Bramco

Fan!!!! in a soil pipe - yikes......

As I understand it that's 'earth' to you and me. The plot was allotments at the time of the war and since the sixties has had an occasional pony on it and few 'lawn mower' sheep borrowed from a local famer - who used to thank my father in law with some of the proceeds - a lamb, once a year. We're sort of in the hands of our timber frame people who are contracted to do the insulated slab - the bit at issue is the bit we have to do under that. We're expecting their foundation engineer to send through the plans any day now based on the SE's input on line and point loads. I've sent them the info on Tenax and Tensor - will be interesting to see if they poo poo it, or hopefully can reduce the depth of we have to excavate, get rid of and fill with hardcore. Simon Note to self, must update the thread once we've got a final plan....

Fortunately we're about 30m from the nearest trees. One thing less to worry about! Simon

@IanR and @ToughButterCup thanks for the links. More research!! ?

Interestingly spoke to a technical guy at Geosynthetics and they reckon the Tenax grid can reduce the amount of hardcore depth needed by 30% to 50% which could be quite useful for us. And my brother in law who trained as a carpenter and then started building extensions etc. said the first foundations he had to do, he thought he had to take down to 3ft. About halfway down he hit bedrock and kangoed it out to 3ft!! He didn't do that again after BC pointed out that bedrock was solid enough. Simon

Hi, Our foundations are being designed by the timber frame co. Currently they are stipulating that we excavate between 900 and 1200mm below the level of the insulated slab that they will be installing and that we should remove and fill any soft spots when the excavation is down to the right level. The soil survey shows about 0.5m of firm made ground above 0.3m of firm brown clay (90KPa - so above the 70KPa advice on foundations). Below that it's firm, red brown silty clay down to mudstone at 3m or so. The issue is that at 1m the clay is 65KPa and at 1.3m 60KPa, so it goes from firm at the top, to soft lower down before getting firmer until the mudstone at 3m. Instead of excavating to nearly 1.5 m below ffl, would a system like the Geosynthetics Elotex geotextile and Tenax grid mean we could reduce the amount of excavation. Has anyone used a system like this to improve the soil bearing capacity of their foundations? Simon

All the resin drives installed round our way have been replaced under warranty or removed. The issue apparently is with the gravel used. If there's a hint of iron in the stone, then it rusts and expands making the whole thing bubble. And imprinted concrete in freezing weather is slippier than a sheet of ice!! Simon

It does beg the question - why on earth didn't they build the party wall right back to the house wall? What's there that caused them to go within a couple of feet? Is there a fire wall in that space between your lean to and their extension? Simon

+1 for that. The Ikea carcasses are way better howdens etc in that you can put the shelves at almost any level. We've had Howdens and IKEA in rental properties as well as several IKEA kitchens in our own homes, so plenty of experience. It will be IKEA with a fancy worktop for the new build as well. And when estate agents see our current one they are always wowed. Simon

Just out of interest, did you put hardcore or gravel underneath, or just leave the ground as it was? Simon

You're probably right - just don't want the thing going all lopsided!! Simon

Hi, We're looking to put a flat pack container on site to dump a load of stuff from our house before we put it on the market - all part of the new build. As opposed to a standard container at 3 tonnes, a similar sized flat pack unit would weigh about 700Kg, so rather than extensive foundations, pads or whatever, I came across Surefoot footings but these only seem to be available in Australia and NZ. They seem like a great solution to avoid doing loads of groundwork, see photo below and I think they've been mentioned on the forum before. So are they available in the UK and if not is there an alternative? Simon

I think they may work differently. Reading the Eddi documentation it seems to say it varies the amount diverted by changing the voltage. I think the iBooster does it by varying the amount of time the power is diverted. Simon

The borough might be but the village aint! Simon

Our permission stipulated 2! Simon

An M+E consultant can do an analysis of what you intend to connect to see if 3 phase is necessary. Can't remember for the life of me what they call these - someone will be along before long who does know - but our M+E chappie said we would be fine with a normal single phase supply - 7kW ASHP, 4kW solar PV and standard EV chargers with all the normal ovens, lights, small appliances etc. As @newhome said though big ASHPs need 3 phase - you can see HP requirements if you look up their specs. Simon

Interesting - I thought you could still do outline even in these circumstances. If you could do outline with access, then you'd be able to force the decision on access without having to do the rest. Simon

Yes if things have changed - planning decisions are made on the basis of the current planning legislation, not on what it has been. I'd be inclined to put in an outline application with all matters reserved except access, so very little architectural technician time needed except for the location plan which would show the access. And be prepared to go to appeal, so research decisions made in the area where the access was less than 5m as well as successful appeals and also check when if at all highways legislation has changed. Simon

Agree with the no WC against the bedroom wall..... And all the suggestions would make things work a lot better and be easier to implement. However - has your architect ever lived in a house with triangular windows - I'm assuming the two to the right of the elevation are the en-suite and the bedroom. If I'm right, what on earth are you going to put up against the bathroom window? Drive round your area and look at all the mish mash of badly thought out solutions to triangular windows. Curtains don't work, blinds? Or are we just luddites as far as this is concerned.... ? Simon

Thanks. Simon

Thanks Ian. That's been done, although there might be some tweaking depending on which company we use. I'll check out Interlace - thx for the lead. Simon

Hi - help needed to find a good supplier of external venetian blinds. We've specced external venetian blinds for 3 large lift and slide doors on the front of our new build - these are south facing and although we're a long way off the road will also give us a bit more privacy. We've seen Warema which look good and there seem to be a few resellers here in the UK but if you look for any of the other continental suppliers like Hella, Alulux, Hunter Douglas etc. they don't seem to have resellers here. @Thorfun I think you said on a different thread that you had Warema - where did you source them and how are they? Has anyone else installed anything other than Warema? And would you recommend the company you used? Simon

Restarting an old thread, but does anyone have an example of what they have submitted for the fittings based approach? Simon

Yep, use old bricks where they can't be seen, so if used as a retaining wall, only use the decorative stones on the front face and the top. Saves a lot. Simon

But it looks like applications won't be open until the autumn. We were hoping to be half way through our build by then. ? Mind you, it might not be worth it. Sounds like it will be similar to the help to buy scheme. Simon