ToughButterCup

Durisol is 65% air. How and where? Everywhere

Thanks. "Another Fine Steep Learning Curve you got me into Jeremy." (Apologies to Stan)

Excellente Tenente! Magnifico! I feel a test patch coming on. Photos of the mess to follow. Hmmmm, a bit of me is wondering how I test a test patch? I mean, how do I know the test patch works? Answers on a postcard to Salamander Cottage, near Forton Services on the M6......

Trade names for membrane and tape please. Thanks Ian

OK folks next step... I've been told that I need to make sure that the wall must be as flat as I can get it (where it butts up to the floor boards) so that when they come to fit the flooring, the fit will be really flush. Hmmm. It looks as if the workflow can be; Fit the joists (POSIs) Tape round the edges, Sloppy sand and cement wash over the area Fit the floor boards

Just what an fella needs @Dudda ! Thanks.

I knew the answer would be high tech. AT means...? S+C means sand and cement doesn't it? Both @ProDave and @gravelld have mentioned using a membrane (Intello or Protect Barriair) Why use one when sand and cement might be all we need ? What does a 'long time mean'? Years, weeks, a generation?

That's the thing about building a house; there are too many choices. And I'm at the bottom of yet another really steep learning curve. Hence this post. We need to render the internal space between the ceiling and first floor to make sure this area is airtight before we fit the POSIs. At this stage in our decision making process, I usually turn to the online version of SPONS and look at what's available. Comprehensive though the section on rendering is, there's no mention of rendering to provide simple air-tightness. For this small section, the look of the render and surface finish is irrelevant, and thickness is only important in so far as air-tightness is concerned. Waterproofing isn't relevant. I've come to understand that this process, however humble it may be, is key to keeping our future living cost down. So it's important to get it right. Could you just give me some starters to help me widen my research, please? So far I have Looked through SPONS for trade names and researched those that I found : Tyrolean Finish, Cement and sand, SIKA waterproof render, Sto External render, Armat Classic Basecoat, K-Rend. Done an internet search and come up with this interesting article: maybe we should simply render over an airtight membrane. Visited the GBF and read this article, but it's mainly about air-tightness tapes: it raises important issues though about finding plasterers who are keen on attention to detail. Knotty one that. Found out that there's stuff called undercoat plaster......... This hill is steeper than I thought. Ian

Exactly. The Logical AND OR and NOT are apparently too difficult for most: but why coders are told not to allow that facility (I imagine by now that it's a simple class) is beyond me.

PM me. I'm around most of the time.

Well, @mvincentd, yours makes my little foray into concrete shuttering look very very tame indeed. Your photos seem to show a project more akin to a civil engineering. I'd be interested to see what you plan... Our shuttered pour had me feeling sick with worry about the consequences of a burst - where at worst I'd lose a cube of concrete. @Triassic, I know a bit about Durisol: as I understand it we don't live all that far apart. J33 on the M6 for me. So why dont you pop round - you could at the very least count Durisol out on the basis of evidence.

Well, as usual @JSHarris was right. Two nuts tightened hard against themselves, and a good blob of weld (yes, my welding), a period of cooling and followed by the kind of twisting technique you use to cut a thread from a piece of bar. The only ones left to do now are too close to the scaffolding to be accessible. 4 out of 130. I'm super pleased. The addition of a blob of weld (plus cooling) makes all the difference. Early on, I was too keen to rotate the nuts, so I kept breaking the weld. Those metal work sessions from half a century or more ago (how to put a thread on a bar) were of some use.

Make yourself a high quality sled.

... And in bed asleep by 9. Only 4 more threaded rods to extract. I'm quite excited.... More in't morning

I suspect you are right. They may be experts at making stuff, but they aren't communicators.

To an extent, by luck, yes. The Durisol North rep (Jamie) was out straight away and has (with his lads) all but finished putting it right. Next week ought to see the end of the wall-build. The point I wanted to make earlier in the thread was that it is only by luck - in this case - that I could build an evidence-based argument to refute the Insurer's un-evidenced assertions. Luck - in the form of almost irrefutable highly local meteorological data - has played the most significant role. And who normally has access to that?

