Onoff

A bed of crushed broken glass would dissuade "things"!

Aluminium sheet maybe around the bottom?

Or staple some st/st mig wire from one side to the other underneath so the eps/pir sits on that. Need to stop "things" getting underneath and setting up home too.

Some pillock I know did his shed floor with spray foam can you believe!

If you raise the floor heights then you'll need to redo all your doorways too!

Why not hire a digger for the day and carve a flat terrace to build the cabin on? I'd look too carefully at managing that slope against future soil erosion by maybe encouraging plant growth with some binding root system. I'm no gardener though. Again terracing the slope can help with this. They're rebuilding some cottages near me on a slope using a gabion retaining wall. Will try and grab a pic tomorrow. Tbh I'd be digging some metre cubed holes and chucking some beefy timbers in as uprights to support a cantilevered deck for a cabin. I'd stand the timbers on the concrete in a Metpost type bracket rather than in the concrete. If things do sink then jack up and pack. Tbh unless you're going to spend money and employ a structural engineer along with possibly ground surveys you're going to just have to go by gut and enjoy the ride.....even if it goes wrong.

It'll work but you'll be haemorrhaging money on fuel. Spend on airtightness and insulation. YOU ONLY PAY FOR INSULATION ONCE! Are you considering MVHR? Just the feeling your boilers are working overtime. Trades will take your money all day long. You can't do the room at a time approach? I've done our bathroom as a bit of a retreat from the shithole that is the rest of the house. Next on the list is the room most central to the house where I'll site the UFH manifold and run ducts off to all the other ground floor rooms. As I redo those floors the UFH pipes can go in. Can't think of as big a floor area as yours... @AliG maybe, and he's got an indoor pool within the thermal envelope! Be interesting to compare heating bills. I think @PeterStarck's space heating requirements are <1.5kW per day...or is that DHW?

I'd urge you if you can to visit a completed passive / exceeding passive spec house with super high air tightness and marvel and the draught free feel and quietness. I visited @PeterStarck's and it's beyond impressive. Interestingly he doesn't have UFH but the whole place sits on 300mm of high performance eps under the slab (as in fact do many here that also incorporate UFH). Really it'll change your way of thinking.....and make you regret not having knocked down and rebuilt! ?

Sorry, that's taken! ? @MarkyP's comments on EWI very informative too if you go that route:

Bloody Hell that's big. Do you refer to the "West Wing" etc? May I suggest @POTUS if ever you change your username? ? I'm sure someone clever here can work out the ££££ heat loss pa through the floor if uninsulated. @oranjeboom on here dug down his whole house and built back up inc UFH. He also did EWI. Check out his blogs here: + +

Can you not dig a test hole to see what's underneath? My bathroom floor was +60mm compared to the main house. I dug down approx 400mm then built back up. 50mm compacted Type 2 Sharp sand blind 25mm EPS DPM 150mm PIR Polypipe panels UFH 100mm concrete 15mm new tiles = 340mm

The Whelan's ornaments getting a bit of a tart up today. Had these circa 20 years: Emulsion match pots with yacht varnish over the top. Keeps the kids amused for a good while.

See, now I really like the ali clad / glazed bit! Weird what ticks for different folks. Lighting scheme inside just "works" imo, lovely spreads are a feature on their own.

That's the one. He reckons it more for tree work and possibly more dangerous than this sort:

Love the inside. That brick facade is imo soulless. Each to their own.

EVERYBODY around here has a chainsaw...except me! They scare the sh!t out of me tbh. The BiL just got the small "1 hander" 36V Makita DUC302Z jobbie and is super impressed. At the mo I always have to ask him if I need anything trimming.

Go on the same link and click on the Check Business tab. You can enter the registration number and I presume check it's legit, it's him named etc.

Agreed. Looking at the Makita 36V chainsaws, can't decide on the 300 or 350mm blade. If I go for the 350mm then there's two models DUC353Z and 355Z. Both brushless. Used the compare facility on the Makita site but none the wiser what the difference is! As I was rodding I was hitting what I thought were maybe blockages, must have been the joints. I connected 2 packs of 10, 900mm rods so 18m and that just went from manhole 2 to 3. Might be another inbetween but I can't see one despite prodding the ground along the line.

I really don't know. I should have perhaps looked all around the sides inside but it's pretty precarious balancing over the open manhole on a ladder laid flat. My guess is that the solids stay and the liquid element is simply meant to leach into the soil as the cess pool has no bottom. I'm guessing though.

