the_r_sole

I'm really struggling to figure out what the issue is, a drawing would help, 15mm threshold and 40mm lintels and floor to floors?! have they built your door openings wrong?

tbf £1300 falls into the very cheap end of things, our local authority uses construction costs of £1800 per m2 for ground floors and £900 for upper levels... If you had a quote for a single storey at 85, have you seriously downgraded the specification to aim at less than that for two stories? or have you reduced the floor area?

Ask them? You kinda need to do some of the leg work here. I'm sure I've had sample quotes from Scotframe before which had the full spec of what you get, then you can make a spreadsheet and get some other kit companies offerings to compare what is and isn't included - from a little experience I don't think there's much difference in what's included or not, but I have seen a fleming homes kits with loads of wastage on site (not sure if that was a standard kit or a one off)

section 0.13/0.014/0.15 of the technical handbooks talk about those items - but I don't think they are prescriptive as you're hoping, probably because site locations vary so much

whilst I would usually be of the same opinion about the expense of the intumescent paint, the last job I had this issue, the paint was actually cheaper than the pb solution (but that was due to the shape and intricacies of the install rather than material costs) The question is why your architects solution doesn't comply with the regs? Definitely get the relevant page out of the whitebook and prove your solution complies (but that should be the job of your architect)

So, say you're in your back garden doing some mucky work and you're bursting for a pee, you have to come in, through a room, through another room into the hallway and into the only wc on the gf ..

In that case, could you look at led strips in a wee channel along the spring of the ceiling? The oxter (unofficial term ?) can be quite difficult to get a sweet, straight line on so you could maybe run something along there to hide that join and wash the walls/ceiling with light?

This is solid advice - the plot should be the most important bit of the puzzle, find the best plot you can and then sort out the house design which really makes the most out of the plot - in terms of the design, what you can do is try to work out what spaces you want, and the relationship between them all - also work out your priorities in terms of the must haves and the nice to haves, as there may be a tough budget discussion to be had at some point...

It's your house at the end of the day but I'd say two bathrooms bigger than two bedrooms is unusual - I get that you prefer the family bathroom, but does everyone who might use the house? (If I was a guest in there I'd be worried about which bathroom I was meant to using!) If it was my "forever house" I'd have zero qualms about having a huge ensuite - I'd actually have a bath in it's own space too as I like a bath... but in all my time I've never had a client ask forh two family bathrooms within a few meters of each other on the same floor and no ensuites (I usually spend my time discouraging people from having en suites in every bedroom!)

That's a strange layout imho - why have two HUGE bathrooms so close to one another and both accessed from the hall and the bathrooms look like they're bigger than two of the bedrooms?! This is a very north american looking floor plan, where are you building?

400 sqm is a massive space so are you ever likely to need more space? If you do attic trusses, make sure you also leave enough room for a future stair too, and make sure your fire escape route could be protected too

3% and six months is usually my preference, it's tough to negotiate 5% and anything more than 3 ime

What are you planning on using the space for? I'm not sure how structural alterations like this are outside of building control involvement, avoiding the correct permissions at this stage is just building up future problems ime

If you can't have a bottom chord you'll need to do a ridge beam and rafter arrangement to have a useful space in the roof.

You could try speaking to some of the suppliers/installers - they'll know where there are some local examples! Got to love planner logic, we put metal roofs on a lot of houses these days...

As above - don't knock anything down before getting planning permission to do what you want, I've seen some people mess up very badly doing that!

@David R why don't you post the engineers drawings so we can see what you're working with and where the issues might be?

hello there! Get your plot first then worry about what's going to fit on it! Haven't seen those manta north ones before but I don't think I've seen many of the pre-fab units like that be particularly cost effective - heb homes are particularly "scottish" in style but I guess anything can be done... They use SiPs kits for their kits and there are lots of other technologies around too... this is a good place to get the information you need for your research phase!

who produced the window schedule, it's a bit of an usual arrangement to have the jct homeowners contract to do a D&B contract... The thing that worries me is that if the schedule forms part of the contract then you will have difficulty getting it sorted, even if they haven't built what's on the schedule, the right thing wasn't on the schedule either! Did you have planning permission and building regs approval before starting work? and did the contractor do all those?

is there a drawing which shows the existing and the proposed window, I can't understand how it could be confused to not widening the window if it's to match a wider window. As you say you have a contract (JCT) then there must be documents forming the contract, specifications/drawings etc?

that looks in great nick! what are your current pinch points with it? have you gone through the planning maze yet?!

That seriously misses the point of using an architect! A HMO and a family home are really two completely different set ups, I think you need to seriously consider exactly what you want to do with the house then make the floor plan suit the use - otherwise you'll end up with something like the floor plan you have here! If someone walked into the office and said they want me to draw that up, they would be getting redirected to our competitors ?

What I've done before with them is to build a little hidden channel at the base of the rooflight reveal and run an led strip in there, so that the light source in the room is always from the rooflights... also wall mounted lights washing the valuted ceiling can work a treat to give you a nice background lighting level. With the led technology it's much easier to have different types of light with hidden fixtures, on vaulted rooms I think you only really want a pendant dropping down if it's a "statement" piece...

Have is got any rooflights in it or exposed structure etc?

that's not the problem here, the steel sections and grades will be fully designed as they would be in the SER certificate approved in the building warrant - the op is struggling to get someone to provide the steel frame dimensions on site as they have poured the founds themselves and don't have a main contractor responsible for site measurement, it will be approximately sized on the drawings, but no one knows the levels the op has installed the founds to, the exact geometry of the wall or the ridge height it needs to tie in with...