Tony L

Thanks to @Canski for studying a picture in one of my other threads & bringing my attention to this possible defect. It doesn't look as bad as we feared from the picture on the other thread, but it would be good to receive some comments & advice, please. The builder has started building up the outer leaf of the cavity wall. This comprises 2 courses of staff blues onto trench blocks, then I've got 2 courses of expensive black bricks (most of which shouldn't even be there, because he was supposed to save those for above ground level - but let's ignore that issue for now). The outer leaf looks straight, although this far from high quality brick work. I've taken some pictures showing the variance in the gap from the inside of the inner leaf to the edge of the B&B floor, down one side of the house. There's a 6"/150mm ruler in each picture. The ruler measures 159mm, including the clear plastic ends that are of the ends of the measuring part. Picture 1 shows a gap of at least 170mm across the cavity. The ruler's left edge is resting on a protruding beam. I don't know why the beam wasn't pushed over, so the extra length hung off the sleeper wall in the middle of the floor, so it wouldn't be seen. Will the protruding beam be in the way of my trays? I haven't had time to learn about trays yet. It looks like the run of blocks into the top corner came up 20mm or so short, & rather than cut 2 blocks to put the corner where it should be, the builder has just left a gap. Should I insist he re-works this so I have 150mm at the corner? What's the acceptable tolerance here? I probably wouldn't even be asking if he'd managed +/-8mm. Picture 2 is a different view, with the ruler in the same position as picture 1 Picture 3 shows the ruler in between the 2 ICs you can see in picture 2. The cavity here is 160mm. Picture 4 shows the ruler just a little further along, by the brick slip you can see in picture 2. This is close to 150mm. If the cavity had been built like this all the way along, I'd have been happier. Do I just build on top of what I've got here, & make sure the cavity where the back door goes has parallel sides? If we put a 100mm wide block on the edge of the B&B at the end where the gap is 170mm or more, that would mean the 20mm nearest the centre of the house is not fully supported underneath.

Thanks, Russell. After we're up to damp course level & the snagging issues have been dealt with, I hope to never see these people again.

I'm going to start a new thread, to encourage more views, & it may be more easily found by others searching for information on this.

There was an article about this in The Times recently too. The writer’s view was that planning is the most corrupt area of local government & is well overdue for reform. There is very little oversight from above. The problems are well known. National government is doing next to nothing about these problems. Planning departments don’t have to follow the rules. Many behave however they please. I don’t think all planning departments are corrupt. I even know of one where I suspect they’re neither corrupt, nor inept. From what I remember of the Times article, one of the ways some these nasty senior planners help themselves, rather than the communities they’re paid to serve, is they’ll give the “go ahead” to a huge & controversial development scheme that most independent observers think should not go ahead. 12 months or so later, the former senior planner is being employed by the big organisation that benefited from the scheme his team approved, earning many multiples of his previous salary. Most people don’t realise, we live in a very corrupt country. Most people just swallow the establishment propaganda that seeks to give the impression we’re so much better than almost everywhere else. Of course we’re not as bad as some other developed nations: America, for example, where presidents are able to (& indeed do, as happened this week) issue a get out of jail free card to family members who are just about to be given a lengthy jail term. That would likely cause a riot here. In America they just shrug their shoulders, & think, “It’s the American way.”. Last time I checked the corruption perceptions index, I think the UK was something like the joint 18th most corrupt country (out of about 200), which is not good for a country that’s been a democracy for so long & has the world’s 6th largest GDP. & our 18th position, or whatever, was awarded before ITV brought the details of the Fujitsu - Post Office – Ed Davey scandal to the masses. Up until then successive governments had largely ignored, & indeed facilitated this corruption.

Ah right - I mis-understood you the first time, I think. I thought you were talking about blocking the holes to the void, under the B&B. I see what you mean, now. It looks like the blocks didn't reach the ends of the beams, & rather than put a cut block in, at least one block back from the edge [I'm learning], he just stopped, meaning, if you hadn't told me about this (because the BCO didn't spot it), my inner leaf would have been built off the edge of the B&B that's not fully supported underneath, & all the rooms down that side of the house would be 50mm narrower than they're supposed to be. I'm guessing the wall ties will start at the height of the first block that goes down to make the inner leaf - is that right? If so, we're not quite there yet. He told me, the BCO told him there would need to be trays in the cavity. I haven't had time to learn about these yet. I'm assuming the trays will have some baring on where the wall ties start. I asked the builder when the trays would be going in, & he explained, he wouldn't be doing it - that would be part of the next phase of the work. The work he's doing for me stops at B&B floor level, although he's also laying the black bricks on the outside leaf, that go up from ground level to the bottom of where the render will start. I need to work out the cost of these trays (in my approx. 46 linear meter cavity wall) because I think if he'd built what was on the drawings (beams on inner leaf of cavity wall, rather than sitting on the inside of 350mm wide trench block) then I don't think tray/trays would have been required, because any water inside the cavity could have drained down below the level of the bottom of the beams & onto concrete in the cavity that would have been shaped to direct any water to the outside leaf - building this arrangement was included in the quote I accepted, & because the builder hasn't followed the drawings, I'm going to have to pay extra for trays to be included in the next phase of the work.

