Mike's ext'n & renovation (solar panels)

[TrimTheKing]

Ouch. I've got 2 lumbar vertebrae that pretty much no longer exist, between L5/S1 & S1/S2. Between 5-15% disc remaining in each, the rest burst and the inner jelly/gunk absorbed back into my body :shock:

Pain is constant but controlled by daily stretching and core strengthening work to avoid having to have surgery. Generally the pain is controllable and doesn't stop me playing football. Doctors orders were to keep doing it providing I can manage the pain because it will keep my core strong and also keep them from seizing together, until such point that the pain is too bad (hopefully not for another 20-40 years, at which point he can fuse them for me, but that's a last resort.

I feel your pain! Hope the nerve treatment works.

Cheers
Mark

 

[AndyP]

I am sorry to here of your Physio experiences Mike. I have always believed that strengthening the muscles around the back is best way to beat/cure back pain.

 

[RogerS]

I am sorry to here of your Physio experiences Mike. I have always believed that strengthening the muscles around the back is best way to beat/cure back pain.

And the core abdominals and also the gluteals.

 

[cadman_4]

I feel I can butt in at this point, as mostly I'm just in awe of the workmanship.

I have over the past 5 years been a sciatica sufferer and have had plenty of physio manipulations and exercises. I have found that as well as looking after my back / core, we have replaced our coil sprung mattress with a foam one to have helped out with having lower levels of pain in the morning.

Just my two penneth

 

[TrimTheKing]

I feel I can butt in at this point, as mostly I'm just in awe of the workmanship.

I have over the past 5 years been a sciatica sufferer and have had plenty of physio manipulations and exercises. I have found that as well as looking after my back / core, we have replaced our coil sprung mattress with a foam one to have helped out with having lower levels of pain in the morning.

Just my two penneth

I replaced my old coil one with a foam one (bloody expensive foam one), binned it inside 2 months, agony!

Replaced that with an expensive pocket sprung hobby from John Lewis and been 100 times better. Mattresses are very much a personal thing I've found (again, just my opinion) and such an expensive thing to buy not being able to test drive them first. Very hard decision.

Cheers
Mark

 

[cadman_4]

I feel I can butt in at this point, as mostly I'm just in awe of the workmanship.

I have over the past 5 years been a sciatica sufferer and have had plenty of physio manipulations and exercises. I have found that as well as looking after my back / core, we have replaced our coil sprung mattress with a foam one to have helped out with having lower levels of pain in the morning.

Just my two penneth

I replaced my old coil one with a foam one (bloody expensive foam one), binned it inside 2 months, agony!

Replaced that with an expensive pocket sprung hobby from John Lewis and been 100 times better. Mattresses are very much a personal thing I've found (again, just my opinion) and such an expensive thing to buy not being able to test drive them first. Very hard decision.

Cheers
Mark

So true however we did go to a certain shop on the high street that offer a 40 night sleep guarantee, so if you're not happy then you can get a refund. But the initial £2,000 for the mattress soon put us off

John


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tusses]

I've had back problems for about 20 yers .. (it seems everyone has ! )
Physio worked best for me.

vertebrae manipulation .. mine stick together/get stiff .. so that helps a lot

Constantly be mindful of posture !

My dad has AS , and I have been tested positive for the gene , so I try and keep my back as supple as possible.

when it's bad, it takes me half an hour to get out of bed, and brings me to tears .. getting up for the loo in the night takes advanced planning !.. lasts a week or two ...
when it's good .. I get on quite normally , albeit carefully !

I shouldn't say this .. !!! .. but at the moment it's ok :lol:

 

[Mike G]

........vertebrae manipulation .. mine stick together/get stiff .. so that helps a lot

Yep, that's what put me in hospital.

.......when it's bad, it takes me half an hour to get out of bed, and brings me to tears .. getting up for the loo in the night takes advanced planning !.. lasts a week or two ... .

Exact description of what I am going through at the moment, although I've been much better today.

