TheMitchells

Good luck Russ, we orginally posted this question and in the end, we withdrew from the plot purchase. There was problems with trees increasing the foundation depths and the fire access problem, and the access was not great. I am hoping you dont have that many issues and you can come up with a solution.?

I'd recommend attending one of the Self Build courses at Swindon Self build Centre. but I dont know where you live so it may be too far. I found it very useful and it was nice chatting to others who would be in the same boat as you. Its three days and around £390 I believe. But it covers loads of things, all useful and opens your eyes to options you may not have heard about.

And there is a great post for all the abbreviations and accronyms - look here.

look at the top right of the page and you should see any notifications which tell you someone has added to your post - if you click on 'Follow'. Its the Bell shaped symbol.

Thanks Jaygti, thats exactly the question I was wondering for our wet room plans, so nice to have the opinions and I plan to now give the planners a ring tomorrow - thought I'd give them a day back to catch up before pestering them. ? Good luck with yours! Corrine.

Looking forawrd to reading all about the build - we looked at the site in Bishops Castle but it wasnt the right time for us to buy. was very tempting tho - maybe some more will come up when we are in a better position to buy. Good luck with it all.

Details please! sounds interesting.....?

No they dont use it very often, about 2-3 times a week. It is scary how much we all use for heating our homes. and we dont think the bungalow is very leaky. It has had cavity insulation added and there is plenty insulatio in the attic. But they do like it warm. They have even put in an order for a new electric fire so when they just want a little extra! But when they get the their age, I guess if they want it hot, why shouldnt they have it hot. ?

Yes, that would have explained it but it wasnt - they were all up to temperature and it wasnt even the night it turned really cold. Possibly - there is a boost for evenings when you can open a flap and it lets the heat out of the core. But it should not have been open - although Dad may have accidently changed it. Its about the only thing that could do it. But still seems a lot of power. I just hope it doesnt happen again. We are doing readings every day now. Unfortunatly the washing machine cannot be used at night - the economy 7 comes on at 12.30 and goes off around 7am. And for some reason, it cannot be turned on with a timer. it has to be pressed to set it off. And its on the 'socket' ring at the consumer unit. the economy 7 stuff has their own consumer unit.

yes, thats an option. and I did think about getting them to the local sports centre for a shower there.

Having installed my elderly parents in a nearby bungalow, we are trying to sort out the heating systems and electricity costs. It is a bit of a conundrum and maybe someone has an idea what could be causing the problem. The bungalow is heated by one night storage heater in the lounge and a rather large night storage system in a central cupboard, (left photo) through which air is blown when required into all the rooms, incudling the back of the lounge. This is controled by a thermostat in the lounge. The place also has a very large hot water tank in another cupboard which is also on the Economy 7 night time tarif. The econmy 7 stuff (tank and two NSH's) is on its own fused thing in the fuse box. Before buying the place, I asked about electricity bills and was informed that the average winter bills were about £90. Hhh. Dont think so! We were taking reading of the electrcity over the course of the first couple of months as it got colder to make sure we had an idea of costs. Here is the spreadsheet. As you can see, the costs are far higher than expected. and I havent the foggiest what happened on the21st and 22nd Nov! Why did the night reading suddenly quadruple! parents assure me that nothing changed from normal. then we had two night really low! Our idea was to turn off each unit in turn to see how that effected the readings but 'something caused a major hiccup and they certainly cannot afford to have occasional costs of £12 anight. On Sunday (yesterday)after a few evenings of relative similar readings, we turned off the heater to the hot water tank. And the evening costs did drop. On feeling the tank this morning, the bottom third was cold, middle third warmish and the top hot. So we are leaving it another night before turning it back on. They dont use much water at all as they cannot get into the bath and apart from the washing machine occasionally, they use a sinkful per day washing dishes. The heating is set quite high as Dad feels the cold and the house is certainly warm when I go in but not excessively (usually around 21oC/70oF in the lounge). They turn the thermostat up for about 10 mins in the morning then a bit more in the evening when the other nsh is probably not putting as much out. Any ideas what could have caused the sudden increase the other evening? Thats a lot of electricity to use. And are we doing the right thing to try to calculate what each unit is costing to run? I think we shall seriously be looking at replacing it all with a simple gas combi boiler in the summer. There is gas in the street and we can see many similar bungalows are it connected. And if we plan it with a future kitchen extension in mind, it will save us having to do it in a few years time.

