saveasteading

There is a big problem with water supply in Southern England. I'm not aware of any additional supply being sourced. Without metered use it would be, and become, very much worse. It's just a shame so much of the money goes abroad and not into infrastructure. Lots of rain on its way, will help if they can catch it. Scottish water is still a national asset.

Yes, but unlikely to be sudden since last winter. Unfortunately the developers usually hide from responsibility. I've seen this in a similar situation. I helped get the Borough council involved and it was sorted reluctantly. If it's really cold, try to get health visitors or your Borough / City Councillor to help. They have some clout.

Because they want headlines. Because they don't understand the way it works in the slightest. Because the big developers who have the government's ear, will get a lot of the money?

I get funny looks talking to myself. I'm asking questions not saying the system is no good. It is all easy enough to understand, thanks. I don't want to annoy you any more, and can see you are v defensive of the system. I'll say goodbye.

No. That's good advice above. It's probably a plumbing thing eg Pump or valve not working.

There's no icon for good luck. Full report on the gutters and drainage expected after tomorrow. Shut all doors and openings in the garage to reduce wind uplift. Who ever heard of gales off the SE? These new N Sea turbines will be well tested.

A building that does its job well is a good building. While on: I think you are South of this but good luck with the weather. A red warning is just scary. This explanation below is very good. Ditto anyone north of Inverness. Same rainfall Kent etc, but no mountain ranges to concentrate it. BBC News - Storm Babet: Red weather warning of 'unprecedented' levels of rain https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67144619

@joe90s is optimum for cost I'd say, as a diy project. I looked at this and similar suppliers. @Kelvin steel kit can be good value, esp for bigger areas because steel jumps big spaces very efficiently. Ready made timber kits can be quite expensive. Timber stud built on site is stronger than a t & g kit, but needs designing, and much cheaper than a kit of parts. Here's ours using free family labour and newfound skills. No contractors or designers engaged at all ( except that i looked at the sketches and said ok). The bco agreed that it was below his threshold area and that the canopy isn't a building. NB the pin jointed column bases and home made garage doors. The pedestrian door is unnecesarily flash as was free, as supplied wrong for the house. Cost? I'd have to check but about £4k materials. Labour say 30 man days. Commercially then that is about £10k, and add oh &p. Plus vat. Total £18k. @Saul your turn. What cost range are you getting?

That's the thing. Why should it be required? A dpm costs about £100. Granite over the same area, about £1,000? I'm a bit shocked that non-sealed eps is available. I'm sure your houses are fine. I'm just a bit annoyed that you could have spent a fair bit less. For future people considering it, the several savings I am thinking may not balance out any SE or Architect cost in refining the design. PS. Perhaps the concern is of the eps floating between installation and the steel weighing it down. @Gone West thanks fof sharing the slab story. Was this a package contract for the whole slab to that stage? Ending up at 3x the cost, and the delay. Plenty of groundworkers would be capable of such a bad job. I have encountered many who didn't know how little they knew. Pump mix and pokers for compaction would be a mystery. And yet they are out there still. Concrete setting too quickly was presumably because they were taking too long to barrow it? Emergency "Stop ends" can be an essay another time.

I like the others even less in that case. They aren't using the structural raft principle, so are loading the eps more, locally. They will need to be thicker at internal support walls as well as the perimeter. Type 3 is indeed reduced (not zero) fines for a bit of drainage Layer 5 is blinding, for level control. Industry standard is to use sand, but fine stone is much better. 'No fines' again is wierd it can't be laid smoothly to levels, but I guess the eps compresses into the sharp and protruding stones. As long as it works. Excuse me when I mix up the parallel postings above Sometimes type 1, sometimes type 2. I'm happy with either, then dpm, just not with gravel or no fines. And why no dpm on the stone? That escapes me. Perhaps designed for different climates.

Typically this style of design will use between 1/2 and 2/3rds of the concrete that would have been used in strip footings for the same building, That is a bold statement for a system where the slab might be 300mm thick. 1/2 I doubt. 2/3 sounds feasible if the footings in the comparison are mass concrete. It's obv much more complicated than that. I'd love to see that, and reinforcement, calculated. I'm not about to do it. In any case, you were choosing a proven system for control reasons, not cost.

Thanks for the drawing. I see the note. But type1 isn't free draining and it does contain fine particles. It has a formula of stone sizes such that it is as near solid rock as can be. Puddles form on it if well laid. Back to my original point: I would not want water being encouraged to flow under my house, as single sized, free draining gravel, would. I still find this very strange, and can't see why there isn't a polythene dpm. All that aside. You have type 1 so that's perfect. Water won't reach your eps. Even if it did, nothing would happen to it.

