle and due to the layout of the house the pressure losses in the long duct runs would be huge. Two units work much better.