All Activity

You don't need to. For all: The following assumes you are not in the building trade, have all the advantages that that brings. It's intended to appeal to folk on a budget, possibly first time self builders that are willing to learn and invest time. As I've said before, in the old days self building was a great money spinner even if you were a complete idiot. Property prices were achieving a year on year 10% at a minimum increase in value. Thus on a two year build the land just alone would increase in value. The game is changed now. For a while it worked where you could go to a TF company, say Scot frame etc, AFD foundation design were doing a lot of really great stuff, Tanners Structural Design were chipping in etc. for example and others for "work packages" and it still stacked up, the profit was less for the novice self builder but still worth a go. You still got a return from "managing the project" One of the main problems I see at the moment is not just the regulatory stuff (Planning and BC), it's actually the idea that you can put different work packages together without dealing with the interfaces, where the hidden cost lies. We could describe this as "day works", expensive! The "work package" providers are now taking too much cream, there is little left for the self builder, and the risk remains the same. Designers are certainly not helping. Few if any take the time to help you coordinate, some of this is bad practice, but also, there is tendency for folk to think good designers are like washing machine engineers, we are not here to fix your washing machine. In the round all the cream is taken out the project before you get a shout. One fundamental key to a good self build is to not pay too much for the land. A while ago you could buy a nice flat grass plot, easy services and so on. But these now are less attractive as they command a high price. What is attractive is a cracking site, great views, but brown field. In other words maybe a bit contaminated, hard to service for example. if you crack that nut you can get it cheep. The big developers are not interested, your local builder with say 10 men is not interested as they will have to pay for professional advice, they look for the easy route. This puts you in a pretty good negotiating position if you can identify what's wrong with the site and explain to the seller, this is is a good offer I'm making, and here is why. Now just say you could get a 100k plot for 70k by explaining to the seller, you are selling a pig in poke. To do that you need to just bring forward the professional fee advice. It's not going to cost you the full whack, an advisor may give you this advice for under £1.0k. My own view is that it's now time to go back and consider old school stuff, say getting local ground workers in to do the founds, joiners to stick build the TF, slaters for the roof. You buy the materials, you then own them, eases cash flow. I think this can deliver a good bit of profit! In summary I do think self build can be profitable, we just need to go back to old school stuff and the basic laws of business. But adapt with a view to say modular construction. @Square Feet has some thoughts on this in fruition.

That’s what I use, but you need to have a straight cut and then file the face flat afterwards. Rubber seals are quite forgiving tbh.

Possibly not! Have you commissioned and run your UFH for a few weeks? If I was working for the flooring contractor I would be aware that the underlying structure also has to condition, move about a bit, it's not just the screed. They are just getting paid to lay the floor? But maybe being sensible. If something goes wrong then think about it from their end, put yourself in their shoes and work back from there. They could be faced with a massive hassle trying to prove movement is also related to the structure and not their fault. To be blunt, the suppliers of flooring and the installers have so many caveats, not least min and max floor temperatures, which are hard to achieve when you have congestion of UFH pipes. Sometimes you have to make your best guess. Anticipate where movement will occur in your particular self build and lay the flooring accordingly. To make things a bit harder, it's often the summer that modern highly insulated TF house expands as the UFH heating has been off, particularly if on say a concrete slab, this is counter intuitive!

Neighbour had to dig a big hole to see how far down pipe was so got permission. Said he’s got all paperwork so may ask him if I can have a look

The soils are just above the plasticity A line, not much to worry about. Lots of rafts get designed with an L shaped building, we design joints for this and make sure the super structure can cope with anticipated movement. The allowable bearing pressure is good at 115 kPa, a standard benchmark of 100kPa is a good comfortable reference point. Where does the water table sit? You probably need to post the full SI for the best feedback, there will other stuff buried in it that you may not have the experience to be able recognise it's importance.

You did, no offence intended! I layed in a bit as AI is more dangerous than not if you try and get it to do SE stuff.

Great post, very informative!

Well done. End of story.

Only £8 because people on here told you what to buy, any normal person £xxx on an already expensive heat pump. But as I said an optional cost - should come out the factory enabled or like a new Grant ASHP enabled if you are running anything other than radiators.

Possibly the attached type U shaped brackets, suggested by ChatGPT. (Nick vs ChatGPT - hmm ?) Apparently there are similar fixings for holding toilet partition panels ? However these still protrude 2-3mm each side of the panel, and if they don't take a recessed screw even more. My fitter was using domed round head screws which really doesn't help. But then somewhere else he was screwing into a 19mm panel from both exact opposite sides in the same place using 16mm thread screws 🙄. I have got loads of screws of all sorts of sizes on site - he only had to ask - very short screws always seem to come in handy. Dowelling seems a good answer. Or possibly some type of Ikea type fitting. Chances of getting a kitchen company fitter to do any of this feeling a bit remote.

