Russell griffiths

90% of the answers for all the questions will change depending on your ground conditions, your finished floor level,FFL, and your design choice for the floor and house. you need to understand the differences between different floor construction and which one you prefer before you ask the questions on how to install a certain one. you mentioned block n beam, this would have been my last choice, but I was pushed in this direction by the ground conditions. have you been to the self build centre in Swindon, this place has every different build method on show and is a wealth of knowledge, I think I would slow down a little and get your plot purchase sorted and go and sit there and get a feel for what you would like to build and the quality you want to achieve, then get some ground investigation done, come back and ask about that, then do some research on different methods. it’s pointless getting your head around strip footings if your ground investigation says you need piled foundation. and it’s pointless designing an insulated slab if your flood risk says the house has to be raised up 1.2m so I think your a little bit early with worries about foundation type without knowing some of the site constraints.

Your pipe feed for the washing machine should come up in the cupboard next to the washer the same as the drain. DO NOT bring the pipes up behind the washer. I used to bring washer feed up the wall, but now bring them vertical up through the bottom the cupboard clipped to the back or side of cupboard next to the waste. pro’s Easy to work on. con’s you can see the pipe in the cupboard.

Why can’t you fit the kore in place , shuffle it until you are happy then fix 4x2 strip at corners screwed down to keep it in place. if the blocks are put in place first you are at the mercy of the bricklayer’s accuracy.

You do it two ways either dig shallow and go over the concrete footings or dig deep and go below them. dictated by a few things. depth of concrete invert level at house, working backwards from septic. if your invert level on the pipe at the toilet end is deep, I think building regs say 1m ( check this ) so when you flush the poop goes down with a whoosh you will need air admittance to stop the whoosh pulling water from the traps in the room. I would start by planning where the toilet is going and marking location then dig the floor out, expose bricks below dpc on the inside and outside then stand back and have a good look, if you can go over the concrete and below dpc then that’s cool. or if your toilet is on the outside wall you can just cut a hole in the wall going out into a junction into a small vertical soil stack. lots of ways to do this really better off with a couple of pictures and a diagram, including other vent pipes on the system.

The pond in my picture is exactly that, a pre pond, before it gets to the pond/lake. I did this just for the chance that someone puts something nasty in the drains it will be evident first in the small pond before it gets to the larger one.

Can you put in a pond or reed bed to take stp and rainwater. Mine goes to this, I added rainwater as well to keep it diluted.

Easy option phone a company and get someone else to do it 180mm is very different to 100mm its a massive bit and will be a bastard to use, unless you hire the right kit with pedestal. get a quote, but by the time you hire it and all the agro you might be better off paying for it to be done.

Just thinking in common sense basically if your in the kitchen and a fire breaks out you will run out the back door, if your in the front room you will run out the front door. but if you are upstairs and your route to outside is blocked by fire you will want to hide behind a fire protected door until help arrives. look at it like this and walk around thinking how you will get out. Obviously check the regs, but that’s the general gist of it.

AFAIK as soon as your cables leave the lighting control unit they will be in low voltage, so it’s nice to comply with safe zones, but not always practical, so it goes out the window a bit. also the ceiling above the beam is a safe zone , so as long as your 50mm in from the face it’s safe so the only bit not in a safe zone is the 200mm from the ceiling to the bottom of the steel, if somebody can see the lights on the beam and a cable entering the wall, they would need to be pretty stupid to drill in that area. and if they did it’s a 12 volt cable anyway.

If you have smart controls for lighting then just run a light feed back to the main light control station and leave it dormant, if you want it drill a 20mm hole in the plasterboard and fish it out with a coat hanger. run a 5 core cable in case you go coloured lights.

Evening, filling in Jeremy Harris heat loss calculator I understand Jeremy built this to work out where best to spend his money in his build. however if I want to use it to help understand the size of a heat pump I need, what should I put in the outside temperature box. jeremy used minus 10, so probably the worst case scenario should I use a more real world figure like 0 or minus 2, the met office is saying the average minimum temp in January is 1.23 whats best to get some real world figures out of it. cheers. Russ.

Yep like this. we have a big beam in the ceiling with track lights supposed to go on it. the wires are all in behind the plasterboard going back to a switch, if you never do it the wires are there waiting, for when you do do it. get rid of that socket and have the light feed behind that bit of wall, when you do it you can cut in a surface plate with an access hole.

I used an insulation board under the door and into the threshold, then fibreglass mesh and a self leveling compound and then it’s made into a mat well for a large door mat, our back door will get a lot of usage.

do you mean like this.

Got it now, cheers.

Thanks both of you will try later on a computer, on the I pad at the moment.

Hi all I’ve tried to open Jeremy’s HLC and telling me it’s not available can somebody else have a go and see if it’s working please. cheers all.

You will need to use a fair face block which doesn’t have all the little dimples in it, painting onto standard concrete blocks will give it the appearance of a cheap garage. the time you have paid the extra for the blocks and the paint and painted it you could have had it rendered.

I would grab a chainsaw and cut every single one of those joist out. fix a ledger board around the whole perimeter of the blockwork, fixed using resin anchors with a mesh sleeve into the holes to allow for the dodgy blocks. then fit new metal web joists to the whole area. far easier to get all your new services in, will be flat and level. all depends on how far you want to go. or alternatively remove all services. cut existing joists out from the pockets in the wall, fit a ledger board along that wall and fit the old joist to the new ledger board with hangers, changing the spacing to 400centres, add new joists to make up the short fall. or something like that.

More context needed is this a full renovation ? ceilings down, no floors upstairs, no electrics no plumbing. this will be such an awkward job. any pictures

My steel that is huge the one we where going to leave exposed didn’t need any form of protection if there is not a habitable room above it then I don’t think it needs it. but don’t quote me on that.

@LiamJones I’ve re read your original post, so if one of the junctions is just a utility room with no wc, then yes you can use a y junction as per @Jenki diagram. I originally thought you wanted two WC coming in from both directions. so you probably need two y junctions laying flat, not what you have in your first picture from the y junctions you would go left to the WC and soil stack and right to the utility room. you will need to put rest bends on the bottom of the pipes going vertical through the floor.

Nope, you shouldn’t have any branch line that does not have cleaning access from at least one end. so either an inspection chamber outside the build to clear inwards or an inspection point in the pipe as soon as it exits the floor. the second version is not recommended as a full stack of poo 3m vertically will be an unpleasant surprise when you take the cap off. removing a toilet to get to a pipe is not a recognised method of clearing a blockage. can this joint not be put in above floor height so access to clear. I think we need a drawing and a bit of a re design.

If they haven’t pointed it yet who’s doing that once you piss them off. have a chat and see if you can come to a price halfway. im not saying they are right, i just think your not in a good place to argue. Did they presume the forklift would be there always, or was it made clear to them it was only for stone. if they have more to do i would hire an electric hoist that connects to the scaffolding and can lift up a big bucket.