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.

Welcome! I too am building a Dan Wood house, if you can call it building! I presume you have spoken to them about access requirements etc? The main think I would think if you are on an infill site is they need 1.5m all round for scaffolding - I have seen some people who say they managed to reduce that to 1m on a side, but in my conversations they never wavered from the 1.5m requirement. Good luck, so far I am a fan of their process, but I haven't broken ground yet.

My broker fees were £1300. I would recommend going direct to be honest, I probably should have done but i'd asked them a fair few questions and their support had given me the confidence to go ahead so I felt bound in the end, but apart from saving me the time of searching the market of obscure building societies offering self build I don't think they have saved me any time on the application or got me anything I couldn't have got myself. Then from the mortgage provider application fee was £1350. Then the conveyancing will be about £1000 - yep, you have to do that again. If you bought in the last 6 months you may be able to re-use searches, if not you pay again. Just in case someone has built a coal mine in the interim. I imagine your costs will be lower as you are borrowing half me, but probably not massively so.

Waterproof concrete, bitumen paint to outside. Insulation either inside or out. I'd prefer outside but thinking inside might work better for the detail at the ground floor where it goes to the timber frame, otherwise the insulation will just end at the ground level and then step in to the timber frame? In case it isn't obvious, I haven't started the detailed design yet, i'm just wary of being herded down whatever is the architect/ structural engineer's preferred route without having a decent understanding of the pros/cons myself first.

Thanks for the good advice. I suppose that one thing in favour of the shuttered concrete is that they will make a waterproof sealed box, including "lid" (my GF), which will be above ground, then Dan Wood will come along and put a DPC down, so there isn't really anywhere for the water to go. I hope!

Unfortunately I'm cheating and getting Dan wood to put a house on top of my basement, so continuity is a worry but not a determining factor.

Its been asked before, but not for a number of years so i'd like to see if there are any updates. I have a walkout basement, only needs to be waterproof on 2 sides, other 2 will be above ground, approx a 10x 10m box. I have initial quotes from an ICF contractor and a shuttered concrete contractor to do essentially the same thing (slab, 200m thick waterproof concrete walls, 2nd waterproofing, insulation etc) and the price for each is basically the same. If it was a full basement, i'd probably go shuttered concrete for the ability to inspect the pour quality, but as its walkout and will be free draining i'm not too concerned about waterproofing. Are there any reasons to pick one over the other?

They used a CAT and Genny. Cable appears to run from the street directly to the meter, perpendicularly. Yes I was present and recorded the location.

I'm moving my electricity supply in order to demolish the existing building. I've had UKPN out to locate the supply and survey. They're coming back in a couple of weeks to move the supply. In order to save cash, I'm digging myself. I've dug a slit trench to about 75cm either side of where the technician indicated the supply was, perpendicularly, and to a depth of almost a meter. So far, I haven't found the cable. Not sure what to do next? Is the best plan to hire a CAT and see if I can home in on it? If so, do I really need the Genny with it or will it be ok without? How deep could this cable be? Worried about how much earth I'm going to be shifting by hand!

I am. Octopus will remove the meter and cap the pipe, but to demolish the house the gas pipe needs to be removed. As far as I can tell alteration doesn't involve a meter, because the gas network will fit one at extra cost, and octopus will have removed it.

Will need to move services prior to demolition of our existing house. Don't intend to use Gas at all for the new build, not interested in having a connection. However, alteration is £836 (£582 if i dig) whereas disconnection is £1178. Is there any reason why i wouldn't just go for alteration and have the pipe terminated at the start of my land, saving hundreds? And if i do dig myself, what am i looking for?