saveasteading

Just remembered with a shiver...no it wasn't the worst. The worst was when a truck hoist fell over (with 5 tonnes of truck) because a base anchor pulled out of a slab. My slab but the client's hoist installer. They had only used 12dia expanding anchors 75mm deep into the floor slab. Should I think have been 16 dia, 200 deep. By the time I got there the client had realised not to blame me. I got the chance to see a genuine (not lab) failure, with the perfect cone shapes of concrete attached to the bolts that had pulled out. A demonstration of how the depth makes a disproportionate benefit to the strength, as the surface area of the cone increases. I didn't ask about the state of the truck in their time of stress, but nobody was hurt, very luckily, as the mechanic had heard the creak and dived for cover. Hoping not to dream of any other horrors.

If you calculate the volume, the difference between 1mm and 2m is obviously about double, less the thread, so can be a lot. Buy plenty of glue and mixer nozzles. Yes follow instructions, but no bigger hole than they say. The builder will use the drill bit he has, and you will be off to buy the same amount of glue again. It is worth buying a nice new bit to the 0.5mm. Often the rods are a smaller dia than stated. And it goes off in the tube in a year or so, so don't buy too much either. The glass vials can go wrong too, and the advantage is, I think, only that it is pre-measured. Oh, and you can more easily do them one at a time. I prefer to see the 2 parts mixing to a single colour, and knowing that is one of the many possible errors avoided. On the plus side, I have not known a properly fixed resin anchor to fail, but have seen expansion bolts working loose. Very good point about the grade of steel. If they can't tell you, then don't buy it. If ever wanting lots of stud, it is about half price from specialists on-line. All grades and finishes.

F But is your builder? For your purposes I would get it from toolstation/screwfix/ merchant. £8 for a name we don't know, or £9 for Rawl. She special gun is about £25, or you can buy little job kits. Show your Engineer and get his approval.....yes so choose a known name like Rawl or Fischer.

I mean common drain pipe with no ridges.

Any make at all is hi-tech by default. If building a bridge though, best use hilti or other big name. Lessons from experience (other peoples mistakes!), and some r and d of my own. Get a drill bit only just bigger then the bolt, otherwise you use a huge load of resin. Clean the hole thoroughly with damp bottle brush or rag on a stick.. If being flash get a puffer and a bottle brush. Use a longer bolt and hole than recommended as there may be some poor adhesion along the way. The outer 25mm does not contribute to the strength very much. Do not use resin fixing in walls with voids, or the glue disappears, although you can get some stent type inserts for this. If cutting dowels to use as bolts, screw a nut on before cutting. When you take it off it removes the rough burring. When mixing the glue in the provided helical nozzle, the first lot is often only one part and has to be thrown. Check the colour. Rotate the bolt gently in the hole while inserting into the glue so that it gets the glue on the threads. Also it picks up residues of dirt and take them safely into suspension. (if you just push in, it pushes out the glue, leaving air in the thread where glue should be. Best to have a little glue protruding so you know it is full. After the first one you can adjust the quantity. SUPERVISE, it is far from foolproof. My worst example was turning a nut onto a 30mm, 400 long rod, (one of 4 to hold down a 10m high column)....the bolt pulled out with the turning of the spanner. When it works, I prefer it to expansion bolts.

Yes. Used it for extract fans, including multiple intakes from an inline fan downline. When you take out old spiral stuff you see how filthy it gets because of all the shapes and ripples in it. Round pipe you could even rod if you wanted. that is drain pipe to me. perhaps there is wonderful new stuff I don't know about. this is only my opinion. I last used flexi on an extract fan so am not against it...but it is so flimsy.

Drainpipe. Easy to get, smooth flows, solid, proper, sealed joints at junctions. Doesn't rot or scuff or get eaten, has standard brackets for fixing solid, can change to rectangular at tight spaces.

Thanks. I think I was told this before. There is no mention on the page about expanding so I assumed it didn't. Got a family workforce on it over the weekend: got to use the early enthusiasm., So will check out Inverness Toolsation. btw we haven't started new works...this is replacement of existing rotten boards on solid joists, to keep the floor intact and stiffen up the building.

Many of you have recommended expanding chipboard adhesive. I can't see any at Toolstation or Screwfix. At buildbase it is out of stock. Travis and Jewson's are £16 each, and perhaps not in stock...any suggestions for where to find it today in Inverness.....where all major suppliers seem to be present.

Can you sketch one then please, then attach as a scan or photo, as i am not understanding this. Where is the insulation for one thing.

Explain please. If the concrete above is suspended, is it not still sitting on the insulation?

It might work. The loss of insulation is very small. My worry would be that this is an experiment. The pipes would have to be carefully laid to gradients. which could be tricky. On a concrete bed, and probably surround too. Then the upper insulation is sitting on a bed of concrete very locally and there could be differential movement. So no, I think this is a bad idea.

I have it on good authority that the stated acoustic performance never happens in real life, and to use the next spec up if you need to pass a test.

Insurance is likely not your Engineers' best subject. It is quite likely that, in the event of a claim, their insurer would try to find that there was no cover and all parties would be in trouble. Alternatively they have conditions in their small print that bat it back to you. While handing out worries..I have often found that small builders' insurances are invalid...they have taken out the cheapest cover they can find and it has conditions that preclude any claim. A roof cladder, working at 8m, who had stated himself to be a pipe fitter, working at max 2m....and so on. You can find the adverts for these "certificates" in the Sun. "Nobody else has cared" is the response.

