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My upper floor, that is. Due to the vast number of MBC guys on site early last week, my upstairs was ready for the underfloor heating pipes and spreader plates to go in much earlier than my plumber had anticipated so the plates were duly put in. MBC were due back on site this morning to get the egger boards down on the first floor, so it was a case of then or never. The downstairs UFH pipes are embedded into the concrete slab and so a different method is needed for the upstairs, and this is it. What you are looking at are aluminium spreader plates with the UFH pipe bedded into them. The spreader plates are thin sheets of aluminium with two semi-circular recesses running the length of the plates. These are stapled to the joists along their length and their job is to hold the pipe in place and also to diffuse the heat over their area. The plates are very thin, barely a couple of mm thick, I would say, and very sharp, as I found out when poking the corner of them all stacked up in the shrink wrap packaging when they first arrived. Here's what they look like individually: There were a couple of delays in getting started on Friday and as a consequence work went on till well into the evening. UFH by sunset: After some hard graft on Saturday, it was all in place and the manifold had been attached, pressurised and tested and all looks good. Once all the egger boards are on, the centres of the spreader plates should be stapled along their lengths to the boards above to ensure good contact and heat transfer, although this was overlooked and not done but not picked up on in time to be rectified before the flooring went down on top. I did not sit idly by whilst all this effort was going on, oh no, not me. I had some very important decisions to make and these took a high level of innovation and imagination. Like, where's the best spot for the furniture in the to-be living room and where do I prefer the view? Really important. And, it turns out, that off-cuts of EPS upstand make for a really good improvised sofa. To be seen in all the best furniture showrooms soon: Having tried this, I came to a very meaningful conclusion. I need more furniture. Another thing for another day. Back to business, MBC were back on site today, a team of 4 to put the egger boards in place. You can see from the spreader plate pictures above that there is virtually no joist exposed, hence the need for screwing them down, particularly as the spreader plates will need to be attached from them underneath. The guys also used the egger adhesive along the tongue and groove runs of the board sides. Being a complete ingenue when it comes to all matters of construction, I was pondering last week what the purpose was of the hefty blocks of wood set into the recesses of the I shaped steels. Today, I found out. The posi-joists don't just rest in place, they are very firmly attached using steel thingies called roof hangers. These are they: And this is where they go: On other matters, I'm busily chasing down roofers at the moment, and they are proving difficult to get hold of. One has already declined to quote because they are so busy, but I'm working through a list of possibles, so it will get done. I've also booked in for my service alteration on the electricity - it's on a pole via an overhead line right now but will be buried eventually and the pole removed. Current date for this is 17th October, but electricity companies dance to the beat of their own drum so this could easily change. It's the big stuff back tomorrow with the final frame delivery and the upper floor being constructed. Sit tight for the next thrilling episode!

Chance meetings, research and no fear of being nosy have stood me in good stead for many years and it's proving no different with getting a house built. The 'dig deep' thing was bothering me, mainly the thought of having to go down 2m over the entire footprint of the build and the cost of all that muckaway, as well as the risk of it all turning into a giant, muddy swimming pool during the process. I will freely admit that up until about 10 days ago, the thought of having to get piling included in the build struck terror into me due to what I perceived as the potential cost and complexity involved, all down to my own ignorance about piling. As a new comer to the world of self building, the only thing I'd really picked up on in the past was hearing about remedial work to houses that were falling down and the huge amounts of cash involved. I'd already had a mooch around this site to see what I could see on the matter of piles and had a look at @recoveringacademic's blog and his comments and rapidly lost my fear but not my trepidation over costs. I also had a visit to the build site of another BH member who has been very helpful and encouraging. It was a spontaneous visit as I was really, truly just passing by his site on the way to my own, but his structural engineer was there at the time so I stood quietly by and ear-wigged, as you do, and then one thing led to another and we started chatting about my site and my clay dilemma. The upshot is that the SEs were really helpful guys and I'm engaging them to design a piling system to support my MBC build and overcome the risk of both lateral and vertical movement that my site is very vulnerable to. I'm also having them design the drainage system while they're at it. They will liaise with the architect, building control and the timber frame company and make sure that my build not only gets out of the ground but stays in the same place once it's done. I've never had an issue with professional fees as long as they are ones that are genuine and add value to a project. In this case, it will be money very well spent and a huge weight off my mind. How best to approach the drainage plan had been vexing me for the last few weeks, particularly as my clay soil means that soakaways don't function. One thing that I think may be worth mentioning is the combination of the passive slab and a piling system. The soil beneath the building is not just highly shrinkable clay, but also very dessicated thanks to the long term presence of a few trees and a super thirsty hawthorn hedge. Although these are all now gone, their long term potential affect on the soil will remain for a long time. In particular, the risk of heave. The piling system will keep the building in place, but does nothing to stop the swelling of the clay directly underneath from pushing up and breaking the floor of the new structure. The SE started to talk about a suspended floor to mitigate against this. However, a few days ago I read a BH discussion where @JSHarris mentioned the issue of an airgap under a passive slab having a detrimental affect on the insulation of a slab so was able to say with some confidence that I wanted the slab to rest on the ground, and my reasons why. The SE was fine with this and all the gubbins under the floor will now include a layer that is a honeycomb structure with the face of the cells resting on the ground so that if it does expand, it has somewhere to expand into without damaging the slab. The helical piles are part of an impressive system - no piling mat, no excavation if you don't need it (I need some to make sure that the floor level of the house is level with the ground), super quick to install and little vibration. This will save a huge amount of time and money compared with digging deep and a far more elegant solution with the dangers of heave solved as well. In all, the cost of the SE and the piling won't cost me any more and it may be somewhat cheaper. The time element is important, too, as the lesser amount of excavation will be much speedier and keep me on track for the main part of the build to take place from end of May onwards, assuming everything else is ready. The cherry on the cake was put in place this morning with full discharge of all the pre-commencement planning conditions. All in all, a good week.