ToughButterCup

Oh Gordon Bennett..... thought I'd left all that behind.....

Yes, thanks, J. The key issue for me is that I had my head in piles and wasn't looking around to see the bigger picture. Calvinmiddle's post (above) and now yours have made sure that I won't (in the words of the song) '...get fooled again...' I will read the HT report (again) last thing tonight. So tomorrow's meeting at 10:00 will be interesting. More soon.

Ah, heart-in-mouth stuff this. The phone goes - new number - no half second when you can adjust to the person you know is on the other end because the name flashes up on the screen. Starting a phone conversation with a technical expert, but hoping for an emotionally literate, customer-focused, technically easy to understand response is not a pleasant feeling. Add to that a mobile phone with a hiccup and a slightly distracting tomcat (Sid) who fastens himself to my leg in mid-sentence, a recipe for miscommunication. Semi-Undaunted because I've done a bit of homework. I prepared a Briefing Pack for the Piling Contractors. They've got all the information I have got in front of them and I've asked for an initial chat. Important this: first impressions and all that. Imagine then my delight when I hear a man's voice says, you don't need [This Company X] because .............. and it would be better for you to use a different piling system because............ Customer Focus. Yippee! (PM me for the details of who and which company). And he proceeds to give me the low down on why screw piles are likely not the best system. Our Soil Investigation makes it clear that our land is not suitable for piling with screw piles. He's just saved me a lot of money. A lot. And I'm grateful. And they do MVHR and this and that and the other for new-builds. Who am I going to contact and ask for a quote for MVHR, this that and the other? Right. No brainer. Interesting then that another company [ Company Y] has already submitted a quote '... based on the information [ I ] have provided...' (which was exactly the same as to the former company) amounting to £23,000. Company Y manufacture the piles and licence an installer to do the work for them. In this case I would need to be really sure who takes appropriate professional responsibility for using screw piles - and be able to explain why they were not using another system instead. And in dealing with one quote which involves two companies, I'm asking myself where's the potential for conflict of interest? This sentence in their quote set my teeth on edge... '...As you are no doubt aware, some piling schemes are installed to a ‘set’. This means that the actual works and final costs can invariably increase on the day of installation...' 'Can' and 'invariably increase' written next to one another. The best I can say is that the sentence wasn't drafted with care. The Plot Thickens One contractor (PM for details) rings up and says. " Your piling requirement is for about 200Kn, so it can't be done with a mini piling system. So for the spec you have it'll need CFA (Continuous Flight Auger) piles - or some other system. Mind if we pop round to have a look at the site? I've had a look at the briefing pack you sent us, looked at Street View on Google Earth and I'm a bit concerned about access to your site. I just need to have a quick look. Will Wednesday morning be OK?" Customer focus writ large. Before the guy arrives (this is written on Tuesday, the day before he comes) I am well disposed to his company approach. He's told me that the two quotes I already have need to be re-read in the light of the access issue - and that one of them - the company that wants to use mini piles - probably hasn't read my briefing pack well enough. So that's why I changed the title of this post to [...], not so clueless of Lancaster So now I'm wondering whether the TAF (Temporary Amphibian Fence) forced on us by our blessed newts (I love them really) have screwed up access to the site. And in any case, this exercise has taught me that access needs to be considered for every large delivery. That is bigger than a 7.5 tonner. Hmm, how to do that efficiently? Ideas on a postcard please..... (06:00) Tuesday 08:10: See this comment by CalvinMiddle, and his further reference to this document...... (here). Bottom line; do your basic research. Interesting day ahead. Oh dear another over-long day ahead. Fun this retirement lark!

No, I haven't thought about it. Yet. That important little word. Yet. More reading. Thanks for the nudge. Ian

Thank you very much indeed. It's exactly this sort of exercise which adds value to users' experience because it makes it easier for them to drill down to the facts. Ian

Ah! Excellent. I was hoping to get a reply from you Steamy. Thanks. Ian

Thanks very much indeed. Deep into it all now: it's an extremely interesting subject. I am particularly grateful for the reading on Error Correction stuff (Least Squares method) Bit too high-brow for me, but no less interesting for all that. I have decided to use an optical level, and I found this brilliant set of videos that takes beginners like me from how to read a staff to being able to check the readings I think I'm going to begin by doing all the readings and noting the results by 'steam'; maybe then see if I can find a simple Excel Spreadsheet that systematises - and checks for errors. Never a dull moment this house-building lark.

BINGO. That's the one. Hemorrhoids, here we come.

Terry's right.

That was a really interesting read. Thanks. I hope you get many happy years of use out of it. A home-from-home when you're away. Something that will become part of the fabric of your family life. Brilliant. Ian

Someone -forgot who- suggested that I make a site loo cabin out of the shakes that I'm making. So, that's what's happening. Shakes, ...... site loo.... geddit? It'll be good practice for me about the whole process; working out how many shakes per square meter and all that. And it'll be drafty. So that's all good then.

Thank you very much indeed for that post Steamy. The information in the video was extremely interesting. It is a great pity that the narrator doesn't explain in any depth why the North South separation of the Jet Stream matters. There was a bit about earth temperature evening out because of the mixing of the two 'blocks', but very little about why we should worry about that. Has this happened before? How long is the period of this particular Rossby wave pattern? I had the great good fortune of meeting and befriending a climate science research associate at my old college - he was researching the underlying mathematics of Rossby wave patterns . He did that in a lab where he documented the patterns in a Petri Dish of all places. And that sparked a life-long interest in Jet Streams. Thanks for the nudge! Ian

Thanks. I'll give them a try. Ian

There's free air circulation on your build, and thus no temperature difference between outside and inside...? Internal and external mould you say. So I may well be right. I'm making loads of shakes for my house. Storing them in open, but covered racks. Exactly the same spot mould. Don't worry in the slightest.

