Mulberry View

I have limited docs from them, but they went from my job onto a multi-million pound project, I'm hoping that adds some weight to the theory that they must have a good insurance in place. I guess we'll know more once they engage with us, which if they do so within our legal timeline, is within the next couple of weeks.

This is what we need to know, I was discussing this with 'er indoors last night. Surely once we have put the insurance company on notice, they have to consider the claim? With car insurance, you don't need to stay with that insurer for the duration of the claim, similar right?

I have had what appear to be 2 decent Zinc installers here. I've learned, however, that they all hate each other and willing throw each other under the bus. Both of these installers claim to be working often on jobs that our installer has either left or c'ocked up. There is a terminal potential issue with the upstand height in our box gutter and, as that was the lowest part of the roof, if it is proven to be defective, the whole of that section of roof (half of the total area) will have to come off.

I do honestly think we'd reconsider the rooflights, but obviously the water is under the bridge. Ours are the sort that drop over the timber upstands too. I meticulously constructed the roof and installed the upstands to the absolute letter of their guidelines and well within the tolerances. It's a shame that all turned to you-know-what when the Zinc roofer arrived. We liked the idea of some sort of stack ventilation, we have an openable rooflight at the high end of the living room and in the double height entrance hall.

Ironically, we are to have MVHR. The opening windows were because we loved large opening rooflights in our last place, they seemed to let a lot of heat escape in the summer. HIndsight is a wonderful thing and if we'd known how much agro they would cause, of course we'd have done without them.

You're exactly right, it's a shower of shit. I know that we should have had Architectural support, but the installer absolutely should have kicked the problems back to me when they were realised. Instead they 'winged it'. Velux have offered some help, but they do not take responsibility. The hinges, if you ask me, are skimpy anyway (and with 3no M5 fixings each) and with windows that weigh 275kg each, they must have a good fixing. Especially because the window has to be pivoted up to vertical in order to fix the final bolt in each hinge, so there'll be 275kg bearing down vertically at that point. It turns out that the Vario by Velux windows run close to the upstands and moving the hinge at all from it's designed position could cause the inner edge of the window to foul the upstand as it opens. Both of the onward installers that viewed the roof say that it's not a straight-forward issue, but both have tabled something that might be able to be developed, well for the rooflight issue at least. But both of course state that I'll screw any warranty I might have on the roof as soon as they start to mess with it.

The issue began as being about the hinges, but more defects have been discovered in the time since. I think the installer has circumvented the compliancy process by not compounding out-of-scope elements. The Zinc manufacturer doesn't care because they only warrant the material, probably not worth anything in the grand scheme. For example, the longer of the 2 roofs is just a smidge under 14 metres. This significantly exceeds VM Zincs maximum tray length. It turns out that they gave special approval for it, but it doesn't look like the installer highlighted to them that, along with the long trays, there are also soldered seams behind the rooflights, which essentially lock the trays together. There is also no expansion tolerance behind the rooflight upstands, so these 3 points combined make for a risky roof. Lots of concern has been shown about the amount of soldering too, which is a big reliability issue. The need for soldering was not presented in advance and, apparently will require frequent inspections. The joined trays make this issue many times worse. How can we effectively monitor soldered joints on a roof that is 7 metres up? There's no way we'd have agreed to this if we had known. There are also possible signs of leakage which need to be investigated. I am tracking at least 2 wet patches which I have evidence of going through a wet/dry/wet/dry cycle.

Thanks @Nickfromwales. You may or may not know that we are estranged rom our original Architect and is probably contributory towards how we've ended up here. However, the Zinc roofer appears to have accepted design responsibility in proceeding to implement their own design to many of the details. I have another Architect on board now, we are trying to fill in the detailing blanks now, but this was not fully known when the roof was instructed. The Zinc installer was very bold in assuring us that they are very qualified to detail our roof, they had plenty to say about how poor Architects details are, but that we should trust them as an accredited installer. We have been trying since September to come up with alternative details to fix the main issue and one has not been presented that meets our needs and satisfies the warranties offered by the roof system and the rooflight manufacturer. I would prefer to reach an agreement with the original installer, but that ship has well-and-truly sailed. It's an ugly mess, but there does appear to be legal hope for us, we just don't know how long and at what cost just yet.

Thanks @Alan Ambrose. Our initial legal letter stating our position has been sent. I have had a couple of other Zinc specialists have an overall look at it for the rooflight detailing issue and it was them who raised many of the other defects. Part of the process will be to get an Expert Witness to do a full report on it, but I think we're going to wait for the other sides response to our first letter. I think we'll know more about how they view it, but they have confirmed that they are insured, so I hope that is positive. Obviously I can't go into too much detail on the case here, but I do hope that if the roof is to come off, we can tackle that during the Spring/Summer, after the April showery period is over. Industry bodies in Zinc roofing seems to be scarce.

