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Sketchup design.. Finished shed..

Hello one and all! After a few weeks of browsing BH and learning as best I can it seems appropriate to jump in at the deep end and say Hi and thanks for your help so far! My wife and I (and 2 daughters [4 and 20months], 2 dogs and 3 chickens) are buying a dated bungalow with full planning to demolish and rebuild a 225sqm 4 bed 2 story house. On the side of a hill. With v. poor access. I know, stupid, but its only a 5min walk to school and we've wanted to build for a long time so hey! At the moment were considering some form of ICF (either top contenders are Durisol vs Nudura) as getting light blocks onto site then pumping from off site seems the best option. Ultimately were on a v tight budget (£1400/sqm) considering the site and whatever is cheapest. No we cant get a crane anywhere near site! I'm sure there will be lots of questions along the way, and lots of oops moments, but hopefully i'll still be here to detail those ups and downs as we go. Thanks for reading my waffling, any advice and words of wisdom or experience welcome and valued at any point! Z

The Cardiff branch supplied for a Swansea job of mine, and the prices were staggeringly expensive. Spoilt second wife half the age of rich client said that's what she wanted, so off he went with his cheque-book like a good little boy. Total waste of money, just don't be lazy and shop around for the same products by name and you'll save thousands. @Taff Ask your other half if she likes setting fire to money, as that is what you will be doing, plain and simple. A well thought out and neatly installed room will look the same, regardless of what you spent on the items. I have many champagne jobs in my library achieved with lemonade money, and they still look a million bucks .

@BotusBuild I assume you are not aware your expiry/start date has been extended until 1st April 2021?

Oh god, @Temp, you know what is going to happen now innit? @Onoff is going get his tile cutter out and...

Welcome. We like photos. 4 months? So 4 months too late for Grand Designs ?.

generally the gubbins of the unit bayonets into a bottom mounting boss so possibly no need to remove the cistern.

Worth checking the ridge hasn’t moved because the rafters have moved. Can sometimes happen and is worth putting collar ties in on alternate rafter pairs to stop spread in the future.

Hi Some pictures of various parts of the house, with a little bit left to do Kitchen and flooring to be bought and fitted John

just a quick post to share some of my issues which in hindsight are entirely self inflicted, hopefully this will help others not to make the same mistakes. 1. Put your waterpipe in the duct from the outset, soo much easier than pulling it through later. (I did consider it but dismissed it as wasn't sure exactly where my duct was going to come up at the time) - don't be like me! I tried pushing 30 odd metres of mdpe through a 63mm duct, got 25m through then nothing. I dug two holes to find it, ended up having to attach rope to car - not gonna lie, it was a griz and I was hating life. 2. When laying your hardcore sub-base for an insulated slab do the foul drain runs at the same time. I was under time pressure to get ready for concrete so I just left stubs poking out to connect to later - dont do it, I've made life so much harder for myself having to dig through hardcore to do it. 3. If you ignore no.2 and just leave stubs make sure you leave a good length - i didn't! The stubs i left only just poke out from under the slab, god only knows why I did this. I have spent all day yesterday and today digging them out so I can put an extension length on to bring them out to roughly where the ICs will be. Digging through the hardcore really sucks ass. Yesterday wasnt too bad, today was on another level. The trench kept collapsing in on itself and my 600mm trench ended up about 1.5m wide - a very bad day today. Dont be a plonker like me. I've made other rookie errors so far but fairly painless. These have been a right PITA.

If they want to get in, they go through the walls. Locks and bolts work fine but I’ve seen them peel back the wall to get into a shed. If you’ve got tools then get a van vault or tool store and bolt it or chain it to a concrete block set in the ground below the floor.

Yes definitely agree, I think it depends on the style of house right enough, we don’t have it this time as it just wouldn’t have suited the modern style.

don't bother with windows, switch on a light

Got it done, thanks for the input lads.

Or just move the existing one to a higher value area.

I think it’s about £300 to much but apart from that 2 trades and a labourer plus tools transport insurance I think for a company it’s about right. If he’s just a bod from down the pub who owns a trowel then it’s a bit high. But are are you paying him by the day or by what he achieved. Up to dpc floor in for £3300 seams good to me.

We have a dry dash job to start in a couple of weeks I can’t remember the last one Mostly wet dash nowadays Just for information 5-7 colored chipping £5 per bag 1.5m2 per bag

I have just been quoted £10,500 plus vat for a 90 x 3 metre road that consists of 100mm sub base then 60mm of 20mm tarmac and a further 40mm of 10mm tarmac. So 100mm sub base and 100mm of tarmac. Im in Northumberland. Is that a fair price ? Happy to pass on details if it is !

If the CIL applies in your area remember you have to live there 3 years to keep the exemption.

That would be for 50mm base, 30mm SMA. I’m not sure of the rate for base only but you could get a quote for 80-100mm base only and may get it to £15-20pm. Your back would thank you ?. I’m not sure about your area, but a m3 of the concrete you’ll want to use is between £86-95 + vat. You’ll want to do it full width if you concrete as you can back the wagons in then.

