Onoff

Surely silicon carbide would be... ...roughing it!

My post edited with lots more details.

I'll edit the post and add detail of all the stages I can think of. Tbh the build up is down to the input of all the good folk on here. I'll namedrop where I can, apologies if I credit the wrong people or forget someone!

Can be done & cheaper than gym membership! 1) The bathroom had a concrete floor some 60mm higher than the adjacent rooms. It was in fact pretty much dead level with the DPC (damp proof course). That was slate on the two original solid brick walls and some sort of bitumen felt on the two cavity walls: 2) Not the only room in the house with level issues. So out with the BiL's vintage Kango: 3) I bagged it and hand balled it out the front door. About 80 bags from memory: 4) Got down to top soil: 5) And started to DIG! Someone worked out the tonnage that I shifted, again by hand. 7 tonnes? Can't remember though I did lose weight! 6) Hit our wonderful clay not too far down: 7) So then to build it back up. I didn't now how but knew I wanted UFH. Started the questions on eBuild! So I banged a load of level pegs into the clay allowing 2 - 4". Tbh nearer to 2" in most areas. Sprayed the pegs so I could see them: ? First off I graded a load of the hard core that came out of the floor thru a 40mm mesh sieve. Basically I'm too tight to buy Type 2 etc. Laid it roughly level: 9) Somewhere around this point I shuttered off and squared up, with concrete, the ragged tops of the footings: 10) Any old bags of cement, plaster etc got thrown in to help get rid of it and fill voids in the hard core: 11) I then bought a second hand electric wacker plate and compacted it all down. (Did take a slight diversion and started making an electric wacker plate. THAT story is to be continued! ) It WILL live one day! 12) Anyway.....back on thread. Wacking: 13) Sharp sand went down next to fill all the voids. Me being me it was all levelled off: 14) At this point I was feeling pretty happy, I mean it just looks FINISHED! 15) 25mm of EPS went down next. EPS doesn't suck up water like PIR can so can be in direct contact with damp "ground". It's why so many here put 300mm of EPS under their concrete slab under the whole house. The combo of the sharp sand and EPS is to ensure no sharp bits of hardcore poke up thru the DPM (damp proof membrane). Think the sand and deffo the 25mm EPS was @Nickfromwales idea. 16) I'll openly admit I went full @pocster and had a sneaky, naked lie down on it at this point. It felt SO WARM! 17) I continued the EPS over the squared off footings and up the walls a little as a nod to cold bridging. Glued on with Soudal Low Expansion Foam, thanks to @JSHarris for that tip. You can see where the damp is coming thru: 18) Probably OTT but I applied a liquid DPM up to the level of the DPC. 19) Whilst the second coat was wet I blinded it with sand to give something for the Soudal foam to key to and when dry foamed the EPS in place. 20) Thick, blue DPM next. From Screwfix, on a roll: 21) Bit of a pig folding it into the corners: 22) Next 150mm of PIR as a 50 and 100 layer. Better to put the 50 down first the the 100 - wish I had! I'd suggest 150mm as a minimum. With hindsight I'd have dug a bit deeper and gone 200mm: 23) The DPM carries on up the wall with the intent of sticking to / overlapping the vcl on the stud walls to come. It's why the room is so draught free. 24) Now at this point I could have laid a plastic membrane over the foil faced PIR and stapled my UFH pipes down.....I didn't. Instead I used Polypanels as I think suggested by @PeterW. They serve 2 purposes; to act as a separating membrane between foil face and screed or concrete (you can get a reaction) and also to aid laying the UFH pipe. They also save a bitbon concrete: 25) I used a self adhesive edging strip, basically a corrugated cardboard/EPS sandwich. This takes up any expansion of the slab as it heats up.....or it can push against your walls! Probably overkill as I've already the ESP upstand: 26) With my homemade pipe decoiler it makes laying it a breeze as the video shows: 27) A142 reinforcing mesh was laid next as per @JSHarris's build / suggestion. Probably the only thing the houses share in common! I attached screeding rails (Unistrut) to the stud walls which were only affixed at this point to the walls and ceiling. A drag board went between. It's the reason my slab is so level: 27) A strong., wet concrete mix went down to give me a 100mm slab. Pockets left for the wet room tray which I cast later and one to "sink" the bath a bit: Et voila: From top of the original concrete I dug down a minimum of 385mm. Final, conservative floor build up was: - 50mm compacted Type 2 on clay - Sharp sand blind - 25mm EPS - 1200 gauge DPM - 150mm PIR (100 + 50) - Polypipe panels - A142 mesh - 100mm concrete (though I forgot to add the fibres ). - Ceramic tiles @oranjeboom has done similar to his WHOLE HOUSE. Tbh that's my plan eventually.

