ToughButterCup

First post: welcome, therefore. .... you beat me to it, cross post - could you show us how out of level it is....? 10mm over 2000mm .... Ouch! I haven't got a clue how to remedy it simply... our carpenter's here, so I'll go and ask him now.

Anyone got summat to help Debbie read in the shower? She reads more than she breathes

I lost patience with our providers in a similar case. Kicked the problem upstairs. They sent a new lad out . He discovered the signal was going past our place, two or three telegraph posts further on, and then coming back to our pole. Bingo. What I'm trying to say is the problem might be between your house and the last mile of wire....

I knew it ! Heavy metal fan innit!

Hmmm, a bit like those plastic clips that are used to vary the dosage on a medical (infusion) drip? Goes from wide open to completely shut ... Anyone got any idea what I could use as a pipe clip? I've googled around a bit ... tried a clothes peg - a G cramp (that works, but it'd bugger the line up in no time.) Those small plastic cramps are too weak. I'm a bit short on lateral thinking today.... Help!

Whadger fink I am Ed? Some sort of amateur?

The Italian Job came to mind today. Only blew the bloody test bung out of a 110 pipe didn' I? What with a Manometer? No, with just a little more force than that. Bought myself a nice little test kit, and for whatever reason couldn't get the damn thing to work. Tried a test rig before using it on the real thing. Bloody thing kept leaking. So tonight, in the bath, instead of abluting, I'll give it another go. See where the leak is. Meanwhile, back on the ranch, I'd had an idea. If I were to fill the piping up with water from the top of the rodding point (just visible) like this I would effectively have a couple of meters water pressure pressing on the bottom bungs, and maybe a bit less on each of the joints. As I started filling the pipe, my suspicion was aroused by the creaking of the plastic joints - specially this one You can see there was a bit of a drip there, but I wasn't too suprised because its unsupported. An hour later I got bored of checking the water level. It had gone down a bit: 100ml or so. So I went for a coffee. The pipe is eight meters long or so - about 880,000 cc... (?) How much is that? I dunno. Pop! PPPPSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ! I'd blown the bottom bung out hadn' I ? Neighbour stuck his wizzened head over the fence, swallowed his tongue laughing. Tried it again. Full on Charles Atlas screwing the bung tight this time. Two hours later, got bored took the brass cap off the bung. Got wet. Very wet.

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Oh dear, the sainted @Russell griffiths is right, too right for comfort. And so's @PeterW. I suppose I should be grateful, - really hard to write that word in present company...... It piddled down here last night. Look at this Look at the ground, just above the pipe on the left hand edge of the photo. The big crack in the backfill (not the best photo). It's just as if the ground sighed with relief at the rain, and sank 10mm or so - bit more maybe. So, a la Russel Griffiths advice, I'm going to wait another fortnight before I doing anything to that pipe trench (backfill with pipe bedding) - to let it settle some more and a la Peter W's advice, later still, I'll need to bed that 30 degree bend in a concrete boot won't I?

Sid is house trained.

Beat me to it @PeterW

The answer to that question should be in your raft design detail.

As I imperfectly understand it, not having a cavity is one of the attractions of an ICF. 1 pour - how high? A reasonable expectation for 1 pour is - roughly - head height. Beware here, across the ICF fraternity, there's a lot of willie waving about having poured a skyscraper's worth of building in just one pour. All of it sh!te. Nudura have some very good training videos on YooChube.

Perfik. At least you haven't got 30 meters to dig through by hand eh? ?

Yes. But, I (if I can be bothered) separate big bits out: they serve well quickly to fill this, that and the other.

Ugh! They are massive money pits. Every pool at which I worked (summer lifeguard, ASA swimming coach) whether indoor or outdoor, public or private always had corrosion issues. Steer well clear of even very small amounts of Chlorine gas: 50 meters or so in air. Its very dangerous indeed. Don't use it. There are plenty of Chlorine products turned into tabletised form, that are designed for a domestic installation.

We made a 'pond' to which we added bit by over-ordered bit. That base has been used by everyone as a dry, flat conveniently placed work area. Very useful indeed. Didn't have the choice of improving a garage. I decided to do that as creative way of coping with the flash of anger and rage I experienced when one tradesman tipped large material handler bucket's worth of concrete down some banking of ours. Man I was annoyed. Getting on for £300 worth of C30 just tipped down a bank. Furious doesn't cover it. Now, we plan to crack it open with 'feather wedges' and see if we can grow Sea Pinks.... Still mad just thinking about it.?

I haven't read any .... There are two ways of reading your post : you're too close to the boundary for comfort, or is there a maximum distance for the I/C from the boundary ?

Hi, welcome. I am sorry to read your story, especially as it's your first post. We have experienced theft from our house too. Its horrible. But at least there was no violence against us. Our son is a local copper, his partner a CSI. You can imagine the detailed stories we hear. And the levels of detailed advice we get too. You appear to me to have a very sensible, logical approach to your security requirements. Beyond what you already plan, the key thing is constant vigilance. To help me work on that, I try to spend a few minutes each week making a thief's job just a little bit harder. Take looking in your windows. Plant a really thorny bush in a place that makes it painful to do that? Your shed (for example) Any loose tools? Secure them. Walk the burglars walk. Think ... what makes his job easier. How easy is it to smash that security light? Gravel on the driveway? Noisy gravel, or so compacted you can't hear anyone approaching ? While each one of those suggestions is minor, acting on many such smaller items adds up. You will be able to think of many more simple cheap things you can do to protect your property. The biggest threat is complacency.

Because then it wouldn't be concrete.

Just put a shutter (say) a meter either side of the bit that changes direction, mix some 3:2:1 concrete and plonk it in then?

Piling is a very interesting topic. As I (imperfectly) understand it, piles of many types - are driven, screwed or compacted to whats known as a Refusal - simply a calculated back- pressure beyond which its not worth doing any more work (called the Working Load I think, maybe wrong). Refusal sometimes therefore varies by position. In our case one of the 64 piles just shot into the ground - to Refusal at about four meters. Most refused at a bit over three meters. One hit an incursion of rock. Because it was the last pile driven I could hear the difference in the cadence of compaction. And the ground really shook. The rest sort of slithered in. Just for completeness, @eandg, piling cost us £6500, Groundsure test , about £2500 ish, and one critically important letter (email) from the SE - one that together with a bit of research on my part and help from BH members saved £17000 (yes 17K) . Hillard Tanner saved his fee many times over. Top bloke - and his partner Nick Bailey. Ours were tested to 2.5 times the static load. One or two of the piles achieved 3 times the static load and one a little more.

Erm, what's concrete mass fill ??

Whooooo Hoooooo, thanks sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much. ? Digger's just arrived and the pipe would have been under 200 mm of pipe bedding by 2:00 today.

Yes. Compulsory. Whats the point of the piles if they don't carry the load you need? Just to check, could you post your pile quote(s) , and break it down into piling and testing, please?