It is not widely understood by bc or highways so they might accept the porous surface without further consideration. The purpose of the drain is to prevent your rainwater running over the road where it could cause traffic problems if fast flowing or it freezes. Also it could find its way to a drain or ditch that may increase flood risk. In your case the rain will go through the surface, reach the ground and run down to the road, then onto it. In permeably surfaced areas such as retail car parks they put a huge thickness of open textured stone underneath to hold the water until it gets away. A soakaway and gully will be cheaper. But say 100mm of single size stone underneath will help. So that would be up to you to decide. If going for solid surfacing, then you have to allow for about 60m2 of surface (check) . If it was smaller then there is an allowed rule of thumb for soakaway size of 10mm rain (in 5 minutes), so perhaps try that first and see if they accept. That would be 60 x 0.01 = 0.6m3. 600 litres.

I can confirm what Gus says. Had on old house with v skinny joists. Added Plywood with ribbed nails at close centres, and was approved by bc. The difference was huge and deflection matched that of new joists adjacent. All other comments agreed too.

OK, not too bad then. There seem to be 2 different egger products. both specs are vague and don't mention foaming or gap filling. Neither does the Caberfloor one. How do we recognise the foaming/filling material?

Hi to you too. A tip from a Scot in England, you will have to stop saying 'to Scotland' as if it is this little place past Carlisle. A bit bigger than Dartford!. I propose Kent to Central Scotland covers it. We don't much use real names on here, just in case someone is chasing the same plot for example. you have 15 minutes to edit. after posting. looking forward to hearing your anonymous progress.

It really is worth keeping a site diary. May be the best £5 you spend on the project. A day to a page lets you add any info you like, as a rolling notebook, and you will often look back for names and details. Then you can also fill in notes ahead as reminders. Main use though is the names of who is there, times, and what they were doing. Also of deliveries, especially if you have bought it. The weather too. You will likely also record when you have given instructions, and any big decisions made. This all becomes very valuable if there are claims for extras or arguments about progress. Keeps you in the right too, if anyone was to claim an industrial injury at some previous time....it happens, and a site diary can be crucial in any legal case. Some of that may sound negative, but it isn't. You simply keep a record, and it is amazing how some arguments just disappear when you have notes and photo records. Then after the project you can keep it to look back at the difficulties you overcame. re the fire extinguisher suggestion. Agreed. I once bought one on the way to site, and it was used an hour later on a petrol fire on a roller. Next day I bought another on the way to site. My extinguisher saved their roller, but hey...better than not.

The egger page I found was for a litre and said 3 boards including joist interface, and 5 boards without. Suppliers seldom tell you to use less of their product I suppose. Maybe it was bigger boards? 1 bottle will cover 3 sheets if used on the sheet and joists. If not used on joists, it will cover 5.5 sheets. will get 1 pack and try it out.

This foaming glue stuff is news to me. We don't know something until we hear it for the first time so thanks for the update. I have had plenty of occasions insisting on any glue at all, never mind fancy stuff. Looking for a supplier, there doesn't seem to be much of it about. Lots of g4, but without any mention of foaming. Then I see that Egger is £11 for a litre, which does 3 boards!. Hardly surprising that the use of pva continues.

I agree with everything above. Can you tell us what experience you have? There are properties that are too horrible for most people to live in, but won't make enough money for a builder. If you can put up with living in the squalor, putting in most of the hard graft yourself, then staying in that house, then you can make something. Always remember that there will be some horrible surprises, and probably no good ones. Also that , if this is completely new to you, you don't yet know the regulations.

6m is a long way for the beam to span, so a significant deflection is likely and 3mm is going to be tricky. It is very much easier for the door supplier to 'require' it than the SE to design for it, so please be collaborative. 'Impossible to reduce' is not correct. Either there is a misunderstanding, or there is something we don't know, such as a limited space being available for this beam, hence the column section that has been selected. Pre-cambering will not reduce deflection, but control it to some extent. When closing the doors, the runners will be going uphill, requiring effort, and the beam will begin to deflect down to the required level. I think a lot can go wrong with this. A plate welded on the side will stiffen the beam enormously, and even better if done both sides. That then requires a more complex calculation, and I suspect that the programme used will not be able to do it. Presumably this SE or someone else in the office will be able to calculate from first principles. This will take some time and skill so expect a fee for the reworking. The beam is designed as simply supported. (On the calculations see 'rotationally free') If it can be built hard into the walls at either side, or become integral with the posts then this will stiffen it a lot. Costs will apply in steel, opening size and foundations, but this is what happens with very large door openings. Possible solution then, subject to site particulars, using one or more of these: use deeper beam if space allows. or add plates to thicken the flanges add side plates design as an integrated 'goalpost' portal frame.

Partly agreed. Special straps are galvanised after manufacture so ends and holes are protected. Purlins have their ends and holes sheared, which draws the outer galvanising over the steel core. Any cut you make is liable to rusting if the atmosphere is damp. This will usually be local, but for a proper job spray or paint the cut. For proof, look at steel cladding and compare factory cut ends with a site saw cut. (A proper site cut is done with shears). Over a few years the badly cut sheets will have rust spreading from the ends.

DanF. I don't think suppliers do presettlement tanks as such: it is just a watertight manhole or tank, and I designed our own. I thought it was a waste that harvesters diverted 10% of the rain to shed leaves. In ours, nil rubbish or silt reached the cisterns. Sedum or other green roof retains water so reduces harvester quantity. Therefore i disagree with the logic of sedum being priority over harvesting. Agreed avoid sedum filtered or patio water to harvester: much too interesting contents. How sustainable is a green roof is another topic altogether.