Is anyone actually building at the moment?

[flanagaj]

We have been in our static caravan now for nearly two months and haven't even started our self-build.  The weather has just been so rotten.  It's been either very cold, or throwing it down with rain.   Are people literally just carrying on in the rain and pumping out filled trenches .... to enable things to progress?

[Big Jimbo]

Hoping to start in about 2 month. should be better weather i hope.

[flanagaj]

4 minutes ago, Big Jimbo said:

Hoping to start in about 2 month. should be better weather i hope.

So I am not alone in waiting.  The sound of the heavy rain on the metal roof of a static caravan is akin to being waterboarded and remaining positive is hard work.

 

[Nickfromwales]

1 hour ago, flanagaj said:

We have been in our static caravan now for nearly two months and haven't even started our self-build.  The weather has just been so rotten.  It's been either very cold, or throwing it down with rain.   Are people literally just carrying on in the rain and pumping out filled trenches .... to enable things to progress?

Depends if it’s practical to do so, and if you’re in dire need to push on.

 

If neither, then wait it out I guess, but I’d go scatty sitting on my thumbs.

 

1 hour ago, flanagaj said:

So I am not alone in waiting.  The sound of the heavy rain on the metal roof of a static caravan is akin to being waterboarded and remaining positive is hard work.

 

Find something to do recreationally, to break the day up maybe.

 

Have you started planning M&E etc? That’s usually a good thing to do well in advance of the actual construction phase. Been working with a client since summer getting all the T’s crossed and I’s dotted, and MBC are now due to start founds end of Feb.

 

Start looking at materials and suppliers, price up MVHR and plumbing, start your electrical layouts and browse light fitting types and where switches will go etc.

 

Design the kitchen / utility and bathrooms etc, go look at showrooms for inspiration and take pics / make notes.

 

I try to do as much of this with clients as possible, well ahead of the busy and brain consuming founds and frame erection. 

[Big Jimbo]

@Nickfromwales Thats exactly what i am doing

[flanagaj]

25 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Depends if it’s practical to do so, and if you’re in dire need to push on.

 

If neither, then wait it out I guess, but I’d go scatty sitting on my thumbs.

 

Find something to do recreationally, to break the day up maybe.

 

Have you started planning M&E etc? They’d usually a good thing to do well in advance of the actual construction phase. Been working with a client since summer getting all the T’s crossed and I’d dotted, and MBC are now due to start founds end of Feb.

 

Start looking at materials and suppliers, price up MVHR and plumbing, start your electrical layouts and browse light fitting types and where switches will go etc.

 

Design the kitchen / utility and bathrooms etc, go look at showrooms for inspiration and take pics / make notes.

 

I try to do as much of this with clients as possible, well ahead of the busy and brain consuming founds and frame erection. 

Some good points there Nick.  Haven't really planned any of the stuff you mention, but now is a good time.

[Nickfromwales]

1 hour ago, Big Jimbo said:

@Nickfromwales Thats exactly what i am doing

Yup. The steel beams that MBC are supplying are currently getting penetrations in them and plating back up so we have a hole for 110mm soil pipe and 4x MVHR ducts, plus some small letterboxes for plumbing and electrical to go through. No extra cost to the client as we planned these well in advance amd the 1st fixes for M&E will just fly in now; I’ve mapped al the pathways and that meant a glulam had to be binned, but just a coupe of clicks in a mouse and it was sorted. Nothing really to drill through as built now, so happy days. 

[Alan Ambrose]

Yeah, we even did some groundworks in all the mud on Monday. I am calling off any day that has more than a few mm of rain though.

[Russell griffiths]

@flanagaj are you doing the groundwork yourself or do you have a contractor. 

[flanagaj]

23 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

@flanagaj are you doing the groundwork yourself or do you have a contractor. 

I am most likely going to use a man and an excavator.  Just so things can get moving and trenches are not left open for too long.

I am now wondering whether to go with a beam and block floor over a ground bearing slab.  Given I am binning having a power floated floor and am going with conventional screed and then either tiles or wood, it might be quicker and might be better suited to DIY installation of the radon membrane.  

[Russell griffiths]

If you are still weighing up what floor system to use, then it’s a good job it’s raining as you are not ready yet. 
 

you need all of this completely ironed out first. 
Just as a few examples, before you start you need the numbers of all the local muck away Lorries in your phone, not one bloke you spoke to but 3-4 of them, if the stuff is piling up and the lad you spoke to can’t do today then you just phone the next. 
the same with a concrete pump, have two lined up, talk to both talk about access and anything else. 
go to the local concrete company and open up an account. 
Dumper hire, if a dumper breaks down do you know a company who will drop one off the next morning. 
 

all this stuff can turn a simple job into a disaster 

get very good at disaster management, have a plan for every eventuality. 

