Reiver

I was meaning more the structure - slab, beam/block or something else? As far as acoustics go carpet with a decent acoustic underlay is likely the best, helps kill early reflections off the floor, but I can see the problem with UFH and that!. You could always stick the carpet on the ceiling instead lol ?

Summat else I forgot to ask - what sort of floor are you planning? And what flavour of ICF?

+1 The village film club here uses one - Optoma IIRC, and that' s with a mahussive screen something like 5 or 6m across.

OK, you might need something proper then! There's a few different ways I've seen it done in studios, I'll do some basic sums and report back. Do you (or your SE) have any idea how much load the ceiling could carry?? And what are the other 2 walls that aren't ICF?

Thanks for the I'm looking for insulating beam/block, also found this similar system to Beamshield: https://www.cemex.co.uk/readytherm-insulated-concrete-floors @epsilonGreedy the point about traffic on floors is very valid. It's a shame someone doesn't do a concrete block with insulation bonded underneath.

OK, from the list on the link, which size screen are you going for? And how far away will you be sitting? If it's biggish/you're close in and you want a realistic effect you would be better going for speakers either side (+ centre speaker behind/underneath) - otherwise it may seem a tad odd to have the sound coming obviously from above. And BTW, smallish speakers like those won't have a lot of bass response so you'll want a subwoofer tucked away somewhere..... and maybe surround speakers behind? Regarding insulation to above, unless you are going to go massively heavy/and or massively rigid yes, you will need something suspended. Be aware though that anything lightweight will not give enormous amounts of isolation for low frequencies (bass) - so if you're wanting to watch Saving Private Ryan late at night or are into drum n' bass it might need to be fairly substantial.

+1 - except that when the wind's from the SW we always get far more rain here due to one coastal fell chucking up clouds.

So I sketched up what might be needed to give a decent splay and it's a fair thickness of material, between 100 and 150mm depending on the angle and the exact position of the window in the aperture, the larger thicknesses look better but eat up more aperture obviously. This is going to make fixing direct into a solid part of the ICF somewhat difficult, so whatever "packing" material is used either side of the frame to make the splays will have to be strong enough to support them, and I guess will need to have suitable insulating properties. Would the lightweight (0.11 W/mK) AAC blocks do I wonder?? or wood? HD polyurethane foam (like tooling board) would be another option and strong enough to take fixings, but is fearfully expensive.

That's a good point - if I end up having to stone face then it could be 100mm insulation + minimum 200mm stone. However in that situation I'd likely need to use the slate window ledges that are common round these parts, so the sill projection wouldn't need to be too big.

Thanks for the heads up on Stokboard, I've been looking for a plastic based board for a while.

It's still a toss-up between Isotex and Izodom 2K and I won't be making a final decision until I've got the costings done for all the various options. The purpose of asking about the reveals was to try and put some numbers on them.

Thanks for the info - given that the 2 ICF options I'm looking at both have around 200mm external insulation that's quite a bit further forward than I'd imagined, but at least it will mean the bottom of the frame will be on fairly flat EPS. Finish wise it could either be render (quicker) or stone faced (if the planners demand), the latter would demand some reasonably wide external reveals as well as the internal ones. Lots of balls in the air at the mo., just need to try and collect as much info. as possible and wang it into the spreadsheet so I can make the right decision when the time comes - can't afford to get caught out on this one!

Now then, to start with I must confess to being a complete newcomer to window specification and installation, so please forgive me if I ask anything that's obvious. As mentioned previously I'm considering an ICF build and I'm trying to work out which windows will look and work the best hopefully without breaking the bank - I never realised the things could be so expensive!. So my first queries are: 1) How far in/out should the window sit in the aperture? Logic tells me that the line of the glass should be over the junction of the outer (thick) insulation and the concrete pour, but is that right? 2) It looks like splayed reveals could be a good idea as I'm leaning towards some that are tall & narrow and that approach does seem to let more light in as well as giving a wider field of view - this is an interesting link: https://www.new-learn.info/packages/tareb/dynamic/docs/splayed_reveals.html So what's the best way to do splayed reveals with ICF? - chopping corners off the blocks is obviously going to result in a nasty mess when pouring, so it looks like oversizing the apertures then building in some angled sections - but what would be acceptable to BC from the thermal point of view? Thanks!

I hope they're old windows then otherwise you'll be woken early one morning by some installers arriving unannounced and unrequested saying "we've come to update your windows". After that lots of things won't work quite right and you'll have to spend 40 minutes a day on hold for several weeks trying to get through to customer support to fix the problems.

