Gone West

For a newbe self builder I would have thought that full plans is a very good idea/essential.

We used Schneider Lisse fittings in our new build and wanted to use them in our current house but unfortunately they are not exported to the UK any longer. We chose Hager Sollysta as an alternative. As @jack says buy samples before deciding.

Looks like Jeremy had it blown in. I looked at having it sprayed on damp, but used Icynene in the end. https://web.archive.org/web/20200923194439/http://www.mayfly.eu/2013/11/part-twenty-one-putting-in-the-insulation/

+1 for Soudabond, I've never had a problem with it.

+1 for borehole-driller.co.uk, we used them sixteen years ago for for our deepbore soakaway/borehole. The chaps came from Deal and charged £3750 for 46.8m, sounds good at that price.

I would want to know what the actual air tightness is now. So I would have a test done, and then you know what you are working with. If it's really bad you might want to react differently.

We used a few builders bulk bags.

Yes, that's right. Also, I can see there's another mistake made when installing those plastic fittings. It looks to me like the plumber used Speedfit pipe and fittings and there should be a collet in the groove on the fitting. The collet is there to prevent the fitting from unscrewing by vibration and is a good check that the fitting has been installed correctly.

The easiest way is to use a short length, 70mm, of copper pipe into the brass compression fitting and a straight plastic connector joining the copper pipe to the plastic pipe.

Where a brass compression fitting is used with plastic pipe you will likely get a leak after a while. So this is all the places where you have white pipe attaching to a brass hexagon fitting, which is several in your picture. I would remove all the mouldy/damaged materials and have it replaced with new, and get a decent plumber.

@Nickfromwales should look at that. It's his favourite, compression fittings on plastic pipe!!

Very similar to the type I have. There should be a slot around the outside of the frame. The steel strap should be put in the slot so it is parallel with the edge of the frame and then turned through ninety degrees so that the two protruding lugs lock into the slot in the frame.

Sixteen years ago we had an Isoquick 300mm Peripor insulated raft foundation installed. The Structural Engineer specified 200mm compacted type 1 with 50mm thickness of 3mm granite fines on top, type 1 to be extended 700mm beyond outside edge of raft. The raft was 200mm thick with two layers of A393 reinforcing mesh and an additional third layer, 1200mm wide, around edge of two storey part of foundation. All this was for our ground conditions, yours could be very different.

Bolt the bottom fixing to a steel plate and screw the plate to the stonework with four screws.

I self installed and commissioned and the BCO wasn't even interested in seeing the paperwork, but that was eight years ago.