Ian

There's quite a few standard fittings available for getting cables through flat roofs - generally they are of the 'standpipe' type design such as this one: https://www.roofingsuperstore.co.uk/product/roof-nek-flat-roof-small-pipe-cable-entry-point.html or this one: http://klober.co.uk/shop/product/flavent-cable-outlet

There's usually a trapdoor or access panel in the floor to allow you to get down under the floor and inspect the void. Often they can be found in the floor of the cupboard under the stairs. The other thing to look out for in houses like that is later extensions to the rear of the building which may have blocked off the air bricks at the back of the house and therefore preventing cross-ventilation of the sub-floor void.

Usually Victorian era houses have suspended timber construction to the ground floors. The original design would have included a ventilated floor void under the timber floor with air bricks on the outside of the house (front & back) and it's very important that this ventilation path isn't blocked when external pavement levels are altered. If the ventilation is blocked it can lead to problems with dry rot in the timber floor.

@Blame If a house is damp there's usually an obvious cause and I'd be looking to identify & sort out those problems first. Usual causes of damp include: defects in roof or with gutters/downpipes. If the external walls are solid brickwork (IE no cavities) check condition of pointing. rising damp - do the walls have a dpc? check ground levels relative to FFL in the house. often older houses can have problems with condensation due to the way they are used (or rather abused) - these issues can be solved.

+1 Just look at the deliberate similarities between the“Conformité Européenne” 'CE mark' and 'China Export'.

Article on BBC news website today about failed carbon monoxide alarms being sold on EBay and Amazon https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44563900

Yes, Amazon price is way off. My local supplier's price is £19 inc vat for 5 litres

I've been using Aspen 2 in my chainsaw. Although its expensive I'm not using massive amounts. It's an alkylate petrol which has less benzene and sulphur than normal petrol and stays fresher over time. https://www.amazon.co.uk/GreenStar-10126-Aspen-2-Stroke-Engines-Litre/dp/B00LKQIE3S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1529656338&sr=8-1&keywords=aspen+2+stroke+fuel

Well done and what a lovely site! The frame going up is definitely the best part of the build apart from the actual bit where it all gets finished!

The English Regs Part B Vol 1 also say that smoke alarms must be mains powered.

its a system to automatically return sludge from the outer ring back to the inner one

I'm using a Bio-pure 1 for a small holiday home with just 2 of us using the building at weekends only. The manufacturer advised me to install the air pump on a simple time switch 2 hours on & 2 hours off. It's been running now and in use without any problems since about January 2017. Since I installed mine they have altered the design slightly to further improve its performance during intermittent use.

That looks like a nice detail which should work. The potential weak spot will be at the joints in the protruding metal flashing - any leak at those joint positions and the water is straight into the roof. Also I'd want to know exactly how the insect/rodent mesh will fit to ensure complete coverage of the air gap.

The top frost rating for bricks is F2 with F2/L2 bricks being the highest grade you can get (the L rating refers to salts and the bricks tendency to show efflorescence) Under the previous standard it was F/L for frost resistant/low efflorescence and some manufacturers still use this description.

We've got a Biopure 1 at a holiday home that only gets used at weekends and we were advised by the manufacturer to operate the air blower on a timer switch 2 hours on/2 hours off. Its been operating about 18 months and seems to be working well so far.

+1 I’ve done several larger commercial jobs which needed surface water attenuation where we took all the rainwater off the roofs and piped it to a pond. The extra bit you then need is an overflow weir from the pond which is piped to a traditional soakaway or to SW mains sewer.

Mine takes approx 1 hour for every 1 degree C increase. It’s a holiday home mainly used at weekends and built to min Welsh building regs. Overall average area weighted U values of walls roof and floor are 0.15 with 0.8 3G windows but the floor is 0.1 because of the u’floor heating. The floor construction is 100mm concrete slab with rebar over 300mm of EPS. I use a Hive controller to remotely control the heating.