 

[Tusses]

Glad to hear it's a bit better today Mike

 

[Mike G]

After a number of false dawns, my back feels somewhat better and I have finally done a little work. Unfortunately, it's all been at floor level, which is not a great plan with a dodgy back.

You have no idea how much work is involved in getting an oversite as clean as this:



My task is to get the insulation and underfloor heating pipes down ready for screeding the floor. First job after the mega-tidy up is to put in the upstand pieces around the outside walls, and the soft foam cushioning strips around all the internal walls which allow a little expansion room for the screed (thus helping prevent cracking). I decided to try to get the top of the upstands level, and use them as a guide for setting the screed levels, to lots of fiddling about on hand and knees adjusting :





I knew the house was out of square. Now, so do you. That's probably 3" over 8 feet:



This is the before and after in the new part of the house where we had to leave the floor short to dig foundations under the old part. The foundations are covered with the black polythene:





Notice the dots on the surface of the insulation. This is where I have pushed the tip of my foam gun through the insulation to squirt foam into voids under the insulation, cause by a differential between foundation levels and slab levels. I also do this between all joints. The result is rock solid. The foam is cleaned of, then the joints all taped with a foil tape, which prevents the cut edges of insulating boards drawing moisture from the screed differentially, leading to increased likelihood of cracks:

Ready for the UFH pipes:



First job is to work out what you're doing. Second job is to lay out a series of clip strips, which have a self adhesive strip to hold them onto the Celotex, but they're also clipped down with U shaped barbed push-in plastic clips (the same ones which also hold the pipes):



My camera doesn't have a flash, and it gets dark very early these days, so forgive the quality. Here is the only photo which shows anything at all, this being the layout in the hall and dining room:



I'll take a better picture in the light tomorrow. This is where all the 3 new circuits terminate:



You can see the 3 working circuits on the right hand side of the manifold, and the 3 new ones for the old part of the house marked up and sitting roughly in position for the plumber to connect in due course. I laid about 180 metres of pipe at typically 200mm centres, although obviously things get congested adjacent to the manifold.

My back doesn't feel strong enough to tackle the screeding tomorrow, so I'll find something else to do, and hope the weather (and my back) is OK for the day after.

 

[Malc2098]

Well nice, Mike, and with a dodgy back too. Full of admiration! :text-bravo:

 

[TrimTheKing]

Great progress Mike, particularly considering the circumstances.

Cheers
Mark

 

[kirkpoore1]

I've always wondered, when seeing these in-floor heating installations, what it the rated lifespan of the pipe/hose/whatever you call it? Installing something where you have to tear out concrete to find, let alone fix, a problem has always given me kind of a bad feeling. Maybe it's another result of growing up in earthquake country...

Kirk

 

[Mike G]

It's really sophisticated stuff, Kirk. It is triple wall, being plastic-aluminium-plastic, and has a lifetime manufacturer's warranty. I installed some in a house 25 years ago which has just had some alterations done, and I got to see some of the pipe: it looked identical inside and out to the new stuff I have just installed. Remember that this is a closed circuit, and the pipes are filled with corrosion inhibitors (as well as water). Here is the suppliers page on the product:

http://www.wundatrade.co.uk/floor-heating-pipe/346-16mm-pert-al-pert-pipe.html

 

[Norty Raskel]

Hi Mike,

Glad to hear the back has improved slightly fingers crossed that improvement continues.

Would you happily recommend the company (Wundertrade) and their products in your link? I'm going to start laying the limecrete floor in the front rooms straight after Christmas and I need to start ordering the UFH components.

Thanks

Jon

 

[Mike G]

Absolutely, Jon. First class pipes, clip-track, and service.....and my (excellent) plumber uses them ahead of local plumber's merchants. Don't forget to order both the clip-track and the push-in staple-like clips, and take care to order the pipe in the right lengths to save waste.