One of the local builders was saying that plasterboard is as about available round here as unicorn poo too.

Mine would need to be a bit wider than that, 5 or 6m wall to wall: looking at the info on those sheets it looks they would need supporting at least 1 point each side on a pitched roof.

Last night I spent a little while thinking about the best way to put together such a thing and came across these as a roofing solution not wanting to freeze my nuts off in winter: https://www.steelroofsheets.co.uk/products/ks1000rw-composite-panels/ Not super cheap, but are super quick to fix and seem to be a neat way of getting insulation without losing too much vertical height - I want to get a lift in there so normal fink trusses with ceiling + insulation aren't such a good idea, and insulating scissor or raised tie trusses looks like a PITA to me. If the walls were blockwork/ICF what would be the best way to support said roofing panels I wonder - steelwork? or wooden raised tie + purlins? I did consider an off-the-shelf steel frame building but I'm not sure how it would fit in aesthetics-wise with the house and hence PP - at least with "proper walls there's various options for finishing to sort of match the house.

OK, I'll give them a bell and see if I can get some pricing. Meanwhile I've had a long crack with Andy at Insulhub this morning and you're right, they're happy with putting up 2.4m of Isotex at a time - at least up to a certain height, he thought it might be necessary to rein things back a bit if you start to get high and the weather's crap. He was also forthcoming on the reinforcing aspect: not really needed for a bungalow in a sheltered spot, but if you were building 3 storeys in an exposed position in the North West then some would likely be needed - even if it's not up to the Italian earthquake standard. Apparently they're also going to be doing a series of British videos soon which will be interesting to see.

If you'd said that a couple of days ago I'd have gurned a bit as the first couple of conversations I had with Insulhub weren't particularly rewarding ? . However a guy called Andy rang me back yesterday morning and seems a lot more clued up and helpful; I'll ask him about build heights tomorrow. I'm just rather thankful for and aware of Tougbuttercup's experience here: The way the weather is round here these days, a serious storm seems to be able to appear out of nowhere pretty well any time of the year, and at most places out here on the North west coast you're looking at a design windspeed of >25m/sec. So maybe it will have to be a see how it goes at the time approach and be careful on the upper storeys. Certainly if it was possible to do even the lower bit in 2.4m ish pours it would save a fair bit of dosh. And BTW we've had 2 small earthquakes here in the last 10 years ? - only 3.5 ish , but they made everyone in the village run outside wondering what had happened and broke a few bits of crockery on high shelves. I was in the pub when the last one struck and we thought a wagon had clipped the corner of the building.

Certainly convenient location-wise (unless I end up getting pushed too far North!) but didn't someone on here say that their pricing was somewhat poisonous?

Aye, I've seen them. My leaning towards Isotex is for a couple of reasons: a) because I think I'm unlikely to find an experienced Izodom or general poly-ICF installer in the area - and Isotex is more like doing ordinary blockwork, so I'm more likely to find some lads who can pick it up quickly??? b) the bracing requirements are a LOT less if you stick to their 6 courses per pour (you'd be a nutter not to), and as it's very likely the build would be on a slope (or even on a bit of a rock end) I'm concerned about bracing the downslope side..... we might end up needing some very long props! c) I like the reinforcement regime, and I like strong after being out in 90+mph back in the storm of 2005. d) it looks to be better for fixing stuff into internally. Or have I missed something???

Well not quite... using straight blocks it would be 22 sides for me (called an icosadigon says Wikipeadia - never got told that at school) or if you got them to do some suitably bent blocks 44 sides..... Certainly round enough for some olde-worlde render or stone facing to cover up I would have thought.

Aaah, I thought it might be from Cumbria because of the blue-ish colour, it'd be from the Borrowdale volcanic group. With such rock being formed from a random series of massively violent eruptions (the likes of which we don't see these days thankfully) small local imperfections/interruptions are not uncommon; my pals who work in the quarries here are always cursing them as they spoil a nice run of stone that would otherwise make a huge kitchen worktop they could sell to some WAG for her kitchen for £££££. I'm sure the vast majority of other bits of similar stone in your build will be fine.

Interesting (from a geological point of view) - roughly whereabouts are you in the Borders? If in doubt I would whack some mortar in there to prevent any frost damage...... but I can't imagine surface damage on one stone is going to cause any problems for the house.

Here's your pic with the places where the bushes are likely to be circled: the ones that need greasing will likely have nipples fitted I would think. Looks like I missed the one where the arm joins the cage ?