[-rick-]

17 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

If you are still weighing up what floor system to use, then it’s a good job it’s raining as you are not ready yet. 

 

Yeh, it seems way too late to be considering changes like that. The amount of extra cost and time that making that sort of change adds (especially if there are other similar changes) will really add up and get your project way off track. That sort of change will likely require new drawings, other calculation changes. Does the extra weight mean bigger foundations, etc?

 

2 hours ago, flanagaj said:

I am now wondering whether to go with a beam and block floor over a ground bearing slab. 

...

it might be quicker and might be better suited to DIY installation of the radon membrane.  

 

Aside from the impact of making changes at this stage, DIY installation of B&B is an awful lot more (heavy) work than whatever radon membrane work you are thinking of. I'd assume you'd get a concrete crew in to pour the slab. If not then maybe it balances out but I very much doubt it would once you factor in the cost of changing drawings/delay/etc and installing the beams is not a one man job.

Edited 16 hours ago by -rick-

[Adrian Walker]

4 hours ago, flanagaj said:

I am now wondering whether to go with a beam and block floor over a ground bearing slab.  Given I am binning having a power floated floor and am going with conventional screed and then either tiles or wood, it might be quicker and might be better suited to DIY installation of the radon membrane.  

An insulated concrete slab is better if you need a radon membrane, as beam & block can create voids where the gas will accumulate. Radon gas is a silent killer.

[JohnMo]

10 hours ago, Adrian Walker said:

insulated concrete slab is better if you need a radon membrane

Isn't an insulated concrete slab better, for anything. At least you have only ground temp (6 degs) below you rather than a ventilation void that can be a cold as the air around the house.

[mjc55]

We are battling the rain as much as possible, but it is difficult.  

 

We have a sloping site and dammed the foundations on the main house further up the garden so that I could build a small wall the last week or so round the Pod at the rear of the garden.  That's finished now and today we will release the water from the house foundations!  We are fortunate that there is a drainage ditch at the back of the garden that clears quickly.

 

After having such a dry summer it is becoming very frustrating the amount of rain that we are having.

Edited 4 hours ago by mjc55

[ToughButterCup]

19 hours ago, flanagaj said:

.... Are people literally just carrying on in the rain and pumping out ...

 

Yes.

Cladding our piggery in the rain. 

We've run out of contraband (Siberian Larch), so we're having to be creative 😐

 

1 minute ago, mjc55 said:

...

We have a sloping site and dammed the foundations on the main house further up the garden

...

 

That's the advantage you have that we had too: you can actually drain water somewhere

[torre]

11 hours ago, Russell griffiths said:

If you are still weighing up what floor system to use, then it’s a good job it’s raining as you are not ready yet. 

 

I'd echo this, decisions made in haste often turn into ones you regret later. Sometimes you have to start a bit slower to be better prepared and be able to go faster later.

 

I don't think you're losing that much with delaying now. We made an autumn start 1/ to avoid our PP lapsing and 2/ to finally make the project 'real' and with hindsight, once we had the foundations poured last winter should probably have parked things - building brick & block we spent so many days making right and wrong calls on whether to work due to weather, and it being pretty cold and miserable even on 'good' days. I'd anticipated something like when they work on the roof in Shawshank Redemption - cold beer in the sun - but the reality was scraping snow off a scaffold and running around with tarpaulins in sudden storms.

[JohnMo]

Our foundations were complete in the November, walls up by Christmas, was f...ing freezing. Many a morning we would have to bail out the water accumulation before we started work proper. But ICF walls allowed concrete pours even in sub zero temps. Roof on in January. Then it was 99% dry even without the windows, just still cold.

 

Our main issue was the floor was insulated before the walls went up, had 100mm concrete above the insulation, so if there was a sub zero night ,the house floor remained frozen all day

[saveasteading]

10 hours ago, Adrian Walker said:

voids where the gas will accumulate. 

Hence the void has to be ventilated, bug is then cold so you need more insulation.

b and b has 2 advantages.

1. On a sloping site.

2. If access is hopeless.

3. For raised floors in industrial use.

 

I agree with the above. You really should know exactly what you are doing by now.