Durisol - in administration

[Mako]

22 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

As one of our original boffins once noted here, plasterboard actually has a very high specific heat capacity, so not quite cut and dry.

 

You could say that when it’s in its original form, in the ground, after the processes by mr Knauf that changes

massively, I seen that on previous posts and it has been contradicted, when processed to gypsum plaster or plasterboard.

All you need to do is to weigh 1m3 of Gypsum plaster or plasterboard, and you won’t get 2700kg

[Mako]

17 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Some useful numbers here

 

https://cordek.com/products/filcor

Thank you Nick, I found the compressive strengths, would you know what loadings of the fixings can the reinforced EPS take?

[Mako]

18 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

I think it comes from people who never measure anything.

False axiom as all that.

Ok, agree with you it’s perhaps harder to quantify, but it’s a proven thing,

you only need to look at projects that has been build in concrete and insulated externally, they perform better, reduce energy required to heat,

they don’t overheat, and offer balance temperature in the house, throughout the year. Energy costs are rising, I’m only trying to build something that will cost me less to run in the future.

[Marvin]

2 hours ago, Mako said:

All you need to do is to weigh 1m3 of Gypsum plaster or plasterboard, and you won’t get 2700kg

Yes, 1m3 of plasterboard is about 658kg

[Iceverge]

Gut feelings can be quite misleading here. A fact that is unfortunately preyed upon and encouraged by the concrete industry. 

 

I'd dig into Jeremy's post above. 

 

As a general rule in building, unless someone can attach some SI units to their statements they've not grasped a full understanding. 

[jack]

3 hours ago, Iceverge said:

Gut feelings can be quite misleading here.

 

Yup.

 

11 hours ago, Mako said:

you only need to look at projects that has been build in concrete and insulated externally, they perform better, reduce energy required to heat,

 

This is overly simplistic imo. You need to look at the interaction between heat transfer properties (ie, U-value), heat capacity, thickness, and how they interact between different layers of building materials.

 

Do you know for a fact that a concrete building with external low-heat-capacity insulation will perform better than a blown cellulose or wood fibre construction having the same overall U-value?  

  

 

 

[SteamyTea]

10 minutes ago, jack said:

Do you know for a fact that a concrete building with external low-heat-capacity insulation will perform better than a blown cellulose or wood fibre construction having the same overall U-value

Only by not using physics and maths.

 

We could cover buildings in mirrors, that will help overheating and hardly change the night time losses.

 

Not tried to seriously calculate it, but there must come a time where the energy losses/gains from ventilation outweigh the losses/gains and storage from the building's materials.

 

[JohnMo]

We had a 1830s sandstone house lathe and plaster walls.  Wall about 3 foot thick, still got really hot in summer.  No insulation to speak of.  But wasn't so bad to heat in the winter.

 

New house has 47 Tonne of concrete in the floor, Durisol walls, be but can still get really hot from solar gain; if you let the sun in for too long.  Maybe we get longer exposure to the sun, before it gets too hot,compared to a lightweight house, but difficult to compare.

[Mako]

On 17/05/2022 at 03:45, Marvin said:

Yes, 1m3 of plasterboard is about 658kg

Thank you, that is close to what I have read elsewhere.

appreciate your input

[Mako]

On 17/05/2022 at 09:06, Iceverge said:

Gut feelings can be quite misleading here. A fact that is unfortunately preyed upon and encouraged by the concrete industry. 

 

I'd dig into Jeremy's post above. 

 

As a general rule in building, unless someone can attach some SI units to their statements they've not grasped a full understanding. 

I agree with you, but what SI units would you like to attach to it?

how would you quantify Solar Gains? We know they happen because every other house has got issues with overheating, but how much it overheats depends on many factors, orientation, size of openings,

quality of windows, etc, even passive house software struggles to deliver accurate calculations. It’s all a guess work. In the same way with thermal mass, we know it’s there we know it works, it just depends on design/orientation and size/quality of windows, but even than it’s hard to calculate it, because you can’t predict how much sun exposure one will have, same like with solar panels, nobody know how much they generate before hand, but we all know they work, and you can see after the performance what has been generated. Same like with concrete and thermal mass, you can see it on the energy usage per month/year and compare similar size building. It’s hard to measure and I believe them.