I still think you would be best not painting a DPM onto the u/s of the timber deck. IMO it would be best to allow the timber deck to 'breathe' by exposing it to your 50mm ventilation zone. My worry about painting the u/s of the deck with a DPM is that you'll be trapping any condensation that forms in the layers above it. I've seen the results of trapped condensation in roofs like that - when trapped water vapour in a flat roof gets hot it can exert enormous pressure which would be enough to blister your DPM and weathering layer.

@oranjeboom generally speaking it's not a good idea to do what you've suggested. Normal practice is to have just one VCL which here in the UK is always located on the warm side of the construction layers. The problem you might get if you install a second VCL in the location that you showed in red on the drawing is that it could trap any condensation that might form on the u/s of the roof deck. It's best to let the ventilation do it's thing in getting rid of any minor condensation that forms. BTW, any timber you use should be treated.

@Ferdinand My own build was similar to what you've described. It's a timber frame, cedar weatherboarded 2 bed bungalow that we use as a holiday home. It's 71 sq.m internal size on a large 1.5 acre steeply sloping plot with awkward access. My wife and I both work full time so the only work we did ourselves was the painting & decorating + I did the design work, all drawings and building regs myself and some project management during the build as we didn't use a main contractor. The timber frame contractor gave us a shell minus windows and the rest was separate trades. The build time for the house itself start to finish took 8 months but the whole process took 5 years as PP took 2 years inc an appeal and the garden was done after the main build at weekends. Costs: The cost for the 71 sq.m building was £96k including all fixtures and finishes to a mid/high standard, a new sewage treatment plant and all new foul & surface water drains. (I could have easily reduced the cost by £10k by choosing cheaper finishes.) £96k for 71 sq.m is £1,350 sq.m I didn't have to pay for the land but extra to the above costs were: the cost for all the external works was £5k inc 150 linear metres of perimeter fencing and 3 gates Other costs were £7k and included: the fee for a Planning Consultant (well worth his fee btw!); PP and Building Regs application fees; air pressure test,;SAP calcs; demolition of an abandoned building that was on the site. So overall cost for the 71 sq.m build was £108k which is £1,521 sq.m

@Triassic Following on from my earlier post regarding the need to use treated timber for sole plates, the official guidance documents that a surveyor would/should use and that a Building Inspector should be referring to are 1) NHBC: Sole Plates (and the timber in external wall frames) fall into use class 2 therefore they should be treated with preservative unless the timber used is heartwood only and of durability class 1 – 2 (IE certain hardwoods and imported Western Red Cedar) 2) BS 8417: The recommendation in the British Standard is that all of the following timbers should be treated with preservative: tiling battens, frame timbers in timber frame houses, wood in pitched roofs with high condensation risk, woods in flat roofs, ground floor joists, sole plates (above dpc), wood joists in upper floors built into external walls. (In BS 8417 these woods are assigned to a “higher” use class than suggested by their location in the structure, owing to the potential consequences of failure based on experience within the UK.)

+1 to what @Nickfromwales just said. I was involved with a large commercial building where the 'professional' main contractor set the ring beam too high which meant it interfered with the planned gravity foul drainage runs from a lot of showers located in the ground floor slab next to the ring beam. They had to pay for special low profile trap connectors to be made to get around the problem.

Yes, the timber needs to be treated. Yes, you need a separate DPC under your timber soleplate.

Okay, never mind. From what you said earlier it doesn't sound to me as if he is trying to get more fees out of you but is naturally reluctant to get involved in part of the job for which he isn't getting paid. It would still be worth a phone call to have a chat with him to see if he is able to give you an electronic copy of the .dwg CAD drawings. Tell him that you are happy to give him a disclaimer in writing saying that he won't be held liable for any subsequent use of the drawings.

@ultramods From the description you gave of your build it sounds like you are in Scotland? I'm an architect working in England but assuming the forms of contract are similar and if your architect is a member of the RIAS and used their standard form of appointment then you as the client have a license to copy and use the architects drawings and other documents produced on your behalf for your project. I would ask for an electronic copy of their .dwg CAD drawings and say that you will not hold them responsible for any subsequent modification of those drawings.