AliG

My last two developer built houses had lintels showing above the windows and I hated it. In the current place where lintels were on show we stuck render board to them and took the render into the reveal as @nod has done

Did this last night then the site went down. There are definitely other variations of the utility room and the shower room, but I think the longer room makes more room for seating and a dual aspect would lead to a much nicer room.

It sounds like the architect designed this. They are not good at kitchen designs in my experience. We took our plans to the kitchen designer before we signed off on them so that we still had time to alter the layout. A longer rectangular island 3mx1.2m with chairs along one side would work better. At the moment you have a large dead space to the right of the island, the island is also 1.8m wide so ends up in front of the kitchen door. That also seems an odd place for chairs, assuming that is what the two semi circles on the left are. If you do this you will be able to walk past the island/chairs to the lounge, you might want to move the kitchen door down slightly to make it as straight a shot as possible across to the lounge. Do you actually want seats at the island and a table? There is room, but it makes quite a big difference to the layout. For example if you would rather have a table you might make the island smaller and have a table at the right hand side. That door to the rear vestibule is in a very awkward place, even if it was a slider it would be right in the middle of the seating area, something I would want to avoid. If you made the boot room smaller and the vestibule larger then moved the door from the kitchen to the vestibule to the left then that would give you a much better seating area in the kitchen, or could that door just go into the boot room? I can see why you would want it to the vestibule to access the shower oom. If you make the lounge door smaller and opposite the kitchen door you could create a 3x3m area in the corner for two sofas and a TV. You could fit a table then at the other side of the door, but again the position of the door is taking a large room and splitting it into two small areas. Can we see the whole ground floorplan please. It looks like you have a utility, boot room and shower room there. How much room do you have to manoeuvre? For example if you could move all these rooms to the left hand side the kitchen could have windows at both sides which would probably make a much nicer room. At the moment I suspect it would be very dark where the sofas are as it is a long way from a window.

We will be using an MBC frae and they can supply and fit Rationel windows. However, at the back of the house we have 2x 2.6m tall sliding doors and Rationel cannot make a door that size, because of this we may have to use Internorm or MBC use Solarlux for larger windows, but I suspect that they are expensive. I think Ideal Combi can also do 2.6m and Nordan 2.588m. I have asked the architect for a window schedule so that we can send it out and see how much this issue is going to cost us.

No changes, I read the neighbours objections yesterday.They almost universally hate the modern box design and said it doesn't fit in the street. If they didn't like modern boxes they probably should have objected to the two that were approved a few months ago in the same street. I expected neighbours to object, so I don't really care. However, the local amenity association objected yet didn't object to the other houses recently approved in the street which also breach the guidelines for coverage of the site. They also objected to my house as it was the largest built in the area since the 1920s, I am yet to figure out how they think that is a planning issue. I have been considering writing to them to ask if they actually have any objective process or simply only comment when it upsets one of their mates. No explanation of the delay, the guy we were dealing with is just painfully slow. I saw someone apply to build a lock of flats in their garden get permission faster than we did. The architect was talking about making a formal complaint last year when the same officer didn't speak to us at all for 5 months then said he was going to refuse our application unless we withdrew it.

Permission Granted ? Full steam ahead now, hoping to get watertight before Christmas

I was thinking of this kind of thing to hide the screen and possibly the ceiling speakers. We have something similar but our screen is fixed. Actually our rear speakers are in the step, but the "above" Atmos speakers couldn't be that far to the edge so they are in the ceiling.

It is unlikely that you have the screen as high up as the ceiling, so the easiest way to hide the screen is to build a pelmet box below the ceiling and put it in there.That also stops it affecting your soundproofing in the ceiling. You could even box out a whole framed area all the way around the screen which would look nice. I did look into this kind of thing in my last house and did not find a satisfactory solution at a reasonable price. Some companies make screens that drop through a door as they lower so you can put the whole thing up inside the ceiling, however from memory for this small benefit of tidiness they were considerably more expensive. I think simply putting the cassette inside the pelmet with an open slot is probably a lot more cost effective. In the end we just screwed it to the wall as in @Thorfun's picture. We have a stepped ceiling in our cinema room which gives an easy way of hiding the ceiling speakers..Again you could then incorporate this into the pelmet that houses the screen and bring it all the way round to the projector. One thing to consider is where will all your equipment be - Sky box, amp, PS4 etc. We have a whole rack in a cupboard at the back of the cinema room.

I have heard people complain about Virgin being unreliable but our service was rock solid, the speed never wavered. Sorry maybe I wasn't clear. Fibre Max is still a FTTC solution which is confusingly named, BT now call it Fibre 100 and have stopped offering the 300MB service as far as I can see, preferring to focus on full fibre for this speed. Hence I was concerned it wouldn't actually achieve the advertised speeds. I believe it only works within 300M of the cabinet. Openreach were originally planning to install this solution to most people, but have done a U-turn and now plan to try and upgrade people to FTTH. I think around 2.5m homes have G.Fast available. I read a couple of weeks ago that some people now claim to be able to do 1GB over copper.

