Slab rotunda on concrete slab - I want to do this properly!

[The Alien!]

Yes, retired engineer, no obviously being retired means I don't work for the council.

The hard and fast critics here abouts with such good knowledge, experience and advice, whilst helpful, shouldn't assume that waffle or lack of experience leans towards lazyness in looking around the site for other information; it didn't seem such a request to have all the questions answered in the same place/thread, clearly I was mistaken and wont trouble you again.

Hope there wasn't too much waffle there, as there clearly was in the first posting as some of it was missed!

Immense respect for the site, dwindling respect for people who proffer a suggestion, have it questioned by a waffler but, don't feel they can substantiate or, agree with something a novice may suggest; god forbid!

Keep up the great work with the site, temper your enthusiasm to attack anybody who doesn't do things right for you straight away! Especially when the experts hearabouts contradict themselves all over the forums reiterating information for those they feel need it.

Good luck to you.

Alan.

[seanandruby]

as you call yourself the alien, i was just wondering....what planet are you off? :p

[IanMelb]

Alan, as I have mentioned elsewhere, I too am a newcomer to this site, however, I am a moderator on other disparate fora. One of the problems that I and the other mods have on these sites is how to deal with frequently asked questions.

The first couple of times the questions are asked they are answered in reasonable detail, but, after a while, the 'oracles' just redirect new questions to the previous answers, or to specially prepared FAQ list (or similar resorces). It can get quite trying repeating the same answers in different ways.

As an engineer, would you contact the author of a reference book and ask him to re-format his answers in a form more convenient to you, if he did, how many times do you think he'd be willing to do the same thing for all his readers? There may not be too many more books from that author if he did ...

Ian

[The Alien!]

as you call yourself the alien, i was just wondering....what planet are you off? :p

It was a pre-emptive title based on how I would be percived for not fitting in or being good at assumption :p

[The Alien!]

Alan, as I have mentioned elsewhere, I too am a newcomer to this site, however, I am a moderator on other disparate fora. One of the problems that I and the other mods have on these sites is how to deal with frequently asked questions.

The first couple of times the questions are asked they are answered in reasonable detail, but, after a while, the 'oracles' just redirect new questions to the previous answers, or to specially prepared FAQ list (or similar resorces). It can get quite trying repeating the same answers in different ways.

As an engineer, would you contact the author of a reference book and ask him to re-format his answers in a form more convenient to you, if he did, how many times do you think he'd be willing to do the same thing for all his readers? There may not be too many more books from that author if he did ...

Ian

Ian,

I take your point but, if I felt an author had perhaps not understood the foundation of his content as supplied by a.n.other, then I'd probably think twice before reading another of his publications anyway. Whilst that's an extreme example as is yours; the point I wanted to clarify was that I can't see that somebody with no experience of doing this work themselves before and with an engineering bias could make a nice job and take his time using that method.

If all the meterials were the same thickness, absolutely no problem at all; lay the bed out and put the slabs and setts on, job done; come back a few days later and point it! The problem is that, as the pictures detailed, that isn't easy to do and as I'm inexperienced, I'm expecting the laying alone to take a couple of days; hence the mixture components (OK I now know I have to find them elsewhere) and the order of laying due to the differing thicknesses to me, isn't *that* straightforward and I simply wanted to generate discussion with a view to learning from the obvious oracles hereabouts on the correct way!

For example, I wouldn't expect to be able to walk on this for a coupld of days so, given the area shown in the picture, shouldn't (having marked the area out) I work from the back to the front? do you see what I mean?

I'm not trying to argue or be distasteful, disrespectful or draw schoolboy's abuse, just looking for some advice! If the answers are on the site for the application I'm discussing that detail different heights and orders etc, I'll try harder to find it but, as I said in my original posting, I've been lurking here for years, read loads and what I'm trying to do I've not seen explained or guided before! Also, there are different mixes for different applications and materials and I believe a wet mix or semi-wet/dry mix for one material may not necessarily fit all?

If ALL the answers to my questions are on this site than I'll go and trawl through the thousands and thousands of messages to find them but, I thought a few words from one of the assembled would have saved me many hours; it appears I was mistaken and am upsetting people in trying to get that clarity.

A shame.

[seanandruby]

OK. with an engineering background i would of thought you've got a high I Q. so to be able to lay the rotunda without " clambering all over it" you would do with ease. it doesn't look that wide to me. maybe you could bridge it with a scaffold board? even without that, as you've been advised, you could do the inner then the outer and lean in to lay the last row of setts. do you know you can walk on the dry lean laid slabs. how do you think we make a living...do a row, wait 48 hrs for it to go off, do another row etc;? No we get on with it. There's hardly a days work there, so whilst you've been "waffling on", you could of laid it, pointed it, sealed it and done the Irish jig on it.

[bobhughes]

If you look at the top left of this page you will see:

"Have you checked the main website?
The answers to many questions are there!"

The words "main website" are a link - That is where you go to get the answers to your query.

[IanMelb]

it appears I was mistaken and am upsetting people in trying to get that clarity.

A shame.

I think that's the nub of the matter.

The people here are just volunteering their wisdom for the benefit of us tyros. If an answer isn't immediately forthcoming then it may be best to re-phrase the question a couple of times before leting it lie. It's usually unwise to write things along the line of "well, it would have been nice for somebody to actually give me more help" because, if a contributor reads that and takes offence, then it can often lead to things spiralling out of control and into flame war (goodness forbid).

One of the greatest drawbacks of the 'written word as conversation' is that there is no guiding feedback - i.e. neither party can use things like body language and vocal tone to guage *how* the other person is talking. Because of this, it is very easy to give the wrong impression and people can get the hump.

[lutonlagerlout]

christ, this thread is turning into university challenge
no one has taken offense alien,its just as builders we all have a soft spot for retired engineers
most work that WE do is done to plus/minus 10mm ,it involves tolerances on aggregate,flags ,slabs,etc
i have seen an engineer build a whole extension 1 brick at a time over 2 years (about 3 weeks work for me) but sometimes you can get a little too much info
main thing with paving are
1 subbase
2 levels
3bedding material
4 pointing
5 keeping the paves clean whilst working
they are what you need to worry about and all the answers are on the main site
cheers and good luck
LLL :laugh:

[IanMelb]

christ, this thread is turning into university challenge

And your starter for 10 is ... :laugh:

As a complete digression, one thing I could never understand about University Challenge, was the fact that the 'Starter' usually had nothing to do with the follow-up questions - always smacked me as somewhat illogical...

[seanandruby]

Sean from birmingham reading ...the mirror :laugh:

[lutonlagerlout]

i read the times swot that i am,but i laugh at the fact my mate who sits next to me in the van reads the sun and martin Samuel writes for both papers,he tailors his sport reports in the sun to words of no more than 6 letters and 2 syllables ,with the times his vocab gets let loose
LLL

[IanMelb]

I read the Metro coz it's free and I'm a cheapskate

+++
elsewhere, down Memory Lane:

Scumbag College vs Footlights, Oxbridge

Mike, Neil, Vyvyan and Rick (with a silent 'P') v the Toffs

hosted by Bambi


Classic!

[Tony McC]

I read the Beano because it has less bollocks per page than most of the national press.