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good to know Ian - do you know what they did to alter the design to further improve use for intermittent use?

good to know about sensible pumping strategies. anyone with any advice/knowledge on the pitfalls of intermittent use for sewage treatment plants?

thanks I have already got cement and ballast on my order list as I am in a high water table area!

So i set aside last friday to order a sewage treatment plant(STP), book in my digger driver, hire digger buy shingle etc but then spent the whole day down the rabbit hole of different STPs. I have done a fair bit of reading/research and was all set to get a Vortex but by the end of the day and talking to many different people am no closer to a decision so if anyone has any advice/experience it would be greatly appreciated. I am making a small barn next to my house into a small 2 bed dwelling so was looking for a 4/6 person STP. Vortex seemed to tick all the boxes because it can be turned down as appropriate. But the problem is that there is a chance we will use it as a holiday let rather than constant occupancy. There seem to be many claims about how well different STPs can cope with intermittent use and on speaking to the Vortex manufacturers they recommended their Falcon as it is a three stage process which copes better with times of no use. But then on speaking to a Marsh rep (their STP seem to be a three stage design as well) he was very sceptical of any claims that they will continue to function if there is no use for as little as 10 days. Went back to Vortex/Falcon and they then recommended their Filterpod but I haven't really got my head round the pros/cons of it and it is expensive. I don't have the option of joining my existing septic tank for the house or making a new combined one for both so am a little stumped how to proceed. I suppose I could always pop into the barn when it isn't inhabited to feed the STP myself but that doesn't seem like the ideal solution! Anyone had actual experience of STPs and times of less use and how well they cope? Also - anyone had any experience of the Matrix STP - seems similar to the vortex but it has a three stage system and is cheaper than the falcon?

Are you ever going to walk on the roof? I don't think I would want to walk on a tata roof that doesn't have some sarking board beneath it.

how big is the house? is it a new build?

thanks for the replies- very helpful. I also managed to get through to valiant installer helpline and they were good. I managed to get the expansion tank up to 0.75 bar pre charge and it seems to hold it and no water coming out so I am guessing that it is fine. I think that i may indeed have had the filling loop open a bit that would explain the high pressure. so I have ordered a new PRV as well as the flexible metal hose that goes with it in case that has scaled up.

as i understand it - if you are going to go for land drain/gravel you are better off not using a geotextile membrane in clay soils as the clay will in time block water travelling through the membrane. geotextile membrane works much better in sandy conditions where it won't clog up the membrane in the long term

i'm going to be getting a couple of plumbers to come and have a look at my boiler and i'd like to be a bit better informed when i talk to them! water comes continually out of the pressure relief valve at the moment if I let any water into the boiler which is a Vailant Ecomax 828 converted to lpg (with UFH downstairs and rads upstairs). i imagine that one would replace the pressure relief valve and/or expansion tank to see if that works. Can one try the pressure relief valve first (its cheaper) to see if that works and if not then change the expansion tank - or might that damage the new pressure relief valve? pressure had been high on the boiler for a while and I had sort of ignored it - am i right in thinking bleeding the rads is important when trying to reduce pressure? cheers john

what are the u values of the walls/ roof/ floor? not the same as energy efficiency rating

i'm sure it would survive a good few years without any sealer - would certainly look like an old pub sign quicker!

i wouldn't use a shallow bath for cutting the tiles unless it was a petrol cutter - just do it dry and make sure the wind is going the right way. put some tape over where you are going to cut to help stop cracking never done hexagonal tiles so don't have any special advice for them!

its 6.25m3 less material to dig out/dispose of! depends on what you can do with that material I guess

https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/262075601513?chn=ps&dispItem=1&adgroupid=43333907642&rlsatarget=pla-300630784516&abcId=1088846&adtype=pla&merchantid=113729568&googleloc=1006602&device=c&campaignid=805983114&crdt=0&var=560853614584 only up to 3m though - haven't seen a 5m one

I've found an open reel tape to be very useful for groundworks/setting out . something like this: http://www.screwfix.com/p/stanley-open-reel-long-tape-measure-60m-200-x-12mm/7775j

I think you might struggle to get a full scale or else your treads will have to change a lot from top to bottom. Maybe concentrate on a closer scale with quarter tones! The treads wouldn't have to be completely isolated to get different pitches I reckon. I once tuned some 10 foot tables to get different pitches by making the tops a few mm different (though a little hard to hear the pitch difference in the video but it is there) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM2G-MZMvrU

I got my worktops from a house in fulham that was making way for a big basement. We had to cut various bits to make it all fit and mimic angled corners. I think we had 4 big pieces to work with. I am very happy to have it as the material is much better than wood for a worktop. You can certainly tell if you look closely that alterations have been made but the overall aesthetic of the house is not crisp minimalism as it is a farmhouse so its fine. Nasty stuff to cut though so get a good mask and a good cutter! I think we used some CT1 at the one join we had to make which was the same cream colour as the worktop.

One square overlap should be fine. A lesson I learned in doing this is to go overboard in trying to get it all as level as you can (sounds obvious I know) especially if you are trying to avoid a screed. It will save a lot of time later on when putting the floor down. Use laser level/yardstick or some way to be able to tell easily at any point in the floor how its level compares to everywhere else. Have someone with a barrow and shovel ready to add bits here and there (or to take away). Corners especially can have a tendency to get a bit high. I was doing a whole house and an outbuilding on the same day so it all got a bit hectic!

One of the most shocking things to emerge from all this for me has been a former housing minister's justification for not following up on numerous recommendations to retrofit sprinkler systems in high-rises - "We believe that it is the responsibility of the fire industry, rather than the Government, to market fire sprinkler systems effectively and to encourage their wider installation." Brandon Lewis I mean that is so evidently a non starter if there is no actual requirement to have them that it defies belief. Another great success story for deregulation and faith in the benign power of market forces. Not to say that a sprinkler system would have worked in this instance but it just seems to be a tragic example of how not to approach issues as important as fire safety.

Am i missing something but what is the point of a layer of insulation with a great ventilated void behind it? Doesn't it rather negate the benefit of the insulation?

Not tempted by a square cut with a jigsaw instead of a line of holes?

I wonder how well the residents of two tower blocks near me will sleep as they are just finishing an EWI retrofit. Luckily for them I think they used wood fibre/render on two sides and rock wool/cladding on the other two sides (intentionally I think!) so if what is suggested above about wood fibre board being ok then I guess they shouldn't be such a fire risk.

I would be interested to know more about the fire retardancy of different types of EPS. I specifically ordered fire treated EPS for my build and understood that to mean that if lit it doesn't go up in flames as non fire treated EPS would but just gently smoulders. I understood it to be something added to the whole board not just coated on the exterior of the board. Whether or not under very high temperatures they all just go up in flames I don't know or for that matter what was used in this terrible fire.

Do you really think that Corbyn's labour is extreme left? It appears to me that the political paradigm has shifted so far to the right over the past few decades that I can see how it is represented or thought of as such but I am not sure it is extreme. When exactly was the last left wing government?

I had a SIP garden shed (6m x 4m) built by two capable canadian builders. The panels came in a large shipping container but apart from that it was all walked around into the garden so no plant/cranes needed. I believe the largest were 10 foot long. It was a great success!