Hi, I have Virgin Media available at my house and have been using their 100MB broadband service since I moved in. The actual speed is around 108MB download, 10MB upload. I had a phone line connected up last year, but it has never been used. My Virgin contract was coming up for renewal and I called them up to see what was on offer. I was paying £39.50 a month for the 100MB service. This included an unused phone line and basic TV package as it was cheaper to take these than broadband on its own. They offered to continue my deal or increase my speed to 200MB for £45 a month on broadband only. I told them that EE were offering me 300MB service for £43 a month plus £90 cash back. The EE service also has up to 50MB upload speed. Their response was we don't believe that you will get the advertised speed. I said, fine then just cancel it. I do not believe that disparaging a competitor is a good marketing strategy. TBH I was sceptical also, but I arranged for the new service to be installed the week before my Virgin contract ended. This gave me the option of sticking with Virgin if it was not as advertised. The Openreach guy appeared as booked on Tuesday morning. I needed an Openreach Fibre modem in the house for it to work.. All connected up and it synced at the maximum 330MB speed immediately. The speed over WiFi is a little slower than the sync speed. I reckon there is around 200m of cable between us and the cabinet. So if you live within a short distance of the cabinet and the Fibre Max/G.Fast service is available I would give it a go. My phone line will now pay for itself as I can switch between Virgin and phone line every 18 months or play them off against each other. In 18 months I will be eligible for the Virgin new customer deal which is currently 350MB for £39 a month plus £110 cash back. If they had switched me to this deal without the cash back I would have stayed with them.

I wasn’t suggesting buying the Chinese ones just giving an idea of pricing for large tiles, I did note it was for Chinese not Italian, but I probably could have been clearer. Looking at the specs and pictures the tiles I posted are the same tiles so $30 a metre from the factory turns into £90 a metre at retail. The main question is who puts 1.5x3m tiles in a house. On top of the price of the tiles the fitting will be very high. If you look at the price quoted of £700 for the entrance that is the price of one tile. Presumably that one tile would have to be cut to size and into two door recesses. It would look lovely with no joins but what if they break it. Are you expected to shell out £700 again.

Standard porcelain tiles tend to be £30-40 a square metre. Here are some similar looking tiles in smaller sizes for example https://alistairmackintosh.co.uk/marble-effect-porcelain-tiles/ Those tiles are crazy large, I would be very concerned re wastage. So not only are the tiles expensive but you will need to buy a way larger quantity. They would look awesome, but you are paying for it. Did you specifically pick this size? As someone posted it seems to be for over 150 square metres of tiles, looking through your past posts your kitchen floor looks to be around 15 square metres. Tiles like this I would only expect to see in an ultra high end central London development priced at > £20000 a square metre. Even then this size would be more used for the lobby of an office building. They would be total overkill for a normal house. They were very difficult to find, I found 240x120 advertised at £90 a square metre. https://www.porcel-thin.com/product/onyx-bianco-leviathan-cbp5502cm/ I also found this, Chinese version, but the ones you are getting seem to be Italian. https://fshenj.en.made-in-china.com/product/PSWEpHYUVrRb/China-Onyx-Bianco-Marble-Effect-Porcelain-Tile-120-240-Cm.html

So basically replace the plasterboard by using Insta Stik instead of dot and dab? I did wonder this would fix the problem as the Insta Stik is put on in lines so there is less space for the sound to reverberate?

I could do that or even just overboard it, but as the space would still be behind it where the sound reverberates and as anything will require moving the sockets back to being level, taking off the skirting etc, it seemed that unless there is a way to fix it in situ, we may as well take it off and replace it. I also wanted to warn people of the noise risk as it was not obvious to me at all that this would be an issue. The outside walls are pretty well sealed so the cold air getting behind has not been an issue. I did find it in a couple of places and fixed it with a squirt of foam.

Just resurrecting this thread. The builders used dot and dab for all our plasterboard and for the most part it is fine. On the outside walls they have used dot and dab to attach insulated plasterboard to our Porotherm blocks and there are no issues there. On most of the inside walls there are also no issues. But the wall between our gym and lounge is Porotherm block with dot and dab plasterboard on each side. I created another thread where I noted that the door frames were not filled all the way round and I though this was letting noise through the wall. I have filled around the facings and it is maybe slightly better. But still sometimes if you are in the lounge and someone is talking or playing music in the gym it barely sounds like there is a wall between you at all. Searching on Google I found that dot and dab is actually really bad for noise as it creates a solid path for noise to travel in the wall and a small air space to amplify it. Some people suggested that a wall will actually be less noisy with no plasterboard on it at all. I had assumed a block wall with a layer of plasterboard on each side would be better than a plasterboard wall from a sound proofing perspective. Luckily this is the only sold partition in the house constructed this way without a door in it, so it is by far the most noticeable. I am considering should I have the plasterboard removed and have the wall plastered instead or is there an easier solution? There are also some pipes through the wall above the ceiling and there are sockets in the plasterboard on each side creating further noise paths. But when I try and listen it sounds like the noise is coming straight through the wall not in any localised spot. Anyway let this be a warning that dot and dab is an quick and easy way to plasterboard a wall but bad from the perspective of soundproofing.

