hallega

Up to roof level and about to install the timbers. We are having hand made clays and I want as much insulation as possible as we have used Durisol blocks as main construction due to their U value. Husband is being told to use multi layer insulation and I want as deep as possible warm roof. We have put this material under our barn roof and it does make a difference, but I don't live in it! Has anyone else used a thick warmroof under tiles, is this possible at all due to possible fixing problems? Any info at all would be helpful please.

Does anyone know where to buy triangle pieces of plastic that you pin to a wall before you plaster? In Spain these are attached to the wall and then plaster is sprayed on thick and then a large long trowel is dragged across and these plastic pieces give you the correct depth. Would love to know if they are used here in the Uk. Got an awful lot of walls to plaster with hardwall and then finish. Cheers Lynn

We are converting a derelict cow shed and are up to the roof. We also have a steel portal system, our Durisol blocks have been cut around the steels for cold bridging, super quilt clad and foamed. Closed cell foamed between roof junction and steel where the 8 m sliding window will be. Photo shows insulation blocks in the beam, these will then be covered in superquilt and then ply. We also converted 3 metal silos into a house (you tube) if you want to have a look, these being metal were also sprayed with closed cell foam, there was no other way to deal with the metal and condensation forming. The silo's are a year old now, they are wonderfully warm and no problems that we can see as yet. Hope this helps.

We're up to ground level on the Durisol build and nothing went wrong with the pour due to belt and braces by the other half. The rain has been never ending and the small digger ended up stuck in the mud. We have very sandy ground and it just sucks you in, managed to Lift it out from above with the digger. We are now putting in the step foundations as we are on a hill, the previous house had massive great lumps of concrete installed, obviously to stop the house slipping down the incline! Because of the awkwardness of these and the ground being in such a state, he's filling up jumbo bags with concrete mix and dropping it down into the deep foundations. Yes we could have pumped it in but there's no hurry and it's kept him busy whilst we are in the dreadful lockdown. My daughters main builder got ill and then the daughter and her husband got it, on the mend now but both my husband and l have no idea why we didn't get it to! Hubby is in the process of making a wooden template for the half round bay which he thinks will help with the foundations and the laying of the durisol blocks to get the shape correct, it's 4.6 across and looks very large but rather good. HVMR has enormous pipes...so glad we have a basement as all the equipement for the ground source and ventilation will be in here, I didn't realise how much pipework is needed. The daughter has had to use large pipes almost everywhere as the structural engineer wasn't happy with 28 pipes being put through a structural wall! Her standing seam roof is going on and it's about 1/4 done, it will take 6 weeks to install, a lot of work. Part of it will be gold, can't wait to see this bit, sounds awful but knowing her it won't be. New year will see her roof window installed, this also comes down the side of the building as well, it's been a nightmare finding a company to supply this, fingers crossed it goes well. Happy New year to everyone, if your just about to start your build then best wishes for an uneventful outcome, but expect your pocket to be quite empty by the time your finished!

WOW, that's really nice, thanks for the info, I may just look up the company when the time comes. Cheers, Lynn

AliG, No we don't have mains gas, had to rely on oil for the past 33 years...! I had a pool in my other house, outside and it was run on gas then, we had a pool cover but not as good as they are nowadays. My son runs his pool on his ground source in the summer only but he really doesn't know how much his electricity bill is as he leaves it all to the wife...must ask her then! I do however have 32 solar panels on my stable roof so really I should be using that energy eh. I did hear about the costs of de-humidifying an indoor pool and got put off, much as it seems nice to be able to swim all year round, I've heard horror story's of peeling plaster etc., I shall think again about the ASHP, thanks for the advice. Thanks to ferdinand for the thread.

Bitpipe, we have the area for the ground source and I believe that ASHP is not as effective in lower temperatures, we are 500 feet above sea level here and when it snows we have it for a week and 4 miles down the road it's all gone! Internal and external delta membrane waterproofing, french drains We intend to put in a swimming pool and ASHP will heat that as it's more efficient and economical to heat the pool in the summer months, complicated life eh! I found out yesterday that a LOT of concrete is going to have to go in to hold this house , great news...Loads of money ! My fault that this house doesn't quite fit any criteria as I designed it on "home by me" online, sent it to a CAD op man, then learnt auto cad (not very well by the looks of it) and altered the plans......ooops! THEN decided to add a basement...can you see the problem...hahahaha...I saved 30 grand on an architect and am now putting it back in the ground...O'h well! It should look like this when it's built.....fingers crossed.... our new house.pdf

