Tom

Finally thought I was making progress over the last few weeks, but of course the dry weather was just a smokescreen, and once again the self-building gods piss in my eye. Most of the roof is now felted and battened, but still seems to be letting quite a lot of water through in the recent heavy rain - is this normal??

The 20mm of Kooltherm is doing absolutely nothing for you here, other than costing more and being a headache to fit. UFH companies tend to think only one way: slab, insulation, pipes clipped to this, screed. Anything that diverges from this and the computer says no.

We're using "corrugated" profile sheet on our roof and most of the cladding, it's a 14-3 profile, whatever that is. Works out at approx £14+vat a sqM

Hi all - can anyone recommend a stapler/staples that I can use to fix membrane on to vertical batten? Too many options out there... thanks all

Thanks for all your responses, really helpful. How about this for a solution: I'll sleeve the 110mm pipes with 150mm plastic ducting (eg https://www.screwfix.com/p/manrose-150mm-round-ducting-1m/207GY?kpid=207GY&ds_rl=1249404&gclid=CjwKCAjwsvujBhAXEiwA_UXnAFPVjHn0tcX-6D__aSDqrLyQNSrKWppXkC81Ba1cUv1O8ZFA7Gy9BxoC-1UQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds). I can stab the ducting in to the insulation layer, then bring it up short of FFL and cap it with a bung of EPS at 20mm below FFL. Within this I'll put a straight coupler on the 110mm with a bung (just in case). He does seem to know what he's doing, his business is just these floors, it's just me that is slow on the uptake. He has suggested a dry powder sprinkle during the powerfloat stage to harden and give the darker finish we are after, I think.

Waaaay too far down the road with the suspended slab to consider alternatives now. Each of the four sections of floor is approx 8x4.5m, supported around the perimeter. First layers of rebar are down, I need to spend the next few weeks zip-tying the ufh pipes down, then wiring the deckchairs in before the final few layers of mesh.

You're not the only one! For layers of A393. It's a suspended slab and is going to be built on with blocks. The SE was adamant it was needed...

So one of the legacies left to us by our previous builder is the unfinished sill which needs to take our large sliding doors. The concrete needs to be 280mm wide here (so wider than the concrete within the nudura block), and currently the nudura blocks stop approx 130mm short of the required level. I can attach a strip of PIR to the outside face of the block to screed to but I'm struggling to see how I can get the inner strip attached to the nudura blocks. I'm thinking I can use some long fixings to stab through the PIR and in to the Nudura block (see pic), but worried this won't hold back the approx 130mm deep concrete I need to pour. Any ideas?

Thanks mate, I can certainly see your logic but not sure we can do exactly that given the make-up of our slab. It's 200mm thick with four layers of rebar mesh passing around the 110mm pipes

Ah, good point re the aggregate. And the straight coupler - on before or after?

Ah, gotcha, so full thickness of the pour

Yessss... though I was thinking to leave enough space around the top of the pipe (by using PIR or whatever) to give enough room when this is hacked away to be able to add the coupler, makes sense to add the coupler first though I guess, then just stick a bit of PIR/wood on to the top of the blanking plug and have this 10mm below the surface of the poured concrete. Does this sound OK?

Thats brilliant @JohnMo, thanks for posting and sharing the pictures. Good idea re the PIR, can I ask what depth of this you used and what depth of concrete went over?

So I'm currently prepping for the pour of our floor which is 20cm reinforced concrete over insulation. We have several 110mm pipes coming up through - one for an internal stack, another for the loo waste. The chap that will be pouring the floor wants all these terminated below floor level - so that he can powerfloat and then polish over the top. He suggested capping the pipes with a square or round of ply, this would then be evident after the floor had been poured as the concrete would colour differently as it would just be a ~10mm thick cover over the ply, the concrete can then be carefully chipped out and the pipes exposed. This might work well for him (and we're going to do this in another few areas where we have conduit coming up for floor sockets) - but is it OK from a plumbing point of view? I would presumably have a 110mm connector to be able to extend the stack, but not ideal I'm guessing. Any thoughts? Thanks all

Yep, I'll go through the usual refund channels - just wanted to know if the thing was salvageable really, but I guess not.

I have just received a Marcrist diamond core drill (DDM1) I bought second hand off eBay "fully working, mate". Well, turns out it isn't quite - it rotates but stops or the clutch engages at the slightest resistance. I know, I know, what should I expect buying sh*t off eBay - it was a punt and not a great deal of money - but still annoying. Anyone any experience with these drills? Fixable or skip-able?

EPS 70 doesn't have the same compressive strength as PIR, so be careful if you hope to use it under a ground-bearing slab.

