ToughButterCup

Its an ill wind that blows nobody any good: Covid-19 has brought a flurry of building activity and trades folk to our door looking for work. Everyone is welcome. On site the other day: plumber, tiler, chippy, BCO, plasterer - all working in their own safe areas. And everyone (except the BCO) either whistling or singing loudly. The chippy was first to notice it ............... The plasterer's singing. It was worse than Billy Connelly p i s s e d out of his skull. Its was so bad that, like moths to a flame, one by one, we all gathered indoors to listen. Shhhh, shhh, shhhaaaa dup.....: we tried to stop ourselves laughing Phones out, recorders ON , we listened and recorded in communal horror. The volume of his singing was deafening. Maybe he's partly deaf? Chippy: Eh Dave (plasterer) That plaster comes from Finland dunnit.... Plasterer face to the wall bobbing and weaving like a goodun: Aye, 'appen - good stuff Carlite Finish - didn' know it was Finnish though - Four of us clutching our withers in suppressed laughter - plasterer facing the wall has no idea he has an audience. Plasterer ..........la la la, whatcha goin to do abart it whatcha gonna do --- lal la la da da.. whatcha gonna do - do bbeee dobe dooo boop bee doop? Chippy : You can tell trades who work on their own can'tcha Dave? Singin's fekkin awful Plasterer turns round, sees his audience : shocked look on his face - four of us phones held high recording the caterwalling. Do Carling Finish Plaster reeely cum from Finland then? Yeah mate we all reply. YOU BAR STEWARDS.........

If the map has no legend, then it's probably an unofficial (abstracted from some source) document. If thats the case, then who knows what some dimwit did with a program like Adobe Acrobat? I agree that those lines might be pipes: but wonder whether it might be a sloppily drawn cattlegrid?

Indeed. And a lesson I have had to learn the hard way. The answer to the problem is - in part - flexibility. A dash of quick, creative thinking on site helps a lot too.

Spindles also needed perhaps?

Have you gone through the Due Diligence Process? Have you asked to see the architects terms and conditions?

That price tells me a lot. It's a common price point. In my experience its code for ... 'ok but' . The but varies. Buy a digger anyway. The thing about diggers is that they turn so many site tasks into a fifteen minute hold-on-a-moment-while-we do something that would otherwise take so much much more effort. We spent about £13000 on a good one. Loved and cherished it, over-maintained it. 2 months into a four year stay with us SWMBO called it : 'The Best Thing We've Bought' another BH member bought it. Just before Lockdown. The cost to us? The over-maintenance. And the VAT. The utility? Several thousands in saved hire fees, and many more thousands in saved aggro, hundreds of small two man jobs turned into - just a mo while I sort this -. Have a read

Hmmm, must confess to wondering if insect mesh is worth it in our case. We will have a few hundred meters of 10mm gap. I have no idea what damage insects can do to an ICF wall. They'd need hard heads to get into the concrete....

That leaning left wall... relaxing to look at, that. But illustrates the principle that as @Ferdinand says, God is the bloody details. He puts it more politely .

I did that with some vertical louvres I installed recently. The gap was 89.5mm - well it should have been. I made a story stick as you suggested and then made three spacer blocks for top middle and bottom of each gap. Each spacer was screwed to the 'previous ' louvre. In other words the next louvre was bang on correct during the fitting process. But... I reviewed the results when finished. The screwing process sometimes made a noticeable difference to the final postion. Over 10 louvres the error seemed to disappear. Then I checked with the story stick I made. It was miles out. A chippy looked over my work, sucked his teeth and said Next time mark the story stick with a knife. Cumulative pencil errors.....

Well @GaryM, I've had a few years of JustBloodyDoItFirst swiftly followed by RepentAtLeisureLater. There's a lot to be said for the approach, and often just getting on with it is useful. Just ask @Onoff But - cladding - everyone and their dog will be looking at it. And I don't want to be wincing every time I look at it. Ok so far. BUT - using vertical boarding - just like the image you posted @GaryM; What happens with 'visual' interruptions like doors and windows - annoying things that they are? I think I have to treat any total wall width as a series of gaps - for example in a wall with one door in the middle of the wall, the gaps might be from left to right (LH) edge of wall to (LH) edge of door above door (RH) edge of door to (RH) edge of wall In this scenario (using vertical boards) I'd want a whole board on the left hand edge of the wall the right hand edge of the wall the left hand edge of the door the right hand edge of the door That makes three spans. And in one (or more) of those spans I bet , there will be tears, wailing and gnashing of teeth. But I have a table saw. And persistence.

Hmmm, is that an invitation to try a 35mm gap then? ? here's the formula... Measure the complete gap to be covered. Measure the total width of the number of boards you want to use Deduct the total boards width from the complete gap's width (Nett gap) add 1 to the number of boards used - that number is the number of gaps Divide the Nett Gap size by (Number of boards +1) . Disappear up your fundament trying to tinker with the numbers to suit window and door openings. I am glad to have a chippy working with me so he can sweat the fine detail round openings. The thing I am trying to avoid is having part of a board running up and down the sides of windows and doors. So, I think in (say) a wall with one door and one window in it, there will be four gap calculations given that I want the edge of the doors and windows to have full boards next to them - oh no, five (because theres a gap above and below the window - no hold on, six becuase theres a gap above the door. Hold on a minute thats wrong - ah stuff it @the_r_sole will be along in a minnit. (please)

Thats what we plan to do - maybe 8mm, but we'll see what the 2mm difference makes visually . Tyvek Solitex Fronta Quattro is what we're using beneath the boarding. Its really impressive (if very expensive) stuff: its been up for a while now. In using that product, the only restriction is the relationship between the width of the board and the size of the gap between the boards up to 35mm. The exterior cladding needs to be at least three times the width of the gap. Our boards are 144mm wide, so in theory we could have 35mm gaps. And who knows, if I have got the maths wrong, maybe we'll have to have 35mm gaps. But man, I'll be glad to see the boards on at last ... soooo glad.

That's exactly what we are doing. Starting the job Monday, planned job duration 10 days. Mesh? No point.

C-19 is a gift to procrastinators. Talk.

Here be dragons. Expensive dragons

Our piling company would not proceed unless I showed them evidence of our correspondence confirming no known services on the plot. (They all ran alongside the plot in the road)

If it feels like it, it is. Organise your way past that problem.

Here be dragons. Research every last local (in the same geographic and planning area) build project that started with similar circumstances. Look at what happened. Analyse why it happened. Why do that? It will inform the converstation you have with the planner - your planner not the LPAs - As for an incredibly enthusiastic anybody: it's cold hard analysis you need. Determination, persistence and clear-headedness is whats needed now. Dream details later. Now is fundamentals time.

As is so often the case @Ferdinand is exactly correct. Why do I say that? He describes what happened to us. He even got the price right. £1000.

Locally, I have it on excellent authority, one or two firms tend to get half their pay in (excellent quality) white powder.

Write to three lawyers; describe the problem succucintly, and ask each of them for a fee proposal.

+ 1 I bought a twiddler years ago. Don't use it often. But when I do it's brilliant. Needs a bit of persistence , practice, but after that it's like riding a bike. You can make up lengths of twisted wire for use later - you get to feel for the correct degree of twist after a bit. The result is very strong wire - and gabions are the perfect place for that.

Might the post immediately above be considered an advert?

Not all installers are equal. Check the Sunamp website for the list of approved installers. The list on the website was out of date last time I checked. They may well have updated it recently though.