Russell griffiths

Why be concerned about services, any build method will have services under the floor in one way or another put ducts in so you can pull pipes or cables in. If you have underfloor heating you will bury it all in the floor its something that happens when you build a house, the only way to avoid it is to build a house on stilts and crawl under to get to services. With your small footprint you can build a very nice insulated slab for not a lot of money, minimal ground disturbance, you could lay temporary road mats over the rest of the site to save disturbing it. Do you have to provide a method statement to satisfy anybody.

Anybody on here doing the mbc build near Cirencester, just driven past so stopped to talk to the lads doing the foundations. Its only 500m from me. Who are you? Come on own up I won’t bite.

I’m putting mine up myself and the ease of fixing is one of the reasons I chose mine, steel fixing points was definitely a no no.

We are building with icf, my choice of product was based on how it went together, I looked at the product not the sales team, if you are getting a builder to put this up I would ask what products they are happy with, can you imagine getting half way up and your builder walking off site, it happens. If they find your job a ball ache and there are other things they can do they will lose interest. I found i liked at least three different makes, so I then thought of points I didn’t like and saw who had the biggest list of dislikes.

Er why then your row of mosaics would not line up, you can chase your arse a round that bathroom for the next week and you will never get everything to fall where you want it in the grand scheme of things you normally walk into a room and the whole thing hits you the crisp lines the mosaics the pockets, the whole thing nobody apart from you will be looking to see if you got a whole tile in the centre get it finished and stand back and give yourself a pat on the back. Procrastination will just send you around and around. Move on. Looking good, but it will look a whole lot better when it’s grouted.

The risk of ground bearing gas buildup, we are on filled ground so like the thoughts on having good airflow under the floor.

Yes.

Wasn’t happy leaving it, all chopped out now, and insulation all reinstalled. Took two of us two days to do twenty airbricks. If I was doing it again I wouldn’t use the telescopic vents, but a flexible duct, all the time we where installing them I was thinking they where cheap and crap.

Thought I would share cock up of the month we are building with icf blocks with a suspended concrete floor, so have to provide air bricks to ventilate the floor void, so air bricks with riser sections all in place, concrete all poured and vibrated, lovely job went smoothly ER NO, DONT FINK SO. on removing some of the temporary strutting it became apparent that some of the riser sections had collapsed under the weight of the concrete, leaving a gap you could just about get your fingers in now this is my house and I’m building it so I now have to cut them all out and check the air void is clear and not compromised by the concrete. if I was an unscrupulous builder who didn’t give a flip I wouldn’t say anything, you wouldn’t know unless you put a camera down them, so if you have had this done or are about to do it be careful and reinforce those shitty plastic extenders. Wont do it like that again. DOH. ????

I would say built in as well the only down side is the length of joist, will you be able to handle a full length that goes from outer wall to outer wall will it be too heavy or lack of space to manage our roof timbers are 11m but only weighs 45kg. Little things to think about.

Hi @Jimbouk are we neighbours, sort of. Bloody hipsters. Hate em.

Are we over thinking this a bit, you say to save £50 in electricity, so if you get it turned down a bit and save £25, how much is the timer and the faff i have just spent £20 on to full English breakfast and two coffees maybe better places to make a saving and not risk a bunged up tank. Just my view on things.

Apart from the noise @mnt have you any other thoughts on the Tricel

I have recently looked at the Tricel unit, I don’t think @mnt you need to be looking into digging the unit out, you need to look into re positioning the pump unit, just like Jeremy has done in a brick surrounded box with a bit of added insulation, some shrub planting and you should be able to get it a lot quieter.

If your building your own wall panels why not use one of the smart ply products so you don’t need to use a membrane at all just tape the joins.

Hi @Tin Soldier I use a website called HOUZZE for ideas. Be careful it can get expensive looking at fancy things.

Hi I have been doing a bit of reading regarding escape windows can anybody tell me why it says they must have a min height from floor of 800mm surely the lower the cill the easier it is to get out. Is this in line with not having a kid fall out of them??? would fire escape hinges comply if the cill height was lower than 800mm cheers russ.

Oh good lord that concrete house was harsh, I’m very open to new design and ways to live but that just looked like toooo much concrete, the bedroom shocked me as it looked like a lift shaft I once worked in.

Thanks everyone.

In the pic you can see timber cladding with a visible open join, what sort of backing do you think maybe behind this or do you think it would be open im open to any ideas in my area I’m worried that an open joint would be the hiding place for 30,000 spiders and other creepy crawlies would prefer fully sealed up with an air gap top and bottom with insect mesh on them. Cheers russ.

I have seen something similar that used large rubber casters, like shopping trolley wheels I have seen them used either rubber side down or rubber up. With a channel track to keep the wheels in position.

a modern plastic chamber looks like this, so as @Mr Punter said pipes can enter at 90 to the main drain run, you can also add an angle joint on the entry and exit pipes to vary the inlet route. the ic in the pic is a 320mm a 450mm looks a little different as they can have a lower exit pipe. Have a look for some images and it will give you a feel for the parts available.

Have a look on a website called HOUZZ.

I don’t think so as they would be behind cladding protected by insect screening top and bottom

hi I have watched a couple of vids recently where a plastic batten with holes in it has been used behind cladding, it provides a good air flow and obviously doesn’t rot like a timber batten could anybody used or know where I would look at buying them. Cheers russ.