Roger440

Are you sure you have asked the right questions. This sounds "unlikely" to say the least. I cant for a moment imagine that will comply with buildings regs.

Solid or cavity wall? Any DPC?

That last statement sums it up. By ONLY the architect having the CAD files, means that you HAVE to go back to them for any changes. At which point, they have you over a barrell. The reasons you end up there are many and varied, from legitimate reasons to modify the design to a unbuildable design and refusal to rectify. Regardless of the reason, essentially as a client you leave yourself open to being taken advantage of, with your only other option being to start afresh with someone else. Im sure some architects will protest and say they would never use this situation to their advantage. Few people in business are that morally principled even if they think they are. Lets not forget, architects are people. Like any trade there will be a small number of exceptionally good, half will be OK, the remainder a waste of space. And all will have differing morals.

Opps, replied to wrong poster

Good point, well presented !!!!

Hmmm. Not sure i agree. Getting a house through planning is about satisfying the planners. If you cant do that, doesnt matter how nice the design is. A planning consultant is probably, in my limited experience, the best person to get it through. Go on, humour me, given that no engineering drawings are involved, what is it other than a planning drawing with an interior layout. Thats a genuine question, even if you think im a philistine! To answer you original question, id want the design and the build drawings from the same place. So if/when its not right, there is a clear path to responsibility and rectification. The common split in responsibility just leaves the client holding all the risk. I guess that suits both architect and technician, but it certainly doesnt appear to be in the clients interest. I think we have seen that often enough on here. Do that with a clear transparent pricing structure (which i note you do not respond to) , id be interested.

Probably wondering off track, but agree, most things in building seem to be closer to bodging than engineering. The whole idea first / second fix idea, always looks more like the second round being to correct the errors made first time out. Can you imagine a car manufacturer doing that? Still amazed its 2022, and i cant just "buy a house" and have it delivered and bolted down......................................

Where does £5k come from? If you are charging £70 an hour, that 70 hours. To do a planning drawing? Am i missing something? Sure, what you suggest is better than a % of the contract value, which i point blank refuse to even consider, but still very opaque. I get that you are in business to earn money, you have studied to get the letters after your name, and their are overheads, insurance etc. but i do need to feel like im getting resonable value for money. As someone who hasnt yet built a house, but has done a couple of large "garages", and having been on this site for sometime, it strikes me architects are not offering the service thats needed. As i say, ive not done this, but it seems quite often architect, "architects" a design, with part of that being to get it through planning. Then it needs building, so another different person gets involved to do engineering drawings. And has to modify the architects design because its unbuildable, or not buidable at sensible cost. For me, if i eventually go down this road, id want both from one source for a known cost. Otherwise, its just a planning drawing. An expensive one at that.

38db is plenty noisey. After my sewage treatrment tank noise issue, i can imagine having anything like this in the house. Am i just sensitive to noise? I assume most are living with some level of background hum?

Agreed. Every cavity ive ever had the misfortune of being involved in has LOTS of air movement in it. Even when its not that windy.

Likewise here. Shared septic with 2 x 4 bed houses. So design must cater for 12 people. There are only total of 4, and for several months a year, 2. The vortex, im my experience, has a couple of issues. The settled sludge return becomes blocked. This has happened numerous times. (maybe not "fed" enough?) If you "speed it up", to avoid blocking, the output effluent quality drops (not as clear). Set it such the the quality is good, it WILL block. The other is noise. Yes, the pump makes noise, but that can be fixed by moving it elsewhere. I mean the noise INSIDE the tank, ie the incoming side aeration and the floating sludge return (when its operating). Despite sound deadening on the lid, having it under a bit of decking, on a still summers evening you can hear the gurgling noises quite clearly. I then added a "box" over the entry point where the primary aeration happens which did help a bit. I was rather contrained by where to put it. Had i known how noisy it was, id have moved it much farther away from the house. That would have meant a pump to pump it back up to the tank, but knowing what i know now, thats what id do despite the additional complications.

Hmmm. Midges. Not sure how that would go. Weather, rain etc is a non problem really. But midges. Cheap for a reason!

Im very much hoping many more do the same. Wishful thinking i think.