[Mako]

On 17/05/2022 at 12:25, jack said:

 

Yup.

 

 

This is overly simplistic imo. You need to look at the interaction between heat transfer properties (ie, U-value), heat capacity, thickness, and how they interact between different layers of building materials.

 

Do you know for a fact that a concrete building with external low-heat-capacity insulation will perform better than a blown cellulose or wood fibre construction having the same overall U-value?  

  

 

 

Completely agree with you on that, there are many factors to consider,

im not denying that.

 

lts say a concrete building with external insulation delivering the same Uvalue as cellulose blown or TF structure. Same designs.

 

The Concrete core would be able deal with solar gains and use the capacity of concrete core to absorb heat and store it, because of the thermal mass (density) of concrete, the means that room/house would increase the concrete temp from usual say 21’C to say 23’C which would mean the temperature in the house was 23’C.

in cellulose/TF house the internal temperature would be say 30’C, you would struggle to stay in that house without opening windows and letting all the free energy out to heat the planet, rather than keep it inside, stored in the walls. At night temp. Drops and concrete walls starts releasing the heat back to the room. This process is not instigated it work by itself.

In the cellulose/TM house temp would have also dropped, and it’s now relying on heat source to top it up.

This is how I understand it, please correct me if I am wrong.

and I have not mentioned the other benefits concrete provides,

Airtightness, soundproofing, solid feel, as long as all the detail is done right.

 

[SteamyTea]

13 minutes ago, Mako said:

but what SI units would you like to attach to it

 

16 minutes ago, Mako said:

how would you quantify Solar Gains

K.W^-1.m^-2

[Mako]

9 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

 

K.W^-1.m^-2

 

9 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

 

K.W^-1.m^-2

Who will calculate those on daily bases, as you can’t predict them?

[Nick Laslett]

On 17/05/2022 at 00:32, Mako said:

Thank you for your help, I have looked at Thermohouse, do you know what loading can the reinforced EPS take?

Thermohouse ICF blocks have 0.5mm galvanised steel flanges/ties, with 35mm fixing face, they comply with EN 10237. They can take 12.5mm plasterboard directly fixed to the flanges according to the technical manual. 
 

Not at that stage yet, but happy to perform some tests on the strength of the flanges, if you have any ideas?

 

The technical manual also says you can use mushroom fixing into the EPS for the plasterboard. 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Nick Laslett

[Iceverge]

1 hour ago, Mako said:

I agree with you, but what SI units would you like to attach to it?

 

Density of material kg/m³

Thermal conductivity W/mK

Specific heat capacity J/kg/K

 

1 hour ago, Mako said:

how would you quantify Solar Gains?

 

Luckily there's lots of resources online. Both predictive and historical. Here's one I just found. 

 

https://solargis.com/maps-and-gis-data/download/united-kingdom

 

1 hour ago, Mako said:

We know they happen because every other house

 

Not quite that many. More like one in 5 to 6. 

 

https://www.lboro.ac.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2021/july/over-4.6-million-homes-experience-overheating/

 

1 hour ago, Mako said:

passive house software struggles to deliver accurate calculations

 

It's certainly not perfect but it's one of the better ones. I'm not quite sure where you're getting the guess work tag. 

 

https://www.passivhaustrust.org.uk › ...PDF

UK Passivhaus and the energy performance gap

 

 

1 hour ago, Mako said:

thermal mass, we know it’s there we know it works

 Do we? 

 

1 hour ago, Mako said:

you can’t predict how much sun exposure one will have, 

 

It depends on what level of accuracy you want to predict to. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jack]

14 hours ago, Mako said:

lts say a concrete building with external insulation delivering the same Uvalue as cellulose blown or TF structure. Same designs.

 

The Concrete core would be able deal with solar gains and use the capacity of concrete core to absorb heat and store it, because of the thermal mass (density) of concrete, the means that room/house would increase the concrete temp from usual say 21’C to say 23’C which would mean the temperature in the house was 23’C.

in cellulose/TF house the internal temperature would be say 30’C, you would struggle to stay in that house without opening windows and letting all the free energy out to heat the planet, rather than keep it inside, stored in the walls. At night temp. Drops and concrete walls starts releasing the heat back to the room. This process is not instigated it work by itself.