There are plenty of bamboo varieties that would be suitable but they tend to be only aviailable from specialist suppliers. The ones you get in the garden centres tend to be those that are invasive. Bamboo root systems can be either clumping or running. Avoid the running ones! Phyllostachys is actually a runner but tends to clump form in our climate. The best bamboos for smaller gardens include Fargesia murielae 'Simba' - this grows to 2.5m and spreads to about 1.2m but is a lovely shaped bamboo with orangish stems. Can also be grown in a container. Fargesia nitida. - Upright growing and good for exposed sites. Purplish stems and dainty foliage. Up to 3m and spreads around 1m. Thamnocalamus crassinoidus 'Kew' - delicate, small leaves with stems which emerge powder-blue but age to red. up to 4m and spread 1.5m. All sizes are after about 10 years, so fairly slow. Be careful of Pleiblastus as they can spread a lot. And dont worry if they do not do much in the first couple of years. Underground they will be getting established and then they will start growing well. Hope that helps.? I'd also recomend Grisilinia - makes a readlly good hedge and is evergreen.

Thats what Dad suggested initially - but like an idiot, I thought we should do a 'proper job'! I should have listened - the wisdom of age......?

Well, the answer came back from highways and its not good news. Having reviewed the proposals I would recommend that you make use of the existing access as in order to form another access would require stopping up of the existing as the Local Highway Authority would resist more than one access serving a single dwelling as per adopted policy. I would propose to provide an additional length of driveway leading from the existing access to the front door so that the highway ( including footway) is not required to be modified in any way which would be costly. So we are not able to add a new driveway, without 'stopping' up the old one as the policy is to only allow one access per property. And as the old one leads to the garage, thats not really an option. (Maybe). And taking the driveway from the origonal all the way to near the front door would be far too expensive. I have not measured it but it would mean a driveway a lot longer than planned drive and as the cost of our proposed one is around £1000, we would be talking several thousand and thats not an option either. So much for helping the elderly to stay in their properties longer! So what do we do? 1. Ignore the advice and just make a new driveway where we want it. are they likely to send a Highways person out to check and take action against us? Unlikely, The council are bankrupt so I doubt they will want any court cases. 2. Block the origonal driveway with some planters that can be moved later. Make a new driveway as per our plans. We are only using the garage for storage. It means parking visiting cars on the road but we can cope with that. But would the Highways still insist on dropping the kerb, which they admit is costly. 3. Leave the origonal driveway, remove some of the hedging next to the footpath and if Dad parks on the lawn, so be it. Its not an official driveway. I'm tempted to go for option 3 - its cheap and solves the problem in the short term. if the lawn gets a bit muddy, we could always lay a few paving slabs for the wheels! Isnt Bureaucracy wonderful!??

Thats good to know. thanks Jeremy.

Just contacted the planning department and they have said I do not need planning for the driveway.? However, I do need to check with Highways to see if they have any concerns over the footpath. And they are not answering the phone at the moment. While I could just go ahead with a driveway, as we are going for planning for the Wet room, someone will be coming out to check the build and I do not want to have problems later for failing to get authorisation. While others seem to get away with such things, I am one of those people who would get caught out - so its not worth the risk. I am hoping that as others have added driveways and do not appear to have had any strengthing of paths done, we will not need it either. and the kerb is so low, that it would not need lowering at all. Keeping fingers crossed.

Thanks for all the comments and advice. We will have to take some time weighing up the options and seeing what is best for us and parents. But as we are applying for permission for the wet room, it makes sense to add the rest on the same application. Will see if I can get a word with our builder to see what he says about the drains.

Certainly is something worth thinking about, if it avoids issues about planning.?

Thank you Ferdinand for all those comments. And I have to admit that I was a little concerned about that manhole cover. if it stays where it is, it would end up in the utility room of the extension. Is that allowed? Who do I ask? the builder, the council or building inspector? Or start a new post on here? Will get to it later. have some painting to get to now!

