canalsiderenovation

Hi@AliG I love your fire! The stepped skirting is lovely but is my cleaning idea of hell! I do like the idea of the curved one posted by @Bitpipe. @Bitpipe do you have any pictures of your skirting?

Nope, we have an endless supply of seasoned wood currently as when we moved in bunkers were full and we have a wood too and a there were numerous felled trees. On the canal the cottages opposite are on solid fuel too (though again seasoned wood mainly, it's always available on the canal) and that's without the narrowboats going past so if I was worried on health risks I've picked the wrong house!. We will keep the wood burner but our main heating will be ASHP when the renovation is done.

That skirting looks pretty good (and cheap) and as you say avoids the dust. We currently have pencil skirting and it's terrible for dust (I think the wood burner makes dust worse and as it's our current only form of heating as the oil heating knackered last year we are using it a lot). I'm dreading winter as we basically need to move the bed etc into the living room and treat it like a studio in the hope we can manage til the renovation starts next year and we can find somewhere else to live!

At the moment we have a 24ft long lounge/living room (albeit with a stove in a true 1970's brick fireplace in the middle) and white skirting just over 3' high so quite small compared to the room size. Bigger skirting just equals more painting and IMO actually drawing attention too it! ? Have you gone for a maintenance free option? Any suggestions?

I'd not heard of shadow gaps, but with the OTT hoovering and mopping by the OH I can foresee issues to do away with skirting altogether (as much as I hate it), she's bad enough with the naff vinyl im the lounge and kitchen let alone hard floor throughout! Recessed is not something I'd seen though so will definitely look into that. The alternative would have to be something as maintenance free as possible, likely white we don't want oak and to have a particular wood shade.

Whilst cleaning my mum's house this week, it occurred to me how much I really hate skirting boards! Now granted my mum's are those fancy lots-of-annoying-groves-type which are a pain to dust and have yellowed slightly and we current have the basic kind, but I just hate skirting board generally. I know we are going to have to pick skirting boards are some point, but please no glossed skirting boards! What do people have? Do skirting boards ever look nice? Also, randomly at the same time I was thinking about underfloor heating and flooring. E.g. tiles or whatever and would this be put in before or after skirting? (I have no idea what what we will put on the floor - that's a whole new topic)!

Excel clad the company who manufacture the plastisol sheeting have said they can fold up a highline gutter from the same material as the sheeting which can be folded in various dimensions to suit our requirements so that could be an option.

? Thanks I'll take a look. Apparantly you can get RAL7016 uPVC guttering to match the cladding........

If we went for similar to the design above the handrail would be on the wall so descending would be on the side of my dominant (right) hand - good point though!

It looks really good, but when you are trying to get a king sized mattress up them it creates a whole range of issues!

On that pic I like couldn't you just have a handrail on the wall - but not on the other side and just have glass on the other side? Other half says people would still grab onto the glass. My argument is as it's only our room and the gym upstairs it would only be us going upstairs!

Had a spiral staircase in the last house. It was a nightmare! I'm actually quite pleased it's straight stairs but just can't see anything that jumps out at me...

Sorry I'm confused, what would look better?

I wish places would only put pictures of stairs that comply with building regs, I'm getting unrealistic expectations! The other half doesn't like those ones now so stair design continues ?

Our roof and cladding is 3' corrugated plastisol RAL7016 and the architects have put on the building regs for UPVC guttering. I can't help but think this will look awful against the metal. Any suggestions?

I really like the open appearance and glass on the design of these stairs (though not the white and white oak, I'd probably prefer it in black and oak). Our architects are currently working on building regulation plans and have sent me through what they have so far (I swear we have the slowest architects ever, at least 5 weeks since we had the decision re planning or perhaps I'm just being impatient!) We have straight stairs and I'm looking for some inspiration.... But then they have put this: Timber stairs to comply with BS585 and with Part K of the Building Regulations. Max rise 220mm, min going 220mm. Two risers plus one going should be between 550 and 700mm. Tapered treads to have going in centre of tread at least the same as the going on the straight. Min 50mm going of tapered treads measured at narrow end. Pitch not to exceed 42 degrees. The width and length of every landing should be at least as great as the smallest width of the flight. Doors which swing across a landing at the bottom of a flight should leave a clear space of at least 400mm across the full width of the flight. Min 2.0m headroom measured vertically above pitch line of stairs and landings. Handrail on staircase to be 900mm above the pitchline, handrail to be at least one side if stairs are less than 1m wide and on both sides if they are wider. Ensure a clear width between handrails of minimum 600mm. Balustrading designed to be unclimbable and should contain no space through which a 100mm sphere could pass. Does this mean we have to have a handrail and couldn't have a design like the one below?

