saveasteading

We revamped an en-suite and installed an electric blanket on a very thin sheet of insulation. Tiles above. It works very efficiently with timer and temperature control and stays warm long after it has gone off. It is a luxury though, for the sake of warm feet on a tiled floor. Why? It is nice and my wife loves it. Why not? Expensive. An electric booster to the towel rail is another welcome addition. Push the button and it dries the towels then switches off, and so saves the boiler running.

In theory that can work, but beware the ready-mix driver just pouring it fast and hard, as the force from fast moving concrete is huge. That apples especially where the fixing pin is near the trench edge. Safer to have it poured into the trenches away from the shutter then shifting it along, with similar pressures both sides. Prepare for the worst and it should be an anti-climax, which is what we want.

600mm is a lot of wet concrete to support and the shuttering would have to be very secure.

I have seen that timber too. For ease of construction I think. Behind the brick will be 2 flues, and they do not seem ho be bonded together. Perhaps one was used a lot and the other not. As Mark c. Says...do you still have chimney breasts in the roomz below? A lot were taken out.

Thanks both. From further discussion, there will be no heavy load tools in this outbuilding. Yes I'm expecting another cu to be used and an earth. Not sure how good an earth spike will be in the hard but free draining sand here. In fact it is difficult to get a pinch bar into the ground...almost rock but then turns to soft sand when disturbed... maybe a long drill. But does dry sand conduct well enough for the earth? 4 to 5m each end noted. I would have underdone that, thinking just come up the wall 2m. So wall to wall route plus 10m. Looped up 5m each end ready for the electrician.

Looking to seize an opportunity to put a cable from the plant room to an outbuilding. What size cable? There will be a domestic water pump that will feed the large house. Plus workshop and who knows what else. I'm thinking the pump may be about 2kW but perhaps there is more to it. No worse than a kettle? The cable length will be 30m. Pump will lift the water 4m max. There will be advice taken from electrician and plumber but they are not fully engaged yet.

Cladco won't provide angled fillers for hips and valleys. I'm shocked. What do people use? Expanding foam or nothing? Anyway with great effort but not too much expense we have them coming. If I can find them so could cladco. Not good customer service or consideration of the final product. Ask if you want the detail for getting them.

Well spotted. The design suite doesn't have granite and sandstone. Or these interesting cracks and asymmetries. The inside spaces are all 'rendered' too which is great especially for those not so familiar with imagining spaces.

It is very helpful and inspiring to get this level of design. Current and future.

That is very deep, and suggests very thick peat or silt. What is the ground, and maybe you can get more soecific advice? I wouldn't count on that. I'm pretty sure there is legal precedent for the investigation company taking no blame. I had a project where the client provided a comprehensive report for tender, from a ground investigation company. Tarmac on stone on clay supposedly. Contract won on that basis. As soon as we started digging we hit a reinforced concrete slab, which 6 boreholes had failed to identify. We minimised the extra cost by redesigning, but the client paid and the G I co and PM got away with it. Either the supervisor was not paying attention x 6.. or they didn't do boreholes and guessed.

I found a jumper, balaclava and jemmy in a shared council attic.

Welcome both. An insurance company manager i built a office for, proudly stated how they had the lowest payout rate of any insurer. They spent money on fighting claims rather than paying. You would know the name. You are right not to be specific on this forum. Everything here is in the public domain.

I am a convert to 'no dig'. I would spread masses of manure asap and let the worms do the work. This will be esp important if droughts become the norm. Also catch all rainwater, even diverting it over the garden if that works for you. Plant nothing that is expensive. The nursery has had a difficult time growing it, and it will surely die. Gardening is a hobby. Why pay someone else to have the fun?

It was my training and job. Study the site: on the ground , the geology and surroundings. Dig holes. Look at trees and watercourses. Look at nearby projects. Design the building to suit the conditions. Other Engineers are available.

It is normal to exclude the fees to the professionals. It shouldn't be, but that is part of the scam. I have many times asked Architect and Client each to state what the budget is, and whether that includes fees and contingencies. It can be an awkward moment for both....one trying to hide the real price (or bluffing) and the other realising it for the first time. Do we know in this case?

Even Which magazine thinks that some kettles cost much more to boil. A reader questioned them on it, and they didn't seem to understand the question, perhaps confusing with overfilling. Energy in = energy out. How many mp's know even the basics of science (or their advisors by the sounds of it).

But I would have known, and so should your SE or architect. And your SE trumps the BCO. I will modify my statement if you like to 'predictable to those whose subject it is'. But then that applies to every element: I don't know much about electrics. A nasty extra cost for you whether justified or not. Many bco's have a default of asking to dig deeper, because they can and the groundworker does it and the client gets the cost. These aren't usually best pleased when told "no," or asked to prove the need. If there had been a deciduous tree nearby then he was probably right, to some extent at least. The biggest unpredictable aspect of groundwork is the weather....I admit to that bringing surprises.

Have you seen the price of boreholes?

Everything is predictable. Groundworks often has potential for clever designs to minimise muck away. Simply avoiding overdigging (wrong sized bucket) can be worth a great deal.

I was thinking that myself. However, assuming the heating water enters at 30C, and then soon departs again a few degrees lower, it will soon start to part with more heat at the cooler areas of screed, and it will even out. The heat leaving the screed into the room will be the same either way, but there will be some temperature difference on the surface for a while. Contrast that with the spiral arrangement which will alternate warm, cooler as you walk across it. Late news: I am not on the site, and was nervous about the plumbers' skills/knowledge, having seen this (one of many progress pictures) . It turns out that this rough looking loop shape was caused by a late change of design at a partition wall position (we have a step in the slab level and are putting in a stop end). Now adjusted with gaps between.

I regard access as meaning disabled access. Deal with that and you deal with any other issues by default. A d and a statement is easy to do, and provides a check that your design is thought through. It then helps the planner towards a positive decision.

An additional white or metallic sheet of cladding, facing south, on a spacer system, would reflect most of the sun, absorb the rest and ventilate it away. But an extra 25mm of pir in the wall would be cheaper, and it is already 200mm if memory serves. In reality the first of these was what we did if involved in the spec decisions...build a lightly insulated shed, then cold store inside it. I think this works better than using the cold store panel as the weather wall.

If it is not chipboard then I would be surprised., whatever the price. I have poked at some pogenpohl etc to look for the differences that justify trebling the price. Some details are better, some internal extras are nice, but mostly the cost is for expert fitting. One supplier of very expensive kitchens said that his customers want to move out for 3 days and come back to a new kitchen, and will pay whatever for the lack of hassle to them. I assume the same applies to bedroom furniture.

Ok we had this. In our case the roof had spread over many decades, due to natural forces but also rot reducing the strength of some timbers. I would predict that you have a tied roof construction and this will always have an out-thrust at the wall, and the timbers sag and move outwrds. It just depends how much. The chance of pulling it back is minimal and might cause more damage. a secondary plate that picks up the load is an option, but that may then slide too. Any pictures of the roof construction?

I was once working with a company re methane from waste; a proper boffin. I asked how best to reclaim the heat from cold-stores which is chucked out into the world, and wasted. I didn't know I was talking abut an enthalpy exchanger, but I was. He said that even with that high temperature of air, and similarly with cooling water in power stations, it is difficult to reclaim even 5% of the energy in a useful manner, and it isn't worth it.