DannyT

Has anyone here had similar doors supplied in aluclad or just aluminium? What kind of money did you pay? Had a quick online quote with windows24. 8 windows were at £15k, about what I expected but the sliding doors in 3 panes, triple glazed came in at £27k and front door 5k. if I was not sitting already, I might have fell over! At that price there would be a redesign. cheers

Plenty of builders merchants close by but none could beat the price of the forkie on site 😉 Ill be getting the bulk from merchants in Scotland. Have a lot of the brick sundries, carpentry metal work and drainage fittings etc from collecting over the last 18 months. Hopefully this build will be the last of my bricks and blocks for a lifetime. Body knows it when you’ve had a day on the concretes. I’ll stop comparing😂 Scottish boarders aren’t actually that far and is a nice drive up the M6. It’s the other 2hrs 30mins heading west from carlisle behind the HGVs and tractors. That would be my real concern with the red cladded roof. Treating cut ends and damage inevitably rusting. The plastisol coating has a grain effect finish and not sure how that would look. I would have to go see a roof in person. A slate roof should hopefully never need touching again in my lifetime though so It’s a trade off I suppose. Looks vs practically and knowing where to draw the line.

That was just the go to block I entered as it’s what I use all the time. If the plot were closer to work I’d use celcon or toplite as I’d get them for a cheeky £20 loading fee per pack 😉 but it’s a bit of a game to get them from Staffordshire to Scotland. I thought about storing them and sending everything up on a wagon but it’s a ball ache. I will probably end up using 3.5n concrete so I can get some solid fixing and cheaper. cant get over the price of thermalite these days.

Lead flashing is only protecting the gap between roof tiles and brickwork. Water will be driving in, Soaking the bricks and running down inside of the chimney. The only way of stopping it is one piece lead at the highest and lowest point where the chimney hits a roof. I would say your best bet here, rather than dismantle the chimney is coat the brickwork with some water sealer so it beads off rather than soaks through mortar and bricks. drawings from work

Thanks for pointing that out. I had completely overlooked dritherm 37 to compare costs and performance. If I insulate the garage too as planned the 37 is about 3k and the 32 a shade under 6k so a massive saving. Compared both at 200mm. Ill have to consider if the slight gain in performance is worth it. 32 37

Apparently they were told they couldn’t let it out and was classed as uninhabitable because had no toilet or bathroom by the council. Even offered it to a Ukrainian family but again didn’t meet criteria. Fast forward to second home tax and now it’s suddenly classed as one and is worth a tidy £4000 a year for the council. What a state the u.k is in!

I love the red corrugated roofs and have had samples sent. My concerns are we are less than a mile from the coast in either direction and it would loose the appeal with loads of black solar panels on it. Unless I could install the west panels in the garden. The house you shown here looks simple but stunning.

That’s the place. We have about 6 Neighbours around us and to be fair they are all nice. Although understandable that they want to know what we are building. With regards to full fill. Architect doesn’t want it, building control has said I’d have to prove what I use is up to it but with render and ecotherm 32 by knauf having a BBA certificate for severe locations, I’ll be pushing for it. rigid partial fill boards are a big no for me. stranraer is a 15 mile drive away. A lot of countryside between me and there. I have been, it’s not the nicest to be honest but it has a Morrisons and builders merchants. No other reason to go there. To be honest none of the towns do anything for me that we visited and I’m currently 15mins from Birmingham so it’s no brained. When I seen the Morrisons and jewsons delivery van drive past drummore I knew I’d be ok. Lol dumfries and Galloway is beautiful, away from most people and at the same time not 12hours from “home” so it’s a nice compromise.

I’ve spent most of the last 25 years doing the mass build development way so will be some learning involved with different methods for let’s say passive haus standards, although it won’t be a passive haus. I have already been working on minimising the cold bridge with the steels for 4.8m sliding doors.

Internally the porch section will be 2m wide. so that gives a 1.4m walkway in utility. bathroom of 2m x 2.4m etc. Trying to keep on the current foundations I like the 45 degree pitch of a long house type with the additional “extension” look. rather than one big gable ended squareish bungalow. feel free to share some photos if you don’t mind 👍🏻

West roof lights will probably come out. Probably overkill with light. Exterior sun shades will be the sliding external shutters of some sort over the big sliding doors and south facing windows. My thought with the 25mm IWI is that it will be around the whole interior, taped and sealed to floor insulation, roof insulation, window reveals etc. As air tight as can be. I’ll look into pros of your suggestion.