Thanks for the nudge. Hmm, yes I had read that. But have I got the confidence to use one? No, and here's why. Ian

Thanks very much. Would you PM me the details, please? Thanks for the nudge about asking our SE: wouldn't have thought of that. Ian

We need some piles. Into every life a little rain must fall. I know nowt about piles. So, onto YooChube, onto the architect, onto the SE, and I have some outline advice. Use screw piles. Why? Here OK, so now what? I know the cost will be significant, and when my bank balance is about to get hit, I get cautious. So, I've decided to blog about it in a good deal of detail. Because there's one process that makes me more jangled than anything: how does anyone compare like with like? Reducing risk is the key thing I think, but I still feel damn nervous about it. And one way of reducing that horrible feeling that grips at 5 in the morning - what the Hell have I missed out now ? - is by turning that fear (yes fear) into some sort of creative, positive action. Hence the blog and this post. So, I'm putting all of the information on line (suitably edited - no emails, no phone numbers, no company names, no addresses) so you can all have a look and comment Please come with me, linger, lurk, laugh, look, learn with me. And comment, poke, challenge, ask. Please!

Why Piles? Because we are on a spoil heap. Our house will be built on the spoil heap of what was a clay and sandstone quarry. We are here The ridge of trees 50m to the south stand on the top of what was the old quarry face. We had a soil survey done (have a look at it here) The bore hole location map is on page 47 and the profiles are detailed on the next pages. Here's how much it cost to get this done. (Feb 2015; desk study and geophysics). Our house will stand on the site of the old chicken shack. Debbie (SWMBO and @MrsRA), bless her heart, had the foresight to buy this piece of land in 1985. And I had to mow it. Win some, lose some. Sold the mower the other day - paid for the survey. Won that one. The desk study and and ground investigation report were supported by a proper site survey (see page 47 here - the bore holes are the green smudges) The full site survey is an A1 sheet which I've had printed and attached to the wall of the kitchen for reference. There'll also be a copy in the container office. It is a key bit of paper (vinyl). Our Structural Engineers are simply brilliant (PM me for details if you like). They took the details above and turned them into a plan for our piling. They needed all the above details - cost of all the above about £3500 if you take everything into account. Result of that expenditure is reasonable confidence that we aren't making a significant error in design. Here's a copy of the piling design, together with a table of the loads for each pile PilingCalculationsInsulatedFoundation.pdf I prepared a simple zipped briefing pack for each piling contractor: contents: Soil Survey, SE's Piling design and plan, Architects Plans, Photos of the site, Site surveyor's report, United Utilities Underground Services report, Screen Grab from Google maps, overhead and Street View. I googled 'Screw Piling' site: .uk, and contacted the first three or four attaching the site briefing pack. I also googled ' piling Lancashire ' and rang up a few local companies. "What, you've 'ad a site survey done, mate? What, how moooch did that costcha? ....'OW MOOCH? Hmmm, we'd a dun that fo ya fer nowt maaate" "Thanks, I'll be in touch". Pity that. I'd love to spend the money locally. Next problem. How to compare like with like when -if- the quotes come in? How can anyone compare quotes fairly? It isn't easy. Hence this blog. So, I've decided to expose the process as fully as is sensible (protecting suppliers' confidentiality, and removing all names and contact details) Come along with me - pick the process to bits for yourself, and maybe make the process easier for yourself.

Southern Softness personified you are.....

Water enters the tank having passed through a filter first. A pump lifts water from the saved rainwater and gets used in your house. To make a backwash happen, arrange for that pump to also Stop pumping to the house and instead Pump water through the bottom of the filter up through the sand, direct to waste If, while it's raining, you drop a spoon full of aluminium sulfate into the water somewhere upstream of the filter, and wait for a while, the aluminium sulfate (alum) forms a gel on top of the sand and really cleans the water thoroughly. It helps greatly with the backwash process. A very small amount of alum will do the trick. I'm almost sure that alum has been used since Roman times to help purify water. Keep it away from your eyes.

We intend to have copper rainwater goods - so won't the resulting weak copper sulphate (? I'm no chemist) solution provide some anti-bacterial action while the water is 'resting' the tank? But will that - together with a simple but efficient sand filter - be enough? And Debbie says the smelliness should be sorted by the weekly very hot (60) wash. So that's Ok, then.

You bad man. Wash your mouth out - with dirty diesel.

No teeth in this narrow bucket: it's little wider than a shovel. I tried all sorts of jiggery pokery, but it still jammed full. And made no difference whatever. I could still dig perfectly well. In the end I used a crowbar - yes a crowbar to get the soil out. Soon lost interest in that, though.

There are two holes smack bang in the middle of the sides (cheek plates). It's the small trenching bucket @ProDave ...about 12" wide.

Digging my TAF (Temporary Amphibian Fencing) trench wi' 't digger... all's well, when I notice the bucket is full, and won't empty. Shake it, rattle it and roll it; nothing. Bucket full of earth. Stuck. Fast. And neither did the full bucket stop the digging process. I carried on digging fine, got the TAF trench dug. But I suspect I'm doing something wrong. Yes, there's a good deal of clay around, but it's mostly loam, and there's a little bit of concrete stuck to the inside of the bucket. Overthinking again I suspect, but I thought I'd ask (Declan....).