ToughButterCup

OK, you foam-gun-fanatics: how many guns have you ruined over your build? Anyone managed to rescue one that was blocked - ever - so - slightly - iddy - bitty - blocked ? Hmmm? I'm working hard on keeping my heart-rate down cleaning my third feckkkking blocked gun, step by gritted-teeth step. Sodding thing.

If, like me, you've lost some digits, and some of the rest have no feeling : a pair of high quality leather gloves. Recovers some of the lost strength.

How long is 'extended' ? To me, a 6 - 10 month build is the blink of an eye. Locally the building world is divided in two. Those who can get scaffold erected for a one off price, and no subsequent hire charge; and those who cannot. A local scaffolder (small-scale) explained it to me thus - repeat business customers with a quick turnover means no hire fee even if there's some delay on the build. Mates Rates in other words. If my assumption of up to (say) 12 months is right, get three quotes from reputable scaff companies, ask those companies what their policy is about minor alterations Then ask a company like this one for a quote - they'll do a design for you. As usual, Gary @nod (above) is exactly right. It depends to an extent on your appetite for risk. The local trades will always say they don't give a toss until the soft and smelly hits a fan. SWMBO in our house has a simple way of putting it. "Have you thought about the injured tradesman's partner ?" Code for "Are we insured for the risk of a tradesman falling off the ladder?" We have Kwikstage. Why? The soft and very smelly happened. The contractor left our site for five weeks with 10 minutes notice one Friday afternoon. On the Monday after, (July 2nd 2017) a severe turbulent easterly gale blew up. Knocked a wall over. Scaffold contractor was on site a couple of hours later. We agreed - in terms of scaffold hire - it would take too long to put it right . It was taken down that day. The KwikStage arrived the following week. The business case for DIY scaffolding (not necessarily KwikStage) became compelling. It's fully insured. We are preparing to re-sell ours now. I expect it'll not take long to go. But I'm keeping a good chunk of it: too useful.

Seems simple enough ..... so far.

?

Of course, it would be silly not to make it accessible ( ? hadn't given it a thought). A 135 tee -double Dutch to me - but only for a few hours. Yet another steep learning curve eh? @zoothorn, you are not alone.

Enlighten me do ... pressure test ... blow down it, up it? At last, a genuine excuse to use my compressor ?

Nope. Bit by bit, I pop small bits of spoil each week in the recycling bin. They come and take it all away - no questions asked - every Monday morning. Amazing what a weekly cheery bit of banter and a Christmas box for the Recycling team achieves. Top lads! (well, there's one ermmm..... humourless too.)

Well lads, as you can see I'm well on the way to breaking out of Colditz. (And you thought Germans can't take the piss eh?) and that means I can shove a bit of pipe on a 135 bend ... This is the full schema. Remember I ask ze qveschuns yes? Solvent weld or push fit ? And vy?

Easy there Tiger. You'll have to hold your own for now.

It could. But it won't. The building sector has no incentive at all to make substantial change. The training infrastructure isnt there, the political will isn't there, developers have a strangle-hold on the supply chain. I am building an ICF house. Locally the level of disbelief in anyone building something other than entirely traditional house is substantial.

Last century, in Berlin, (1984) I'd regularly get shouted at by pedestrians passing my car while I was waiting in a traffic queue "Motor Aus! " (Switch Off!) And I'd reply just as tartly - Quatsch! Maul halten! (Rubbish! Shut yer face) Takes more fuel and causes more emissions, more wear, knackers the battery (I was told by my boss way back then) to restart the car than allow it to tick over quietly. Is it any different now?

I bet your SWMBO is pleased about that ...

Thank you very much indeed @JSHarris. That was very kind. Like the other man said was as close to bang on correct as you can get. (Typical ? ) For stiffness, I think that simply copying local practice will more than likely suffice: rip cut a piece of 4 by 4 along its diagonal and fasten. If I double this up on the longer 4 meter sections, and stagger the support timber so that each one partly straddles a neighbouring set of verticals then I will be able to sleep peacefully.