Thanks Conor, would certainly make sense, I guess I'll keep the 10mm individual runs to the hot outlets?

I plan to have continuous runs of Hep2o running from hot and cold manifolds in the plant room to all the outlets, but wonder if it would make sense, for the cold at least, to have a secondary manifold in the kitchen. The kitchen will be a good 10m away from the plant room, so should I run say a single 15mm pipe to a secondary manifold here, and then 15mm runs to taps, appliances etc, or 15mm runs continuous from the plant room to each of the planned outlets? If the latter, should this be a dedicated pipe for dishwasher, kitchen sink, utility sink, toilet cistern, hand basin etc? Thanks all!

Cheers buddy

Qiuick question: do I need to use a rest bend (https://www.toolstation.com/rest-bend-110mm/p12565?utm_source=Rakuten&utm_medium=affiliates&utm_campaign=4639012565&utm_content=Redbrain&ranMID=46390&ranEAID=pfxNKSnglIM&ranSiteID=pfxNKSnglIM-d6AfLPKasIssE3m68p_otA ) at the bottom of an internal soil stack, or just a standard bend (https://www.toolstation.com/single-socket-bend-110mm/p43723 )? Also, does it matter if the bend is a double socket, so or should it ideally be a "male" end on the bend, going in to the "female" socket on the pipe run. Thanks all

Just For Men group buy?

No external finish on the Nudura yet, but we plan a mixture of metal sheets and vertical timber cladding. No sills either, apparently can't go on until walls clad. By the way @Conor, assume your build is Nudura, did you find the odd drip of water making it's way through the blocks? Certain areas seem to let water in, particularly where there is a concentration of water falling down the external walls (no gutters yet). On the SW aspect in the prevailing wind I even find the sill EPS closers get completely waterlogged, guess water making it's way to the vertical closers and then tracking down. I'm keeping my fingers crossed it will all stop when the gutters are on and the walls felted and clad... It's certainly been a long winter walking around a deserted site looking at drips coming down the walls.

Sigh.... So, the slow motion car crash of our glazing seems to finally be coming to some sort of climax. Firstly, Internorm windows and doors supply and fit by local (large) firm. Started badly as they fitted into the Nudura opening without any of the recommended Illbruck tape/trays, just a bead of silicone. Cue them having to take them all out and redo. Since then the two doors with large sidelights have continued to leak - firstly around the door sash itself, and also also between the frame and the tray (they cut the tray at the back for some reason, then tried to fill the gap with a wodge of silicone). They have been back multiple times to try and readjust the doors - now they are very hard to open/close as everything is so tight, and they still leak. In addition, they didn't like the idea of fitting on to the horizontal Nudura EPS cavity closer, so unilaterally took the decision to remove this and replace with a length of 6x2. This has spent the whole winter getting wet because of the various leaks, and is now looking decidedly green in places. At the time I suggested using compacfoam, but they were adamant they weren't fitting "on to foam, mate". Secondly, the large triple glazed sliders (total 6m and 4m runs meeting at a moving corner). For these we agreed a price with a London-based suppplier at the back end of 2021. We paid a deposit, best part of 6k - they don't take credit cards, of course. Due to all the delays etc we are only now anywhere near getting the site survey and the things fitted and they, I guess reasonably, said they would have to reprice it due to the time elapsed etc. They have now come back and they are 65% (!) more. I just got a revised quote back from the firm they were originally bidding against (but that we didn't go with), same doors etc and only a 24% increase. I just had it out with them on the phone, asking how they can possibly justify a 65% increase. Usual guff about glass and aluminium costs going up - though I pointed out that if the increase was based on this, then it would be over a 100% mark-up on these costs. I said we would have to ask for our deposit back and walk away, and of course they say non-refunable etc. I said they have a moral and likely legal obligation to refund, and that if it went to law I was very confident it would come down in our favour. They have now gone back to their estimator and will get back to me. So, basically, I am feeling absolutely shafted at the moment and thoroughly pissed off. I feel that the door company are blatantly profiteering as we are on the hook with the deposit. (65% FFS!) Has anyone any experience of small claims in these circumstances? Would we be in a good position to claim our deposit back if push came to shove? Also, the Internorm doors. I have tried to reach the installation manager multiple times over the last few days and he isn't picking up and when I leave messages at the office he isn't returning the calls. At what stage can I tell them I will get another firm to rectify and present them with the bill? I kind of want the units to come out, compac foam (or at the least concrete) to replace the soggy timber, and eveything back in as it should. On top of all that, my beard seems to be going grey with all this stress. Gaaaghh!

..and also if you do get full planning for knock down and rebuild it will often be granted with normal PD rights removed.