saveasteading

Agreed. I think do this first then review. I've seen this so often, and it is usually that simple. Assuming you have a suspended timber floor, the air brick is allowing water under the floor and it may be sopping wet, and rotting the floor. The gravel is too high but also full of muck so not draining. But before filling in again either work out or use water to see if it runs away, downwards or sideways. If it doesn't then it needs more channeling. If you use gravel again it needs to be weeded but also removed, cleaned and replaced every couple of years.

These appear to be engineering bricks, so won't absorb much water. So in reality it will probably be OK, but it should not have occurred. The suggestions above are good. It is essential that the bco sees this before it goes further.

Resilient bars work differently to the second layer of pb. Lab results can be very different to real life. I think bars are better in real life because of breaking the continuity. But it is essential that they are fitted properly to maximise their flexibility. Don't assume that the fixer knows this, understand this or accepts this. "Just an extra screw" through the wrong part, and the function is compromised.

Agreed. Fancy epoxy stuff will look worse unless it is all overpainted. Even sand and cement will probably stand out as the concrete face is high in cement. Use that if you must with a primer and addition of unibond.

Then it looks to me, and I think @Onoff , that you could dispose of the hopper, install a grating drain along the wall , and connect it to the pipe. aco is thc best known name but cheaper types will do for your situation.

The product will depend on the type and size (especially depth) of hole, and I'm not sure of that from the pictures.

Sorry no. This meeting is striving for higher standards and changing the status quo.

Not much point doing beautiful new flooring that stops suddenly and awkwardly. But what do you mean by units? Like kitchen units or built in wardrobes?

I don't understand the problem. Can you make it clearer what concerns you? I'm guessing these are coin sized bits flaking off the face , but shouldn't be guessing. What age is the house? In passing, I hope the new paving slopes away from the wall.

Where does the drain with the hopper go? Did it take water from the downpipe and you have turned it away temporariliy? In other words is that drain shown for rainwater and your proposed drain also for rainwater?

..will be the next resource taken from Scotland to support England. A way of transporting wind energy to the big cities.

Ok I see that. The bottom outlet is a few mm off the wall, so it splatters scalding water against the wall, safely and visibly. I recall now seeing them in copper. An oversized pipe seems wise to reduce the pressure.

I have started a new thread rather than hijack one. This was my proposal for the most misguided design, claiming (shouting out look at us) to be sustainable. I have seen it perhaps 20 times without the rotors ever moving. I read that if they all did rotate at optimum speed, then it could power 2 or 3 kettles in the flats below. What would that have cost? Allowing for the fancy shapes, the loss of floor space, plus the kit itself, can I guess £30M at current costs? I am not going to analyse it but have considered the absence of snow load as a positive. Of course it is crazy and somebody paid for it. It probably got through planning by ticking the windmill box. At a similar time the London boroughs were insisting on alternative energy, so at least one new blocks was built with, and proudly boasted of, pellet boilers. These required 2 lorry loads per day in Central London. Never used of course and the 'backup' gas kicked in. @SteamyTea suggests that a green roof would have been crazier. I have little time for them either, but don't think it us in the same league for cost or negative benefit. A green roof would have added perhaps £2M, in direct cost plus strengthening the structure but add for annual maintenance. But it might have had some marginal benefit if sensibly designed. Any other suggestions of craziness small or large?

Explain please as I have never seen this. A primitive safety valve where the joints are weak so that it comes apart?

That got me looking. It seems that the committee (BRAC) making changes is mostly of representatives of building inspector associations. Not expert in design. Plus 3 persons in total appointed by BRAC for England and BRAC for Wales, after consultation with the Secretary of State and Welsh ministers, to represent building users, construction sector clients, participants and/or consumers generally. Then they invite experts from the industry. I once met an ultimate (academic) expert in one aspect of construction and so also one document in the regulations. He was consulted but the opinions were opposed by the representative of a particular industry, and so the regulations were a compromise, wasting millions annually. BUT the green part of the regulations is what matters, and we can argue about the rest. And we self builders can do it right.

There have been several attempts by the EU to get old systems replaced. Correctly I would say, especially above aquifers. I bought a house with a 1m3 brick chamber going to soakaway. A demand came from the water company to replace it. After research i found that proof of long term use killed the requirement. Of course I expect it was the hidden powers in our society that had this killed off. People in big houses perhaps. Or the water companies themselves, in the knowledge of their own abuse. Registering allows sepa / EA to find suspects in the case of a big spill. I had a client who had a small oil spill which reached a river and the EA traced it exactly to them from a few miles downstream by oil analysis. Similar may applying for sewage?

Expanding on @MikeSharp01. If you bought a lot of doors that weighed 60kg each and propped them up, around a room so that each one had 1m2 around it.....then that would be one door per m2 .....or 60kg/m2. That is a lot of load. But you won't have these heavy doors spread around tge room It is a very good question esp as we can get into bad habits of using shortcuts. So in conversation your SE might say kg/m2 the first time , but then abbreviate to kg after that. Also saying kilogrammes one time and kay gee another. In writing it will always be more correct. A pocket door is on runners with a moving load. Leave that to the SE. As @SteamyTea says, we also mix weight and force. Sometimes carelessly. So kg is weight and N (Newton) or kN is force from the weight. Don't worry about it. Keep asking your SE and also on here.

You may have noticed I have occasionally disparaged the sale of small turbines, and their promotion by "green deal" type quangos, about 15 years ago. There were even lots of EPC points for them. You may be sworn to secrecy, but am I wrong? Even a tiny bit? Turbines cf green roofs mentioned elsewhere: I may open another thread.

My favourite response to an efficiency suggestion to a subcontractor was ," if it was a good idea I would have thought of it years ago". It is now a standard method.

Yes and worth discussing for completeness. It is especially helpful when people can be steered away from hokum. Many, I am cautious about saying most, people don't understand " energy in = energy out".

15m of dense glacial sand, topped with 50mm of granite grit. It's not going anywhere unless washed away.

Except that it is permanent so the floor bends a bit, but just once and stays there. If anything it reduces bounce from movement.

Thanks for the link. I would prefer that the pointing was weaker than the slabs. This seems to be harder, and almost like concrete repair mix. Thinking that through leads me to lime being better than cement. So you have nudged me towards lime on the swingometer, which has now been extended past cement to resin. On the other hand, the slabs shouldn't move as long as water doesn't get through.

The @ETC detail perhaps doesn't work for your construction, but the principle is correct. This has been done before but the detail you showed us suggests that it is idea no 1 for a new invention called a house.

Planning officers are not especially technical. They may welcome advice such as yours and change these rules. For example, I have explained to planners why their drainage hierarchy and strategy was flawed. A shocked silence was followed by realisation that this was suddenly obvious, then an invitation to present my own strategy with planning applications, with explanations.....and they always accepted these. I doubt that they alterered their guidance, but that would require the cost of consultants....the ones I was saying were wrong. But try, or tell them that you are substututing Am2 at B output, with Cm2 x D output. They will be happy. Seriously, they often welome sensible technical advice.