Too late now for a full basement, I had enough trouble getting the council to agree to this one! I had to go through all the permitted basements in the area to get them to bend on it! Block and beam and the insulation on top seems to be the way to go then. My basement is half in the ground, not fully, I live on a hill. It will have the ground source and MVHR stuff in there and hubby wants underfloor heating too, if it's needed then at least it's there. Constantly trying not to get any cold bridging Conor, looks like we may have to have a sleeper wall inside of the durisol blocks so this doesn't happen, not sure yet, we are moving slowly rather than rushing into everything, it's all a new learning curve for the hubby (74) as he's very old school. Put in a door in case we need to get out if there's a fire, thought that was sensible, but that brings other problems, like retaining walls and now a tiered garden...blooming heck...who thought this was going to be easy, you should see the reinforcement around the sumps x 2 ! Thanks everyone, taken on board all suggestions, glad your here to help. Photo's attached....even I am shocked now by the amount of re-bar!

Can anyone advise on the best way to have an insulated floor above our new basement? Part of the house will be on ground level and the other with a basement beneath, I'm wondering how I can merge the two floors and make it as insulated as possible? The original design didn't have a basement, this was an afterthought. Durisol blocks used throughout. Daughter has used warm floor beams, but she's only got a void underneath, not a basement.

We are keeping them, just in case we have any problems in the future. Many thanks for the advice.

SUPER...... I shall use them as door stops then! Cheers.

Morning, the slab concrete has been laid over the rebar and we took 5 samples of the concrete as it was delivered. Do I really need to send these off for testing? Cheers Everyone.

Many thanks, he's a lot happier now knowing this. Still putting together miles and miles of re bar...ordered a machine to do the job!

Hi Conor, it's a basement...so l suppose 28 days then.....he's going to be spitting feathers!!! Thanks for the reply.

Hi everyone, Do we have to wait for 28 days before we can start placing out our Durisol blocks, hubby is chomping at the bit, anyone advise anthing else?

Using Durisol blocks on 2 builds here, the sumps for the basement are shown here. Our SE was not aware of this type of build but she has certainly risen to the challenge. Crystal Engineering, Kirsty Hudson. Lots of rebar for the basement as we are set in a hill, sumps took some head getting around but no 2 went far quicker than no 1.

We are a flooring company, we lay thousands of meters everyday, now mostly in Europe. I also had Amtico in my kitchen, it lasted 33 years, well actually it was still looking good when I knocked the house down! I think the product has changed, I don't believe it's quite as good as it used to be. In the new silo's we have used Spacia, probably the same colour as you SuperJohn G, (well done by the way, excellent job) herringbone style. All the chairs have buffers on the bottom of the legs and I try not to drag stuff over the floors (it will scratch) worse if you use a dark Amtico. I've used ceramics (dangerous if shiny and wet) cold underfoot unless UFH, things definately break if you drop them on this. Bit cold looking. Laminate flooring, used this on a refurb, scratches, squeeks in places, won't last the test. Daughter going for concrete in her Cow Shed, should be interesting, although large store went for this and then changed back to Amtico! Everything scratches.....but you can live with scatches on a light coloured floor...NOT on a dark one!

Well.....we have continued to carry on with the conversion of my daughters Cow Shed using Durisol blocks and fortunatetly we have a really good builder who is also a friend which helps. He has been amazing. We all went on the day course and he also studied many hours of internet content before starting so that he was totally familiar with the product. Converting around stancions wasn't easy, if we could have taken it down and just built with the blocks it would have been far easier. Cutting them and keeping the insulation around the steels was difficult but he managed it. Not realising that the ground level at the rear was as high as it was meant re-jiggling the design somewhat with lounge window being shoulder height, not being terribly amused with the architect and his idea of how the rear should have looked! He got sacked a long time previously, daughter and l got to grips with Auto cad and did the alterations to the drawings for both projects ourselves, not easy. Due to the ground height meant more foundations once the engineer saw what was necessary, she also has been a marvel having not come across Durisol blocks before. After applying copious amounts of water based bitumen type product (we bought the wrong stuff previously, it would have eaten into the insulation) lots of this, sheets of that etc.... the ground has gone back against the newly built wall. O'h and we had to get new steel beams inside to hold the roof up as the structure only holds a tin roof at the moment. This has been very handy keeping off most of the rain (we did have swimming pools earlier on this year and spent hours pumping it out or using buckets....AND it kept the sun off this week, especially yesterday! We are now ensconced in "The Silo's" you tube video's (if your bored with the telly) "How to turn 3 metal silo's into a house". Aplogies for the music on one...my own composition...more like an Indian restuarant theme! Pic 1. Natalie starts demolition July 19.Pic 2.The rear elevation.Pic 3 block and beam insulated floor, front door and kitchen /dining room elevation.. Pic 4 Steels being craned in. This end will be all glass. We have had 2 pumped pours but some of it has been filled by hand because (a) the crane wouldn't be able to get to the inside walls easily and Terry the builder was concerned about filling 170 blocks and having them move with the weight of the concrete going in. If your going to use Durisol blocks and have any queries, please ask, between Terry (builder) Natalie (site manager and order person daughter) or me....(Resin top installer and composer of awful music) please ask away, we will try and head you in the right direction (brick or poured concrete...hahahaha).

