Wish me luck, visit to the site this morning hallebloodylujah! Hopefully we will have an answer to our ongoing foundations saga. 

 

Is is piles

is it slab

is it block and beam

is it a combination of all

 

god knows I hope we have an answer today. One positive tho, action on site ???

 

?

Well productive visit, it’s all dried up a treat, which will now save a few bob. Decision was made no longer going for piling. slab foundation then block and beam above that, this will give us a void for services and what ever else. Anyone with experience with this method? Want to make sure everything goes in and under the blockwork. There will be electric and water to the garage approximately 5m away, I’ve asked them to also put ducting to and from the garage just in case we convert the garage at a later date.

 

any advice/input will be much appreciated 

Block and beam is cold and can be draughty under skirtings. Needs insulation and air tightness, do you have any targets fit these? 

I’m assured that insulation will be correct, today’s job is to find out the best method and materials to sit on the blocks. Have you had experience in this. I’m looking for a low uv, target for walls is 13 so it would be daft and a waste if we couldn’t achieve this on the floor too

If ground conditions allow and the site is fairly level, a ground bearing slab is better than a beam and block floor.  You will need a minimum of 100mm Celotex or 150mm EPS for the floor.  Where this goes and what depends on construction type and floor finishes.

Do you mean 1.3 or .13 for the walls? 

if you're doing a slab why not go for a raft, we did strip and b&b which had 200mm of celotex on top then 100mm screed. wish we could have done a raft would have been a lot cheaper.

the only advice i can give with b&b is that if you need to join them in their length, build a double thickness wall to support them and therefore join them end to end as opposed to staggered. it will save a lot of time in cutting blocks to fit. ask me how i know......

If it is a raft I would definitely be considering an insualted raft. It removes so many labour steps associated with all other foundation types to achieve the same U value. 

If you are planning on UFH you'll need to achieve U value of 1.0 or less (thereabouts..I cant remeber the right figure off the top of my head) to comply with building regs from memory.

 

Someone will be along shortly with the correct figure. 

On 13/05/2020 at 18:59, tonyshouse said:

Do you mean 1.3 or .13 for the walls? 

Oh um I would need to check as I confused now! Sorry for late reply we have been off line

@SuperJohnG @Simplysimon Sorry for late response we have been off line.

 

well the soil was very sandy once we broke ground so we had to go back to the drawing board. We initially opted for the slab but i was told it wouldn’t or possibly wouldn’t work. We had the engineers back out to assess. The hole is even deeper which was then filled with concrete. 250-300 thick without checking. They are now going to build this up with breeze as it is lower on the back of the house. They will then use the block and beam method so that there is a void underneath. It was either this option or go with piles. It was cheaper this way. It better bloody be ok.

 

never seen a raft built only to be covered with block and beam ?