When is anything ever simple??☹️ The more I find out the more depressed I become! I shall explain. After realising that we needed planning for the wet room extension and organising that, I now have some time to sort out a driveway nearer the doorway to the bungalow for my elderly parents. The current driveway is about 30-40m from the front door and as neither mum nor dad can walk that quickly, when it was raining and they had shopping, they were both soaked by the time they got into the house. So they have asked for a small driveway alongside the path to the front door. its currently lawn and appears to be fairly free draining but I shall be conducting a permeablility test as described in https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/442889/BR_PDF_AD_H_2015.pdf and as per Jeremy's instructions on another post. The driveway will be 5m by 2.5m so 12.5 metres square. and therefore I believe it needs to be permeable paving. I planned to use concrete block paving so are these all permeable or do I need cerrtain ones? I popped into the local BM and said what I was planning. the chap there did not seem to know anything about permeablility of pavers. He has quoted for Bradstone Driveway Concrete Block Paving. On the Bradstone website, I cannot see if they are permeable or not but as they also have a Driveway Infilta range for use with a permeanle system, i would guess not. Or would the ordinary ones be okay if I use the right sort of sub-base layer? Which leads me onto the next question - the BM quoted for Type 1 but I believe I need Type 3. however, a little look online and the Type 3 looks like being nearly 3 times the price. Is that right? Do I really need Type 3 or can I just plan a nice rain garden to run alongside the non permeable driveway to collect all the run off? that looks like the simplest and cheapest option. But then to cap it all - I now find that I probably need permission for the darn thing after all!!! ? From the Government Document https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/7728/pavingfrontgardens.pdf I found the following. Legal issues – If you are constructing a new access into the garden across the footpath (officially known as the footway) you will need to obtain permission from the local council to drop the kerbs and the public footpath may need strengthening. This is to protect any services buried in the ground such as water pipes. AHHH!!! I can see this getting expensive..... No doubt I will need a specialist contractor to drop the kerb - which is only 5 cm high so we didnt plan to lower it at all. The house opposite has made a driveway and havent bothered wtih the kerb, he just bumps up and we planned to do the same. Should I take the risk and not tell them?? But what if there are pipes below the surface and they get damaged? Photo below shows the current layout, although it was 10 years ago. This is the area. the plan is to take up the box hedging to the right of the path (they are now about 18inches high and very neat) and run the drive alongside the path. 2.5m wide and 5m long.

The plans are quite straighforward and will give a good amount of space in the wetroom. I think they will be fine. Now I just need to keep fingers crossed that they get passed!? New plan.pdf New elevations.pdf

Yes, thats certainly something that we'd like to do. We had a good chat with the guy today and he came up with some interesting ideas and advice. he said he would suggest we apply for permission for the Wetroom only, moving the wall of the porch back in line with the wet room so the roof was regular. it will mean a slightly larger porch but would allow us to move the door to the side nearest the road, which for some reason would just feel better inside and use the space better, allow a ramp to the door etc. Then once (!) we get permission, we could go back and make a seond application for the whole side extension and thats free. he would include that in his fee and the council allow a free go (aparently). we could just impliment the first scheme now with the second started so it could be done in the future. I didnt know we could do that. Having talked to my parents, we alla gree that the whole extension would be too much for them to cope with and would make getting in and out fo the place, very difficult so thats something for the future, as well as your idea for opening up the kitchen to the lounge. He has measured up for the plans so will share once I have them.?

That would certainly be helpful if it could be done. I gather the builder did say he should be able to do the wet room using ladders to get in and out till the roof went on. He didnt look too keen but understood the reasons for it, particularly as it will be winter during the build. The Planning Officer said it would need planning. And unfortunately the porch was added about 10 years ago so not origonal and the main reason for any building work, is to provide a toilet and wet room close to Mums room, so it has to go in the planned position. I have arranged to see the Architectural technician chap tomorrow and will see what he says about the likelihood of gaining planning. Fingers crossed!?

There is a bungalow opposite on a corner which has had an extension somilar to the one we would like. And another one on another corner has just had a large extension added so I am hopeful that there should not be a problem. But then I have been wrong before .......? However, you may be right in thinking about a larger extension. If we can get the money together, a full width extension would maybe make more sense. My only concern would be the disruption to elderly parents. So it may be up to them. What about this plan? it would enlarge the porch, giving a large coat and shoe cupboard, and the rear could be a utility and larger kitchen. I'm thinking of extending out 2-2.5m. The wet room and porch could be done first before giving parents a break. then in the summer, the wall could be taken out of the kitchen to create a much larger room with a utility too. Its all stuff we would have done eventually anyway, so why not do it now and my parents can enjoy to space too, once the disruption is over.?

One other thought. In the future, after my parents no longer need the place, its highly possible that we'd move in ourselves and make a few changes to the layout. If we make an applicaiton now, would it best to consider what we may want to do in a few years time, which would include the wet room, and make an application for it all now? we would start the work but only add the wet room. would it mean we would not have to make another application later? (unless we change our mind). hmm. Probably a silly idea as we'd then have to come up with a future plan and we'd really need an architect to help us make the best use of the space. I think I have talked myself out of that plan - gosh, this forum is good! Its good to talk......