Another set of secondhand speakers

[Greg.]

Originally Posted by Black Stuart

............with a wooden floor on battens over concrete with a waterproof additive..............

Hm, I don’t think Stuart was advocating wooden suspended flooring but rather a concrete floor dressed with wood mounted on battens.

[Black Stuart]

Chris,
that process is also used over here - was it your idea or did you employ a builder who recommended it?

Unless you also used insulation before the exterior finish then external temperatures winter and summer will move through the slab.

The slab would have steel reinforcing - steel is an excellent heat conductor, exactly what you don't want if your trying to create a buffer between an external and internal environment.

There are all kinds of insulation available today - insulation is not dependent on depth/gauge solely of the material. If you look at solar heating pipes and the insulation used on them it is not substantial but is very effective, most cheap pipe insulation is **** and a waste of money.

A much better system would have been a buffer insulation after the exterior wall. infill material that did'nt absorb water (beach is the best) ie. under the concrete to be poured, a properly prepared base, then to be sure, concrete with a quality waterproofing compound additive, then floor battens, at least 2". Any cables could then be laid via notched battens, a quality insulation then t&g boards, oak is best and easily available over here, the French didn't cut all their oak forests down like the Spanish and English or cheaper pine. Timber is a very good insulating product in itself.

You now have a floor that is much kinder to feet and great for music and doesn't need replacing like the fully carpeted English home that is very unhealthy. Over here there is an obsession with ceramic tiled floors, they are cold and noisy. Having a concrete finish means more work with cables.

The big con is UPVC windows - plastic is a good conductor, has a limited life if subjected to UV light. Quality wooden windows NOT VARNISHED but treated with a quality Scandinavian oil treatment that can be reapplied every 3-4 years, simple and effective. Especially if you specify casement windows that open inward, like the rest of Europe then cleaning windows on any floor becomes a doddle as does reapplying a finish.

As to heating up the slab - what happens at night - the reverse. Dense concrete is a heat sump, heat sumps work in both directions. Over here the idiots persist in using either solid or cavity dense concrete blocks, soak up water like a sponge - great heat transfer - both ways. More idiocy - picture windows, unless you pay through the nose for the expensive kind - huge heat loss in winter and gain in summer.

[Black Stuart]

There is zero interest at the top in any society to educate the masses in best practice, value for money, however there is this thing called - the internet but the ordinary punter is too lazy to use it, I can't understand why.

A house is the biggest investment most people will ever make so you need to get it right. Why do idiots buy homes built at ground level by rivers,on flood plains (self explanatory) or on hillsides subject to landslides - but they do in numbers.

In La Vendee (western France) 4 years ago, 45 people drowned, why? Because they bought or rented homes where the apex of the roofs were below the level of the sea. In California a lot of people died because of the flimsy wooden houses, which are the norm in the USA, built in areas that have had brush/wood fires for hundreds, possibly thousands of years. There is a constant struggle against termite infestation in most southern States but still they persist in building these wooden houses - la genta es muy stupido.

Passiv haus - great but how many put in an effective and cheap to run air change system, that's why so many children pick up pulmonary problems. Log burners - how many have an air intake from the exterior, I know of only one very expensive stove here in France - at least with carbon monoxide poisoning death is painless.

How many realise that the most important aspect of a house is the sub strata it sits on, not the house itself. After that it's the footings - remember that building Regs. are the minimum not the optimum. The last person you want to design a house for you is a moron obsessed with the visual aspect, otherwise known as an architect, they have zero practical experience - and it shows.

Once you have invested the time in studying the best materials and building techniques anyone reading this post is perfectly capable of designing a house that has excellent foundations, will be easy to build and maintain and cheap to run, you will have deprogrammed all the b/s about kitchens, c/heating, insulation and layout oh yes including an excellent audio and or a/v environment.

[Chris]

Hi Stuart, with help from the wife we did the design and drawings and have recently finished the foundations.

It's good to see you have such passion in doing things in the correct manner, I guess it's only the EU regulations that has increased the demand for better U-values in construction in the UK.

Am in Portugal at this time and they are building using lots of concrete and steel, with hollow block infill, this insures agains earthquakes. If we ever had an earthquake of a great magnitude then most of the house would come down.

Chris.

[Black Stuart]

Chris,
I wouldn't use the term 'the correct manner' - it's the best insulation method with materials available today. Are you building in the UK or Portugal, you aren't clear on this.

Your entirely wrong about U values, the UK is way ahead of countries like France,Spain or Portugal. Same goes for DPCs, a joke in these countries.

Hollow blocks, do you mean cavity blocks and are they dense concrete? Either way this will not stop a building collapsing, neither will reinforced concrete. If it's high rise then a riveted steel frame has to be the basis. www.xella.com, this company makes far and away the best aircrtete blocks and they have a section on building earthquake proof houses using their materials. The Japanese and the Turks are way ahead on this, not surprising with the amount of huge earthquakes both countries sustain.

