Russell griffiths

Hi looks nice and flat, have you not had to put a tree protection zone near those beech trees, be careful of any root damage it could reflect in future crown die back, builders do tend to think trees have a root system like a carrot.

Bloody hell thats cheap.

Hi I’m looking at the moment for structural engineers to design my foundation system can anybody tell me the sort of costs you have paid. I know tanners do a lot of the passive slabs used by people on here, what sort of cost did you incur for this. Also @recoveringacademic I believe you had to have a ground improvement system, who designed this and was it part of your slab or was it two different companies. Thanks everyone.

Is there the potential to bulk order, @Visti has commented that he has to have a beam and block floor, whats the chances of contacting a supplier for this with the understanding that there will be lots of future orders.

I’m with all who say get the first floor in.

Morning can anybody point me in the right direction regarding pvc products and damage that may occur if in contact with certain types of insulation im looking at building with icf so a great deal of eps-xps will be around i have just read on one insulation company website of potential damage to pipes and cables i had heard about the use of non-smoke cabling when in contact with eps, can anybody confirm this and any other products to avoid or measures to put in place to prevent damage. I am concerned about electric cabling but also waste water pipes in bathrooms and kitchen. Thanks russ.

This is how it’s fitted up.

Basically it’s very similar looking to a wet room or shower drain but a bit different, from the top it looks identical, its the bits below the floor that are different the ozzy, American version has a large trap built into it to prevent smells coming back up into the room. Ar ha you say thats the same as all the normal ones, the difference is a central floor drain will not have any water down it as it doesn’t function until there is a flood, so what happens is the trap dries out and smells come in, so what Jonny foreigner has done is install a connection on the side of the floor drain so another waste water outlet passes through it every time it is used, say the sink the water from the sink passes through the central floor drain and flushes the trap and fills it with new water keeping the smells out.

May find this hard to explain as it’s not something I’ve ever seen in a house in England When we lived in oz and built our last place all the rooms with any wet area had a central floor drain, when I first lived over there I thought it was a silly idea but after having a couple of houses and building our last one I really liked the idea. so has anybody installed floor drains in their wet areas and has anybody got thoughts on how to achieve this using the uk spec drainage pipe. Will try to find a pic.

I remember somebody talking about there beam and block floor and a few comments trying to dissuade them from having it, can anybody give me some pointers as to why I don’t want one. I personally don’t want one, but I want to be armed with some good justification as to why, after I have had my soil tests and the structural engineer has had a look I want to be able to steer him towards the method I want. Cheers.

Can you really not have the concrete as the finish so not needing the blocks or sand so giving you more room for the insulation, you need to not think of it as a horrible grey rough as a badgers whotsit, and look at all the great finishes you can achieve with it.

Sorted surveyor coming this afternoon his office is only 5 mins down the road. Cheers.

We had to have a rather complex flood risk assessment because of all the water around us, ffl is 88.35 im doing a rough site scrape and instead of removing lots of topsoil and then bringing it back in when the house is in place I wanted to be able to leave it in place in areas it won’t get in my way. Think I will just bung the surveyor a nifty and get a peg knocked in.

What’s the chances of buying damaged bricks to use for the cuts ?

If you get some standard scaffold fittings you can tie it in to a window opening or something sturdy.

What I need to do is find a point above see level 88.35 to be exact. The nearest bench mark to me is 300m away and I don’t want to have to transfer that into the site when the surveyor will do it in a heart beat, just need to get it roughly right so I can scrape of a bit of top soil.

Is there any sort of app or something so I can mark a datum height above see level on a stake. Just having a rough site clear and want to get a general feel for where finished floor level will be before I scrape off to much. I will be getting the surveyors back to set out properly, just want to do a bit of rough levelling. Cheers.

How do they make multi story car parks waterproof ?

Why not do away with the pavers and tile it with an external tile, or if you don’t like stamped concrete have exposed aggregate concrete as the finish, if you like different. Also can the waterproof layer go under the insulation, so clean off the slab you have, waterproof with a liquid membrane one of the new fancy ones with all the fibres in, then a load bearing xps sheet then your finished concrete.

If the bubble is in between the two lines, pukka spot on jobs a goodun dogs danglies good enough she’ll be right mate.

Bare in mind if you are going to remove this hedge then in theory it should go by March the first before any nesting birds start. If after this date you will need to provide evidence that you have checked and there are none present or in the process of building. GET IT OUT NOW.

Is there a particular reason to not just snap them apart from the untidy edge in the cavity.

Getting back to diggers, I’ve just been through the same scenario and decided I didn’t want a cheap digger, anything I looked at under £5000 was a pile of crap, so I came to the conclusion that if I was going to sell it after our build was finished then why not spend more on a decent one as the return will be just as good when I come to sell it, just like the vat reclaiming after your build, you lay it out now and get most of it back. My choice was a £10000 kubota which at the end of the project will be a nice chunk of cash back i think something to ask yourself is how good are you on the spanner’s as a cheap digger will at some point need a bit of tlc.

Do you have a skip hire company you can get crushed concrete off.

Moisture is your enemy with grp, I had a large blowtorch that I kept the ply nice and toasty before any work commenced, I was doing this in December which is probably stupid, but as our roof decided to give up a week before Christmas I had no choice.