Conor

They have to allow for heavy vehicles etc safely passing the excavation which clearly isn't possible. The pit will be right at the edge of the road, high risk of collapse. It's deffo a road closure.

1. Concrete will be fine with high water table. 2. You'll need to have proper protection for the drain pipe. A paving flag wont be enough. Something like a a 100mm concrete head cut in to lengths. 3. You'll need to scrape out the bottom of those tranches and compact before pouring concrete. 4. Get your digger driver back for a half a day to do the above and they can use a large bucket and track the concrete from the lorry and place in to the trenches. 5. Finally, you'll need to scrape out all that soft crap in the middle after the trench pour. you'll then put down enough compacted stone to bring it up to the required level for paving.

Jeepers no. Something like this https://www.screwfix.com/p/easydrive-tx-countersunk-concrete-screws-7-5mm-x-120mm-100-pack/9008h?ref=SFAppShare Obviously you don't need 100... Might get cheaper options.

Your joists won't be up to the job of taking any weight.

fantastic topic. Answer is, yes, of course. buy HOW is the interesting bit.. I doubt there is anything off the shelf that you can order and have installed. Whatever it will be, will be cobbled together and will require a bit of trial and error. First, one has to assume that the water is non-potable, hard and corrosive. So pipework will have to suitable and you must maintain adequate separation from you own system. You wont need a heatpump. At a guess, making some assumptions: cap the spring, divert the artesian flow (lets assume 1bar) through some suitable pipework, divert part of this through a sized plate heat exchanger. Outlet of the heat exchanger re-joins the main flow-to-waste for the spring. On the receiving end of the heat exchanger, you have it filled with something like glycol, and have a circulation pump running on demand to the main coil in your hot water cylinder. So this would in effect replace you normal boiler. you'd want a larger, thermal store so the same source is used for heating and hot water. You will need 400l of 50c water as the recharge time will be quite slow based on the 4l/m well flow rate.

120mm concrete screws... If you have an impact driver. If not, similarly long frame fixings.

Oh, one more thing, make sure to don't cause damp issues by building above your DPC or blocking weep holes.... Need to be properly detailed e.g. linear drains etc.

We did. Local rivers team wanted some reassurances, so I emailed them directly and CCed the planning team in. This was because last time it took them three months to send on documents. Don't ask, just do.

No,that's what the DPM if there to do. Keep moisture in the slab. Btw, those your site photos? I thought it is normal practice to use treated timber for the sole plate?,

Haha. No. Chance. Get a couple mates and extra wheel barrows. Or hire a compact dumper. It'll cost you about £300 more than compacted stone, but it wont fall over in a couple of years. I helped a mate out last year, 4 guys, 5m³concrete in less an hour through a house and into the garden.

Most of our floors are 14mm laminate with wood fibre underlay. Pretty much worst case (other than thick carpet) scenario for UFH. Works fine. Low bills. It is noticeably "cooler" to the touch than the floors with LVT or tiles. But no different from carpeted floors. No difference in room temp or comfort once flow rates adjusted.

100mm because we wanted to meet the passive house standard. The Amvic blocks at the time only No, was several months. EPS isn't UV stable so all has to be rasped down prior to rendering. It'll need to be done anyway to level everything off.

I've never used that sheet but at a glance your wall U value is way off at 0.33. should be something like 0.15? I used loopcad to design mine. While it was generally very good, it basically said you can't have any rooms without some sort of heat source. I just don't think the typical modelling software can accurately predict heat transfer between rooms. Had to ignore those issues and ensure the emittance in other areas totaled up to what was required by PHPP. Your designers will be seeing the same thing which is why they are specifying rads. If you want my single honest price of advice, stick UFH in every room at 150-200mm CC.

We did. 100mm EPS on to Amvic blocks. Got good advice from a guy that ran a EWI and rendering supply business. 1200x600mm EPS70 boards. Five fixings per board, full bead of EWI foam adhesive around the perimeter, a cross on the back of the board, and the edges where it met a neighbouring board. Fixings were 180mm galvanised screws. We used EWI washers and used a rebate tool so they were below the insulation, the capped off with an EPS plug. When it came to rendering, was all rasped down before starting. Was a lot of work, but really easy and light. Corners and around windows need a bit of cutting and messing around. I've hundreds of caps, screws etc left over. This is before we were told to recess in the plastic caps. After recessing and plugging with the EPS biscuits. N.b. the treated timber grounds for lights and fittings. After rendering.

Id be using concrete pavers tbh. No issues with moisture.

I work as a consultant engineer alongside Irish public bodies. Last year money was being spent like it was going out of fashion. We literally had more money than we could spend, and were under pressure to spend it. This is the kind of thing that ends up happening. One off contract, probably not on a framework, contractors too busy to want the job, put in an F-off price, get the work anyway. Nobody cares how much it costs as long as the target is being met. Culture has changed a fair bit in the last 18months as the infinite € purse now has a tangible bottom. Still, rather be working here than with a UK infrastructure company! Minus craic.

The day we moved in, our 2yr old walked in through the front door, cried, turned around and said he wanted to go home. Now, with another wee man in tow, they are always happy and excited to walk in through that same front door. Only took 2 years lol.

Was in comparison to the levels we set in the planning drawings (AOD/MSL). The GPS unit we used for setting out wasn't calibrated properly and I failed to survey one of the original bench marks so didn't notice the issue until I got the laser out and measured from one of the original survey benchmarks and noticed the extra 150mm. XY we're out by 300mm as well. Too late now to worry.

That's what my architect said when I phoned him in a panic that our house was 150mm too high. His view is that anything within the dimensions of a concrete block were acceptable. I still dropped the ridge beam by 100mm tho!

"It means that we don't know how much it's going to cost us up-front but we're comfortable with the risk." So if it ends up costing a £million, half done, snagging issues, and the builder off the scene, you'd be happy? I assume no mortgage on the property?

Pink board!!! Looks like it can be easily boxed in far easier job. Otherwise, you've a lot of prep, priming and then horrible painting to do.

I've just bought a 40v parkside (Lidl) brush cutter and it's grand. I've a pair of Makita to parkside adapters so I think I'll be buying more of their stuff that'll only be used occasionally. Also have a brush less 58cm hedge trimmer.

Every non-branded Makita battery I've used has died. Usually overheat and a solder fails. One failed spectacularly and had to leave it smouldering on the gravel for an hour before I could go near it.

BCO never asked us for any certs relating to electrics, other than PV.

Our balcony was originally meant to be block and beam but the waterproofing detailing was far too complicated. B&B, screed, insulation, OSB, membrane, then paving. In the end I got the engineer to redesign in timber /steel and I simply did a fibreglass covering before paving on pedastals. Final build was 150x50mm C24 joists at 400mm CC (set in steel frame), 18mm OSB, then coverings. There's a bit of bounce from the 6m wide main steel, but just there to remind you you're not on the ground.