BEFORE you have the lino done! My own kitchen might have some parallels. Pic shows it taken from outside with the phone stuffed through the fan light. SWMBO's fo'd to Bluewater or somewhere. Nice to come home to it all tidy!  I have no heating in the kitchen. It is 'kin cold. Even been known to leave the oven door open to warm the place up. The kitchen is a years ago add on. Concrete floor. The oddity is that the concrete floor is just a solid 5" slab cast over the ORIGINAL concrete floor. I could likley Kango it up and gain 5" in room height. The readon for this we think is that without it there would have been a 1' step down from the boiler room to the kitchen floor. So from outside you step up into the boiler room. Then one step down into the kitchen, then step down into the rest of the house... I've discussed on here previously about digging down a bfo rectangle in the kitchen floor. Then heavily insulating underneath (& sides) and concreting back up with UFH pipes in. It has some merit.

Edit: Post moved to other thread.

From memory you have open doorways? To a draughty lobby? Won't matter if you've 300mm of pir on the walls floor and ceiling! Gotta stop the draughts and heat loss points elsewhere. Any heating in the kitchen?

You might struggle to find anyone who does! The generic term working with a bunch Kiwis was "sealastic" for anything that came out of tube like this.

How quick does it go yellow between bleaching?

I want least revisiting! I spoke to Kevin at C-Tec, the CT1 distributor who's been v.helpful on a number of queries. He said the "yellowing" of white CT1 is known but it comes off easy enough with a quick bleaching. Can't remember the exact reason beind the yellowing. Interesting about the bleach as here it suggests only a moderate resistance to chlorine: ct1_product_info_sheet_10-03-2015.pdf

Just looking for people's thoughts / experiences on the "best" white sanitary silicon. Forever White seems to come up a lot. Cheers.

Seriously...like meconium in a tube! Bloody expensive way to tile though...

Really? I've just sat down to watch Law & Order! Hang on... Edit: About 50, pretty much all cuts. 8 out of that lot cut/whole & ready to go on when I next mix up.

Best stick 'em down I guess...

A proper roofer's lead knife maybe? For example: https://www.raygrahams.com/products/2117-monument-sheet-lead-knife-1027l.aspx?

I had a go at grafting about 400mm extra onto a 600mm worktop: You can't tbh see the join in this picture. (The line between the plant and big glass jar is just a reflection from something) I ran the router down the two edges to be mated then routed out for clamps and joined with D4 wood glue. To start it was perfect but me being me left it for a while before siliconing over the joint and rubbing it in. Water got in behind the sink and swelled the join a bit. Now covered over with Duck Transparent Repair Tape the whole length of the joint. Near invisible tbh.....except for the swollen bit.

Probably should have done the other way around... Second time lucky!

Yep. I do one weight at a time now.

A Manual Handing Course beforehand perhaps? Never had them in my day. Been regularly carrying a 56lb weight in each hand since the age of 16. 35 years later I've got disc trouble to show for it. Maintaining a solid core seems to act as a natural "girdle" but it took me a long time to realise it.

I recall a very disturbing live performance of It's A Sin by the Pet Shop Boys in the late 80s at Wembley Arena!

Side access: End access: Push comes to shove the "room" side of the bath surround can separate if I break two tiles and split the tanking tape (the darker blue patch).

NOT enjoying this bit:

Don't think that'll worry most people!

Think I made my old man's one out of a bit of 32mm (?) conduit... Starrett cutter thru the end then slit so it sat over the "round bar" of the stop cock. Will get a pic / have a measure if up there tomorrow.

That's enough for 2018: (Waiting for foam to expand... )