Internal fit out process Part 2

[Big Neil]

..following on from part 1 of course. Now that you have downstairs all boarded, skimmed and painted with all lights in, lighting circuit to be powered to test firstly but assuming all working to provide good light for working downstairs. All sockets for electric, network etc can now be fitted.

 

Upstairs now fit any insulation in the floor void as already decided and install the wet UFH system assuming spreader plates and connect to manifold held in place teporariliy against a joist.

 

Now board out upstairs whilst ensuring sufficient marks are made that when installing stud walls, UFH pipes are not compromised. working platform now in place.

 

Stud walls up

 

First fix upstairs electrics and plumbing.

 

Board out Bedroom number 1 including ceiling. Work around edjacent rooms installing insulation to dividing walls and immediately boarding thereafter. Continue in this fashion until all bedrooms/dry areas are completed. Now following same process with bathrooms/ensuites/weteroom etc.

 

Following same process as in part 1 and have all areas skim coated where required and paint. Also as per part 1 drill all holes for lighting and fit downlights in place, GO into attic space, connect lights and test

 

 

soooooo - I know there are a load of other steps, but i just wanted to understand if what i've described is feasible as an option or there is an issue with it in some way?

[nod]

It would be making work to virtually complete the ground floor 

Then start the first floor 

It would Quicker and cost effective to first fix both together and lees likely to damage newly painted plaster on the ground floor 

[Big Neil]

The damage bit is the key thing i'm starting to understand as with Declan's advice on the part 1 topic. I'm interested to understand your thoughts on what work it would make, because actually that's the key to what i'm trying to understand, i.e. what is the BEST way to do things irrespective what is USUALLY done. Hope that makes sense.

 

I absolutely get that if you were throwing blank cheques out left right and centre then you let people do things broadly speaking how they are used to, but i really want to know how things might be done differently if one were doing most work oneself one job at a time, instead of having swarms of workmen doing things all at one. I wonder in some respects if this might negate some of the damage aspect, if there is only you in a house doing things slower or more methodically and not HAVING to consider other people around you.

 

 

[Gone West]

2 hours ago, Big Neil said:

I wonder in some respects if this might negate some of the damage aspect, if there is only you in a house doing things slower or more methodically and not HAVING to consider other people around you.

 

That was the way we worked because we did most of the work ourselves. I did all the first fix electrical and plumbing work. It was then boarded out, on both floors, with stud wall insulation put in and I cut out for all the wall boxes. I then had it all skimmed which, because the first floor was put in when the timber frame went in, meant we could do the remaining jobs in any order I wanted without causing damage.

[Big Neil]

28 minutes ago, PeterStarck said:

I did all the first fix electrical and plumbing work

 

To firm up my understanding of this phrase do you mean that you ran the wires for all electrical systems/pipes for plumbed items to where they were required in order that you could then access them in approximately the right plac, once you had performed other tasks?

 

31 minutes ago, PeterStarck said:

It was then boarded out, on both floors

 

I assume you mean with plasterboard?

 

31 minutes ago, PeterStarck said:

cut out for all the wall boxes

 

If I recall correctly you've got a timber frame over an isoquick slab. Assuming i've remembered correctly, i therefore assume that all your 'wall boxes' are of the plastic variety where you can insert them into a holes you cut after feeding the wires through, then push those little tabs out so they grip on behind the plasterboard?

[Gone West]

15 hours ago, Big Neil said:

To firm up my understanding of this phrase do you mean that you ran the wires for all electrical systems/pipes for plumbed items to where they were required in order that you could then access them in approximately the right plac, once you had performed other tasks?

Yes I did the circuit design for the house, had it checked by an electrician, and then ran all the cables to the appropriate points. Same with plumbing.

 

15 hours ago, Big Neil said:

I assume you mean with plasterboard?

Most places it was plasterboard some it was Hardiebacker board.

 

15 hours ago, Big Neil said:

If I recall correctly you've got a timber frame over an isoquick slab. Assuming i've remembered correctly, i therefore assume that all your 'wall boxes' are of the plastic variety where you can insert them into a holes you cut after feeding the wires through, then push those little tabs out so they grip on behind the plasterboard?

