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Showing content with the highest reputation on 04/27/20 in all areas
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Decided some fun today ! Poe router fans all replaced ( still noisy but better ) . Mac with Z wave stick . One Qubino din rail dimmer installed ( by electrician! ) linked to one bath room led ceiling light , triggered by aeotec sensor 6 I.e movement put lights on with timer . I’ll periodically update this thread as I add new goodies !2 points
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You need to STOP! NOW! Everyone has told you this needs properly designed and signed off by a Structural Engineer. You may want to consider some of the other consequences; https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200128/building_control/38/building_regulations/32 points
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That looks like a pretty typical corbelled brick foundation, used to be common in Victorian houses, not so much in houses built later. Underpinning the house doesn't resolve the structural requirements for the retaining wall, though, it is mandatory that any retaining structure that it higher than 1.2 metres is signed off by a structural engineer, even if that is included within the design from one of the interlocking concrete block companies. If you don't do this, then you may well find that you nullify your house insurance. The issue here is that your builder clearly is not a structural engineer, if he was he wouldn't be suggesting that underpinning the house foundations will magically make the retaining wall OK, it won't, it will have zero effect on the structural integrity of the retaining wall, that still has to be able to take the considerable surcharge load from the mass of the house. The wall MUST (it is NOT optional) be properly designed and signed off, plus I suspect you may also need planning consent. I appreciate you're trying to do this on a tight budget, but there is no way to avoid getting an SE involved, as the costs to you from having planning enforcement action, or losing the ability to insure the house, let alone the costs should the house start to suffer structural damage, are massively greater than the cost of a few hours of an SEs time. This is one of the most terrifying disasters waiting to happen that I think I've ever seen. Please, please just stop now, make things safe and get an opinion from someone that knows what they are talking about.2 points
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Margaret - I am horrified to see what your builder is doing. 'Pushing RSJs into the house as far as possible' is not underpinning, it is guesswork. All you will end up with is a lot of steel and concrete which will act as a further deadweight under the house the retaining wall would have to hold up. This may increase the chances of a collapse. Looking back at your earlier photos of the house from the road, I can see the steps and path to your house themselves present quite a slope. With a physical disability, are you sure the house is suitable for your needs? It may be better to start thinking about finding a place that is more suitable which already has a parking space and level access. This would be both safer and cheaper in the longer run. As others have said, I think you should not do anything further without taking advice from a structural engineer.1 point
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Hence my original question of simply building a box inside. Ive insulated 2 of these type buildings. As you observe, a bit of a mission to do.1 point
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Your neighbours are never going to be your besties, anyway, so build first and let them complain later. The speed that MBC work at, whatever complaint is made will be barely acknowledged by the time MBC have finished that stage and moved on.1 point
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You can make it a bit easier by digging a wedge out on one side of the hole and slide the post down that - it saves you lifting it the full 9ft. Then wedge a brick or two or a plank in whilst the Postcrete sets, then backfill. IIRC that's how Ug built stonehenge. Ferdinand1 point
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Cast acrylic, it more stable and optically clear. Probably get away with 4mm, maybe need 6mm.1 point
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I would suggest having a look at parallel parking across the bottom of your garden. You would need a dug out width of approx 2-3m, and the width if your garden (~18ft) is nearly as long as the recommended length of a streetside lengthways parking space. You would need to check the Council's attitude, though. And - as before - it will probably cost about £1000-1250 for a dropped kerb and pavement crossing. Though - as I said and linked above - there may be a grant available if you talk to them. Ferdinand1 point
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Hi Margaret, I realise from reading your posts there are things you can't afford in this proposed project, but you also CAN NOT AFFORD TO IGNORE THE ADVICE! If you do not go about this project correctly you will wish you had never thought of the idea.1 point
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Ours had a £1000 uplift if we won the appeal - we did so it seemed well worth the extra - I think the appeal fee was about 2,5k1 point