In the cellulose/TM house temp would have also dropped, and it’s now relying on heat source to top it up.

This is how I understand it, please correct me if I am wrong.

 

Where are you getting these temperatures from? Models? Real world data?

 

Bear in mind that to achieve the same U-values as the sorts of foam insulation typically used with concrete, you'll have a significant thickness of cellulose, and cellulose is an insulator (i.e., it resists movement of heat). You therefore can't just assume that the same internal heat gains will result in cellulose reaching 30° while concrete will only increase to 23°.

 

On a warm/sunny day, you'll also have heat traversing the insulation from the outside. Assuming the use of low heat capacity foam insulation with the concrete, heat will traverse the insulation much faster than a high capacity insulation like cellulose. That's because the energy added to the outside of the insulation needs to raise the insulation temperature to cause the energy to move through the insulation, and you need more energy to raise the temperature of a given volume of cellulose than the same volume of foam insulation.

 

Also, because the cellulose is thicker (necessary to achieve the same U-value), heat will take even longer to traverse it than the foam.

Why do you believe that concrete returns heat to a room overnight, but the cellulose somehow immediately drops from 30° to less than room temperature such that the house needs additional heating?

 

For what it's worth, I live in a cellulose-insulated house and it doesn't behave anything like how you describe. It's generally pretty resistant to temperature change, much like how high "thermal mass" buildings are said to perform. It tends to take a long time to get warm, for example, but once it does, it retains the heat for a long time. This can actually be a bit of a disadvantage, because after a string of hot days, even aggressive night-time purging doesn't always cool the building fabric enough to overcome daytime gains.

 

14 hours ago, Mako said:

and I have not mentioned the other benefits concrete provides,

Airtightness, soundproofing, solid feel, as long as all the detail is done right.

 

Dense-pack cellulose tends to resist air movement. We achieved under 0.6 ACH (i.e., the Passivhaus requirement) with no special attention to airtightness other than a good basic design and paying some attention during construction.

 

Why do you think cellulose houses aren't soundproof? Our house is as soundproof as any other house I've been in, and others on here have remarked on how quiet cellulose-insulated houses can be. 

 

Solid feel is something I agree with. I would prefer that concrete or masonry solidity, but it isn't a big deal.

 

I should add that if I were building again, I would certainly consider some sort of ICF construction. My main point is that you seem to be making a lot of assumptions that don't bear out my experience.

[Indy]

13 hours ago, Nick Laslett said:

Thermohouse ICF blocks have 0.5mm galvanised steel flanges/ties, with 35mm fixing face, they comply with EN 10237. They can take 12.5mm plasterboard directly fixed to the flanges according to the technical manual. 
 

Not at that stage yet, but happy to perform some tests on the strength of the flanges, if you have any ideas?

 

The technical manual also says you can use mushroom fixing into the EPS for the plasterboard. 

Are you building with Thermohouse @Nick Laslett? Would be very interested to hear more of your experience as its something I'm looking into.

[FM2015]

On 17/05/2022 at 00:38, Nickfromwales said:

The Nudura is from 'across the pond' so as @Russell griffiths found out, the embedded plastic spines are on imperial centres. To affix plasterboards at 1200x2400 you would need to apply horizontal counter battens rising on 300 / 400 / 600 OC's ( which also creates your service void if you don't want to bury cables flush into the EPS in conduit ) or you could fit 11 or 15mm OSB ( 1220 x 2440 ) and PB to that.  

A lot of sleep lost over imperial systems and metric plasterboard.  If there isn't a void behind it, where can that unfixed tail go?  A line of pu foam should suffice.  Conduit all services into the insulation and board over.  From experience, securing plasterboard in this way is far superior to having a void behind it.  It is more susceptible to damage.  If fixed flat to a surface which behaves in a very solid manner once boarded, it can't go anywhere.

 

And you maintain a solid feel rather than a hollow feel.  Save money on currently expensive materials ( batten is no longer 30p/m) and labour.

It also means you can eliminate most of your waste by using the offcuts in cubby holes where you can plaster over thick to hide multiple jigsaw joints.

 

Yes, this generally only applies to EPS/XPS systems.