Most wall boxes are plastic but in the kitchen and utility they are metal fitted to noggins.

[Big Neil]

that's rock and roll is that Peter, thanks. did you floorboard the first floor before or after your first fix, and then just drill through/lift the boards if and when required? 

Whilst you were boarding did you simply mark the boards in the appropriate place so you knew where the wires for all the lights and sockets were, to make it easier to then go and cut holes and pull them through to connect? If so, how does this part intersect with skimming? Does it make no less sense possibly to skim THEN cut out so as to avoid having to adjust, or are you only inserting boxes after that point anyway?

 

 

 

[ProDave]

Cut back box holes in plasterboard before you skim.  If you skim first and then start cutting holes you will likely chip the plaster.

 

Actually (and this is a personal thing) I always cut the back box holes as I fit the sheet, usually measuring up, cut the back box hole, then screw the plasterboard to the wall.

[Gone West]

30 minutes ago, Big Neil said:

that's rock and roll is that Peter, thanks. did you floorboard the first floor before or after your first fix, and then just drill through/lift the boards if and when required? 

Whilst you were boarding did you simply mark the boards in the appropriate place so you knew where the wires for all the lights and sockets were, to make it easier to then go and cut holes and pull them through to connect? If so, how does this part intersect with skimming? Does it make no less sense possibly to skim THEN cut out so as to avoid having to adjust, or are you only inserting boxes after that point anyway?

 

 

 

The first floor is 22mm Caberdek and was fitted when the frame was installed. I have 14mm bamboo flooring, on top of the Caberdek, which was the last thing to be installed before I fitted the skirting and door linings. The joists are metal web joists and all the cabling and plumbing go through the joists and up through walls or behind false walls so there are no holes in the bamboo flooring. The position of cables for socket and switch boxes were marked on the floor and were at a consistent height of either 500mm or 1100mm. As Dave has said it's better to cut out the holes, and then skim after, to avoid chipping the skim coat.

[Jeremy Harris]

I did much the same as @PeterStarck, put all the wiring, plumbing, ventilation ducting etc in first, but I used metal back boxes throughout, screwed to noggins or spacer boards to bring them out so there were all projecting 2 or 3 mm into the thickness of the plasterboard.  The guys that boarded the place out and plastered it just placed the boards up against the walls where boxes were, then banged the board on top of the wall boxes to make a mark showing where to cut the holes.  All holes were cut before the boards were screwed in place, and then tidied up when plastered.  The cables were all just tucked inside the boxes or poked out through holes in the boards where light fitting were to go later.

[Onoff]

Multitool works better than a padsaw imo for cutting into an already skimmed wall if retro fitting. You can get it dead neat. Treating the edges of the cut hole with neat pva keeps it all together too. 

[ProDave]

12 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Multitool works better than a padsaw imo for cutting into an already skimmed wall if retro fitting. You can get it dead neat. Treating the edges of the cut hole with neat pva keeps it all together too. 

But a multitool will sever a cable without you knowing. A padsaw, you will feel a cable pulling on it before it has done anything more than bruised the outer sheath.

[Big Neil]

So basically take caution in regards cutting those boxes. I did discover a tool called a Quadsaw which looks like it might do the job, albeit at rather a price. Looks quite decent

[Big Neil]

I think my biggest sticking point centres around floor boarding the first floor, i just can't get my head around it. The Accepted norm so far as i understand it, is to board out the first floor once the joists go in, then once the house is up and roof on, throw the stud walls up securing them to the boards below. Well if that's the case when should I be laying UFH on spreader plates on TOP of the joists? Yes i get that you could allow for room height during design and have a system that sits on top of your sub floor, or put spreader plates into that floor from beneath.

 

Now i know that example only mentions UFH but maybe it gives you all an idea of my line of thinking??

[ProDave]

8 minutes ago, Big Neil said:

I think my biggest sticking point centres around floor boarding the first floor, i just can't get my head around it. The Accepted norm so far as i understand it, is to board out the first floor once the joists go in, then once the house is up and roof on, throw the stud walls up securing them to the boards below. Well if that's the case when should I be laying UFH on spreader plates on TOP of the joists? Yes i get that you could allow for room height during design and have a system that sits on top of your sub floor, or put spreader plates into that floor from beneath.

