Russell griffiths

That’s not really what you want, your damp course level should be 150mm above ground height as usual will get water splash bouncing above your damp course.

If you are in the right sort of area, an add on face book will have the locals coming to collect the timber. If i fell a tree around here and leave it in handy sized pieces it’s gone in a couple of days. We have even tipped loads onto a bit of common land with a free sign on it and it all disappears in a day or two.

Not exactly true, you can remove a tree at any time, as long as you have carried out the relevant risk assessment to ascertain if there are nesting birds.

Whoooo, that told them.

What topping is going on the sub floor. You can use a double or triple bottom plate. Depends what the build up is.

That’s a bit to simplified. If you only had 250 of brickwork you would see the foundation concrete at ground level, you would normally have 3-4 courses of bricks/ blocks below ground level. Your floor is a bit simplified as well, you haven’t got a structural element in there, unless you are mixing up the words screed with concrete, screed is not structural so you cannot just put that on top of insulation. You also cannot put the insulation on the membrane on the floor, you would did down to firm ground and add 150mm of stone heavily compacted then the sand then the membrane then your floor structure. As far as foundations go you will probably go into the ground at least a metre unless you are on some sort of solid ground. You need to do some section drawings to a scale so we can point out the various build ups.

If this is a must have part of your kitchen, then redesign around it. Make this the focus and change stuff to suit or it will be a compromise.

Tell your wife to wait.

I have got some fairly serious cantilever sections holding my roof up, it is all formed out of the concrete core of the icf, so lots of reinforcement inside the icf then a concrete beam was formed using shuttering plywood, pored the concrete and removed the plywood leaving a concrete beam poking out. Mine are just straight out arms but I have seen a ring beam configuration done the same way.

I would have thought you will need to know the load that the Lewis deck and screed will impose. The floor designer will work to a normal house loading unless told otherwise. So they will work to a standard design that would include a chipboard floor then floor covering then standard furniture for a standard habitable room. If you told them your having a full size snooker table up there, or a jacuzzi then that would move the design into another dimension, I believe it would be the same for the screed, it might not be a lot but it’s all very relevant. Completely different scenario but I’ve just had downstairs floor screeded and they used 26 tonnes of screed. So it all needs taking into account.

@brickierob1 if your a trainee bricky why are you measuring in feet and inches. All plans and drawings will be in metres. Concrete comes by the metre bricks are all metric. Re measure in m and calculate the volume. Then get a mix on site truck to mix and you barrow. No money to be made mixing it yourself, just a bad back. Mixed on site and in the trench in an hour. Done.

If you are putting Lewis deck and screed I think you have just moved the goal posts into another universe.

Hi peter, was there a reason you couldn’t break this span in two with a beam in the centre, those joists at that size and spacing would have been a significant cost. Or do you think the extra cost for the larger timbers was better than the price of a steel.

Rule one get a site survey to determine where they are, ensure it is in you quote that it needs doing. Determine what is on site and contact the service provider to give you the correct documentation to work near their services. Having chopped through many water, gas, electric, bt, cable tv, and fibre optic over the years, you start to get wise to it. Get it all in writing from who you are working for that all services need to be shown to you or you accept no responsibility.

I believe at 6 m you will end up with one of three things a steel beam in the centre to cut the span down. Joists so deep that they make the floor buildup unacceptable a bouncy floor. I bet you end up with number one. When I was looking into all different types of joist the 5m figure cropped up all the time, anything over this just started to get so complicated to engineer out the deflection.

Nothing wrong with that. Just get it bloody finished.

I used to find most customers had a beer budget but champagne taste, you need to knock them into line very quickly. I then did a reappraisal of my business and found customers with a champagne budget, loads better.

But are they cheaper in a quality product, I think not, I would say that most quality windows are made to measure. so it’s obviously sensible to stick to a standard brickwork size, but are the windows any cheaper. Thats what @ZacP was after.

Your roof quotes look high. I have raised seam metal, installed myself. Mines huge. 355m of roof, materials came in at around £12-14 grand and I had quotes to fit it of a similar amount. So £24-28 for 355 m. You seem a bit confused with build types, how about putting up some pics of the existing structure so we can come up with some ideas. Your 5000 blocks does not sound that expensive, £1 per block to buy them and a £1 per block to lay, obviously loads of other stuff needed.

I don’t think this happens over here, it’s an American Australian thing. My house in oz was like this, it made perfect sense, but when I looked into it over here it just didn’t exist. Every company for QUALITY products just told me they are all made to measure. I think it it stems from the new build market in England is tiny, whereas the refurbishment market is large, we are stuck in this transitional time warp of things still being measured in feet and inches. There is a tiny market for 1200, 1500, 1800 wide windows. I think the only way to go cheaper is to drive over to Poland and collect them.

I think you need to do a section drawing of the whole structure, so people can understand where and how to install insulation. You could also do a drawing or pictures of the wall build up. Its just not a case of slapping some insulation on your walls it’s all to do with what you have know versus what you need to achieve.

In oz the major house builders will promise bayou a 14 week build schedule, if it’s not finished they pay your rent. But its a completely different ball game, they build so many they have a list of stubbiest that just go from job to job nobody is big enough over here to have a full list of trades just stood there waiting for the go.

Are you going to have a detached garage ? why not get the static and site it near the garage site, build the garage first and use it as a utility area, freezer washing machine wood burner, join it to the static with a lean to corridor thing. Place to dry clothes, keep muddy boots and have lunch on a day when your covered in mud and haven’t the time to clean up to go in the static. I have said it before, look up on you tube a couple called PURE LIVING FOR LIFE. pair of complete dorks, but they built a wooden box on the end of their trailer it houses everything I mentioned and has made their build and life in the van very comfortable.

Nope, sorry, unless you have a main contractor with a fixed term contract, you’ve no chance. Things in this country just don’t flow. Its all, rush rush, stop, just too many holdups to keep all the trades flowing in one after the other.