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Make sure you are clear about the end point plus a washup included. Mine was up to the Planning App decision notice, though I got some feedback at the end. I had agreed that an Appeal would also be handled, which we needed and won. I would place hourly rates as incredibly variable, depending on whether the PC is in Short Trousers or really wants the job, or is more like a Senior Consultant / PMer of a team. I would say anything between £30 and hour and £250 an hour. Mine was at a level where he routinely testified in High Court hearings, so chosen to be able to make a complex argument successfully, from experience in winning similar apps in the same area. I would expect any professional to do an initial meeting / assessment in order to be able to quote. I got a phone call plus digesting documents plus an hour of conversation from mine before we made a decision. What you get depends on what you ask for, and how well prepared you are. You should probably get digesting whatever matrial and questions you send through plus a meeting, at which you get to ask more. Plus possibly a followup phone call. Mine had standard terms which included a "x% of the value uplift" (x <5) success fee as a standard feature. Also was amenable to a degree of risk sharing which would reduce his fee, which was one of my day 1 queries - I did not use that in the end. The total fee was 10k+, plus the bonus. That does not include the fees for all the other 7 or 8 consultants, from SUDS draft design to a chap who did a Visual Impact study (perambulate around the horizon and viewpoints taking photos then report). However, you need to appreciate that my project was to get Outline Permission on a smallholding to sell to a developer. The PC provided contacts for the team to do all the aspects of the project, as used on previous projects, and PMed all of the application submission -s o it would be a number of weeks of work. Ferdinand1 point
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...just found our invoice. £100/ hr, but at the end of the day (including fees for mapping and some additional printing and stuff) less than two grand total.1 point
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Nulok passed our inspection, in fact the BCO and I had a giggle about what's printed - embossed- on the back of each tile. HAPPINESS. Hopefully French folk who order the tiles don't read that out loud in the presence of les anglais.1 point
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Would you consider that ‘first fix’ or is that a mix of first and second fix? I would certainly be happier if it were all proved to be water tight before we boarded.1 point
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Okay found one. Only one in Inverness it seems. For those wondering, a summary of my findings: Highland pump centre, no answer assume shut City plumbing, open but don't have it in stock Plumbase, no answer so assume shut Plumbstore, open to account holders only, no flexibility. Dobies, no answer, assume shut Plumb centre, dud phone number on yell.com William Wilson, no answer, assume shut And finally Wolseley, open for contactless collection, only 1 in stock, paid for and going to collect it shortly.1 point
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Please. Stop the bus, you are looking far too far beyond where you need to be looking right now, this isn't a weekend warrior gardening project. The issue is the removal of a substantial volume of material from the front of your property. So many factors will impact the structural suitability of the house with this material removed. You might have a basement, with deep foundations for the house, sitting on good ground, in which case this is likely to go quite well, your house, probably sits on a fairly reasonable, but not serious foundation, on reasonable ground. Start to remove the mass of material on front of the house, and possibly not next week or the week after, but 6 months, a year down the road after seasonal ground changes, some wet weather some dry weather, things can start to move. Worst case scenario the front elevation falls down, best case nothing happens, however in-between those two extremes is a plethora of outcomes from structural damage, cracking, bay window settlement with large gaps opening up and potentially a house you can never sell. I say this as the partner of a multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy, albeit I am not a structural engineer, I have co-attended plenty of kick-off meetings and site visits to know more than my own professional skill-set allows to a level suitable enough to know at least the basics here and in some cases (concrete) the advanced stuff to. Many many members on the forum are highly knowledgeable, highly skilled folk and from the limited reading of this post I have seen multiple warnings and advise strongly, that you take heed. This is a front page Daily Express article in the making right here!1 point
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My wife and I have different views on planning permissions, her worry is that there are not enough local services ( doctors, schools jobs etc etc) in remote places, but my view is if a small plot is not being used for agricultural use ( grazing animals or growing foodstuffs) and someone wants to build an “appropriate” home and accepts their remote location then why not. I believe rural communities either expand and thrive or dwindle and die. If we wait fir services to expand it will never happen, we have more chance that in a thriving location the services will follow. edit to add, I would love to live in a cabin in the woods. Ben Law is my all time hero.1 point
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Just posted my 1st post in "Designing Energy Efficient & Sustainable Homes" As I have been browsing this forum for a while, I would like to thank you all for all the wealth of information. It really helped to support the start of my large refurbisment from a bungelow into a 5 bedroom house!1 point