Thanks. The drain pipes are in concrete, under the mud, but I pointed out to the builder that the tops are at an angle, rather than flat. They have to come out, anyway, because my rain water is going into the drains (yes, I have all the permissions - covered in another thread) & the builder didn't put the back fill bottle gullies, or whatever they're called, in there.

150. Thanks - I'll check on these in that corner when I'm next there, which will be tomorrow morning, if I get my other work done tonight.

Thanks for the comments. I told the builder there should be caps on these when I had a site meeting this morning. There are lintels over the pipes that come into the ICs. The 110 doesn't connect through the wall - it's the downpipe for rain water.

I posted about the gaps that have been filled between the ends of the beams on another thread - I'm not really happy with what's been done, but BCO has passed it & some people here have told me it's OK. Firstly, it doesn't match the drawing the builder is working from. The beams are supposed to be on the inner leaf of a cavity made from 100mm blocks. Instead, they've been put on the edge of 350mm wide trench blocks. There's DPC underneath the beams, but I don't think it's doing much because a dollop of mortar has been put in between most beams (possibly with slips too) & this bridges onto the trench block. My air bricks are going into some of the gaps between the beams. BCO said he wants to see trays at his next visit, so we'll see how this looks when it's done. The black mortar was being used for black bricks, which have been laid on the back wall of the house (out of shot for this picture) & I suppose it was left over at the end of the day & a small amount has been used in the blues. I expect most blues will have ordinary mortar in them. The black mortar is expensive by comparison because I asked the builder to buy black sand rather than use dye.

Thanks for this. The redundant 110 inlets in the ground have been capped, but it may not have occurred to me to put caps on the 110 you can see in the picture, above, & also the pipes & conduit that are coming up through the B&B floor. Once this phase of the project has been completed, it will be a good few months before we begin work on the superstructure.

I think we only have a few days' work left with this builder now. The main tasks are to finish the drains & put down a few courses of bricks on the outer leaf - blues where they'll be under ground or under the patio/path down the sides of the house, & black bricks that will be visible above ground & below the white render that's going onto the block outer leaf. The next phase of the project is to get the building regulations drawings & notes for the rest of the build finalised & submitted for full plans approval. I'm thinking I'll have asked so many questions you'll all be fed up of me by the time that goal has been achieved.

Yes, I realised that when he finally admitted, after a great deal of research & effort on my part, he'd overcharged me £7,000 for the extra work the BCO had requested. When I first told him he'd overcharged, he told me he hadn't. After receiving my first email, explaining my reasoning, he admitted to an overcharge of c£370. After I did a load of QS work & wrote a second, lengthy email, he admitted to overcharging £7,000. Thanks very much for the responses. It's good to hear some BH experts' opinions. It gives me the confidence to tell him how things are going to be done/redone when he starts telling me, "I've been doing this for 35 years...".

Is it normal to leave covers off the ICs so the ICs fill up with lumps of mortar & other debris? I don't understand why anyone would choose to leave the IC cover on the ground right next to the IC for a week or more. There are at least 5 of these in position & every one has the cover off.

This doesn't look good to me. Is this excess mortar on the inside of the outer skin acceptable?

