MikeSharp01

Looks like somebody burying a price increase with brexit and in at least one sense they might be right, in 2016 the pound as 1.4 against the Euro, now it is 1.17 so thats about 16% difference (now/then) or 19% (then/now) and assuming they pass on all the exchange rate adjustment BUT in early 2014 it was 1.2 did we see a big price drop in 2015-2016 and the price is just settling back to what it was in 2014 - did we heck?

The answer is mass production - if you can build a ford focus, with all its components, and sell if for under 20K you can gear up to make houses in the same way, mass production combined with mass customisation. If you want something more flexible you just need to look at house building robots and or 3D printing (see HERE for an example). Manual production has always been one of the key drags on better building. I was in a meeting with one of our biggest housebuilders and suggested that they fund some research into a bricklaying robot. The look I got was, to say the least, withering. The response was, in polite form, - there is no room in our industry for such things. (that was 2012) In 2014 we saw THIS and in 2016 THIS some interesting insights from the founder of company. It won;t be long though... Wi Fi wall switches will cut wiring and so it goes on. AUTOMATE or DIE and get the humans doing the higher order stuff. (PS I think we can automate accountants already, just no finance director will sign off on the development!)

Likely that you will have to take steps, our neighbours have such a system and the advice they were given means that they have to keep the recordings safe for a period of time and if anybody, driving / walking / riding or cycling by asks they have reasonably to be able to show them anything they have that identifies them, two years nobody has asked.

His argument is that these wall represent the only cross racking in the building as it is essentially an open box with two ends. He has specified OSB on inner and outer of the I-Joists and his calcs do show that 50mm spacing is critical to ensuring it has the correct stiffness (100mm does not pass the stiffness test). It may be slight overkill but if I do as he has specified I cannot be wrong if something does go wrong.

I dream of spending time on my backside, nice cosy little office, my own kettle, now its a frozen site office to grab a quick coffee, same kettle, and back to it on site, think I sit down for about 2 hours a day - mostly on buildhub or the CAD programme looking up / updating drawings. It was cold today - worse tomorrow.

I think I have to get one, the SE wants some of the internal boarding, racking support, nailed every 50mm I think there are 150m of board join at 40 nails per meter, thats 6000 nails in that bit alone! To think I had thought I might use screws to hold it all together - so much more civilised than nails!

In a couple of weeks I will be starting the first part of the framing and think I need to get my grubby - clean your nails before making my supper Dad, hands on a nailer. A friend has recommended these which he has. I think they look good but I am not sure, any thoughts.

Welcome, not sure you need a consultant just a sound, thought through, management plan, did some building in Greenwich and we worked out the plan with the D&B contractors although they had their own way of dealing with BS5228 because some of their ways of doing things had price implications for us. If you are in Camden you can pop down to the British Library and go through a copy of the standard / code of practice there and make your plans. All planning applications needing one will have to put them on the planning portal so you can find loads of examples. Here is a plan I found: https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/idoxWAM/doc/Other-1406075.pdf?extension=.pdf&id=1406075&location=volume2&contentType=application/pdf&pageCount=1

Welcome to buildhub. Is it ebuild on steroids? Probably not, they are not good for you anyway (unless you have a life limiting medical problem), but just as useful / friendly / informative / open for discourse as ebuild in all respects, we look forward to learning more of what goes on in the far east!

Hmmmm... This thread has warmed up a bit hasn't it and for me that's great. Believe me I have great respect for our architects who have done a great job, in our opinion, in bringing the design through planning against difficult planning and client, IE me, situations. They have, had times, had the 'I know best' attitude and have not really been able to justify it but this has been something I have done to them as well. I can confirm, having had dealings with almost all the professional bodies in engineering at least in my time that a lot of the apparent 'arrogance' for want of a better, less inflammatory, word is driven from the professional bodies. This is because these bodies are designed to be exclusive and they make membership appear such an achievement that the members group think is that they are set apart and as such should drive ideas in their discipline. It is also instructive to learn that, although they are all supposed to comply with the same standards for membership, one of the civil engineering bodies thinks of itself as the hardest to get into and advertises this, somewhat clandestinely through tutors, to students. Unfortunately they all need to wake up and smell the flowers, or coffee, and realise that their roles are now so interconnected in real time, BIM for instance is out there big time in construction, that they will no longer have the luxury of working something out independently and then presenting it as the starting point. In the world going forward omincompetence will be required or at the very least the ability to navigate the needs (wants) of other disciplines in real time. If this does not happen the roles will be replaced by IT systems and just one person - might be an architect or perhaps an envirotect (must protect that name while I think of it), will orchestrate design and perhaps even construction. (You can imagine an uber app for first fixers can't you - sounds like a 1920s dock labour scheme to me - what goes around comes around) At every turn the 'system' will re-cost and resequence the design so the orchestrator can see how much it will cost and the impact on schedule. We are trying to use a sort of BIM on our build but the architect only has a good understanding of level 2 BIM - 3D CAD, and definitely does not manage the 4D - Sequence, and for us 5D - cost, at all well although they do let me work out how much an idea costs and kick it into touch from there, I have to do the how to build it - 4D stuff as well. I am in the happy position of being able to do this in almost real time - your doing nothing else Dad and I have a reasonable grasp of how it might be constructed and how to cost it. @Sensus has a real quandary on their hands splitting the web site. Self builders here are self selecting at best and I suspect many guests don't join because they don't like the feel of the site and the apparent depth in which things are discussed here. Having enough 'ways in' has always been a marketing mantra I felt resonated with me. The art of getting people into something is to present them will accessible routes and supporting their journey to the core from the entry point. Allowing them to peel back the onion as they go through. Most of the bigger component / materials supplier firms now have web sites that accept the existence of self builders (widest definition), alongside hardened professionals from construction and design areas, that allow you to switch between them and take a slightly different path to the details you want but the details remain the same. FWIW I think two doors in will be a boon, your can always A-B test it, because people will see that you have thought about their needs and take the route that they feel best suits them. Also the semantic crawlers rummaging in the brain of your site will see more relevant content and rank you higher. I think they call that win - win.