 

[the bear]

Mike
Does the UFH pipe have a memory when its uncoiled? Can't image its easy wrestling 100m of pipe into position if it has and it just wants to recoil backup.
Mark

 

[Mike G]

Because of the aluminium layer, Mark, it sort-of stays where it's put. Nonetheless, you put your finger on the tricky part: handling 120m of pipe in one hand whilst guiding the bit you're interested in with the other, and standing on the pipe to sit it down flat at the same time. Turning the corners is worst, particularly early on when the coil is large. Anyone who hasn't done it before I suggest having someone to help. The really big deal is the clip track system, which sets out the pipe accurately, and holds it there without having to rummage with one hand for a push-in clip which is then forced back out of the insulation by movement of the pipe as you turn the next corner.

 

[MJ80]

I wish I used the clips rather than the staples. I had a hand with the pipe rolls, but it was a real handful doing the concentric circle layout. Are you going with a quick drying screed?

 

[Mike G]

.......it was a real handful doing the concentric circle layout........

I've always done that previously, but the manufacturer's recommendation this days for the up-and-down layout you can see in the photos. It seems to have worked OK in the new part of the house.

.........Are you going with a quick drying screed?

No. I've got 5 tons of sand and a ton of cement sitting outside. Plus a bag of fibreglass strands and some plasticiser, of course.

 

[Mike G]

I promised a better photo of the underfloor heating pipes:





The latter photo is to show where the pipes aren't. You don't install them under the lavatory pan, because that is screwed to the floor, and you wouldn't want to risk drilling into the floor near pipes. They are also missing from the area of the stairs, because it is pointless heating the understairs cupboard.

I did a reasonable amount of work on the porch without telling you about it. I laid a course of 2 inch blocks all round, and painted them with the liquid waterproofer. Then I did the 25mm insulation upstands, and the insulation on the floor. This is an inch thinner than in the rest of the house because the floor finish which will be going in there (a floor brick), is an inch thicker than the stone which is going over most of the rest of the downstairs. You may also notice a little loop of underfloor heating pipe. This is a bit naughty, because the porch is outside the insulated envelope of the building, and taking the pipe out there makes the porch fall under Building Regs. It's just a short loop to take the edge of the chill in there, and not intended to warm it properly:



Here is the screed underway. Note the 2x2 set into some screed, used as a temporary guide:







This is what 6 hours work looks like:



With a labourer I could have finished the whole floor in the time, but I don't have one. Frankly, there is as much skill in getting the screed mixed to exactly the right moisture content as there is in leveling it, and I would be loath to let anyone else do that job. So it will take 2 days instead of one. Good news is that my back held out through quite a tough day.

 

[Rod]

Crikey Mike you put us all to shame!

We fitted a new WC to our downstairs loo and I was quite amazed that it had no provision for screwing to the floor or to the wall.
It was quite a heavy beast (Laufen Pro) and held in place by silicon and gravity.

Rod

 

[Tusses]

Did you make the "porsche" loop last in the line, so it doesn't chill the heat before the rest of the run ?

also, if you don't mind .. a completely random Q that doesn't warrant a new thread.
Nothing to do with your build..
I've always seen people take out walls .. and put steel in to support above weight.
and I've always wondered .. the weight of the orig' wall is spread across the full length where it sits on the ground (our house is old) or foundation with newer houses. it you take a wall out, then it just sits on the two tiny footprints "columns" each side ! .. I always thought that would cause problems .. ???

Hope you don't mind me asking

 

[Mike G]

Structural engineer's territory, that one, but the answer is pretty simple even for an architect!! The vertical force from the steel and the load it carries goes out at 45 degrees through the wall, not vertically, so by the time that line gets to the ground at each end of the opening, there is likely to be 4 or 5 metres of foundation taking the load. Foundations are way over designed (as we can see from ancient buildings built with just a thickening out of the base brickwork, and no concrete), and so the slightly more concentrated load we're discussing is usually trivial for them. More important than the load on the foundations, I have seen people install steels sitting on just 3 or 4 inches of wall. That means an enormous load concentrated on just a single brick or two. Engineers will always specify a PCC padstone when they design a steel beam, and the steel will have a minimum 150mm bearing on that.

