Passing the Air Test

[Fredd]

I see your 40k submersible air tight timber frame and riase you 

 

So its air test day. More £££ your first time buyer is going to have to work another 3 weeks overtime to pay.

 

Make sure all the windows are mastic'd up including the under the cill which the fitters allways seem to forget as they cant get the nozzle in.

 

Go round and foam the bottom of all plasterboarded walls, studs (both sides)the lot.

 

Block up the chimmuck and air brick for the log burner if you have bothered fitting one for another £££  the hetas guy.

 

tape up the loft hatch.

 

7 minutes later, you have a nice draft proof house and a pass no silly money spent and the first time buyer can still afford it.

 

 

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

You forgot the keyhole(s), mate.  And, as for the  cat flap, the cat flap, oh the joys of the cat flap.  I mean, even Rollo knows that one.

 

Our Sid would flip his feline lid if we shoved that full of  Nonsense Foam

 

 

[SteamyTea]

@Fredd

Do you understand the physical principles behind air testing and heat loss?

[daiking]

This is very low grade trolling. 

Edited February 8, 2018 by daiking

[IanR]

56 minutes ago, Fredd said:

 

7 minutes later, you have a nice draft proof house and a pass no silly money spent and the first time buyer can still afford it.

 

 

Why not just bung the air tester a drink and save all that work!

[bissoejosh]

41 minutes ago, daiking said:

This is very low grade trolling. 

Indeed.

[Nickfromwales]

41 minutes ago, daiking said:

This is very low grade trolling. 

You take that back this minute !!!!!!!!!

 

 

Its medium grade ok

 

[Nickfromwales]

42 minutes ago, IanR said:

 

Why not just bung the air tester a drink and save all that work!

Think of the overtime for all the £££ spent on mastic, foam and tape.

 

[lizzie]

Should we all ignore him now?

[Jeremy Harris]

Just now, lizzie said:

Should we all ignore him now?

 

 

Personally I think that might be the best idea.

 

Starting threads that are only intended to troll the forum isn't on, in my view.

[Declan52]

4 hours ago, Fredd said:

I see your 40k submersible air tight timber frame and riase you 

 

So its air test day. More £££ your first time buyer is going to have to work another 3 weeks overtime to pay.

 

Make sure all the windows are mastic'd up including the under the cill which the fitters allways seem to forget as they cant get the nozzle in.

 

Go round and foam the bottom of all plasterboarded walls, studs (both sides)the lot.

 

Block up the chimmuck and air brick for the log burner if you have bothered fitting one for another £££  the hetas guy.

 

tape up the loft hatch.

 

7 minutes later, you have a nice draft proof house and a pass no silly money spent and the first time buyer can still afford it.

 

Do you leave the nice looking mastic everywhere and expanding foam in place in every house or is it just the show house that gets this AAA gold plated NVQ level 3 standard of  workmanship.

[Jeremy Harris]

6 minutes ago, Declan52 said:

Do you leave the nice looking mastic everywhere and expanding foam in place in every house or is it just the show house that gets this AAA gold plated NVQ level 3 standard of  workmanship.

 

 

On a serious point (accepting that this thread is only a wind-up), when we were looking around for a main contractor we did go and look at a small development of 5 houses being built by a company that, on the face of it, seemed to be worth asking to quote.  The first house on site was the most complete and whilst we were being shown around there was a chap busy applying airtightness tape.  The boss was called away to the site office and we were left chatting to the chap doing the taping.  His first words to us were something like "This one's already failed the air test twice, I'm wasting my time doing all this just to get it passed.  I'm not faffing around like this with the other four".

 

As only one house in the development needed to be air tested, then it's pretty clear that the other four weren't going to comply with Part L1A.  From what I've seen since, walking around doing thermal surveys, this sort of practice seems pretty commonplace.

[Nickfromwales]

2 hours ago, JSHarris said:

Starting threads that are only intended to troll the forum isn't on, in my view.

We have an über-quick mechanism for dealing with that trust me.  

I call it the Paul Daniels button. Makes anything vanish right before your very eyes.

 

[MikeSharp01]

Agree @Fredd does seem to be taking the proverbial but it is clear that it (cannot determine gender of Trolls / not sure how) knows a thing or two and in a roundabout way is telling us the

tricks the big boys like to play to win in their terms. Not sure if you have been watching the BBC programme about the new estates in Oxfordshire but it is instructive of a number of reasons why the housing stock is a. Where it is, or rather is not and b. who is being sucked in by primeval desire to own a home that may have been constructed using the techniques we are learning from @Fredd. Just my pennyworth.

[Declan52]

4 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

We have an über-quick mechanism for dealing with that trust me.  

I call it the Paul Daniels button. Makes anything vanish right before your very eyes.

 

@Nickfromwales are you an abracadabra or issy whizzy let's get busy type magician. I bet being one of the  worlds biggest sesame Street fanboys your a la peanut butter sandwich spell caster.