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Having looked at the additional photos you have posted Margaret, the change in level between your house and the road is much higher than I thought when viewed from the road. I would urge you to stop listening to your builder and get professional advice. When it all goes wrong, you won't see that builder for dust.1 point
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Prehaps this was mentioned earlier but, how many of your neighbours have built a similar parking area? I agree with everybody else who has posted above, a structural engineer should be asked. The foundations are probably quite light compared to modern standards and could risk a serious structural issue is just not worth the risk.1 point
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@Margaret dailey You need a Structural Engineer. However good your builder is, you still need one to design this properly for all the reasons others have alluded to. You are not going to get a different answer to that point from anyone here.1 point
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Absolutely not, there is no way a wall like that would comply with the requirements, and it could easily (almost certainly, I think) invalidate your house insurance. You cannot build a retaining wall that is higher than 1.2 metres (just under 4ft) without it being designed and certified by a structural engineer. The foundation structure alone for a vertical retaining wall that is that high will require sufficient horizontal foundations to withstand the overturning moment from the imposed loads, together with an anti-slip key projecting below the foundation slab. Our structural engineered charged us £350 to design our retaining wall, including drawings and a full specification. Our wall (as in the photo's posted earlier) varies from around 1.4 metres at the lower end to 2.6 metres at the highest end, so at it's highest it is very similar in height to the one you need. This is the SEs design for our wall, it might give you an idea of what is needed: 20130228093748130.pdf 20717.pdf I'd just add that I've had a fair bit of flack from some professionals here, and elsewhere, for suggesting that people do more stuff themselves, and avoid using professionals if they are able to. In the case of a retaining wall, despite being able to design one, there is absolutely no way I would, the risk is just far too great if it fails.1 point
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Fill the concrete up to around the bottom of the gravel board. Had a guy dig the holes for mine the other week were works of art no more than 8" diameter circle1 point
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Forgive me if this seems rather blunt and harsh but it needs to be said. You must stop and listen to the advice you are being given above and seek professional assistance starting with an experienced structural engineer. The consequence of continuing without a complete understanding of your house foundations and the slope are likely to be catastrophic. As as described by @ProDave below- it may lead to failure of the current house foundations and the collapse of the front of both your and your neighbour's houses, leading to a far larger cost than the original retaining wall. Your building insurance company may not respond to such damage if it caused by your own negligence in NOT take seeking professional advice. Lots of nice people on BH are trying to give you some guidance on how to proceed to plan the work and get some idea of cost and what is possible but none of this advice can be relied on to undertake the work - none of them have seen the job site, nobody has carried out any site Investigation works and they are certainly not structural engineers, qualified to undertake a full design of the works to ensure structural integrity of the retaining wall and ensure structural integrity of the existing house You CANNOT AFFORD THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT taking professional advice!!!1 point
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One of your later photos shows an already sharp incline from pavement upto the base of your house, so you need to move ahead cautiously. You say you cannot afford a SE so I assume you cannot afford the £50k plus costs of structural fixes to your house and also the neighbours if both houses start to slip & crack a little towards the new carport hole.1 point
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I don't think anyone can advise you without more information regarding the depth of the foundations to your house. It might be 3 feet but could easily be 10 feet, leaving you insufficient space for parking. I would echo what others have said - you need to get a structural engineer to design it for you.1 point
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From the outside looking in the questions I asked are to try to find out certain details like who ordered the floor and who took delivery. If you had ordered board X and board y turned up and you checked the delivery docket and spotted the mistake then you can send the wrong board back. After you have signed for it saying you have accepted delivery then your more asking politely to get it changed rather than demanding. As far as your past issues I really couldn't care less who is to blame. You come on here each and every time some problem pops up and get further and further stressed out. Other members give you a range of options to try to help you rectify the problem but as above with your reply to my post you have came back with a reply in which you reckon I am taking the builders side. I have only tried to give you advice as I would try to do it. So in the words of Peter Jones I'm out.1 point