You can check here: https://www.hetas.co.uk/find-installer/

Haven't got any photos of down in the pit or in the P trap manhole below. Basically I had arm length gauntlets on and didn't want to risk the phone. As it was I nearly lost my glasses a couple of times. As an aside I had to clear a tunnel of vegetation for access, mainly blackthorn bushes. Never thought the thorns would penetrate thick rubber (gauntlets)...they do! This is the clay rodding hole stopper left out from the P trap on the right. Thought it'd be a good idea to leave out in case the P trap clogs...the "stuff" would at least have the rodding hole to go down and bypass the trap. (There's no way anyhow of getting the stopper out if the P trap blocks aside from leaning down into 2-3' of liquid sh!t and having a feel for it!) Thinking now though that P trap is as much to stop smells. I should at least I think have the manhole lid remade in a thick piece of galv plate as it's so fragile. Having no holes in it isn't a huge deal as the edge of a spade gets in there OK to lever it up. I have the chequer plate cut from black stock then galvanised so the edges get done. Maybe I should take that lid off, jet wash it and have a measure then make more of an effort to source a no doubt Imperial replacement.

I apologised beforehand when I saw the neighbour over the fence. She informed me theirs had just collapsed when she drove over it in her 4x4!

Basic dust mask with about 20 drops of neat lavender oil in and I hardly smelt it. Cat came from East Hill but as you know a fairly long road. Found at the bottom of Hills Lane. They'd just moved in and despite keeping it in for a week it decided to disappear. The girl said she'd been chasing sitings of it for a week. Didn't look underfed or thirsty so I'm sure it was making a dent in the local wildlife. Made a bloody racket, very vocal when I was trying to coax it to come to me. I think that's a trait with Siamese & Burmese. I knew it was out of place 'cos it looked posh. Probably thought I was going to grill it hillbilly style!

What to do on a boiling hot day? I decided I was going to find the cess pit today as SWMBO out shopping. An route to buy a second set of drain rods a rather expensive looking cat ran out in front of me. I recalled the BiL asking if I'd had a note through our door as he had about a missing Burmese. I rang him as he still had the note and the owner drove to meet me. BiL decided to cycle over to lend a hand cat catching! With said moggie safely caught I mentioned the cess pool and BiL offered to lend a hand if I rang him when I got back. Nice having A N Other on hand just in case and I tried to keep him well out of the way whilst I got sh!tty...really sh!tty. So from the top end: Unused manhole No.1 with the piece of 8mm galv chequer plate on which I had knocked up when the digger went through doing the water main. Used to have a clay soil coming in from the left from the old outside wc. Next manhole No.2 down in front of the 110mm soil (temporary off gutter downpipe) is where "everything" goes at the moment. Next manhole No.3, down at the end of the ladder, just after the rods, has a rotted cover that sits over a clay P trap. This was overflowing. Beyond that is the cess pool cover. Lifting that and the "crust" was about 2 or 3 feet below ground level with no sign of it overflowing. A slight detour as a slow worm had fallen in and was lying a bit stunned atop the crust. Hauled him out and hosed down. Seems OK. Blockage appeared to be either in the P trap or between there and the cess pool. I actually lent down into the cess pool to rod back up to the P trap. Also rodded / plunged from the P trap down. Eventually things started moving. Follow the line of the black rods and you'll see the clay "stopper" from manhole No.3's rodding point. Left that out for now. The rotted cover of manhole No.3. In the foreground. As in the steel "cups" below the bars you hook to lift have gone! That vent lying upside down to the right...not sure where that's from... Went to manhole No.2 and with the second set of rods I can reach all the way to No.3. Bit of a back up so I rodded down to No.3 then checked there. On a positive note the cess pit isn't as big as I though. Guessing 8 -10' in diameter. (For some reason I thought it'd be rectangular). Arched brick construction and seeming fairly intact except around the entry / hatch. I could claim a fair bit of garden back should I choose. Downside the crust is only about 1" below the bottom of the inlet pipe so it needs emptying. A bit of breathing space at least now and a pictorial record of where it is. All wcs flushing. All the tools hosed down but not yet disinfected. Two showers later and I'm having a beer!

Ta. I would aim for a good 2% fall. For the Geberit wall drain they say 1 to 2% so in my case 13 - 26mm. Think it's ended up about 18/19mm so circa 1.5%. Not been tested in anger yet I hasten to add. Just got to do the tile sealer before that happens and run a temp waste pipe outside. Forgot to say I added fibres to my exotic pea shingle mix.