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Dreadnaught

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Everything posted by Dreadnaught

  1. Dreadnaught
    Yes, pure refined coconut oil is of course a solid at room temperature, being a saturated fat. Me too.
  2. Dreadnaught
    Such a valuable thread. BH at its best. Thank you @newhome. As a newbie, it has given me a whole new perspective to consider as I prepare for my build. Forewarned is forearmed.
  3. Dreadnaught
    Congratulations! What a setting!
  4. Dreadnaught
    Your post is relevant for me as I am currently bidding on a plot, and contracting would be next. If I were the transferee and this was my plot, I would reject all of these restrictions as being completely unacceptable. I would argue that it is for the planning system to adjudicate on such matters. It can be useful to consider the motives of the vendor for including such clauses. Are there any legitimate concerns? Or is the vendor (and their solicitor) just lazily defaulting to a one-sided contract in the first instance. Out of interest, do you yourself have any unusual demands? For example, do you actually plan to vary the house design? Or would you prefer a "clean" purchase of your plot? If you do intend to vary the design, you might request that the vendor be bound not to object to your new planning submission.
  5. Dreadnaught
    Welcome @Pjbrandon. I am novice too. There is a wealth of information here; I have learnt so much. A friendly bunch too!
  6. Dreadnaught
    If you don't mind, would you be able to give a few illustrative examples? I too am fan of using the internet save money, so I expect I will be doing this, but at the moment I am finding hard to imagine what I might buy and store. At a guess, might it be items like white goods for the kitchen, porcelain items for the bathrooms? Is that along the right lines?
  7. Dreadnaught
    Oh interesting. I am aiming for a timber frame, which I hear can go up fast. So on this basis, all with else written in this thread, my mind is being put at ease. Thank you all.
  8. Dreadnaught
    Wow, now that's inspirational food-for-thought. Time to search this site for more about when it is allowable to live in your site office.
  9. Dreadnaught
    Thanks @ProDave. Do you mean you stay in it overnight? And by day it serves the site and all comers?
  10. Dreadnaught
    Thank you @recoveringacademic and @ProDave. Could I broaden the discussion a little. My level knowledge is really very basic. As someone who has never even visited a building site, I realise that I don't even know what the space is for (!). I have heard of the need of a site office. I have heard people mention tea, cake and biscuits, HSE, eye washing, a first aid kit, and a toilet but that's about it. Why would someone need an 9m long static caravan like @ProDave? What is "storage and welfare" for a self build site? If anyone's currently got a site, perhaps you can list a few of the things. Most grateful for any help.
  11. Dreadnaught
    What is the minimum hard-standing area needed to build a small two-bed Bungalow? "How long is a piece of string" but some advice for the clueless would be useful? I have a cramped site in my sights. It has a drive for storage, site office, parking and everything else needed. No other space is available. The drive is about 8m x 8m. Is 8m x 8m enough?
  12. Dreadnaught
    @TerryE has commented extensively on such solutions. I suspect he will be along shortly.
  13. Dreadnaught
    I had never heard of this, so I looked it up: e.g. https://www.beko.co.uk/lifestyle/benefits-of-a-tumble-dryer-heat-pump
  14. Dreadnaught
    Eye mask? Had the issue myself a few years ago. Was an easterly facing window too.
  15. Dreadnaught
    I wonder could you run waste shower water through a SunAmp and use it as WWHR device?
  16. Dreadnaught
    A concrete raft instead of piles? Or a concrete raft somehow connected to piles? Sorry for my beginners question.
  17. Dreadnaught
    Good point. I am tempted to ask the seller (with the rest of the garden) for some extra temporary space during the build.
  18. Dreadnaught
    You did indeed read it correctly. Very tight indeed. Its the end of a garden. Its one of the worries about this plot, especially when combined with a 40m narrow road leading up to it. I will need a Chinook
  19. Dreadnaught
    Do open a topic on this. I would be interested in your research; will be looking myself soon.
  20. Dreadnaught
    Thank you all for your advice. I am grateful. Two things: 1) Who to ask? Before I play @Ferdinand's spot-the-ball on costs, who to turn to for a ball-park indication of price for groundworks? Would it be: a piling contractor? A specialist piling consultant? A structural engineer such as @StructuralEngineer? (I appreciate that only the broadest guesses are possible at this stage dependent as they are on the ground and house weight). 2) How much does a house weigh? Might a non-piled insulated concrete raft be an alternative? To @MikeSharp01's point, I foresee building a @JSHarris-style home of two bedrooms, 120 m2 and timber-framed and so of a weight of perhaps 70 tonnes, or less. And perhaps closer to @TerryE estimated mass of his passive house, which I recall he calculated as in the order of 41 tonnes excluding roof covering. Given this, and having read some comments in @recoveringacademic's blog of how the industry defaults to conservative solutions, might an alternative be an insulated-concrete raft, with its advantage of distributing the load and in combination with a light-weight house? Who to turn to for such innovative ideas? Some extra background on the plot: access to the site is limited. It is down a tight 40m road, the width of a car-and-a-half and flanked by buildings of the three-year PP development window, less than a year now remains trees adjacent to the site necessitate a no-dig foundations solution. The trees are without TPOs but are on neighbouring land the reason I am persevering with the plot is that its in a truly fine location
  21. Dreadnaught
    I am now looking at my second plot but the soil survey (from by the vendor) is rather intimidating and scary. I could do with some calming down and some advice. plot is near rectangular 13m by 19m soil: sand and gravel 0.15m to 1.35m depth underlying Gault clay groundwater below 2 - 2.5 metres depth the site has two major trees. "Live roots were recorded within the boreholes to depths between 0.90m and 2.80m 

" Foundations


 recommendation Sleeved piles Driven piles not possible because of proximity of neighbouring buildings "Single 300mm diameter bored piles, installed to 10m and 16m depth at the locations [… ], would have estimated working loads in the order of 170kN and 310kN (FoS=2.5). Different pile lengths, or diameters, from those detailed above would give different available working loads, which could be tailored to suit the working loads required. A piling specialist should undertake final design of piles." Floor slab "The floor slab for the proposed structure will need to be suspended on the piled foundations, in order to avoid differential settlement between them. As the floor slab will lie within the range of influence of mature trees, and desiccated clays are present, the ground floor should also be separated from the underlying soils by a sub-floor gap, as indicated in Table 7 of the above cited NHBC Standards." This all sounds firghteningly expensive and as I read it I thought of the phrase "you're not out of the ground until you're out of the ground". What should I make of this? I have not made an offer on the plot as yet but I suspect that this should impact the price. I would be happy to ping the full report to anyone who'd be willing to give me some advice.
  22. Dreadnaught
    @Charles Ebden Do you welcome responses from those whom are just searching for a plot and have not built anything yet?
  23. Dreadnaught
    That's very interesting contextual information. The sins of the building industry meets the political imperative to build at all costs and genuine self-builders suffer in the crossfire.
  24. Dreadnaught
    Very informative, thank you. And thank you for blogging. I find the blogs to be invaluable for learning.
  25. Dreadnaught
    May I clarify. Does "all standard" mean they found asbestos but it would not prove problematic, or they found none. Just of general interest to me.
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