[Nickfromwales]

2 hours ago, FM2015 said:

A lot of sleep lost over imperial systems and metric plasterboard.  If there isn't a void behind it, where can that unfixed tail go?  A line of pu foam should suffice.  Conduit all services into the insulation and board over.  From experience, securing plasterboard in this way is far superior to having a void behind it.  It is more susceptible to damage.  If fixed flat to a surface which behaves in a very solid manner once boarded, it can't go anywhere.

 

And you maintain a solid feel rather than a hollow feel.  Save money on currently expensive materials ( batten is no longer 30p/m) and labour.

It also means you can eliminate most of your waste by using the offcuts in cubby holes where you can plaster over thick to hide multiple jigsaw joints.

 

Yes, this generally only applies to EPS/XPS systems.

You fail to mention the cost of labour and the god almighty mess associated with cutting the EPS to then fit all the conduit. 
Cost of battens to be able to affix on 3/4/600 oc with absolute minimum wastage of PB. 
The “solid feel” would only be where you foam, so to get that you’re saying to foam all of the area of each PB?!? Far more expensive and totally impractical / unnecessary imho. 
PB which is in TF dwellings sails across joists at 400 / 600 oc and PB over dot n dab does the same, albeit it feels more solid than TF as D&D is typically applied over a masonry structure.

 

PB “sailed” over EPS and foamed where it misses the spines will also need bracing whilst the foam cures, so more labour etc. 
 

Will deffo work out to be a complete and total PITA of a job, especially when working up at ceiling height, or higher. 
Sorry! 👎

[FM2015]

1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said:

You fail to mention the cost of labour and the god almighty mess associated with cutting the EPS to then fit all the conduit. 
Cost of battens to be able to affix on 3/4/600 oc with absolute minimum wastage of PB. 
The “solid feel” would only be where you foam, so to get that you’re saying to foam all of the area of each PB?!? Far more expensive and totally impractical / unnecessary imho. 
PB which is in TF dwellings sails across joists at 400 / 600 oc and PB over dot n dab does the same, albeit it feels more solid than TF as D&D is typically applied over a masonry structure.

 

PB “sailed” over EPS and foamed where it misses the spines will also need bracing whilst the foam cures, so more labour etc. 
 

Will deffo work out to be a complete and total PITA of a job, especially when working up at ceiling height, or higher. 
Sorry! 👎

Basically if you make a mess cutting EPS, you are doing it wrong or just ill equipped, especially chasing out.  Almost the cleanest job on site when undertaken properly.  And takes seconds to do a floor to ceiling chase and socket box.  Sparky then has room for a 47mm deep box which saves him time.

 

Pb fixed to directly to in built webs, flat to surface with collated screw gun, only foam at single edge not fixable.  Unless you use floppy pb, I assure you it doesn't go anywhere.  I could prep, conduit and pb a room almost before you've finished your batten.  No mess.

Edited May 19, 2022 by FM2015

[Nickfromwales]

I’d say that you couldn’t. Only speaking from direct experience in doing exactly this on a live project.

If you are geared up to do this for a living, then you’ll understand the process and will have bought tools, at cost, learned a routine and have this perfected. 
Build hub is populated with people doing this for the first time, sometimes the only time, and they will have little or none of the knowledge or shills of professionals who do this daily, therefore the information on here needs to be balanced accordingly.

You have an impressive work rate for sure.

 

My previous post stands.  

[SteamyTea]

49 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

shills of professionals

Why I pay them so little, I like the noise.

Edited May 20, 2022 by SteamyTea

[FM2015]

13 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

I’d say that you couldn’t. Only speaking from direct experience in doing exactly this on a live project.

If you are geared up to do this for a living, then you’ll understand the process and will have bought tools, at cost, learned a routine and have this perfected. 
Build hub is populated with people doing this for the first time, sometimes the only time, and they will have little or none of the knowledge or shills of professionals who do this daily, therefore the information on here needs to be balanced accordingly.

You have an impressive work rate for sure.

 

My previous post stands.  

And I understand you're point of view, I really do. 