The Spanish as always inter-galactic champions in denial syndrome poo-poo what will happen one day on the fault line that runs from Pyrenees Oriental down the Med coast to western Morocco - check out the Agadir quake. Mountains grow by way of huge earthquakes, caused by tectonic plates sumo wrestling - the Sierra Nevada mountains are young and growing and minor quakes happen all the time. If the big one happens at night, the number of dead will be huge.

[Chris]

Stuart am building in the UK, just waiting for warmer weather there to start doing the brickwork, next week I will start to plaster out my daughter's house.

Chris.

[Black Stuart]

Chris,
why use bricks and I suppose cavity wall construction, what are you going to use for the inner skin? Why use plaster? another wet trade inside the house.

Aircrete blocks - either Durox, used to be called de Jong when I worked with them in the Netherlands. Anglo-American bought them out and put them in their Tarmac group of building products (never did understand that choice of name). Xella, use different names for their products in different countries).

If I was in the UK I would use Durox foundation blocks and then switch to Xella at oversight. Outer walls - 30cm (maybe don't have these in the UK) or 15cm bonded through with piers every 6 ft or so and butterfly wire wall ties between, this way with foam infill you achieve a much higher U value (not sure it's needed though). For cables - with 30cm use the perps chiselled out on one course and drill the next. Prepare for the box between the beds of 2 blocks on a bench and harden with a Unibond wash.

So with completely superior aircrete blocks your there in one operation, forgot to add - of course use the 'thin joint' method for bonding, use only Preocol. Don't use the stupid tool that you buy from xella - mix in a container to a loose blancmange consistency, then you just dip the perp first and then the bed, lay, whip off any small amount of excess straight back into the container - zero waste.

Or use (1) bricks that absorb water (stocks especially), (2) wall ties, (3) blocks, the worst being cavity dense concrete, (4) vapour barrier, (5) bonding plaster, unheard of on the continent, (6) finish plaster.

Bonding in interior walls with the same aircrete blocks strengthens the whole structure - 15cm is best but 10cm will do. Again use the same method for cables.

Using aircrete - absolutely no need to use plaster on these aircrete walls - size and stick 1200 grade lining paper, cross line if you want to be really anal about it. There really is no sense in using anything else for internal walls, they are up and finished far quicker than using outdated wooden stud and plasterboard. Over here in France they really cowboy walls - they never bond the perps and only use one skin of p/board and they don't tape the joints either. In terms of acoustic and thermal insulation - no contest.

Aren't factory made reinforced concrete floor plates available in the UK? superb finish and a whole house has it's floors down in a morning. Wouldn't dream of building a house unless it's one block of the ground. If all the footings have been done properly - zero chance of water penetration, then you use insulation on top of all cables, battens and t&g.

These materials and building techniques yield excellent insulation, a quiet house and brilliant for using a good sound system in. Forgot to add the project takes 1/3rd of the time using 'traditional' methods and materials.

Roofing - tiles and slate should be history - metal sheeting wins hands down. The only thing I havn't had actual experience with is metal roofing panels but seeing it done, they are a doddle.

[bikerhifinut]

Interesting your mention of metal roof panels Stuart.
We are at the start of sorting out the dormer area of our bungalow to make it into something more practical and future proof for me and disabled wife (open it out more and make the landing at top of stairs big enough to prevent the current fall and trip hazards once the stairlift is parked.
Anyway our Architect type chap ( I know you don't like them but this one seems to understand a thing or two especially modern materials and effective ventilation and insulation.) has recommended that we consider a metal roofing option on what will probably be a flat or very gently sloping roof. One things for sure, it can't be worse than the 19th century technology bitumenised roofing felt that's up already and is showing signs of failure after about 20 years, typical for this stuff if not actually better than average. I'm hoping that by not skimping here I'll get something better than what we have at the moment. Which as far as i can see is not much more than a glorified garden shed on the roof............................
I see you are an advocate of a type of timber cladding/exterior but do you know if it's suitable for a climate where we have many more wet/rainy days than dry ones combined with frequently strong winds whistling down off the 2000+ foot pennine ridge across the valley from us.
You won't like our plans to have a nice big window in the upstairs room but with a modern glass and triple glazing we can hopefully benefit from the truly stunning view we have of the mountains close by.
Shouldnt this discussion be split off into a new thread maybe?
Andy

[Chris]

Hi Stuart, I will use for the walls 100mm bricks, with 100mm cavity, internal walls will be with thermalite blocks, filled with insulation, cavity not completely filled with insulation, wall ties with slight fall to outer wall, avoiding mortar bridging across ties. All perpends should be fully buttered with mortar and pressed fully with jointing tool.

Andy, felt type flat roofs last 15-20 years, a better alternative now is using fiberglass flat roof system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT9YsGBU0Fk


A-rated windows are really worth having, a big improvement.

Chris

[bob orbell]

Go for it Andy, my garage ( workshop ) roof was felt, lasted no more than 12 years, and because it was not detected until the water started to drip through, the timbers were buggered, should now last a long time,another alternative is fibreglass, next door has a flat roof over their extension, its over 25 years old and should last a life time or more. BOB