@Mike Thanks very much for taking the trouble to post these two images. Yes, you’re right: what I have, according to the builder, is what’s on the left, & your drawing shows the beam placement accurately – ie it’s on the edge of the blocks that come up off the poured concrete. I’d have rather had what’s on the right, but with the addition of a DPC between two blocks below the bottoms of the beams, & an aerated block penetrating my insulated floor, to prevent a cold bridge. As I’ve said, there was no detail to show either the left or right solution on the builder’s drawings, so I’m going to have to be happy with what I’ve got, & I am reassured by roughly half the BH community saying this is the way to do it. Also, my SE is happy with this, as are the LA BCO & the warranty inspector. I was talking about starting at an edge to remove blocks all the way to the middle so I could have a look at what’s been done, but according to the warranty inspector, I can just smash the blocks either side of the supported block, & look in from the sides then replace the blocks. That sounds easy enough, so I’ll probably do that before we start building up off this part of the floor. @Canski There’s DPC under the ends of the beams where they sit on the two long sleeper walls that divide the ground floor into thirds (see image at top of thread). For my two piers (which are the subject of this thread), there’s DPC, as shown in my update of Mike’s diagram, below, but there isn’t DPC directly under the sections of beam over the piers. I know this, because the beams were put down & blocks were being placed into the beams, further along, before the builder built up the support under the beams & block that are over the foundation piers. So blocks will have been laid onto slips & mortar, but if there’s any mortar under the beam, it will have just been pushed in from the side – not ideal, to my mind. The B&B is finished now, apart from a few loose blocks around the perimeter that are waiting for the ends of the periscope air bricks to go in. Thanks again for your input on this. I’m surprised to learn that these two solutions don’t have any part that mitigates the cold bridge – so my internal structural walls will be sucking heat out of the house & transmitting it straight through nothing but concrete, into the ground & the cold air beneath the B&B.

How does this look to you? I’m assuming the unevenness in the centre of the floor will be taken out by sand or screed before the membrane then insulation go on, but what about the edge? I’m concerned about building my block wall (inner skin) up off the edge of the of this BB floor because it looks so far off level. The beam at label A is standing much higher than the blocks either side. The block from B to C doesn’t look flat. The top of the left edge of the block at D looks a lot higher than the top of the right edge at E. The beams went onto DPC. I don’t see that the DPC is doing anything because there’s a dollop of mortar connecting the concrete block in the BB floor to the trench block beneath. I already had a conversation about this picture with somebody & I realised our conversation wasn’t making sense because they were looking at the picture on a phone & they couldn’t see the picture properly, so answers from desktop computer users will be more highly valued, please. I didn’t notice this unevenness until I got the picture off my camera & onto the PC. So there’s a chance that the imperfection is exaggerated by the stupid modern camera, with its wide angle lens. I will have a good look at this when I’m on site tomorrow.

Thanks, @Mike, but I'm not sure exactly what it is you're telling me to do/not do. I went to the site yesterday & one end of one of the piers didn't yet have a block fitted over it to make the BB floor flush where it covers the pier underneath. I could see DPC & mortar & what the builder called "biscuits" - little mini concrete blocks - "brick slips", I suppose, although I thought brick slips were something else. The poured concrete pier had been built up with trench blocks and/or regular blocks laid flat. There's damp course covering this (I saw one end, anyway) & the builder says he's built up the last (200mm, approx) with brick slips & mortar, to support the beam & blocks, & we can continue up with blocks on top of this (to support the RSJ) - this plan has all been discussed with my SE, I should add. I'd really like to go there with a builder I trust more than this one, & pull up the blocks either side & have a look. Would this be easy enough to do? I'm guessing I'd have to start pulling blocks up from an edge & work all the way to the middle before I could move the blocks that are next to the pier. @Russell griffiths. Thanks - I now have the beam plan, which was drawn by the company that supplied the beams. It looks like the builder has followed this. A beam sits off one edge of the pier beneath. I've had a good look & I can't find any pictures or 3D diagrams on line of a wall coming up & through the floor. I'm still keen to see this arrangement if anybody had such a picture/diagram, please. I've been very busy at work the past 2 days (still at my office at 11pm, now), so I haven't had a chance to ask my SE about all this yet, but I will.

Well it's good to know I'm not missing a section drawing for this detail, thanks @Mike. There's no BH consensus. I'm being told this should be done two different ways: 1) build up through the B&B. 2) Support the B&B properly & build on top of it (& thanks for the reminder to check full DPC coverage for this method, @Canski). I think the first method sounds best, but given I didn't know as much about this yesterday as I do now, & also the builder wasn't given specific instructions, I think so long as he has properly built one or the other method (which he certainly hadn't done yesterday), that's what I'll have to have. I'll go to the site & see what's going on tomorrow morning. I may tell him to stop work, but there's nothing going on top of the blocks, anyway, so I don't think going to make things any worse, & there could be plenty of unrelated tasks he can keep going on, such as there's a big sectional IC to install where the connection to the main sewer is. I've found a drawing which supports method 2), support B&B & build on top, but this is different from my situation, because there's a change of direction for the beams & the wall in the diagram, below, is sitting on top of several beam ends; if I have my wall on top of a beam running lengthways, this isn't such a good solution because of the tiny curvature built into the beams.

I hadn't spotted that. Thanks for pointing it out.