Yes. I've even dug some out again the next day. The weather had changed dramatically. How cold do you mean? If i recall, the magic temperature is 3° and rising. As soon as it starts yo drop again, beware. Even then, the chemical reaction will be slow and it may be wise to delay. A slab can take days to harden if very cold. You must not get frost in it. It must be covered with polythene as soon as it is hard enough to take even that without harming the surface. You're better doing it on an overcast, even drizzly, day than very cold.

I appear to have been confused then, type 1 is near solid rock and not porous like single sized gravel which was my concern. This is sensible.

It's what they are noted for. If they can't do that, they're not proper cluster flies.

That's why I question everything, and enjoy hearing real rxpetitnces like yours. That's why I looked into eps systems and costed one on a real job. The supplier gave a detailed quotation, and discounts. It may not have suited that project which was not a standard house. Yes that's interesting. I can see this can work for genuine self build. Quality is a huge issue. Even with known and generally trusted groundworkers, they are not as knowledgeable or caring as is desirable. Backfilling the eps formwork with gravdl is sensible, to fill the void ompletrly and protect it. What I was questioning originally was a land drain a metre or so out from the perimeter. I still question using porous / no fines sub base too.

I'd have to see details, but it seems very unlikely to me. NB me building it ( 300 + projects) is not the same as self build. I am challenging the assumptions for the potential benefit of the poster who can be persuaded by me or not. It's his money that is being spent. You are right that I don't know the system. But I have been optimising construction for decades. Onmone project i designed and costed 6 methods of construction.( Eps block being one.) So I do want to know if I'm wrong. By challenging I clearly get a response. I'd love someone to explain why a traditional graded sub base and dpm are not better in performance and cost. "out performs traditional foundations. Says the manufacturer? In strength? Cost? If I'm coming over too heavy then I apologise.

That's what i said , or implied. Clever enough if there was a problem to overcome, but aiding flooding downstream. Should not be a standard process. But why? As long as the water table is below the dpm, or kept out by a perimeter membrane, it does no harm.

I am reminded of a competitor. They were successful and their buildings were good. But their skills were more in marketing than construction. They had several big technical issues over the years. Each time, they commissioned a process so that it could never happen again. One was crazy and a building collapsed. The others were very expensive ways of working, idiot proofing I suppose, for a single problem where the issue may never reoccur. Their prices rose, and they fizzled away. Then people told me all this stuff. They were designing a completely standard method of construction assuming that all their previous problems would reoccur on every project. The client paid. It feels as if the procedures discussed above are similar. Solutions but to be applied regardless of the need. Mostly it will do no harm. Although dewatering to a stream is the opposite of sustainability.

I don't think that happens. Try a soakaway test and notice how the water doesn't drain on clay. Must be incredibly high. That seems to be the problem...of the system...so isn't there a dpm under and around the eps? £100 Solution instead of £2,000 for single sized gravel with 1/3 air for water to flow through, and a land drain, dewatering the land (a bad thing). Anyway, how does the water get under the footings and then up to the slab? Ahh yes, because of the loose gravel. I would put it differently. They are assuming lots of challenges occur on every site. They are not Civil Engineers and are being ultra cautious, spending their clients' money. And they are copy catting. But that is how far below outside GL.? 200mm? That's not a water table, it's a flood. I'm not disparaging these systems. I can see that this utracautious design saves worry, and maybe problems, with amateur builders and architects who don't do drainage. Anybody setting out on this method has a choice though. Ask away.

But if you put down a solid sub base, then no water flows through it. Sounds to me like standard details to overcome problems that aren't necessary. Perhaps assuming the worst combination of circumstances and applying excessive solutions regardless of necessity. Water table us not usually near the surface. Use proper sub base, raise the building above ground level. Too simple?

Yes but is that likely for a domestic sized, fully exposed joist?

Yes, you could do all that to little benefit. Assuming your fire gets really hot, then lots of heat goes up the flue, but the box itself is in the room. Is it uncomfortably hot to get close to it?.

Yes, you ask on here. If it is supporting the structure then it will need protection. The one that doesn't conceal the timber is intumescent varnish. Look it up on line. Envirograf tend to explain well.

Angular 'gravel 'doesn't get waterlogged, it just fills with water and I can't see how that is a problem. Wet stone. If a properly graded stone is used, that is then compacted, the amount of water would be tiny. Even an eps base won't float a concrete slab. I remain to be convinced of the value of kit rafts anyway (other than easy diy), so would be interested to hear more on this subject.