 

Now i know that example only mentions UFH but maybe it gives you all an idea of my line of thinking??

Our house went up with temporary OSB sheets covering about 90% of the floor to give a working platform.  It was some time later that we actually put the proper floor down.

 

Most of my internal stud walls sit direct on the joists and then boarded up to them, that's a personal preference thing.

 

How about a cheap OSB temporary floor to support the spreader plates and UFH, then 25 by 50 battens following the joist lines then the final floor.  Pretty much what we did but we used buiscuit mix rather than spreader plates.

[Big Neil]

14 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Our house went up with temporary OSB sheets covering about 90% of the floor to give a working platform.  It was some time later that we actually put the proper floor down.

 

Fair point- I hadn't considered that. 

17 minutes ago, ProDave said:

ost of my internal stud walls sit direct on the joists and then boarded up to them, that's a personal preference thing.

 

really glad you mentioned this actually. I had a thread going a few months back i think because I wanted to understand the process for stud walling, as it had seemed to me at the time that installing studs on top of the joists where possible would work out better in case floors ever had to be taken up. I grew up in a house with oak floorboards and having seen my dad take loads of the up in the past, none ever went UNDER the wall. I get it though. Nice to know there's an option

 

20 minutes ago, ProDave said:

How about a cheap OSB temporary floor to support the spreader plates and UFH, then 25 by 50 battens following the joist lines then the final floor.

 

So in this scenario the OSB floor would get screwed down over the whole floor (now you've a working floor for the second lift etc), stud walls up on top, battens along the lines of the joists as you mentioned effectively creating a void into which to put your UFH yes? then chip/ply or whatever you shoose over the top. I sort of like that because it covers a number of eventualities. I guess in that you could use something like the attached like below for the ufh yes?

 

http://www.theunderfloorheatingstore.com/water-underfloor-heating/insulation-boards/prowarm-foiled-faced-in-joist-batten-system

[Big Neil]

On 10/01/2019 at 11:00, ProDave said:

How about a cheap OSB temporary floor to support the spreader plates and UFH, then 25 by 50 battens following the joist lines then the final floor.  Pretty much what we did but we used buiscuit mix rather than spreader plates.

 aaahhhhhhhhhhhh I've just been poking around @Redoctober's blog (loving it by the way) and again even though not ICF, in relation to the floor system/UFH buildup/biscuit mix - is this what you mean (check pictures)

 

 

[Big Neil]

IN one thread with two posts I think I think you guys have unwittingly helped me understand things re fit out way better. So if having underfloor heating upstairs, on an ICF build with posi-joists... Run cables and pipes in and around joists, then EITHER lay down a working platform with maybe OSB, put up stud walls , batten floors, lay pipes and fill with 'biscuit mix', allow to dry then put final subfloor on top, affixed to battens, OR; attach spreader plates to top of joists as visuall;y shown below. Board out whole of first floor whilst taking care to mark position of pipes THEN construct stud walls.

 

have I finally got that right?

 

[ToughButterCup]

On 10/01/2019 at 11:00, ProDave said:

[...]

Pretty much what we did but we used buiscuit mix rather than spreader plates.

 

That'll be really cheap for us.... we give our chickens biscuit mix,  they don't need a plate either - goes down a treat wherever.....

 

Whassa biskit mix then Dave?

 

[ProDave]

This is biscuit mix. A sand / cement mix laid dry that just absorbs moisture from the air and it sets.  It is not super strong, and you can snap it, a bit like a ...... biscuit,

 

[newhome]

Do you not need a revised joist design for biscuit mix vs the much lighter spreader plates? I thought that @Redoctober did IIRC? 

 

[ProDave]

Yes. You have to take into account the extra dead load when sizing the joists.

[Big Neil]

so long as i otherwise have the buildup process right that's rock and roll - Consider dead load but otherwise i'm smarter now that I was this morning. I'm totally having a finger of fudge from the newsagent as a treat on the way home