One thing to watch is that driven rain runs down the door and easily gets underneath it, in our last house, they didn't put a run on the area under the door so water ran under the door and into the garage. I don't think the door closing into a slot is a good idea as it would fill up with water. Looking at your picture, why not run the flagstone just under the door above the Fibran, putting a slight run on it so the water runs away from the door. Then cut a 20mm wide channel in the screed behind the door (or put an edge there when you screed the floor) this way the flagstone will not touch the screed. As the channel is inside, it wouldn't need covered, you can just drive over it. You might want to cover it to avoid it filling up with dirt or rain when the door is open however. Garage_Threshold1.pdf

Once again Costco have had £100 off if you buy 4 Michelin tyres and once again they wouldn't sell me 4, this time due them not having the right OEM stamp. It is a wonder they sell any tyres they are so awkward. Anyway, Kwik Fit have 10% off 2 or more Michelins and 5% cahback on Quidco which made them exactly the same price as Costco. Plus they will come and fit them at your house for nothing. Great service, very impressed. Was more than 10% cheaper than Blackcircles for the same tyres. Put a new set of Michelin Pilot Sport 4S on my 911. A quick 10 minute drive (is it OK to check my tyres rather than eyesight?) suggests a nice improvement over the P-Zeros which were so hard I felt like I had Fred Flintsone's wheels.

There is a lot you can do as you have a good amount of space. I think the upside down house works well if it allows you to see over the other house. Maybe not ideal from a resale perspective and also if you plan to live in the house into your old age, but maybe a worthwhile compromise. I am not a fan of balconies, we have one which is never used, but if you put one on the east side of the house you could create a covered area between the door and garage. 1. As noted, going through the dressing room to the bedroom is not ideal. However, I put the stairs into the stair creator on pear stairs.co.uk and it suggested that they would only be 2.2m front to back. Therefore if you can increase the depth of the master bedroom to 3.3m (which I think allows better space in front of the bed anyway) then you can get a door straight into the bedroom. I would lose the 400mm from the overly large pantry/utility. 2. I don't have a hearing aid but am very OCD about noise. I made sure I found the quietest kitchen equipment I could. In general a good quality fridge/freezer is almost silent. Dishwashers are pretty quiet and you can put them on at bed time. The thing that actually annoys me the most is the cooling fan on the oven/microwave and it only runs for a few minutes. The noisier washer/dryer would be down stairs. We do have a Vitamin, that is crazy noisy. But I don't think you need that much separate space upstairs. What you might want to do is put the dressing room where the en suite is, then go through it to the en suite where the pantry is and have a much smaller pantry. This would free up space for the WC where the dressing room is. You might even just want to have a hidden area of kitchen in the corner where you can hide the sink rather than a separate space. I am struggling to think what you would do with it when you have the utility room downstairs. 3. I wouldn't really change downstairs if you are happy with the small snug, you could steal a little space from the generous bathroom. The hallway would be dark, you might want to consider having the office open to the hall to let light into it. 4. I would have a good think about the stairs coming up into the lounge area. Maybe you would want to box them in to stop sound travelling downstairs or just want to think about how they look from the main living area. 5. With this layout and the stairs being shorter you might be able to move the stairs 200mm to the left making the lounge a little wider, bedroom 2 a little shorter and bedroom 3 a little longer.

Just the scaling thanks.

Before I comment on the interior layout, I have a question. Are you planning for the upstairs to be larger than the downstairs and overhang both sides of the porch? I can see why you might have an overhang creating shelter at the front door, but I am not sure why you would want an overhang at the other side. You would probably need a pillar at each corner to support the upstairs exterior walls and floor. Also it looks like the garage would be at the opposite side of the house from the front door, that is not the end of the world, but not ideal, are you OK with that?

Thanks, that didn't come up when I was looking

They seem pretty robust and you can replace the tap without touching the rest of it. We had one with no problems for 5 years in our last house. The main problem I think is scale in hard water areas. Including CUBE you are looking at around £2k+VAT. It is very hard to justify the cost on rational grounds versus a kettle, but I know a lot of people with them and they all love them.

Hi, I have got a few names from Google but thought someone may have a recommendation of someone they know/have used. We will probably use MBC for the foundations and frame on my parents' house so will need a soil report for them. The SE organised it for my house, but it was extremely expensive and included the costs of coming up from England and staying overnight which seems a total waste of money. There is no SE involved at the moment so I am trying to see if I can organise it myself for more reasonable price. Thanks

The window looks nice there. Depends a bit on the outlook. You get various Quooker taps. You can have a stand alone one with a separate tap that has normal hot and cold water or you can have a Fusion that has both Quooker water and normal hot and cold water available at the same tap.

I just rinse stuff under the cold water tap, you will still have normal water available, and might well leave it running whilst peeling vegetables. You wouldn't want to use water from a Quooker for this, it only holds 2L of chilled water. You could use it but it would seem pretty wasteful.