[Nickfromwales]

6 minutes ago, Declan52 said:

@Nickfromwales are you an abracadabra or issy whizzy let's get busy type magician. I bet being one of the  worlds biggest sesame Street fanboys your a la peanut butter sandwich spell caster.

You been smoking crack ( again ) fella ? 

Deffo izzy whizzy. Sootys a legend.  

[Declan52]

3 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

You been smoking crack ( again ) fella ? 

Deffo izzy whizzy. Sootys a legend.  

A little bit of something naughty is  always good it gets me through the day.

[nod]

6 hours ago, Fredd said:

I see your 40k submersible air tight timber frame and riase you 

 

So its air test day. More £££ your first time buyer is going to have to work another 3 weeks overtime to pay.

 

Make sure all the windows are mastic'd up including the under the cill which the fitters allways seem to forget as they cant get the nozzle in.

 

Go round and foam the bottom of all plasterboarded walls, studs (both sides)the lot.

 

Block up the chimmuck and air brick for the log burner if you have bothered fitting one for another £££  the hetas guy.

 

tape up the loft hatch.

 

7 minutes later, you have a nice draft proof house and a pass no silly money spent and the first time buyer can still afford it.

 

 

 

 

If the trades do there job properly 

you shouldn’t need to use foam

 

When I start plastering mine in a few weeks 

I’ll put some pictures on Showing that there is no need for foam

[Jeremy Harris]

45 minutes ago, nod said:

If the trades do there job properly 

you shouldn’t need to use foam

 

 

I agree 100%, the snag is that there are a lot of people around who call themselves tradespeople who are either incompetent or don't care, or perhaps both.  I suspect some of this is down to the poor standard of training that many have.  I cannot see how a few month spent getting an NVQ makes someone competent enough to call themselves a tradesperson.

 

My best mate from back when I was at uni, was an apprentice joiner.  After his initial three years were up he opted to do an extra year, plus a year working with another master joiner, to become a master joiner.  That was five years of training, a mix of on the job and day release.  All the time he was an apprentice he was earning peanuts, less than me with my sponsored degree.  Once he and I were both working, though, he was earning three times my pay, when I was just a very junior scientist and he was a proper master joiner.

 

[Fredd]

So you liked my can eh.

 

The issue with the eco tests, we know they well intended but in the scheme of things just not anywhere near the top of the list for the majoirty of buyers.

 

Any regs add cost and its a balancing act giving value and nice house to the buyer at a cost they can afford which gets everyone paid. We are no differnet from any other builder, the walls get dabbed and boarded. They boarder is on a price just like everyone else. To add an eco tax to his wages just wouldnt fly. So the building gets foamed up and passes the test.

 

In some ways its a good thing us volume builders dont use the small number of highly skilled trades as there just isnt anywhere near enough of them. There day rates cant be justified on normal homes, for 650+ homes of course.

 

It's just how it is.

[daiking]

Loving the faux concern for buyers.

 

someone is trying to look after sellers’ interests and nothing else. Lol, lol and thrice lol.

[lizzie]

Why on earth would you use that awful foam on your plasterboarded walls?

 

If you need to do that must be a really shoddy build!

[PeterW]

1 minute ago, lizzie said:

Why on earth would you use that awful foam on your plasterboarded walls?

 

If you need to do that must be a really shoddy build!

 

Yes if you are using it to seal big gaps - normally caused by poor dot and dab - but there are foams that are designed to bond plasterboard to block walls. They deliver a more solid feel tbh and are quicker but the blockwork needs to be near perfect as you can’t sort the problems like you can with D&D adhesive. 

[Fredd]

5 minutes ago, lizzie said:

Why on earth would you use that awful foam on your plasterboarded walls?

 

If you need to do that must be a really shoddy build!

 

i dont think you understated.

 

only the very bottom of all the walls and studs are foamed to seal them. We dont use 435 cans foaming the entire walls haha!

 

The tops of the boards are open to roof space in bungalow so need to be sealed. No drama.

 

once plastered and skirted you would not be able to tell if it was or wasnt. it just passes the test.

 

What you see on tv is when they have already skirted the walls so now they cant do a permanent job and foam, they have to tape - test - remove tape. 

 

[SteamyTea]

@Fredd

I am not sure if you are just winding us up, like the Irish electrician tried to a while back, and the Architect that tried to convince people that t was illegal to be an Architect unless you were in some organisation or other, and had insurance and ...

But I shall give you the benefit of the doubt unless you keep acting like a nob.

32 minutes ago, Fredd said:

The issue with the eco tests, we know they well intended but in the scheme of things just not anywhere near the top of the list for the majoirty of buyers.

That is a bit of a simplistic statement.  My Mother wants and easy to drive car that is reliable and economical.  She does not need to know how the engine works, or how the ZF gearbox automatically selects the gears.

A house buyer is relying on the honesty and integrity of the building professional.

 

 

Edited February 8, 2018 by SteamyTea