+1 to @Sensus thoughts above. It does not have to be the architect but as I understand it you will have to show that the responsibility is real so keep some separation between this role and the client, perhaps appoint your partner as the client. Again as I understand it It must be clear that the pre construction phase H&S is to the fore and won't be compromised by client demands such as speed, risk, cost etc and any risks in the register are passed through to the construction phase or removed from / in the design. Here is where I got my thinking from. https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/CDM_2015_principal_designer_duties

If I recall a visit I made to a local tile maker the press the lettering in after the tile was formed, I guess it ensures you get the full dense block rather than any gaps around letters where the clay has not gone. Also don't forget - grandma & eggs, to get the letters the right way round on the board / mould bottom. so the text comes out correctly.

Hi Lee. I too am building in Whitstable already know a couple of other self builders / upgraders in our neck of the woods and have got loads of useful stuff here, hope I contribute where I can. Not a tradesman but am reasonably handy. Materials prices is a constant battle as you have said. Anyway sounds like another one for the Kent chapter as @PeterStarck is not far away and there are others on here as well I think.

'Help out or die slowly' is the title of a picture we brought at the young Scottish contempories Exhibition in London last year. The artist is 25 and 'gets it' as you have described big time. Although he is based in Kirkentolch. Your piece is very cogent and speaks volumes on the challenges you and, because of our wider interdependence - everything is connected to everything else, the rest of us face. The problem is, as you have described, rampant self interest and the accompanying decay in the ideas of community and society.

Just a thought - I would be worried if the plenums only just fit as you need to ensure they are mechanically isolated from the wall facings to ensure you don't get any vibration transfer and set up sympathetic vibes in your wall facings. There is always the chance that some bright spark will drive a picture nail through them.

Think that depends on which way around you go - if I leave from here heading south pass through the zero point at the bottom and keep on going I will eventually be heading south towards you.

As an aside a builder of my acquaintance told me that he uses 15mm boards when the studs are on 600mm centres and 12mm on 400mm as it makes getting the wall much more reliably flat, especially on dry lining.

Just sitting here with a pile of sheets of paper trying to fold one onto the shape of the foundation slab insulation lining and wondering just how many tape joins you can make in your passive slab dpc? Any thoughts?

Thanks all. We are at the detailed drawings stage and my concern is to get it right now so building it has very limited room for error / interpretation. I am happy to pay the architect for the detailed drawings but less happy asking for changes down the line, after the fixed price bit us finished, cos I didn't /could not have been expected to spot an issue. The point about just reusing existing robust details is taken but these need to be contextualised for the specific build. One thing I have had is a drawing that shows profiled tiles around roof lights even though we have flat tiles. Will just keep on keeping on.

Today our architects sent me back a number of details, second drafts, on the first, still to look at the rest, I identified 8 (Eight) issues including two cold bridges around the main front window, essentially both sides! Don't get me wrong I really like working with our architects, they treat me as an 'intelligent' client (well that is how it feels but I suppose its possible that they are just humouring me) and it also feels like we are a team. I think my concern is that they may have begun to get the idea that I am up to quality control for their work - they ask me if its buildable, if I could do their job I would not need an Architect, rather than them having some internal process that removes issues such as cold bridges from a Passive House design. My conundrums (not conundra) are: How many times should I expect to go around this loop of commenting on the drawings? Who carries the PI claim if incorporating my, perhaps naive, ideas results in problems later?

Sounds like a new TV format. The great British brick off!

Wish we could but cannot find any suitable passive house certified windows made in the UK, or any passive house windows not built from imported sections at all for that matter!

Alternatively- just find you local school art department with a kiln and ask if they would put your brick in with their next firing in exchange for a donation to school funds, for a slightly bigger donation they will probably do it on its own.

You might be lucky - assuming Mr Clause goes over, flying west in the early hours, the slipstream should take the pattern back out into the Atlantic - of course if you don't believe in that sort of stuff - strap yourselves in. Looks like we in the SE will be OK this time but will still batten down those hatches anyway it will be our turn next.

Yes thanks Ferdinand - good to know you can still get them but my question was aimed at finding other objects that use the heat from a bulb, not available from an LED, to make something amusing such as @AliG mentions.