saveasteading

I would expect that to be cavity wall. If you can check the wall thickness it will provide a strong clue. Measure at the door or a window.

No question. WRC is not good in the UK climate, as it doesn't like dampness. WRC ends up grey if you are lucky and don't get staining from the fixings.

Collecting, separating Very nice design. I would just suggest 2 tiny improvements, which are possibly not necessary or worth doing as retrofit. 1. break the rwp run through a gully with grating, to catch the bigger stuff that comes off the roof. Much easier and safer at ground level then a grille in the gutter. Also reduces the occasions for cleaning the catch pit. 2. Close the top of the T, in case any detritus drops through there. Just laying a tile or brick on it would do.

Next week we are laying the base screed (ie for the PIR to sit on.) I have specified fibre crack reinforcement, because it will save £2,000 worth of steel mesh. The fibre concrete can be a pig to work with, and we have dispensed with the contractor. So 4 amateurs doing it (not me). We will have a Gen 2, with fibres and plasticiser. £12/m3 more than without the fibres, i.e £1.80 /m2 for the reinforcement. Report will follow. They laid an outbuilding slab last week, prepped, shuttered, site mix, and lay. Very high quality, and for beginners I am seriously impressed.. No cracks at all. No fibres in that though, so we will see soon enough how it goes.

It has to be applied rather thickly, although many painters don't, which defeats the object. You would want to see it in life before committing as it doesn't always look great.

I have one of those. It works really well, especially with a simple control (toolstation I think) where one push switches it on for an hour. Retrofit was complex with wires to the bathroom from an adjacent dry room. recommended though.

It is a very good idea. I must have looked at dozens of damp problems and this is the most usual solution (apart from obvious overflowing gutters etc). Make sure the pipe has somewhere to empty. The problem is usually that successive owners have built up the ground around. Taking it all down to original level is better than the gravel trench, if possible. Even without deliberate surfacing, buildings settle a little and ground builds up (otherwise why are all archaeological investigations called 'digs) I don't often favour trendy ideas of breathing floors and walls. Any floor is going to move, and if it is concrete or lime it will crack. I am equally cautious of your proposal too, unless you don't mind seeing cracks in the floor, and not being able to sell the house. These doubts apply equally to hempcrete, living walls, straw bale construction, and more i will think of later. There are very good reasons why these are trendy but not mainstream. Solves the issues with the damp as timber (they claim) Ask for a guarantee, with insurance cover in case they aren't around. It is energy efficient, I can get a 0.22 u-value with 150mm+100mm. this is great because we have a 450-500mm foundation. ok , but this is just the effect of PIR. Lime above PIR will not breathe, or am i misunderstanding the problem? It has all the pros of concrete. The pros of concrete are strength, crack control, hard surface, industry standard material. As above, sort the damp problem first.

I have done many buildings with timber overclad, all commercial or education but i think applies to domestic. Usually we had a steel wall behind, fully sealed, but I think the same will apply for any modern construction. Sometimes fully boarded, others with architectural gaps. Timber will continue to shrink however well they say it has been dried. Have always used battens so there is a gap behind. Have never known of any problems with insects/ uv. Of course any black membrane provided for appearance should breathe if that is the property of what it is covering. But this could be any cheap membrane as long as UV resistant. Then stain, not paint, the battens to resemble the cladding. Small gaps should be avoided. A 5mm gap could expand to 10 or stay the same, and so the gap difference would be very obvious. Twisting of the wood wold have the same problem. The only problems we have had were of excessive shrinkage, opening up gaps when there should have been none.

It takes a lot of heat and time to burn a house from the inside. All the timber structure should be protected by plasterboard or other.* Wood doesn't burn unless it gets heat and oxygen. From outside is a different matter. My house is all wood walls. However with no buildings nearby the risk is very low. A metal roof will make no difference at all. In fact a metal roof on a mature house suggests the hiding of other problems. In terraced housing fire often spreads through the roof space if the walls are not full height. * A real fire test of an office showed that one layer of plasterboard on timber stud resisted fire for much longer than the books suggest.

I look forward to pictures too, if possible. This will make it all so much clearer to respond usefully.

Careful! don't think they can't tow it / hoist it away without you noticing. They can be slick, and on a bonus.

it depends where you want the window. Ours are either midway in a 600mm solid stone wall, or in a new timber frame. Either way, the fixing is a strap behind the frame, or alternatively a screw through the frame, which would be a shame.