Well, some you win. See below. Dear Mr & Dr Simpson, I refer to the above matter (our claim) and all previous correspondence., and all of you for making the process a little less painful.Having now completion addition enquiries I am please (sic!) to confirm Insurers acceptance of the claim. The amount claimed was set out your email of 26 July in accordance with the estimate from Durisol UK in the sum of £1,298.34 inc VAT. Labour was confirmed to be free. The policy carries an excess of £250 and so the net settlement is £1,048.34. There was an element of luck in our claim, I think. Lancaster University has a full scale weather station (if you use the M6, you will have seen the windmill as you drive past the university grounds: the weather station is there). The guy who maintains the data has an office round the corner from Debbie's. His brief email (below) was important. [The wind] seems to have been averaging up to 11 m/s (~25mph) during the night. We no longer measure gusts but looking at some older data with the wind in a similar direction, you can be pretty sure it would be regularly gusting at least 1.5 times the average. From memory, it was particularly gusty, so the highest speeds may have been more like double the average. This is pretty unusual for July - especially from that direction. (Signed Dr. xyz) And the advice given in this thread. So, a big thank you to @Barney12, @JSHarris, @Stones, @Russell griffiths @Onoff and all of you for making the process a little less painful. As well as putting some lead in our pencil. A moment's reflection Without your support this claim would not have been made - we felt like shrugging and carrying on - head-down-keep-going-itis Without supporting data we would not have been able to demonstrate exceptional weather circumstances - and how many of us have direct access to a fully qualified meteorologist : and if we did would we also be in line of sight of a national level weather station? Durisol did not think hard enough before drafting their website content I'm thinking that we are lucky. Most people without access to the level of support itemised above might well have either not claimed or not had access to data to support their claim. And so failed in their application. That's why the companies win: lack of verifiable, objective data on the part of the claimant. The sheer luck of living within sight of a full-blown weather station...... I'm off to buy a decent dash cam. Any recommendations?

Elaborate? Hmmm, Gorilla Tape.

My reading (time too short to make appropriate links to substantiate the point) is that the cost of certification exceeds its market value.

You are on to something there. Some of the remaining threaded bar exits the wall at a slight angle: the cue for bending it the opposite way methinks..... Now all I need is no ManFlu

Have I got an SDS+ drill indeed! I polish it every night and put it on the bedside table to admire it - so I can see it first thing in the morning. Well, second thing. Brilliant idea. Now all I need is no ManFlu.

You might be right. The wet concrete wasn't the problem: it's the distance the concrete had to fall before reaching the bar that may have been the issue (2 meters or so). A good slug of concrete dropping two meters is quite a force. But even if I'm right, that doesn't explain why two threaded bars next to one another - exact same distance for the concrete to fall , one is not bent and so extracts fine, the other sits there and sneers. Occasionally the impact driver did manage to extract bent bars. (About 10 in all) Wrapping the bars in anything other than oil -in the time available- wasn't possible. In relation to the M10 against the M12, I'll give that a try, even if all I manage to do is encapsulate the metal inside the ICF (so it cannot become a cold bridge). If I can get it out, though, I will

Hmmm, well since your answer to the previous question was (118/130)% correct, and I'm a 'blob-of-weld-on-the-end-of-a-stud-competent-welder', looks like I'm going with this one. I've tried that, I really have. I recon the core issue is that they were bent during the process of filling the ICF with concrete. And so even under ideal conditions (well lubricated and free of the concrete grip) would have been almost impossible to withdraw any type of drill, impact or otherwise. I don't hold out much hope: I'm as weak as a drink of water at the moment (did I mention ManFlu?), so by the time I get to it, tomorrow - all will be in the vice-like grip of the concrete. Can't take a joke? Shouldn't have started. BTW did I mention I have ManFlu?

Debbie likes you.

That looks wonderful @Calvinmiddle. In your bathroom, where are the bath taps? (asks Debbie)