epsilonGreedy

My first thought before reading the comments was, the architect will bill £1000 just to read that, then another £2000 to comprehend it. Such an exhaustive spec would make sense for a £1 million build cost property but does it make sense relative to your overall budget? This is important because weighing down an architect under such a highly prescriptive spec might equate to creative handcuffs. That house spec is similar to walking into the GP's consulting room with a print off and saying this is the problem I have and I need the following pills.

My hunch is that there is an association between modern build methods and expensive foundations though the cause for this association is unclear. It might be psychological i.e. those who choose TF are taking a risk adverse approach to self-build and that same outlook will prompt them to also eliminate risk when creating of the foundations.As a trade pro perhaps your outlook was closer to brick & block builder i.e. "let's just get the digger in and I will deal with whatever is encountered". Another possibility is that if the foundations and TF structure are created by different businesses there could be tendency to over specification to limit commercial liability. Finally there is the Grand Designs influence where self builders take on difficult sites that pro builders would not consider. I do not have a ready made sum for my footings but from memory for an 70m2 l-shaped footprint is was: £0 Site clearance (clean regularly mowed ex. pony paddock with small gradient) £0 DIY set out. £450 foundation dig (man & son team plus their equipment) £2000 semi trench fill £100 pour day labour £1200 2 courses of footing blocks labour and material) Anyhow my general point is that TF front loads the spending profile when the kit is manufactured offsite and erected in two weeks by a pro team. My understanding is that given the starting point of a 300mm deep wall, if 100mm is squandered in thermally ineffective facing bricks then allowing for an air gap that does not leave enough depth for an effective TF by modern standards. Ok but since MMCs are generally defined as requiring some degree of offsite modular construction, onsite stick build does not really count and must be a tiny fraction of TF builds. Slow diyMax onsite brick & block is more common.

The DeWalt Web site claims 3mm in 10m. A 10mm error in 2.3m would render the whole product category useless. So far I have mainly used it to check wall height consistency. I can always go low-tech and use a plumb plus gravity, just need to buy one First.

Two weeks ago I had a personal letter from the local planning department advising me of an application to build such a property about 60 meters away. We will hardly be aware of its presence once build because it fits into the natural gradient so well. The part of the building we will see is a stone clad tower that is designed to resemble a turret from the castle ruins not far away. The owner of the plot is a local builder who has developed traditional brick ans block properties in the past.

It has become a thread about internal polling but it was originally a thread about advice given to the OP's friend regarding the popularity of self build methods of construction.

Because: I disliked the upfront costs with engineered foundations. I am frequently astonished at the £50k sums spent just to get to DPC when MMCs are used. I must use specific facing bricks in my village location which limits MMC options. At the end of the day I would not be content imagining my timber frame being slowly digested by microbes in our British climate particularly at my damp plot. I believe that climate alarmism is 90% political fraud hence I feel no moral compulsion to pursue eco concepts. Brick & block tolerates a slow ££ burn mortgage-free approach to self build whereas most MMCs need to be weather tight before subject to a full winter. Brick & block is compatible with an endeveavour to do as much hands-on as possible starting with very little competence at the outset.

Not good, as others have mentioned their editorial leans towards pandering to their advertisers. However this only reinforces the point I am making. Last year I mentioned that 3 brickies in tatty transit van do not have an advertising budget. They create the majority of self builds from cheap commodity components that also do not have much magazine interest of marketing. TF homes are a designed manufactured product promoted by national brand names with marketing muscle. Magazines and enthusiast internet forums create a distorted view of the self build market against brick & block. Re. the build-method market percentages I read in a magazine last year, they were I hope the result of minimal journalistic effort to reveal true industry figures. The few adverts placed by Hanson/Celcon could not force the magazines to promote a basic lie about the predominance of brick & block.

My recollection of the magazine article is that 90% of developer homes are brick & block and that figure drops to 70% in the self build sector. The latest poll results above puts brick & block at 12%. There must be a cultural factor behind such a discrepancy.

Let's try defining a self builder: Based on that definition, the people who find this forum useful are a subset of the population of self builders. From my own small sample I reckon 30% of self builds are done by building trade pro's who would not consider using this forum. These people are predominantly brick & block builders. Further down the ability ladder the brick & block self builders have less need for a forum because there is much less to debate re. the options for brick & block. I get why inexperienced people chose TF, for them it is a rational decision that eliminates much risk. Inevitably the forum is more attractive to such people. Then there is the Scottish factor where TF dominates. Scotland accounts for 8% of the UK population but more like +20% of forum activity.