Summers not the problem for solar yield. It’s the winter months. you really see a drop off with a low sun on a 30 degree pitch. currently have a off grid set up. 7.8kw panels. 20kw battery storage and use as generates. grid is only connected as back up. Nothing goes back to grid. That’s they way it will be on this house. Cost for trades will be much lower than someone outside the trade. I am the trades. I do it everyday. groundwork’s, bricklaying, roof, tiling, solar panel install, carpentry, kitchen and bathroom fitting, painting, plumbing. I do it all every day. My biggest unknown are window costs. scaffolding, electrician, Ashp and render will be the trades required. I hate plastering so will see about that. No borrowing for build. Savings for build and house sale for retirement.

Definitely a chimney stack taken out. If the purlin had been cut they would at least be in line but they are not. One on the right is lower.

I want the roof at a 45 degree angle for solar panel generation in winter ( Makes a big difference on our 30 degree house at moment ) whilst keeping the ridge height down. Do you think it looks off? Inspiration from long house type homes like this

If it’s a ICF then make it 10 block. Only brick courses required if exterior walls were block build and you was keeping courses with that for example photo below

So I have had a little play around with adding the en-suite on to the side where the foundations are for what would of been a bedroom on the approved plans. Not final but does free up space for a bigger shared bathroom, bigger utility, plant room and more cupboard space next to en-suite. En-suite should also be big enough at 3m x 3m to have a bath and shower in. window is just thrown in but could be a loo with a view? All modelled to scale 👍

I go 2100mm off FFL. A little thing I sometimes do is pick the frames up the thickness of the tile, wood floor etc so you can slip it under rather than cut around frames, architrave etc. I also lay wood and tile floors before skirting and again leave a 10mm gap between skirting and concrete for carpets to slip under. Are you using wall starters to tie in to exterior walls or have ties been left out to tie into? If the later your best following block courses best can. I’d also run some 100mm dpc under first course. Off FFL should be 9 block and a brick to box lintel. Upto FFL you could do your course of 100mm marmox and 2 course of brick bedded up slightly to get to FFL.

Nothing at the moment. Just the strip foundations in. I’ll be taking the brickwork up to dpc enough to get 300mm underneath the screed.

Views from south to north. I have window facing south but not straight at the neighbour in cottage across the lane. Main windows facing west and a couple in bedroom north. utility etc is facing east onto the 2 neighbours boundary and protected from the hill behind.

So that’s the thought now. We would have to dig a new foundation down the length but use most of the rest. I have had a meeting on site months ago with the original architect who was present when the current foundations were dug and poured. They are about 800mm wide, bonus as I’m looking at 400mm thick walls. Yellow is what we will use and red would be the new strip to go in. I think I’m going to look at what adding a room on to the left foundation off the bedroom and maybe using that as a plant room and the one off utility as more in house storage.

Current foundations in

Current design that was passed off before we purchased the plot

Just running a design past you on here before we go to the architect. We purchased our plot with concrete in the ground. Initially the plan were to rip it out and have a completely different design and orientation of the house. That has changed. The plot has planning in proprietary so if we keep the existing foundation with a few additions, life will be a lot easier. The aim of this house is to build a highly insulated, mvhr, triple glazed, heat pumped home with solar. This is not a grand design home, it’s not a mansion. I’m not wanting a house 3 x bigger than needed like you see on the tv that you can’t heat. Im a bricklayer/builder by trade and see it all the time. Now the aim is to retire here. Single floor living. 2 beds, no kids. Cheap to run, cheap to maintain be mortgage free and have a fish room for my reef tank set up 😂 Build budget will be £200k. Block and block construction with render 200mm full fill cavity 25mm IWI taped and sealed 35mm service void plaster board skim A full on self build, once the architect has drawn it up and the new design hopefully passes planning and all regs etc, we will part ways and I’ll carry out all the work i legally can and get trades in like sparky etc. house 140m2 garage 40m2 location, mull of Galloway. Nearly everything is slate roof and white walls. My only concern is storage in the house, I have utility, part of plant room and garage. Fish room will be all my fish stuff out the way which is a problem in house in now. Whats your thoughts? Sliding exterior wood shutters to break up the render and keep the sun out the living kitchen if required? sliding doors in kitchen living face west towards field views. Feed back welcome

Take your internal walls up to the underside of joist height. Even if they aren’t load bearing walls I’d still have them so the joists are sitting on them to take some bounce out of the floors. If your joists are not on yet, string a tight line from the outer exterior walls at each end at joist height and run your interior walls in to that height. when you eye through then from one end, all your walls should be same height through out the building. medium dense blocks are fine for internal walls. We use both medium and thermalite, just depends on the developers preference.

At work we make the door openings 930mm to leave the Chippy happy. That’s for a 838mm door. lintels are dropped on at 2100mm above finish floor. Again to give plenty of room on the height. Any gap between lintel and door lining is packed with insulation before been plastered over. 2100mm will also leave the decision of going 2040mm or 1981mm until another day. As mentioned, knock up some dummy frames.