Going up
- Jul 8, 2016
- 2 min read
The plinth walls are growing. The picture above shows the corner detail. You can see the damp proof course (DPC) lying over the damp proof membrane (DPM). The DPM will eventually cover the block and beam floor and will be overlain with insulation and concrete screed. The DPC must overlap the DPM. As we will not be laying the floor for some time we don't want to put the membrane over the floor now as it would get damaged during the build. We have put a 1m wide strip of DPM along the plinth walls and around the corner with the gable end wall. When we come to lay the flooring our DPM will overlap these strips forming a continuous barrier against water ingress. Note the insulation is installed below the DPC. This will create an overlap of over 15cm (6 inches) with the insulation that will be laid under the floor. In our case DPC height is also finished floor height.
Mr Kitcatt, the building inspector, came and inspected the DPC. He next wants to visit after the crucks have gone up.
Lew is laying the blockwork and Mark is working as his labourer.
I am installing the insulation. I must've done something really bad in a previous life to deserve this! We are (or rather I am) fully filling the cavity with Knauf DriTherm 37 cavity slabs. These slabs are made from glass wool and are sized to fit between the wall ties. The first course was particularly time consuming and frustrating to lay as I had to shape the slabs to fit around the 17 air vents. The glass wool is irritating to the skin but not as bad as the older types of insulation. Subsequent layers were much easier and quicker to install.
In the following photo you can see wall ties waiting to be mortared in to the next course of blockwork. The wall ties are Ancon Teplo-BF-3 525mm to suit our 400mm cavity. These were sourced from Swann Engineering. The Ancon Teplo-BF is a composite wall tie manufactured from pultruded basalt fibres. This material has a low thermal conductivity value of 0.7W/mK.
Comments