... louvres. I have this little problem In brief: how do I support our louvres? The end in mind is to remain comfortably tucked up in my little wooden bed, sound asleep when the inevitable hooley breaks. I can probably cobble something together myself just by looking at how local hit and miss boarding is supported in local barns. But our louvres are set 'on edge' , rather than face on like hit and miss boarding. Yes, @Russell griffiths, I'm probably over-thinking this, but I tell ya wot, I love my sleep - I need to be at least reasonably confident that they won't pop their moorings and smash down-wind windows. So, anyone know of an SE who has worked in this area? Or know someone who might be able to refer us to an appropriately experienced SE?

Hmmm - that's an idea. Faff I can do - ' long 's it's faff with a point. The last thing I want to do is be woken at 3 a.m. in a hooley to the resounding crack of louvres flying downwind - straight into our bedroom. Time to get an SE's opinion methinks.

Someone needs to tell yer man that he needs to skim the topsoil off first - offload to the right - and then subsoil - offload to the left . That way you can re-fill the trench and replace the original topsoil. Not have to buy some in. Easy peasy. I dunno - amateurs.?

And shaking ( ? sorry couldn't resist it). I agree completely. Louvres aren't structural - I think that would have been the architect's point. But we are we are. Short of trawling the Internet, looking at buildings with similar facades, and asking here, there's not much more that I can do. I anticipate reducing the twisting by attaching some 4 by 4 to the back of groups of (say) 10 verticals. The attachment would be by cross halving joints. The less Teutonic bit of me thinks that simply screwing lengths of 2 by 2 across the backs would do. Or 3 by 2 maybe. It's what seems to happen in loads of barns round here. Hit and miss boarding has a diagonally cut bit of 4 by 4 attached to the backs of the boarding. And mostly only one, sometimes two in any vertical 3 meter run.

Our design shows louvres that surround the Winter Garden. The louvres are the dark area. The nearest face has about 46 louvres (spaced 75mm apart) The current design shows that they should be attached like this ; ... put differently - the architect is proposing to secure an (on average) 3 meter long piece of timber top and bottom by welding a bit of angle iron ontop of (and underneath) the top and bottom beams , and then a screw (or bolt) through that to the bit of 100 by 38. (Siberian Larch - see image above) Naaaah. Not good enough. Das geht nicht! It gets windy here. So, after hours of Tinternet roaming, I bumped into Australian Government advice on attaching vertical louvres. Thats better methinks. Except the wood is only 38mm thick. So how about fastening the wood top and bottom by inserting it in a bit of channel with an internal channel 39mm wide? (And welding that channel to the beam) I will, of course, be reducing lateral movement in the verticals by attaching 2 meter lengths of 4 by 4 across the louvres - cross halving joints perhaps. I think it would be a good idea to stagger those cross members too. Your thoughts would be welcome.

We're 6 miles North of you Gary. It was windy, but not that bad. Pop round for a coffee if bored.... ?

Might it be worth asking - perhaps not on this thread..... ?

Hey Vijay, when yer done, pop round and give ours a coat or two eh? A nice restrained greenish blue would be good.....

Durisol, @Conor Very pleased indeed that your are going with Hilard. Top company. Saved us many thousands of pounds.

In 2017, we nearly had our water connected: but our wall collapse kind of distracted us. So the connection wasn't completed. We accepted a quote at that time of £866. Fast forward two years and here we are again, but they want to charge us £1113 this time for the same connection. The first quote was not time limited. There's a Foot Note on the estimate stating that the estimate is time limited, but no time limit is given. The second estimate (the higher of the two) does have a time limit: 3 months. Is it reasonable to stand on ceremony and argue that, since the first quote was not time limited, the original (lower) estimate should stand? I know its not much , but .... £250 - I mean, I could stand a round in our local for that.

Nail. Head. Bang on. Choosing 'an' SE nearly cost us a lot of money. Choosing the right one saved us many times his fee. (Passiv slab , Tanners). They in turn knew nowt about ICF, so we used the ICF manufacturers SE. Just go through the Due Diligence process with each. Fee proposal, References, examples of similar work .... Follow up references