I don't know if anyone is close to Shropshire but I'd been in to a local firm called Excelclad at Prees https://www.excelclad.co.uk/ and got chatting to a local contractor who came round to chat about our plans (all before we got permission) just to check out my thoughts on materials, insulation etc and I was able to drive by a property they had done work on. I was concerned as we have 10 Velux windows on our plans... The contractor details are https://www.facebook.com/www.jcooperandsons.org.uk/ As I said I've not used them but maybe worth checking them out specifically if you are looking at a corrugated steel roof like we are.

Aside from Internorm, I haven't seen any other company that do alu-clad PVCU mentioned on here, so if anyone has any other suggestions for alu-clad PVCU companies that would be great. I do like the Internorm product and hopefully in a couple of weeks we will have our building regs plans so can start to get quotes.

Our architectural company just rung us today, the Council contacted them to apologise for the delay, they have approved planning and the materials and the full report will be with us at the end of the week (they have a backlog). Couple of conditions (which they think will relate to the ecology, bat boxes etc) but I so pleased the Council ignored the ridiculous comments from the consultancy stage from the Canal and River Trust who basically didn't like anything about the plans! Once we get the report we can then start to look at tendering and crack on with some major research, building reg plans etc and finding a builder for next year...... It's almost 12 months since we approached different companies, architects etc....

So we now had the follow up survey to check for roosting bats, despite the lack of evidence in the first report. I've just had an email: The survey was a good one. We found no roosting bats, and it was quieter on the activity front than we would have expected from the location. There were soprano and common pipistrelles foraging around the edges of the garden, and a myotis bat that was foraging along the bank behind the house. We didn’t see any birds nesting, but there was plenty of birdsong around us and some quite active blackbirds at dawn. I’m hoping to get the findings written up this week but there shouldn’t be any restrictions from bats, a generalised method statement is usual as bats have been known to just show up sometimes, but the only timing restrictions will come from the nesting birds as detailed in the original report. So, basically no issues. Annoying we had to pay for the follow up report to check for roosting bats even though there was no evidence, but there we have it. Hopefully we will now get a decision re planning as they wouldn't do anything until we had this....

Same here, building regs but not PP. Made some notes based on this discussion but will wait to see what happens with PP and our up and coming bat survey .... And I'm sure our architect may have some words of wisdom re building regs. We are off on holidays now for some sun - it's cheaper than our heating bills!!

Yes, just outside Whitchurch, Shropshire. There is a definite flow. Watching the boats trying to get under the bridge had provided much entertainment as the flow from the bywash pushes them the opposite way and then the have to reverse and straighten up. I'm sure it's created lots of arguments on family holidays and near divorces . . .

Crikey! Yes, I found actually if you can avoid needing to ask or consult CRT on anything it's easier. I'm also guessing discharge to a watercourse (canal) won't allowed. The Vortex seems good and low electric use too. Obviously we will need to wait for building reg plans and all perculation tests etc for drainage/soakaways and we are not on mains drainage...

We actually do have a flow as we have a bywash adjacent to the garden so it always has some flow to it. The likely issues are communication with CRT who are not the easiest people to communicate with, you need an application for anything with a large fee before they will even consider giving any view and when they were consulted on our PP application they had been less than favourable on their view of materials and design, even though the local councillor who visited supports it, all local neighbours support it and we had lots of favourable comments. Whether the local council supports their views yet who knows - we will wait til May.

I understand the septic tank cost £120 to be emptied for us (well the seller) and that was potentially not being emptied since the 70's, but the bungalow is on a half acre plot as well. We haven't had it emptied since then -last Easter although I know current advice say we should have it emptied annually. I've read good things about the Vortex and low electric use. In terms of discharging to a watercourse, wonder if Canal and River Trust would allow that? I'm guessing not as they are the most difficult, hard to communicate with people we have encountered so far and would probably want to charge as well...