Welcome. Smashing house! When I looked in detail nothing could come close to a concrete block cavity wall terms of price. Lots of your design is sub grade which rules out timber. ICF was very attractive initially given the supposed lego like buildability and excellent continuity of insulation . But I decided it was too expensive, tricky to prop and pour, and needed additional external insulation to reach passive levels. Of course many on here have great success with it so I'm willing to be corrected. Durisol certainly looks an attractive product. If you are going for a redesign, given your tight budget perhaps ask your architect to square up the building a little. After 3 sets of planning permission and many hours pouring over the costs I came to the conclusion my blocklayer mate wasn't far out "every extra corner adds £10 grand" Best of luck anyway!

4yrs. Still both a bit of a handful in the most delightful way possible!

And a site plan...

Well no pics at the mo but here is a section and some floor plans.... We’ll prob go back thru planning for some alterations and shift the floor plans around to suit our needs better, but the superstructure will stay the same bar a few (many!) window changes!

@tonyshouse A picture painting a thousand words and all that. (BTW I took a lot of inspiration from your blog!Thanks) m

Bang on - I now have the flush body sitting in the basin, looks like the seal is hard, I can get a new one.

Tarmac will be your cheapest option. You’d probably be looking at £25-30 per m if it was in the northwest of England. If you grade and compact it yourself and then get a tarmac contractor in with a road paver, it would only take them a morning to lay it and you’d be able to run on it the morning after. Concrete you’d have to shutter the edges, set the mesh and then leave it a week before running on it. Robert

I've a wooden trellis arch built by the previous owners that collapsed, uprooting the clematis growing up it and laying it horizontal on the ground. It's gone mad since. Half a plan is some gabion columns, maybe an arch type structure, that I'll fill with flints as they turn up. Believe me they do!

No, when you say retile, was it tiles before or slates? the ridge will have gone in straight and roof settled a tad, purlins look good, I would add a single bolted collar on top of the purlin above the prop/hanger if it was my roof and live with the sag. It is possible to straighten the sag by disconnecting rafters at the ridge while coverings are off and introducing perfect size shim packers to realign it, not for me though, too much hassle for too little gain.

Waterjet cutting? If John's flood water is at circa 60000psi he's in trouble! Needs to redirect it to cut some of that granite up!

@MortarThePoint Apologies for late reply. My observations on Full Fill Bonded blown Beads, Are they Full Fill: Yes very much so, in our wide cavity at least. I drilled a few trial holes around windows and doors to check in awkward to reach places. All full with beads. Are they Bonded: Kinda, a little hit and miss really as i found out when coring ventilation holes and lost a few buckets. The remaining question: Will they settle.......? Time will tell. Would I use them again? Yes, but I would core all holes in the wall first.

Some of it ... ???

The first thing i would do is look at your new shed security. My previous next door neighbour, who was big into road, and mountain biking had his shed done 4 times in 2 years. I was always convinced that it was somebody who knew him, and knew he had £50 grands worth of bikes in there. Also if you are running electrics, fit an alarm. Enjoy your new shed.

Gave up Ferd.... I am just going to build the One new house now. It will be too big for me, so the idea is to build, flog, and bugger off. To be honest, i will prob make more money doing just the One. I wanted to do Two, because it would have been better for society in my opinion.

I'm not saying eliminate openers, just don't go OTT like I did. Brain was still speccing windows as if it would be a normal house without ventilation

His current house was also designed from scratch to be off-grid, based on decades of experience of living off-grid at the time he designed it. It's a seriously impressive piece of work. He's on the Navitron forums as Camillitech - I'm pretty sure he's got full details of his build on there as well as his blog.

If you have not already done so, take a look at https://lifeattheendoftheroad.wordpress.com/ The guy that lives off grid at the north end of Raasay. What he does not know about off grid power is probably not worth knowing.

Look into section 75 credit card protection - I believe (but not 100% sure) that if you pay over £100 of the balance on a card then the card issuer is jointly liable for the whole contract. You may struggle to persuade the supplier to take some payment on a card but I believe it just needs to be over £100. By (EU) law they are also not allowed to add a % surcharge anymore either. I've only been shafted once on the build by the balustrade supplier going bust (and reviving later as a new company) but as the whole amount (£3500) was on a card, I got a settlement for the outstanding amount to complete the works.

This is how I would do it cover the tops of the rafters with a good quality breather membrane, then a 50x25 counter batten that fits on top and parallel to the rafters then a 50x25 batten fixed on top but at 90degrees to the rafters, fit sheets on top use a ventilation strip at eaves and ridge you want airflow but not bugs. Those battens are 100x25 and are spaced 100mm apart you won’t need to do this, space them how far apart the sheet manufacturers say you need the fixings 600-750mm whatever, remember you won’t be able to walk on anywhere there isn’t a batten. mesh at facia level

I’ve got some enemies who could fill that ...

Don’t be silly.

And make a database of targets for thieves?

if you can cut steel with water, a gravel road doesn't pose too much of an issue to move around.