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Slab vs beam and block foundations?


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Wouldn't do it if not necessary. I'm all pro passive slab. A lot can be done yourself as well. Mine is block and beam but only out of rules from authorities, not out of choice.

Wouldn't really recommend it that much and can't see it being cheaper then insulated slab if done with same u value

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Slab is not always cheaper.  We had a sloping site. FFL needed to be somewhat above original site level.  Then add there was a very thick level of organic soil that had to be stripped off.  The result would have been an awful lot of infill to build up the levels back to what would be needed to lay a slab.  A suspended timber floor was cheaper.

 

Then add our peculiar cashflow issues, a slab would have meant paying for the floor insulation at shell build time, and laying the UFH pipes then as well  A suspended timber floor let us buy the floor insulation a bit later in the build and the UFH even later.

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I went beam and block because of bad ground, I did want a slab, now the house is up to roof level I’m very happy I went beam and block as it has allowed me to move pipes and services about as I have got used to the shape of the house. 

I have moved the water main to a completely different room

i have swapped the location of a toilet in our en-suite 

i Will add another duct to take an incoming electric supply from a remote located solar plant that might be added later

3 things I wouldn’t have been able to do easily if I had a slab

 

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You can do all the work for a slab on your own and they are very forgiving - less so with beam and block and they take a lot of work to get level plus you end up with quite a high finished floor level when you use traditional block plus PIR. 

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33 minutes ago, Mike_scotland said:

Hi guys,

 

Thanks for the info!!

 

May I ask why your local authority's didnt let you use a slab? 

 

I'm still at design stage with architect. But trying to think 2 -3 stages ahead and het as much information as possible.

It’s not so much that they won’t let you It’s ideally ground conditions 

Mine being lots of trees 

What you need to consider is with BB you will have to add a screed afterwards Where as with a slab you can usually tile or floor straight on top 

 

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Ok guys all valid points and remarks, currently our ground conditions are good, had a few surveys carried out topo and ground foundation survey..... 

 

Topo came back the site is pretty level think its sloping about 0.4m and the ground foundation survey came back as normal strip foundations will suffice. So I'm crossing my fingers I can ha e a few options to pick from when the time  comes.

 

 

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16 hours ago, Mike_scotland said:

How was it?

Did you feel it was easy enough and cost effective 

definately easy enough, though had the brickie known, he would have built a one block thick wall instead of  half where they joined at the ends to avoid staggering them, he couldn't understand why it wasn't a slab as he said it would have been cheaper.

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