And you're right, if you are doing it daily, you should have every tool under the sun to maximise efficiency.  As it's now common knowledge that I work for a professional outfit, I'll also say that we work with designers and manufacturers to create ever better tools and systems to increase our efficiency.  So yes, we think about it a lot. 9pm Friday night and I'm talking tools 🤣🤷🏼‍♂️

 

Somewhere in the middle is where we meet.  So, for £300(max), buy a 240v hot knife kit or hire one from the distributor and make full use of one of the best practicability benefits of a lot of EPS based ICFs. 

 

Save on batten, screws and time.  Whichever way you do it, one way will take longer than the other.  It simply has to.  30 % more screw time for a start.

 

The issue, and I think to some extent what your opinion is based on, is that this level of information is not always given or available to the self builder other than through forums like this.

 

Therefore, if anyone would like a video of one of our team setting up and using a hot knife to prep for electrics to show a)how it's done b)how little waste there is c) how long it takes to clean up and d) the order of tasks, drop me a message.  I.e. let's share some best practices from people doing it regularly and those who have solved problems rather than the sales bumpf.  And that's what I'm on this forum for.

 

And if that comes across as patronising or anything other than just trying to help, I apologise.

[Mako]

On 18/05/2022 at 23:44, Iceverge said:

 

Density of material kg/m³

Thermal conductivity W/mK

Specific heat capacity J/kg/K

 

 

Luckily there's lots of resources online. Both predictive and historical. Here's one I just found. 

 

https://solargis.com/maps-and-gis-data/download/united-kingdom

 

 

Not quite that many. More like one in 5 to 6. 

 

https://www.lboro.ac.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2021/july/over-4.6-million-homes-experience-overheating/

 

 

It's certainly not perfect but it's one of the better ones. I'm not quite sure where you're getting the guess work tag. 

 

https://www.passivhaustrust.org.uk › ...PDF

UK Passivhaus and the energy performance gap

 

 

 Do we? 

 

 

It depends on what level of accuracy you want to predict to. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, thank you, I will try answer your points:

 

The information you mentioned is easily obtained from the type of concrete you are going to use? 
density

conductivity

heat capacity, just my thinking.

 

The map you proposed, and the passive house software, using those

indications and tools its the closest we can get to, to what we want to achieve at the design stage, but reality is different more often than not.

that applies to many systems across the board, aiming for passive house standard. 
 

in terms of overheating, I should have said New Builds, we can’t really

account for good old houses we built after WW2, they can’t really overheat

as they don’t hold any heat, hence we need all this energy in the UK

to heat all these homes. Sooner we realise that they need to be knocked down and rebuild the better. 

 

I can’t argue, about the thermal mass, as the evidence is coming from homes already built, but the poof is there.

we just don’t want to see it, as we are still pushing TF agenda.

 

as accurate as possible, but that’s an impossible task, I think.

 

 

 

 

[LA3222]

26 minutes ago, FM2015 said:

And I understand you're point of view, I really do. 

And you're right, if you are doing it daily, you should have every tool under the sun to maximise efficiency.  As it's now common knowledge that I work for a professional outfit, I'll also say that we work with designers and manufacturers to create ever better tools and systems to increase our efficiency.  So yes, we think about it a lot. 9pm Friday night and I'm talking tools 🤣🤷🏼‍♂️

 

Somewhere in the middle is where we meet.  So, for £300(max), buy a 240v hot knife kit or hire one from the distributor and make full use of one of the best practicability benefits of a lot of EPS based ICFs. 

 

Save on batten, screws and time.  Whichever way you do it, one way will take longer than the other.  It simply has to.  30 % more screw time for a start.

 

The issue, and I think to some extent what your opinion is based on, is that this level of information is not always given or available to the self builder other than through forums like this.

 

Therefore, if anyone would like a video of one of our team setting up and using a hot knife to prep for electrics to show a)how it's done b)how little waste there is c) how long it takes to clean up and d) the order of tasks, drop me a message.  I.e. let's share some best practices from people doing it regularly and those who have solved problems rather than the sales bumpf.  And that's what I'm on this forum for.

 

And if that comes across as patronising or anything other than just trying to help, I apologise.

Not patronising bud, a good idea. Videos on here demonstrating the 'how' of things is actually a good idea. We are all too busy just getting on with things so at best we have pics which can be used to give an idea when explaining something. Pro videos can only be a good thing for future members looking to or in the midst of building.