Thanks @Russell griffiths. I will ask my builder for the B&B plan so I can see if what he's built matches the drawing. I'm assuming the company that is supplying the beams will have drawn this - is that right? Should my arch tec have drawn this (he didn't)? This would make more sense to me, because the arch tec knows what's going on up above the B&B. Should there have been a section drawing for the piers, similar to my SE's "Typical Section" drawing, above? Does anybody have a drawing they could show me, please? Does anybody have a photo of this type of internal structural wall that comes through the B&B floor? My understanding now is: these piers should be built up as a wall, built from 100mm wide & 215mm high concrete blocks. The wall should start on the poured concrete in my trenches & come straight up through the B&B slab, so what my builder has built must be incorrect, because what he's built just looks like B&B floor over the top of the foundation slab piers; the advice I was given above, regarding building up from the foundation so the B&B floor is supported in the zone where the wall supporting the RSJ is, is incorrect.

I don't think I'm now saying anything that contradicts anything I have posted since I joined the forum. I have some drawings. The builder has all the drawings I've posted & more. I understood the drawings to be full & sufficiently detailed for all the work the builder has been asked to do (build up to B&B level). I'm a complete novice so inevitably I've got some things wrong. Every time somebody tells me I'm doing something wrong, & tells me what to do instead, I am grateful. I've got drawings for the rest of the work (ie full house build), but these are not yet finalised & much work will be required on the detail before they can be considered full & complete.

I’ve paid for a full plans approval, but because we anticipated difficult ground conditions later in the year, I agreed with BC, we were going to do the digging & get up to the B&B level before winter came, then complete the drawings & get these approved before any more work is done. This plan has not worked well, & I hope others will benefit from my explanation of how badly things are working out for me. I have already had one "serious chat" with him, & from a week ago he has been receiving emails from me, gently reminding him of his shortcomings, & suggesting a better way of working together.

Your criticism of my way of going about this is fair. I didn’t intend to be helping the builder make it up as we went along. My understanding was, there is a well established best method for dealing with piers such as these, & the builder would know exactly what to do. The builder had not told me, "There is detail missing from the drawings.", & he assured me, he knew exactly what to do with regard to all aspects of the work I’d commissioned, even telling me this is small fry for him & he usually deals with much bigger, more complex projects. The drawings he has are the SE’s drawing at the top of this thread & the drawing below, which was on the side of the SE’s drawing, ie the same sheet – this shows the beams at an outer wall, so it doesn’t help with the piers, & in any case, as I reported in my trench blocks thread, the builder didn’t build to match the drawings; he decided on a different solution, without even explaining this to me until I pointed out that what I could see he had built, did not match the drawings. The builder also has two versions of the 2nd drawing below. He has two versions, because after I gave him this drawing, & after he’d passed it onto the beam company so they could quote the beams, I noticed there were errors on the drawing (the beam co. had provided a quote, having not noticed the dim.s didn’t add up properly). The arch tec didn’t want to correct his drawing (let’s not get side tracked by that story, but I will just say, he's even worse at his job than the builder), so I made corrections to his drawing myself, showing less detail (I took off elements the beam company wouldn’t need, to make things clearer for them) & correct dimensions (dims were one of the things the arch tech had got wrong). I should just point out, all the beams run left right across the house - just ignore the part of the drawing where the arch tec has got them going up & down (I had to tell him to correct this on 3 versions of this drawing before he got it right). To answer your question re B&B design: yes, I suppose the beam company would have produced a design for the builder to work from, but I haven’t seen this drawing; it was only when I read your post that it occurred to me this is the way this ought to work – I’d been thinking a load of beams would be delivered – so many of each length, & it would be obvious where they’d go from the SE drawing.

Thanks for the suggestion, @dpmiller. I’m definitely not the right person to answer this question – I suppose I can see what you suggest would make sense, if the correct way to build my pier walls, for the ends of the FFL RSJ to sit on, is to build up under the beam (& probably the blocks to either side?) so we end up with a seamless B&B floor, & the builder marks the beam & we measure from the inner wall so we know which beam to build the pier wall off. Another way of doing it might be to build up the piers directly off the poured concrete in the trench, so I have a 100mm wide pier wall made from concrete blocks in their usual upright orientation (215mm high) & this wall would penetrate the B&B floor – then, presumably, there would need to be a beam either side of the pier wall. I’m not sure if this is what you are suggesting, @sas I welcome opinions (or better still, facts), on these two options or a better way of building, please. I will see what I can learn from any more responses that may come in this evening/tomorrow then I will ask my SE about this. Of all the people I’ve got working on the project, he’s the only one in whom I have 100% confidence.

The picture with the drains isn't my site, sadly - it's a picture @nod put up to show me what my B&B should look like. Thanks, Nod.