Thank you folks, I did start reading Part B and got a bit bogged down.....! I shall start this weekend....the rugby's on and so hubby in the pub AT 8 AM...peace hahaha

Just been asked for a Fire consulatnt package, passive and active fire measures for the conversion of The Cow Shed. As we have "sacked" our Architect as he always appears to be on Holiday, we are now flying solo, can I do this myself or do I have to get a professional person on board? On the drawings the Architect has shown where the smoke/carbon dectector devices are to be placed and also a fire door to the garage, is there a lot else to do for the fire Brigade to pass it? If anyone has their one that I could look at it would be most helpful. Many thanks

Cheers everyone, many thanks for all the help on this matter, it's down to design then and BC Okaying it....we will see!

Can anyone advise on the position regarding not having enough room to place your waste water treatment plant 7 meters away from the house, or the soakaway for that matter. we cannot place these items further away than about 5 meters from the building. Do we get our building control man to tell us where to put them,or do we have to tell them and then they slap our hands and say "don't be silly... daft person"!! It's begining to get my daughter down because no one seems to know what the right answer is...cheers everyone.

Joe 90 He's actually a Archtectural technician, with my own plans (this query is for my daughters) I aslo drew them up myself on homebyme and then passed these onto a Cad operator who did them professionally to submit to the council, it cost me £3000.00 I was quote 30 thousand, 15 just to ask the council and then another 15 for the finished product to submit to the planning! The costs never stop, I now have to submit plans for a soakaway and 100 year flood thingy even though I have had a house on this site for the past 50 years.....ludicrous! Our structural engineer gave me access to the Cad darwings and I've been altering them ever since, if you never meet up with the Cad op you really are floundering around in the dark with e mails backwards and forwards and getting nowhere, no one but yourself knows exactly where the sun comes up and in what windows how you live in a property etc., they seem to have all their own ideas and really don't want to know anymoe else's thoughts do they!

Dear Temp, thank you so much for this detailed description it is much appreciated. Our "designer" wants £5000.00 for full plans, is this really neccessary, he mentioned that the finishes and the juctions between the different products used would look "shit" if we didn't have it done! Surely I can go elsewhere for less, it's difficult knowing exactly what full plans have on them, if we could see some we would know whether they were essential or not. Didn't realise that the BCO got in touch with the local BCO and then they got full approval, that's really helpful to know. cheers.

We are about to install GS in about 2 months time. My husband is reluctant to dig the trenches and install the pipework himself even though we have the diggers etc., I know you have to be careful when you backfill the pipe in case there are any sharp stones and so sand is put over the pipes. spacing is important too. I did see one bloke who put it in himself somewhere on line and he had trouble with frost, I think he put them too close together and it didn't work. We will get back quite a bit of the money over 7 years from the government, plus it won't cost us £3000.00 a year in oil costs, the new house will be insulated up to the max. Personally I'm all for DIY but in this case not...yes it's expensive, putting in the UFH pipe looks a doddle, so maybe we will attempt that and also the pipework for the MVHR. You also get conflicting advice as to what size boiler, we have been told 8kw/10kw/12/kw and 18kw.....goodness it's a mindfield out there. Gone for the 12kw with an option to switch to a pool if we ever get around to it. 388sq m house but again loads of insulation, fingers crossed it works! Going for straight pipes not slinkies, better we think.