House prices down there over the last year or so would suggest many going, but few coming back. I hope you are right, because i now cannot afford it.

Indeed. Fortunately, the chances of allowing a new build with a 3000 sqft outbuilding are slim to non existent. But scotland, chief mammy aside, is looking more appealing as the weeks and years roll by.

Took it all out. Trying to "blend" the plaster afterwards seems to generally be considered a bad idea. The lime is significantly thicker, and it will crack along the join. Also then allows you to use one of the lime based insulating products. Ours isnt listed which obviously makes things easier. Pics below as it stands today. As you can see, its had a chemical injection applied at some point. ABOVE the floor level. Which stopped precisely nothing.

I considered doing this in my house, rather than pull up all the concrete. In the end, i ripped it all up. When we first moved in the damp was terrible. Room always at 90% plus humidity. Started outside reducing the soil levels, then stopped the rain coming in chimney. That helpd a fair bit. Since then, plaster all removed. This had the single biggest effect. Within 3 months, the walls were dry. I could drill into them and dust would appear. Previously it was a slurry. But even then, you couls still see a darker patch at various points just above the floor. 4 months since the floor was removed, everything is totally dry. Walking across the bare earth floor creates dust. Humidity generally 65-75% .Lime crete goes down mid Jan As this is the first time getting involved in a non DPC property, i was sceptical about the theories put forward. Given where we are now, frankly, im amazed at the speed it dried itself out. Scarecly believable considering the state when we got it. The socket back boxes which are 600mm up from the floor had corrided away completely, they had been that damp for so long. As above, causes were, concrete floor with plastic underneath, modern gypsum plaster and excess outside soil levels. The thing is, every house is different, soil conditions, water levels all different, so you cant ever be 100% sure until its done. But id say, bite the bullet, take it up. Bear in mind, that any remaing concrete will still act as a barrier pushing the moisture sideways, so the limecrete section will need to disperse all the moisture from the floor are, but through a reduced footprint. Plus of course you can then install underfloor heating.

Before you wack up internal insulation, given that its a solid wall, almost certainly it has no DPC. If you cover it up with a bunch of moden materials, the moisture will have no where to go. Tread carefully. Worth a read of period property forum.

Any suggestions who? Im in north bucks.

If you can smell it, its not working right. One morning i detected a smell, just like a old septic tank, and found that it had indeed stopped working. Not sure for how long it had been like that. Getting it going again, the smell was gone in a day.

Intersting. Mine was blocked on the pipe intake. Indeed, several times before i got it right, though i suspect there was a build up of sludge around the entry as a result of lack of flow. Sadly, when i did get it emptied i wasnt there. One of my bubblers has never worked, (3 in mine)and i missed the opportunity to find out why. BCO was also of the view that the integral sampling chamber didnt qualify as such. He still signed it off though. Edited to add, does your return pipe not have an opening along the run where it got blocked?

In my experience tradesmen want to do what THEY want to do or believe should be done. Not what you want. Step away from anything mainstream and it gets hard. Im STILL, after 4 months, trying to get someone to tile the floor using specific waterproof products. (it floods). Nobody is interested. They just want to use the products they like (which are not suitable). At this rate, i'll be doing it myself!

Id suggest this is the vortex's achillies heel. It is hyper sensitive. Yours was probably set to low on the return. As mine was. Eventually it gets blocked. The easy way to unblock is to disconnect the airline that goes to it and connect to a hose pipe. If you turn it up more, which ensures it cant get blocked, you end up moving too much water and the quality of the effluent drops. You can judge this just by looking to see how far into the murk you can see. I believe ive found the sweet spot now. Bear in mind, if you make ANY adjustments to the other funtions, it will affect the air supplied to the settled sludge return. Ive no experience of other plants, but im not sure its really as good as they claim. Costs us £150 to empty here in the sunny southest.

Did mine 25 years ago. One area sunk, but rest is still good. The great thing about block paving is, if it does sink a bit, pull up the blocks, but of sand and re lat them Job done. I actually put the base down, then didnt lay the drive for 2 years, Nature is the best compactor of type 1 and sand.

Epoxy Mastic. www.rust.co.uk