ToughButterCup

In one memorable episode poor Willy lost his pullover I seem to remember. I still wince - poor lad..

Here you are boys

Take heart. We needed piles for our build - and initial quotes came in between £22,000 and £17,000 - which, as you say, would have made us fall at the first hurdle too. Persistence is key. 6 months research got the piling job done for £6500. Its just a matter of stickability. .... So you have a limited budget. What's new? Every Man Jack One of us on here has exactly the same problem. Change the parameters of your build and make it happen for £165k. It'll be hard, but not impossible. You will get loads of help, sympathy and financial advice here. Loads of it. Oh, and bad jokes from @Onoff

Welcome @Kate12. When you get used to the idea of Fabric First (took us a while) then you need a way of evaluating the different ways of building. In that task, PHPP is your friend. You can change many of the parameters and look at the outcome(s). Once you get in to it, its great fun. Buy it and run it yourself if you're comfortable with spreadsheets or spend £200 or so to get someone else to do it for you. Anyway, best of luck.

Bit expensive maybe. This stuff is a bit cheaper - but still expensive compared to beach. We're hoping to use it, and Ecover as @PeterW suggests.

I'm thinking of publishing the definitive work on tiling using only this thread and its photographs. Due to be released on on an unsuspecting public by the well-known publishing house Floggit and Runn Should sell well.

It will work, and work well. Here's why I know. Three years ago I bought an offcut of Astroturf the size a garage... bit bigger in fact, and laid it outside our kitchen door, on the patio. At the edge of the patio, there's a boot-wash, and a hose. Its easy and quick to de-mud boots and shoes without taking them off. But what to do about the wet boots that need a bit of a drain-off before getting in to the kitchen? Thats where the AstroTurf comes in. Its is a Godsend. I thought of it as a second line of defense before getting to the kitchen mat. We find that people automatically scuff their boots and shoes on the AT before getting into the kitchen. Of course our kitchen gets a bit dirty: I'm in and out 20 times a day, but you dont need to take yer boots off. 3 years later, you can see some light wear - and one or two Dock leaves have grown through it over the last two summers, and the Great Crested Newts love one particular corner. Not going to begrudge them that.

Oh FFS..... twerp. This is the correct link..... to Impey screed floor former

Dont tell me .... the name of the panel is a secret just between you and the Welsh plumber.... ? PS, just had a thought ... might it be this Impey Graded Screed Floor Former? (Apologies for the error earlier)

Thank God for BuildHub

We're just handing on what others gave us some while ago. And warming our hands on the glow coming from your post.

I have just gone up to look at the hole in a bit more detail. Took a photo and its vanished into thin air.... There's a 300 by 300 (by at least 100mm deep) lump of polystyrene round a large diameter drain hole Whats a Might you mean a 'plug 'ol grating thingy ?

Exactly correct. I have 25 mm to 'play with' The question becomes, how much more do I need to dig down to create a sensible ( 2% ) fall over the area which I expect to need to drain. Spot-on-John I'll go and take a piccy and get back to you all in a few minnits.

25mm is all I have between the slab and FFL. I'm planning for the almost inevitable stint in a wheelchair, so I'd love to able to wheel myself into a wet room. No, I did not keep a dropped section for the wet room. My question is: how much of the current slab should I dig out - given that I have a 25mm head-start as it were....?

@nickw, what's the price differential between the different types? There's more to an ICF block than its price. Ease of handling, ease of re-order, lead time between (re) order and delivery, quality of the blocks, skill level of those using it, storage dry? wet?, what happens in frost? , training support, chemistry between you and the rep(s). I'm sure I've missed some things. Price is important but.....

I've got 25mm left. Between the slab and FFL. And we want a wet room. Ain't gonna happen is it? Well anyway thats what the man from Topps tiles said. Yes, yes, I know. And if you look at some of my earlier threads (2 - 3 years ago) you'll understand why. Moving swiftly on, I need to dig out. By how much? (PS, I've got the drain hole in the right place - and for me thats a success)

Hold on to the fizz you're feeling now. Guard it safe. Cherish it. Polish it every now and then. Keep it ready for future access. Pub tonight then?

I started off bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about rainwater harvesting.Tiggerish you might say. Now, I just want to put the necessary internal piping in, blank it off, and wait until after the main build has finished. If I then suffer a @Stones - type urge to do some more , I can finish it off. We intend to encourage more GCN activity, so it'll be brilliant to be able to keep a gravity-fed reed bed / pond topped up from a rainwater harvesting tank. They are already stirring. Two dead on the road outside this morning. SWMBO and others are already asking me what I'm going to do with myself after the build. There's a watershed moment if ever I saw one.

GD on the telly an BH on the laptop; shout at the telly (well, Kevin), sneer privately at the participants ("Oh that extra £100K arrived quite unexpecredly"), snigger at @Onoff , suck your teeth at the hasty internet searches, plan tomorrows cock-up in waiting, spill your beer on the cat. Nowt better of an evenin'

Just like us.... until it came to emptying the crud that had accumulated in the garage the rest of the year. Can of de-icer costs nowt. It started with the kids insistence that we keep their A Level notes, favourite dolls, smelly fishing gear ..... toe-rags. The mere memory annoys me....

You are most welcome. Tell me about the tool storage (phhhhh) : it's a real issue. I hate constantly moving mine because I can't make the / haven't got the space to put them somewhere and leave them there. I have a shipping container ear-marked for tool storage later, but it won't be long before the LPA bends my ear about it.

I worked through this problem a while ago when, luckily, @JSHarris was writing about the issue. For 146 sq m (our house area) I drew the conclusion that it wasn't worth it. The discussion is on this board - somewhere - not sure where, though - so long ago that I read it that I can't remember which thread. But I do know what you mean about liking the idea of GSHP. There's something elemental about it: something deeply connected.

No, but only because I haven't thought about that - or even knew that you could do that. To be clear, under the joists, tack a 25mm batten (like a roofing batten) to act as a service cavity. Then attach the 80mm. Insulation to those battens, yes? That's got me thinking now..... interesting.

Who's a clever boy then? I am..... Thanks about the tip to use the laser . I might have worked that out after I'd got it disastrously wrong......

Interesting..... yes @Declan52, the difference is that you know what you are doing , and I - well, dont. Did you not tape the little gaps between the sheets of insulation?