Russell griffiths

When I had my topography survey done, the surveyor said it will take you a year to get planning, i replied, watch this space mate I will have it all sorted in 6 months 16 months and £14600 later I started the foundations.??

Yep as above thats another grand you will wonder why you had to spend

I did have to push him a bit, I’m afraid I’m not scared to ask a dodgy question or two, I like to get a feel for the bloke on the end of the phone.

So am I ok to give the epc bloke just enough info to meet regs, but then install what I want. Fyi, I won’t be selling in the next 15 years so not worried about re sale effect

All the house I joists are 69wide. The garage being a wider span stepped up to 96mm, I have had a shit day cutting them, I’m so glad they weren’t speced all over as it would have been hell.

Can anybody tell me more about epc certificates and rhi payments i have been talking to a co to day about ground source heat pumps, off the record it sounded as though he told me that if our house just scraped through building regs, then it would get a larger rhi payment than if it was a super dooper insulated thing. As usual to me, as I deal all day in common sense, this made no sense to me. He told me to get my epc to just pass building regs but then build the house better and don’t tell anybody.

If you had seen me cutting my 96mm wide I joists with the chainsaw you would have had to look away.

Bloke in Swindon has it for £10 a panel. Are you near by.

Have a look at how a Velux roof window opens, that could solve it.

Your learning keep it up. ??

Hi where are ya.

Let me know if you get it, as I’m a bit of a computer thicko.

Hi, I have just had an e mail with this exact thing in it send me your e mail via pm and I will forward it to you.

From my research when I was going to do timberframe that looks spot on what I would say is use a specific product for the cill pan, just wrapping your external membrane into the opening will not do, it needs to be fully waterproof. A lot of literature i read said a good belt n braces approach was to tilt your cill plate 5degrees down so any water getting to the cill pan gets gravity to pull it outwards.

So if the builder has a preference, what don’t you like about his choice? I agree about trying different things, but it seams as though you are going into such fine details that you may be missing some big points usability from the people doing the build would be very high on my list. Imagine getting half way through and having a row with the builde, him saying I can’t stand these crappy blocks you wanted them I wanted to use the ones we had previous experience with. It happens, as for steel verses plastic, believe me when that concrete goes in and drops 2.5m vertically it sticks to everything i had a bit of a brain faid on mine and forgot to put in a beam pocket, so had to chop it out with a kango a week later, that wall was the most solid wall I’ve ever had to cut a hole in, the concrete was stuck fast in every nook and cranny it could find. Shrinkage away from any of the internal steel reo or plastic Webb’s completely non existent.

Have you forgotten where you live ?? I would think it will all be ok when you get the doors open in August if your worried give them a wash down with a bleach solution and let the wind blow through.

A funny thing happened this week, I had a lad visit my site to collect some blocks I had left over, we got chatting and he said that he has had to Change block supplier half way through his build as the quality of the blocks he was getting was so poor. This must have been a massive decision to make, and not something that was easy to achieve as the two makes where not at all compatible. So go and look at some builds that use the blocks you want to build with. Talk to the lads doing the build and get their opinion. Dont go by the crap in the brochure.

If your engineer is familiar with ICF then what has he worked with previously what ones has he had dramas with who is building this ? why not ask the builder what one he wants to use if you are not building it, then tbh your opinion doesn’t count for much, ask the guys screwing it all together what they want in a system. Having just put over 2000 screws in my icf I’m glad I didn’t have to screw into metal webs.

Remove the mat on inspection day and fit some off cuts of the flooring in the hole, mounted on some ply to bring up to the correct level after the busy body bc have gone put your mat back. ??

Now thinking completely from a dodgy perspective who knows anything about a commercial install. We have two holiday letts is there a fit for commercial instead of residential can i I install it to feed the holiday letts, but er don’t if you know what I mean. Nod nod wink wink.

So let’s say no fit at all, every penny it costs me is coming out of my pocket by the time my house is finished I won’t be working anymore, and the wife is going to only go to the office once a week and spend the rest of the time working from home. So, I can run the dish washer during the day and the washing machine, computer will be on most of the time how do we calculate how much electricity we will use and how much we can generate i have an immense area of south facing roof with no overshadowing, so that would be my preferred location. Come on help this thicko out.

Are you doing a full renovation and adding extra insulation everywhere. If not my opinion would be that putting that good a window on top of solid 9inch brickwork is a bit overkill.

Where are you measuring your 6.5 m ridge from is it from finished floor down stairs or external ground level will make a big difference if from FFL then that looks loads to get an increase in room height with a low pitch roof. What am I missing.

I don’t think any trades get the recognition they deserve, or the wages i would not recommend being self employed anymore to any young person.

Evening all, need to start the ball rolling on how we run this house we are building so going to be a big load of questions, starting with DO WE FIT SOLAR PANELS. being that im a complete Luddite and prefer messing with concrete and wood I don’t really understand all this fancy wizardry so I’ve enlisted the help of the wife in sorting the technology side of the house out. Im led to believe from the misses that any grants or payback schemes are all finishing, so tell me should we fit solar or not. Let the great debate begin. Cheers the Griffiths mob.