I always use a hacksaw and file for things like that. More forgiving.

£8 actually. Trivial if you like the idea of cooling, i do.

Thanks @Nickfromwales, but I cannot seem to find those on Amazon when I use the same search term or indeeed search on the full item description. I am not sure we are talking the same thing ? I attach a photo of what the fitter did. He was trying to hold the panel in the correct position at the bottom - not raise it or correct the height. I think if it was better secured at the back against the wall and exactly plumb vertical it should naturally sit correctly ? It potentially needs an invisible fixing under the panel like a dowel or perhaps a cradle shape fixing that would slide tight (and thinly) over the 19mm panel width after being fixed to the floor. The appliance bays are only 610 wide, so only 5mm each side of the machine.

So cut a long story short, I got back in touch with the original SE on this matter. Their response. Seems the current SE is over engineering. "on the basis of the plans in our structural calcs we do not consider that wind posts are required provided the ground floor constructed of blocks and timber stud walls are lined with plywood/OSB and tied to the masonry walls."

I know but it satisfied the floor people. I know it's dry enough. My post was kind of to demonstrate your point. The latest is that the floorers have caused unease in our team. So caution prevailed and they were asked to grind the surface.... to which they respond that it will be too hard after so long and needs heavy industrial grinders. Qed as far as I'm concerned. If it is so hard then it doesn't need grinding at all. In order: Too wet, needs 80/ 60 days , we need to tank it. Needs to be under 45% Alright 55% Needs weak laitence ground off. Needs industrial grinder as is too hard. Ignorance or chancers I can't tell. Unfortunately the BS says it 'should be ground', hence our team's caution. BS tends to be cautious. Not "must" I note. So for now we return to the blue treatment with full family agreement.

It depends how much you risk a row with the neighbour. Have they got permissions? If so, you could ask SW why theirs is allowed and yours not. If not.... there may be flak.

Well done @TheMitchells. I have a load of this to deal with, on two separate buildings. I'm kicking the can down the road for now - there's a house to build.

Yes. But wet clay will expand back into the spaces and the amount of wood in roots is surprisingly small. as you say, it is the effect of the tree drinking the water from the clay that causes it to shrink. Then in winter or when it becomes a former tree, the clay will expand again when wet and stay that way. Not a lot. Obv you wouldn't build on top of right next to a dead tree trunk, and would do something about big surface roots for stability. Houses are built assuming that no inappropriate tree planting will ever occur, and you can't stop a neighbour doing it, but that is just one of life's risks.

I wanted to build a timber double garage so thought before planning application would contact Severn Trent as I have a 300mm sewer running under my garden and the garage would be over the top of said pipe. Garage base would be 150mm hardcore and 150mm concrete. Seven Trent have come back and said a firm NO as they don't allow people to build over. My problem is the neighbour opposite has a crick built double garage over the pipe to which he got permission and also a 2 storey extension on the rear well within 5 m of the pipe. I feel they are being totally unfair. Does anyone have any advice please, would be much appreciated.

Yes. The average house with cross-walls is sufficiently braced. In big open spaces this changes. You can see in warehouses that the wind bracing is provided by diagonal bars or angles on the outside walls which take the wind load out in simple tension, plus some compression struts at the top. In a gale it is sometimes possible to see the bars tensing up. In an extreme wind I've seen them 'snap' tight and make a noise. There will be similar crossed rods in the roof to transfer loads to the walls then down to ground. But if there is no space for these bars because of movement paths or glazing etc (eg car showroom), then a post is used. Also in an enormous shed with intermediate columns and no walls. It can be a post on its own, or more usually adapted on the sides of an existing column, making it into a Maltese cross shape. The forces at the ground can be enormous so it nearly always needs a very big concrete footing (I think we once put about 6m3 of concrete in the one base.) They are expensive so sometimes worth 'designing out' with client approval. So a house with very big rooms or large areas of glazing might need individual posts or 'goalposts. But these are seldom considered at preliminary stage where space and appearance come first.

Interesting, lifting up the felt on ours the vents appear to be facing outward away from the brick work, rather than downward.... maybe they'ved used a different type on ours, or installed them back to front? Is that a problem? Photos below.

I'll ask for the eaves guards to go in before the scafff comes down, good call. thanks.

Is this some unusual design? I've never put windposts in anything I've built but then my stuff has always been pretty vanilla. I usually have lintel manufacturer spec lintels. Its FOC. Do you need an engineer to go through every element nowadays for BC or can the architect just use robust details or whatever the standard rules are.

An Engineer over engineer something? … never! 🤫

Belt sander would make relatively quick work if you want something more precise. Flap disk also probably less intimidating if you have a vice to hold the part. Lots and lots of options depending on your comfort level.