 

[the bear]

When i renovate my house (hopefully next year) I intend to leave an area in our family room without UFH, only about 1 x 1.5m, for the dog to find and lay on if the rest of the floor is too warm for him. We never had UFH in our old house but we did have several heating pipes running under the kitchen tiles and he would find those if he was cold so I'm hoping the reverse is true.

Mark

 

[MJ80]

Good going Mike, don't overdo your back. When they did the screed in our place a really fine river ballast was used. Are you putting any expansion joints in there?
Our dogs love the UFH...

 

[Norty Raskel]

Hi Mike,

In that last post it looks like you've left the screed with a stepped detail, is this so you get a better join when you continue on day 2?

Good news on the back holding up.

Jon

 

[9fingers]

Mike, I've been scanning through your thread to look for a floor plan to answer my question but have given up after 12 pages :lol:

What is the inner room on the gound floor shown in your last picture that needs two 110mm soil pipes?

His and hers downstairs thunder boxes? :lol:

Cheers
Bob

 

[Mike G]

I think you have to go back to page 1 for a plan, Bob. I should re-post it.

That's the downstairs loo, with a pipe coming down from the bathroom above. There's also a soil stack in the corner of the dining room serving the shower in the same bathroom. Things are more complex when there is a girding beam preventing access across the middle of the floor void.

 

[Mike G]

Here you go:

 

[9fingers]

Ah Ok. A bit of over engineering for the WHB in the loo then!

Bob

 

[Commander]

I'm glad your back held on Mike, screeding must take a heavy toll on an already sore back. Looks like a top job hey!

 

[Mike G]

Ah Ok. A bit of over engineering for the WHB in the loo then!

Bob

No, no......it's the drop from the bathroom above.

 

[Mike G]

I'm glad your back held on Mike, screeding must take a heavy toll on an already sore back. Looks like a top job hey!

Thanks Erich.

Judging by the footprints in it this morning, our pooch undertook a tour of inspection last night after we all went to bed.

 

[Phil]

Mike, glad the back is holding up.

How did you get the screed inside the house?

Must have been one ball-ache manouvering inbetween all those pipes and not dislodging or damaging any.

Phil

 

[Mike G]

It comes in by the wheelbarrow full Phil, and no, there was almost nothing in the way.

 

[Malc2098]

Looking really good, Mike. Glad the back's coping!

 

[Commander]

It comes in by the wheelbarrow full Phil, and no, there was almost nothing in the way.

I think Phil was referring to the UFH piping, I suspect you had to put down boards for the wheelbarrow to run on, or are we missing something Mike?

 

[Mike G]

I laid the plinth bricks today:





Much more interesting, though.....

I visited the local brickyard a few days ago. A place where they still make bricks by hand, and are in huge demand for major restoration jobs all over the country. They provided thousands of bricks for Hampton Court Palace, for instance, and the guy who runs it (a long-time friend) is probably the country's leading expert on bricks. I showed him a brick from my chimney, and looking at it he was able to give me a date to within 10 years........1800 to 1810. Well, that doesn't fit with what I knew of the timber frame, and left me scratching my head. Anyway, I went back to see him a day or two later with a couple of bricks from the plinth, which are very slightly and subtly different from the chimney. He dated those 1690 to 1705. That puts it absolutely spot on with the dates I had from the frame. I can now say with confidence that the house was built just over 300 years ago, but the chimney was re-built a hundred years later, probably as the result of a chimney fire.

 

[Mike G]

It comes in by the wheelbarrow full Phil, and no, there was almost nothing in the way.

I think Phil was referring to the UFH piping, I suspect you had to put down boards for the wheelbarrow to run on, or are we missing something Mike?

Oh, I see. No, the stuff is tough as old boots. You just run straight over the top of it with the barrow.