Ed_

About 2.5 weeks is the stand-up time it appears, it has now started to collapse! Nice to know I wont be spending money for no reason.

I'm 1m to the boundary. The current neighbour building is 2.5m and new ones will be 1-1.5m. Many reasons for a basement: More space - urban plot so footprint limited. Ground slopes- front is 2.5-3m above back, basement spans this slope so GF is ground level at front and basement is ground level at back. I have made ground with possibility of a slightly mobile slope so would likely have needed deep foundations anyway. As it is walkout it both becomes cheaper to build and more functional than a traditional basement. Hopefully.

No, this actually is the neighbour's, not me trying to cover up! 1m made ground over stiff clay (site of a former brickworks, 100 years ago), but with a severely sloped section that probably needs to be levelled for a piling rig to work, just out of shot to the left on my picture. This is my new focus, seems to me if I need to pile why not weld them up (or similar) and that is my boundary. Ring beam on top to put the rest of the house on and insulate inside. I'd been avoiding this as it seems like a retrofit basement method and i'd thought that implied high cost, but it could be the best solution for my constraints.

Fabulous @Gus Potter, been scratching my head for weeks over this one and don't think I'd have ever worked it out myself. Looks like a temporary works engineer will be my next call.

@Pendicle How did you assess the slope angle?

Learn something new everyday, rubber duck excavator! Would you mind sharing details of the piling firm you used with me? I don't think I'm too far away.

I've looked into kingpost, but at first study it looks like being no cheaper. Still have to mobilise the piling machine, piling mat etc. Additionally probably need a crane because how else do you get an 8m long steel into a narrow hole, then need to pay for concrete for the panels and probably some sort of gravel to back fill the reverse side... Seemingly everywhere i look people (professionals even) are doing this sort of thing without a retaining structure, are they just risking it or am I missing something? I don't intend to just risk it.

I am excavating a basement and due to the confined plot there is not enough room to batter back at what I believe to be a safer battering angle, which seems to be 45 degrees at best from any seeminly scientific source I can find, therefore I had imagined I had to create a retaining wall. Said retaining wall, in piles, is going to cost in the region of £30k. What is giving me pause is that almost every picture I see on industry website, e.g. waterproofing specialists, shows bare earth battered at 60+ degress and seemingly without any safety measure, for example: And then the neighbouring plot to mine have done almost the identical excavation to me, and left it like this: I see how this could be safe whilst excavating with a digger, as no one is in the collapse zone, but how about doing any work under it? To me, it seems unlikely the bank would suddenly collapse, it will probably be fine, but thats not good enough when the consequences could be death? Just looking for views and experience on whether there are ways for a contractor either to safely build a retaining wall behind this or to erect shuttering for a basement, or whether my gut feel that it has to be a proper retaining wall or similar is correct. Thanks!

The advantage of private is if you choose someone who is accepted by your warranty provider they can share reports and you save some cash. Protek won't take LABC. That said, my architect said LABC are better than private since the building safety act, as private providers have gone very risk averse and LABC are more pragmatic. Your mileage may vary.

I've been to see the construction of the viaduct and tunnel through the Chilterns, very impressive. However the project is full of aberrations, like the bat tunnel. Spending £100M on 1km is ridiculous, I'm sure you could achieve the same result with a much more modest structure like netting or bat scarers when the trains are due or whatever. But give the problem to a company employing large civil engineering consultancies working predominantly in concrete and you will get sold a concrete tunnel and clearly no one at HS2 is sufficiently incentivised to keep costs down. Try that solution at a private company and you'll be off the project immediately, someone else will be found for a more effective solution, and they are still working to the exact same regulations.

I was asked for a demolition and construction environmental management plan. Something the neighboring 10 property development was not asked for and I couldn't find any other examples of a single property development being asked for this. Unfortunately, I'd been too distracted by fighting to remove other unnecessary conditions like an ecological impact assessment that my architect was just waving through. I believe there is a conflict of interest as architects will often be able to charge to discharge preconditions so there is no interest in them trying to negotiate them away. Certainly not from mine. I regret not spending longer arguing them.

I have just completed my demolition, and been left with bare earth. I probably wont start building for 3 months, and could be building for a year. My bare earth will not stay so for long, especially this time of year. I'm wondering if i should sow grass seeds just to give the weeds some competition or accept i'll have to blitz it again in a year?

There are a number of things we can work together on, and I like to have an IOU in hand just in case. However i have said no - thanks for all the advice which prompted deeper thinking. Their site is a former depot / car garage and i didn't fancy the rain water run off from their newly crushed concrete garage floor going into my garden, which made it a definite no.

My developer neighbour has demolished their properties and have asked if they can store their crushed rubble temporarily on my garden. My garden is bare earth, as i have just demolished myself. I would like to be helpful, but i am wary that they are a commercial developer and once i say yes they will crack on without necessarily much regard for my garden long term. Obviously i will require that they place boards down to keep the rubble separate from the soil, but is there a risk of compacting my soil? I just don't have a feel for what depth might be ok?

Regarding gas cookers, the evidence shows that having a gas cooker is detrimental to your health, due to the emissions. If, like many here, you are aiming for an airtight house with MVHR then the recommendation seems to be to have a recirculating hood. I think the combination of the 2 would be bad news.