We're in a bit of a pickle and really hoping for a bit of moral support/guidance from anyone that has any positivity to add. We are now fully into a legal dispute with our Zinc roofing contractor, I mentioned it here, for those that didn't catch my previous post. Sadly there is really no avoiding this, the roof has numerous potential defects, some more serious than others and the eventual result could mean the whole thing has to come off. With the help of a good solicitor, we have put together a fairly compelling case but have to allow it to run its course now. The roof is mostly watertight, although it has 3 large rooflight openings that do not have their windows in them. I have sheeted these up with fairly substantial timber frames covered with thick UV-treated Poly-tunnel plastic. These have so far withstood the last 3 bouts of 50+mph gusts, so seem to be pretty good. This photo was in the Autumn, the rooflight covers are better than you see in this pic by the way! We really need to get on and cannot afford for the project to sit still whilst the legal work takes place. However, we cannot ignore the fact that some amount of roof repair is going to have to take place at some point and maybe even total replacement. We gave the Zinc company full notice that we planned to remove the scaffolding that had been put up for their work and that progress would need to continue, the scaffolding came down just after Christmas. Part of our legal claim will be for the costs to re-erect the scaffolding to complete the remedial works, but if we progress any further, the scaffolding will of course have to be a 'top hat' covered style to prevent the inside getting wet. Our project is already quite a long way behind. We had hoped to get a window order finalised around the middle of last year, it was supposed to be my focus when the Zinc team arrived, but sadly I had to be so hands on, both during and since this work that we still have not pulled the trigger. We really cannot wait much longer and the next steps are to fit the floor insulation, UFH and screed. Do you think we're doing the right thing here? I know it would, in many ways, be better to wait until the roof is sorted, but that could be months and SWMBO has very clearly told me that she cannot do another Winter in this caravan (it'll be our fourth!), so the pressure is on.

Once the Zinc roofing fiasco is over, I'll set about taking the Architect on as I do think she has underperformed. For now I want to get the damn thing built. SWMBO has stated her absolute position on not spending another Christmas in the caravan!

@Nickfromwales @ETC So does this mean the DPC/M between the upper and lower floors isn't an issue? Or it'd be easy to do because I finished the ICF level with the Beam & Block? I had assumed I'd need to shutter the edge of the top step to bring the screed to the edge, but actually this feels a bit weird and why I'm begging for help?!

It's Waterproof Concrete in there.

That was sadly where we lost out. Our Architect was the most expensive who quoted BY FAR. She was great out of the starting blocks, but she made the journey hell. Fundamentally, she did not respect the fact that we are novice self-builders and did not advise us at all really. Her description of the difference between what we now know to be a Building Regs design package and a fully detailed Technical Design was weak and did not emphasise just how much would be left behind if we went for the former. We believed it would be things like the MVHR and the Staircase that would need further work, but in reality, almost NOTHING was properly detailed and is having to be re-thought on-the-fly. We've just paid £2500 for another Architect to detail our Windows and Door properly, on top of the original Architect taking almost £20k from us for the original design. But there we go digressing again!

Where are you expecting a DPC?

I'm totally with you by the way. FFL is 'Finished' floor level.

My Architect definitely didn't draw it like that. She refers to FFL as being 'to screed' and then shows 'Final Finishes' on top of that. Is this abnormal? I built my structure so that the door openings terminate at what she has referred to as FFL, but all my floor level openings have been re-detailed so I can adjust them now if needed. I'll be removing the Nudura top closer and replacing it with Compacfoam to bear the weight of the heavy Triple-Glazed doors.

As I mentioned above, the total from top of B&B to planned FFL is 275mm, with the usual allowance for floor coverings (25mm?). So, I guess that gives me 300mm including the Microcement build-up, which I think is next-to-nothing (5mm or so). You think I should be using traditional screed or flow-screed?

As I said, I'm super grateful for all help. I'll start a thread to discuss MVHR and UFH with floor plans as I do need some help there. I'm really trying to tick some of the boxes off that are haunting me on a daily basis, these steps are one of them. I'm determined not to build something that later has to be torn down. I do have an Architect doing some detail work for me, but it's very expensive and when you've already had to virtually sell a kidney to pay for the previous Architect, this is all very hard. Oh and that's on top of having to go to court to sort out a Zinc Roof installation calamity. Honestly, it's no myth that self-building is hard.

Absolutely. It's a part of the build I'm greatly looking forward to.

I've made some reasonably substantial improves in build to those stated in the as-designed SAP. So, coming up soon on my agenda of things to do is how to convey these improvements to whoever I'll need to calculate heating needs. Roof insulation improved from 120mm to 200mm (Warm roof) Floor insulation improvement likely. 150mm in design, but I now have 275mm to play with on top of the B&B Air Tightness was suggested as 3.0, but I'll be disappointed if I don't get under 1.0 Glazing improved from 1.1u in design to 0.8u in build Glazing detailed for high-performance etc. etc.

Not got a design yet, but that's already some good info to start with. So, with the Living Room being the highest, are you saying I should have a manifold there? 🙈 Any tips on where I should go to get a UFH design done? Does it need to come after some sort of heat calculations as there is a whole other can of worms.

Do you mean the DPM that'll be over the top of the Insulation? As long as it's achievable, I'll do everything I can. I really appreciate all help, I'm fighting for my life on this build. 😆

Whether or not the steps themselves will be heated, the pipes will need to travel between the 2 areas I imagine. Do I need an Architect to design this?! I'm glad to have done something right in thinking of this now before putting the screed down to the Architects plan.

I have 2 ground floor level changes. 600mm from Entrance Hall to Kitchen/Dining and 400mm from Dining Room to Living Room. Here is the Kitchen one... We anticipate Microcement to the whole Ground Floor with UFH under. Here is the Architects general arrangement drawing for a level change, which showed the steps built (presumably from Timber) on top of the screed. *Note - The Architect is (thankfully) not on the project any more* However, I want them to be monolithic with the main floor to give the Microcement the best chance and so want to build them from concrete blockwork, which I would decouple from the floor on Marmox blocks, just as I did with the internal walls, then oversail the PIR and Screed, incorporating the top step into the main floor without a joint, hence I terminated the ICF level with the Beam & Block. Here's what I have so far... Any suggestions about how to build these steps? And how to run the UFH through them...