I can already predict the result will be inaccurate by a huge margin because the forum's culture is self selecting. Last year one of the self build magazines discussed this subject of construction method popularity. Yes self builders choose timber frame at a much higher ratio than the mainstream industry but it is still a minority compared to brick & block.

I experienced this. Villagers complained on my behalf that I would be overlooked as a result of someone else's planning revision. This prompted me to upload a positive planning comment about the application including the observation that the development was 25m away and little different in scale relative to my house compared to the prior and already approved plan. The mistake the Nimby's make is adopting a scatter gun approach. There was one strong point of consideration that might have stopped the pros in the planning office approving the said application but this point was lost because of the breadth of trivia spouted by the Nimbys.

What was the original designed projection of the roof relative to the blockwork face before the pro bodgers introduced a 35mm vertical inwards lean? I assume the flat roof has a slight gradient that is not towards the wonky wall hence rainwater drips off the roof lip depicted are minimal? p.s. Do you know this thread has condemned me to frostbite this evening. I will now have to remove my blake brickie profiles from the garage this evening at sunset, click the vertical button on my line laser and measure how plumb my walls are.

Nothing much happening beyond clearing leaves out of the static caravan guttering. Think I have laid 20 blocks since the rain arrived. Looking at a weather station in our part of the world, by the end of today we are heading for 3.5" of rain since it turned really wet on the 24th. https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/ILINSIBS3/table/2019-09-1/2019-09-1/monthly?partnerId=undefined

Still an impressive result, so probably a little over half of your annual motoring is home PV powered given a likely inclination to drive less in the winter.

Elon Musk would challenge that assumption even though he is in the business of selling cars. Having working with urban based millennials in recent years I noticed a distinct lack of interest in cars because they have an Uber app instead. As autonomous vehicles take over the whole hire on demand equation is more compelling and shifts focus strongly away from private ownership. All Tesla owners are already contractually handcuffed to this future vision through an obscure clause in their ownership contract which mandates that should their private Tesla ever be loaned (at the discretion of the owner) to an autonomous driving taxi fleet for a few hours, it can only be to Tesla's own version of Uber.

Just curious, what is your anticipated annual mileage?

I discussed this subject at a self build show with the MVHR company whose keenly priced kits are often mentioned in this forum. They had all sorts of options including decorative metal grills that looked as if they had been made in 1910. I think the key aesthetic objective is to reduce the proportion of the vent protruding below the ceiling line.

I had previously associated terram with a ground stabilization function. Reading up further in the last 30 minutes the Terram product web site has sections for Ground Stabilization and Filtration though I could not work out which of their geo textiles were designed for those functions or both.

That is true for yacht cleaning and polishing potions. A quick route to easy money = decant bottles of Tesco Value washing up detergent into bottles labelled "Pro Deck Foam - GRP compatible cleaner" at £25 a time.

When I looked into this I was told terram is the wrong material and some more specialized uni directional permeable membrane was the correct stuff. Have you read anything to this effect?

I like the idea of the big statement baronial entrance hall with extra open space to look up through. Is there budget for a moose head with antlers? Have you modeled the traffic frequency from master bedroom to the other bedrooms e.g. young child having a nightmare? The other issue is how often will people leave a bedroom 2/3/4 and head for the second smaller staircase?

Relieved to read this because yesterday on the spur of the moment this is what I decided to do. With the main garage rectangle two blocks higher than the lean-to, I clamped a batten to the main garage wall projecting up to the future 11th course. I then ran a line down to the inner block wall of the lean-to tied to a brick dangling over the edge. With this in place I started filling in gable blocks by eye. The rafters will be 150mm x 50mm minimum and even with a birdstooth notch they will be higher than my simple profile line hence a comfortable extra clear space margin. And oh forgot the extra height of the wall plate at 50mm = bigger margin.

I will once an approval is in the bag for your collective amusement.

My garage includes a lean-to brick shed extension 3m x 2.4m under a shallow pitch (21 degrees) slate roof. The outer wall of the shed is only 7 blocks high e.g.chin level and the small 1/2 gables rises 4 blocks to the wallplate height of the main garage at 11 blocks high. The gable is a cavity wall and the main garage has a hipped roof. I do not think the gable wall contributes to supporting the "brick shed" roof. Should I: Leave the gable unfilled until the roof is on. Build it up to just below the expected finished height. Build it to a precise full height so that the roof gable-end carpentry can be cut snugly around it.

Since becoming a self builder I have discovered that the world of architecture and planning is quaint and old fashioned.