There might be rules about not being nearer to the road. Check your local plan. Design what you want. Explain your reasoning to the planners. Solar panels angled and to the south , smallish windows facing south, big windows facing north,

That is a 2m3 plastic tank, not a 5m3 harvester system. Water butts are good. If you watch the market they vary from £25 to £50 for the same model.

Shiny metal, very good, oxidised, half as good, dirty.....as good as the material the dust is made of so very poor? Without an air gap, pointless.

Yes, pumps fail and service can be slow. We foresaw that for our own office construction, and installed a shortcut from mains to the internal system, so turning one valve off and another on was all that was required. As you say, it can be complex.

Nordan have shown us to fix metal straps to the sides of the frames, then bring them interally and screw to the (stone) reveal. Then they have to be concealed. Surprisingly they don't supply straps, and a helpful fitter showed us that he seems to use any old strap that is handy. But then to use expanding foam to really take the load as well as seal.

You get a heart for spreading good news.

Don't worry. It is good for the garden and dissolves. Just keep solids out with some mesh.

Are you suggesting that only increases might be mentioned? Actually yes, this happens: 'estimates can only go up' was recently flung at us. I have never in 40+years worked with price variation. The admin is prohibitive. Once I recall telling a client of the the risk to us and him (pile length) , and that it wasn't fair for me just to add all the risk to the job. But he insisted as he wanted a fixed price. That was until the job was done and he realised that the element had gone smoothly, and it wouldn't be fair that we kept the risk money.

A few matters arising. Very few BCOs or Architects really understand fire protection. Therefore if you argue then they want something very definitive. Intumescent paint is horrible and expensive. Great for big commercial projects, but even then often misapplied. Most applications are much too thin to provide the protection required. A top coat is required but seldom applied except in big projects. I once had a painter coat about 200m2 of wall. I told him to go round and round until there was no paint left over, thus providing the required thickness. Next day he told me the 'good news' that he had half the paint left over. Intumescent paint gets sold with a diy certificate. Effectively it says 'this person bought some of our paint'. I have never known a bco test the thickness/ number of paint pots. Plasterboard is often specified to be fireboard when normal would do perfectly or two skins of normal. Practically, it can be easier to fit 2 skins as the first may be a bit rough and the second is then very easy to fit. In fire tests it has been known for the test to be halted at 30 minutes (60/90 etc) even though the product was still performing. This sells more stuff.

Yes. Under the house is complex and expensive. Under the back yard is ok unless close to the house or if there will be vehicle loads. But the tank will cost £1,000 to buy and install, not £50.

Some random jottings. The effect of thicker insulation diminishes with thickness, but this is often not reflected in calculations. (The first 25mm does a great deal more than the last 25mm). The effect of a reflective layer has been dropped from the 'advantages' list of the plasterboard manufacturers, but can still be added in a calculation. How dirty it is is interesting.....it is going to get dull with time even in a cavity. Does a clean and shiny surface work the same with invisible radiation as with visible? All paint is black until the lid comes off. A wide air gap allows air to circulate freely and reduce the benefit. A ventilated air gap is a cold space.

The bargain design is this. Second hand IBC, 1000 litres. , filled from a RWP. Free to £50 depending on quality/ luck. Join another any time using tank connectors, (or separately to another rwp.) Cheap submersible pump for when you want to water the garden (£50 might be too powerful) And apart from disguising the ugly tank there are no other costs. You will get several fills per annum out of the tank, saving £3/m3...so about £20 per annum. Capital repaid in 2 or 3 years plus you have done a good thing for the environment. Plus, if you can avoid any rainwater going to the sewer you can get the sewage rate reduced.

If you can get sand and gravel, then you don't need much rock: just some on top to resist abrasion. the principle of constructing a road is to start with the poorest fill and increase the quality as you get nearer the surface. This applies to the biggest motorways. In your case there is a risk of the peaty ground settling under the weight of the stone/sand fill, let alone the vehicles.. The simple answer to that is to float your road on the surface...that is how the railway is built across Rannoch moor. So I suggest chatting around and finding what material is available, then get back to us. Check out Macadam and Telford road constructions...no bitumen used then. A Macadam (not tarmacadam) Road is probably what you need. You have the modern advantage of a membrane beneath that prevents the mud from mixing with the stone. Also chat with the quarry some more, as they may have lesser material that they can supply. As to the tarmac site entrance...the point of this is to prevent mud and stones being carried onto the carriageway. The tarmac bit on top doesn't need to be very thick, but the LA may have their own view and standard on this.