ToughButterCup

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)

Well.............. Mostly it went well. Mostly. A combination of swearing, sneezing (ManFlu: I'm in bed today, but not yesterday) and heroism got over a hundred of the bloody things out successfully (130 bars in all) But; well have a look: On the North face of the house I managed to partially extract these So annoying when the impact driver and stud puller are working their nuts off extracting the rod slowly, and then for an indecipherable reason the extraction process runs out of steam. I tried at least two methods of extraction on the dozen or so recalcitrant bars from both inside and outside: have a look This photo is from the inside, (the previous from outside). Since the end in mind is to prevent cold bridges, if (as immediately above) I have withdrawn a good 400 mm or more of bar, then all that needs to happen is for it to be cut and sealed with insulation foam from the outside. Its the pesky bars which have sulked in their sockets that concern me. I recon that the falling wet concrete during the filling process bent the bar, and so the impact driver hasn't been able to turn it at all. And by now the concrete has a vice-like grip on it. Strategies in no particular order For those that have partially extracted 'out' of the building: drill a hole in the corner of a hefty bit of angle iron, bolt it onto the bar, get the digger bucket up to that level, connect up with a shackle and strop ; yank (Dangerous?) For those that have partially extracted 'in' to the building: leave them in, chop them off at the inside wall, fill with low expansion foam from outside, and forget them For those sods which just sat there leering at me, drill in from both sides (200mm) and seal them into their tomb. Bastards. Grind two flats on each bar. Use a spanner to unwind (or wind - whichever works) by hand the bar in (or out) Time consuming. What do you all think? Ian (It's OK, I don't need any sympathy about Manflu. What a bloody time to get it)

I have three full harnesses available with the relevant strops and carabiners . When we come to do the roof I'm hoping to provide a net : but our roofer suggests we circumvent that issue by building the first floor first.

Talk. Smile. Make a joke. Help. In the final analysis you only need to connect with him. How is up to you. To do nothing is forever to wonder 'What if....' Ian

A quick search within the site for the term VAT will give you all the answers you need. From memory (imperfect at best) VAT charges for services are not reclaimable. The general guidance is very simple. If it's built into the house, you can reclaim the VAT. So a wardrobe bought in a shop isn't VAT reclaimable, but a built-in wardrobe is. Look at @JSHarris blog (or was it a post, can't recall) where he details the general rules and - and this is the important bit - he lists the gottchas. In haste, Ian

Maintenance I can do it. Debbie can maintain it when I'm away. But if we are both off or decide we haven't got the time.... If, as sometimes happens, the bit I of code we write causes a conflict with XYZ browser, or on older spec mobile browsers, that means hours of fiddling, or restricting display of that resource to browsers of XYZ spec, which means browser sniffing and that means talking to @TerryE, and that means time, and we all have houses to build.... Someone else decides they'd like to help and can't unpick my messy code, and so starts again and ..... If BH were a one person operation , no problem. But we are a team, and that offers opportunity as well as constraint.

It's easy: the technical bit, that is. Precisely what I did for a living for many years. What's hard is maintaining it. The quickest thing to do would be to link to a site (or sites) which hosts the relevant calculators, and then merely maintain the link. @SteamyTea, give us a list of pages which host the kind of resource(s) which you think have some credibility.

I have found that there is a huge pressure to 'get on' when a new crew arrives on site. The arrival represents a long-hoped-for, long-planned-for next step, and so it takes huge courage to call for an unplanned pause before the next phase of the build. All sorts of arrangements have to be remade and who knows what sort of mess ups that process will cause. I deeply sympathise with you @Barney12, 12mm here and 25mm there are not trivial amounts: it must feel like a dead weight dragging your project back, causing lost sleep and added expense. And not a little irritation. I have yet to examine our slab in any great detail .....

You can have mine when I have finished......

Here's the experiment; the aim is to reduce the risk of the threaded bar being stuck in the concrete - and thus eliminate the cold bridges that would have been formed by the bar being stuck. This is how I set the experiment up As simple box with a few threaded bars, each exposed to the same size gap as the one in the Durisol blocks Each bar except one was coated with a 'release agent' illustrated; except one (as a control) I used a standard 1:3:3 concrete mix and after mixing appropriately, filled the box After 4 hours (when back from the pub) it was easy with @JSHarris set up (see earlier post) to withdraw (unscrew) the bars: the one with no release agent was noticeably more 'sticky' And the same effect was obvious just now (0920 the following day) This isn't anything like a scientific test: more a 'quick and dirty indication' I'm encouraged that there is at least the likelihood of being able to withdraw the bars, and so to eliminate the cold bridges. The job now is to get the release agent into the bars that have already been fitted. A job for tomorrow. Today's our wedding anniversary, so we're off to St Annes Kite Festival, and fish and chips on the sea front. I know how to treat a girl right!

Stuff it Bonnie, you do it. I did the last lot.

All will become clear when I post some piccies later tonight, or maybe tomorrow, (in the pub at the moment), and just a teeny weeny bit drunkish......

Like "Take this rubbish down and rebuild it: and while you are at it you can forget that invoice you've just submitted."

Aha! That's the idea which sells them to me.....

What's the feeling about trainers, boots or shoes which have composites as protection ? (i.e. What my dad would have called Tupperware) Or is footware containing composite protection too new for a consensus to emerge? I'm thinking that anything that saves weight, while providing proper protection, is a good idea.

My Stihl work boots (used every day) have given up the ghost: the heel assembly has parted company with the sole. German manufactured. Their MD has got a fairly shirty email from me. 2 years old. German quality indeed. So I'm in the process of buying other safety footwear while those boots are sent back to Germany. Boots, shoes, or trainers? All can be had with composite protection - and so significantly lighter than their steel predecessors. It strikes me as a problem analogous to the one I faced while fell running up here. We'd sometimes get people pointing out that we weren't wearing boots (like good feel walkers should). I have run on the fells since I was eight, always worn fell shoes, and twisted an ankle just once in 50 years. No need for boots. Will, for our purposes, self-building, composite protected trainers or shoes do for us?

Nightmare.... for a variety of reasons.

@Pete, I admire your technique. I used the same one today. Debbie hoisted a couple of tonnes of blocks by hand up 30 feet to our top scaffolding . And will do the same again tomorrow. Guess what I want for Christmas?