the_r_sole

I've done a couple of houses with lifts before - the most recent I can think of was about 12k for the lift, it was kind of built in it's own wee room... that was a stannah one, tbf not the prettiest addition to a home I've seen!

what the change of use for? Is it a ruin?! SEPA are now looking for everything to be registered with them, if you've got a communal system then I'd imagine that has the documentation? ask a neighbour

put a cupboard somewhere, much more useful than a weird loft store! ?

looking sharp there Jamie ?

The reason to leave a gap around the window is normally to ensure correct ventilation (of the alu cladding) so I'd imagine if you go with the bottom option with a cladding return, it won't really matter as you'll still have air movement around the cladding (and it definitely looks better!)

If you've got 900mm "loft" could you not just have a taller room? Add another 600 on to the room and still have 300mm for ducting?

I set this up as an excel thing before but I'm stuck to find it - the a actually doesn't change the end result hugely (unless you change it by a huge amount!) But put something realistic in, then you can tweak it to what you think - my guess is the simplified calc has a lot of room for manoeuvre!

Yeah, it seems you can pretty much make it up ?

There's a BRE guide for rainwater soakaways it's all slightly different inputs and the output is in m3 too rather than m2 for a drainage field... Scottish building regs have a simplified calc too that you can use on a single dwelling...

the render needs to go on something! Are you planning on using a carrier board? Tbh, I would put a stone cill to finish off the top of the stone and keep the lip - then it will look like you've got a thick stone wall!

if you've got 100mm stone, with 100mm block on top, the render finish will be outside the line of the stone (it won't be thinner like you suggest) So you'll need a bellcast detail at the bottom of the render Sorry, misread the op!! ignore me! what's above the stone to carry the render?

what bricks have you got? that's some tolerence!

Ahh, the bold inset balcony! Having my formative years working on the west coast of Scotland, this is a detail that shall never be featured on one of mine! Mind you balconies in general here aren't massively useful unless they've got significant weather protection...

really you need to start with what foundations are suitable for the ground conditions and work from there - a structural engineer would always be my first shout for foundation design

Quick - take down the location plan identifying your house!!

I like pd flowchart

In a sitation like yours have you considered full height slats? The glass (for me) looks better where there's a bit of room around it, whereas yours splits the corridor - there's loads of different examples of this approach but it'll depend a bit on the rest of your decor

I get it, but really your own legwork is complicating things and making the job of the architect more difficult,, they are spending time trying to make your revisions work, rather than them preparing revisions which they know to be compliant, I'd say you've found the most expensive way of employing an architect! By the time you get to submitting a planning application, you should be looking at minor tweaks to design, not exploring adding entire stories to the design, something fundamental like that should have been ironed out long ago - I know you say you're still learning etc, but really if you're employing professionals to advise and guide you, then you need to trust in their advice and guidance - or if you don't want that, use a cheap draftsman to draw up your plans. If you spent all that time putting together your brief, surely what you want is a house that satisfies the brief? if you're constantly changing the scope of the brief I'd say it's going to get very expensive in professional fees with no real outcome for you - you should have stopped the architect at the sketch stage and settled your requirements then. I would revisit your brief and try to understand why the requirements of that no longer suit and update accordingly before you go back to the architect with your next set of changes.

I do remember your brief but how much did you spend with the architect discussing and rationalising it? As I say, it just seems like you're not utilising the skill set of the professional you're paying...

But that's kind of what I've been saying about your approach, you've asked an architect to design a two storey house - if you're brief was to have a three storey house then their design would likely be different to balance all the things that a three storey house needs - so why not start with a process of discussion, not design, to figure out exactly what it is you want? [slight aside - 1800mm isn't particually "close" for a loft conversion - you'd likely to have to insulated under the rafters to achieve compliance with the building regs (or go for a warm roof build up) so you're going to add a good bit of height to 1800 for a viable conversion] I understand that you're not experienced, but you have appointed a professional, at your cost, to design a house for you based on what they've done before and what you thought you wanted at the outset. You really aren't getting any value from your architect by moving the goal posts, a clear brief should be the starting point really before pen touches paper. The design process, especially for an engaged self builder, is an iterative one that can take a while to get right but really, things like the number of storeys are pretty fundamental to a project at the outset, especially when you've been advised that it's unlikely to get planning permission by the person you've employed to advise you on those aspects...

but a zoom call with a screen share can work just fine, it's just a turn of phrase, but it doesn't appear that you have had much contact with your architect, it seems more like you get something from them, and then start re-designing, asking for help and advice on here, then going back with a new solution (and associated issues) - that's not the usual role of an architect, you've said they usually do much bigger houses, but you've obviously got them on board because you like what they have done in the past - so you should let them do what they do! I'm absolutely not saying that you shouldn't be involved in the design process, I've got some amazingly engaged clients, but we work very hard to make sure we are communicating our designs in a way they understand and at every stage we tweak things with them - a lot of the things you are trying to add in here are really things that need to be established at the start of the design process, and the the architects job is to bring those together into a functional, compliant design remember, you're paying a design professional who does this for a living, they should be working with you to make sure you understand these implications and compromises

the next revision will be interesting then! ?

Have you asked the builder what they think might be a reasonable compromise? It's a difficult situation tbh but you're the one that has to live with the error - open discussions and see how they approach it, explain the issues with the furniture/future sales etc rather than just saying they've got it wrong!

as per @Bitpipe's post - it doesn't really feel like you're getting the most/best out of your architect because you're trying to drive the design - I'm sure any creatives in the group will have seen the I design, you watch pricelist before.... I've worked with a fair number of self builders before, but I've never have someone work like you appear to be, I'm not sure how or why you've engaged them, but it looks like you're paying money to a design professional and then redesigning their design - can you not just sit down around a table with a set of drawings and tell them what you want them to design?

Sorry, end of a long week here - head isn't fully operational! But you'd probably need fire doors everywhere and with a new build they'd probably need to be self closers too - I don't think you can have the stairs within a room, as you're creating an inner room with that etc once I'm properly thinking I might add some more but look up the building regs for escape