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Following on from the plastering work we did a quick stock take. Our plan was to be back on our narrow boat for the summer but with the current problems that was out of the question. We didn’t have materials to start flooring or fit bathrooms or kitchen and there was little hope of getting them. After a bit of head scratching and phoning around we found we could get fencing material and paint. We also had a few other jobs on the list that we could tackle, commissioning the water harvesting system, second fix electrics. We decided that the fence should be at the top of the list. Our plot has been behind Heras site fencing for a year now and although we’ve kept the site tidy it still was not that pleasant an outlook for the neighbours. We’re not far from the coast and strong winds are the norm so over engineering the fence makes sense so we don’t get a long term maintenance problem. Some while back we erected a green oak fence with the expectation that it would last a good thirty years. That proved a false expectation with the post rotting out after 15 years. We replaced the post with galvanized steel, but it was a lesson hard learnt and a problem we would avoid this time round. Initial thoughts were to use galvanized post and larch stringers, my Larch is expensive! After a bit of searching around Pat found a fencing product by an English company Marano who make aluminium fencing and had a nice contemporary product called Breeze. It’s an aluminium product and didn’t cost a fortune, and as it’s name suggest is designed for windy locations. The only down side was that it is not the best from a privacy point of view. On the subject of wind we also had a pane of glass broken. It happened overnight and we think it must have been broken by flying debris as it’s on the first floor with no access. Annoying but no big deal we thought. The glass that got broken is in a door supplied by Velfac. Contacted Velfac to ask about re-glazing only to be told it was not an option and the door would need to be replaced. Unlikely we thought and contacted the Velfac specialist fitting company who has fitted our windows, they agreed and said they would come back with an estimate for re-glazing the door. After a week they got back to me and rather apologetically confirmed re-glazing was not an option...so repair was an eye watering £1200. I’ll add a thread in the glazing section of the forum with more information so at least others will be forewarned. Back to fencing, at the front of the property we needed something cheap and cheerful to smarten the site up pending some art work fencing courtesy of one of our daughters who is an artist blacksmith. We decided to go with park fencing really low cost but looks surprisingly contemporary. I guess it’s cheap because it normally gets put in by the mile. Fencing complete, attention was turned to commissioning the Kinspan water harvesting system. Pretty strait forward, wire in sensors, pump, and connect water pipes. Half a days work, year right! All went really well, followed the initialisation instructions, tank set up OK, gauge reading set, pump pressure test...RCD trips. Meter across pump, sure enough earth and live not separate. The tank is just over a year old and the pump is a Grundfos SB3, quick look on their site confirmed a two year warranty. Contacted Kingspan to ask for new pump only to be told their warranty is one year from delivery, never mind installation. We’ll send out and engineer to look at the problem, OK how much is that £350 and how much is a pump £350...OK I’ll take care of it myself. The pump it turns out is not the simplest thing to dismantle, the parts PDF line drawing is not the best so It’s been put on the back burner. After a bit of searching and some good technical assistance from Anglian pumps, a new Divertron 1200x pump ordered £235. Still painful as it was not on the budget and had not done a single days work. With the plastering done we also wanted to get a mist coat applied and now we had more time get a finish coat as well. With a lot of area to cover, spraying looked a good option as I already had a HVLP setup. It turned out not to develop enough pressure for the emulsion, time to get an airless sprayer. Being a single use project I decided to see what was on Ebay and found a Wagner 418 sprayer being sold after use on another single project, looked clean and genuine, result I thought. Sprayer arrived and setup with paint to experiment and get to know how to use it. Not easily as it turned out, the spray was tailing badly, this is a solid central strip with a gap either side then a thin line, not what you need. Read the manual, googled it and it looked like it was down to low pressure. The 418 has no pressure adjustment, and the manual said it was down to cleaning out the inlet valve and paint filter. Lots of cleaning, no result, more research, cleaned outlet valve. Tried new nozzle, tried another gun and so on. Several frustrating days later opted to return it and buy a new one. Thank goodness this worked brilliantly and we were soon painting. Allowing for a 50/50 mist coat mixture we should have had plenty of paint. Half a day later, half the rooms done and all the paint gone. Fortunately the local Toolstation had stock. Another half day and it was done. All I can say is airless sprayers are brilliant, but boy do they have a drink problem. For the top coat we are using a really tough mat latex paint that you can scrub. This of course was special order and ordered before we knew about the sprayers drink problem. Needless to say the 45lt disappeared in half a day. It did cover the majority of the house, and we just have two bedrooms left to finish. The finish is very pleasing.1 point
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Tell your neighbour "If you have got a problem with the noise now, wait till i move the 8 dogs in" Tell them you will make it up to them with an invite to the first sex party.0 points
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For some reason I read all three as "vented" - ignore me and carry on!0 points