Patrick

Sketchup works on IOS , bit of a learning curve, but eventiually you can do most things you would need. Has a 30 days free trial. After Trial ends, you can sign up for another 30 days trial with different email address . Just need a few emails over the year ?

Agreed . Thats how it will normally be done. Problem is that I have to dig out in order to get most of the exisitng Brick wall out. Alternatively I could do as you say by lowering the Brick wall to Ground level, let the Piling Contractor put the Piles in and than dig out the trenches (with the exisitng brick wall) in between the Piles. Would take your advice serious , as I m a big fan of your ring beam method and am planning to copy it . Specially the Swift Form, which I think is brilliant

Fair play to you. Thats exactly what I am looking for. So far successful . I am also keen on bringing as little Gravel/Sand/Aggregate as possible . Access is a bas#$%d at mine.

I am nearly done with my entire demolition. We only got the little Brick Plinths wall left where the previous suspended Timber floor was sitting on : (This was the previous Timber Floor): The new Foundations go in the exact same spot as the old Brick wall (this is whats left of the now) : So my Problem is, I want to re use as many of the old bricks as possible , but a fair amount is just crushed or falling to pieces when you touch them. I am going to remove the bottom of the walls with a mini digger, but would like to avoid carrying/driving the old bricks that cant be reused out of the site. So my Plan was to keep them in the middle, underneath the new buildings Block and Beam floor . Maybe crush them to Gravel and fill the bottom of the Trenches as well. The only rule I am aware of atm for suspended Block and Beam floor is, that you need an airgap/clearance underneath of at least 150mm , better 225mm which is ventilated and clear of organic material. Is there any rules or practical reason not to do this . So my plan was next, to dig out the old wall and at the same time dig the trenches for the new build , ready for the piling contractor to put piles in and concrete the RC beam with the Piles in 1 go . Any suggestions?

Wait for the second quote. In my small experience the Utility quotes do not necessarily follow logic. I had quotes for silly small work that where ridiculous and larger jobs that where surprisingly cheap.

Thought i give an update on the cheapskate project and show some pictures of my office as it is finished now and I am working from there for a while already. Finishing is most definitely not up to the standard of some of you, but It serves the purpose. It s warm , well insulated and Electric heating . And it cost me approx. : 855£ BUILDING GARDEN OFFICE.pdf Timber all from demolitions Doors and Windows as well Lots of other bits and pieces from Gumtree "for free" section or Freecycle.org Had a Mate living in it for 1 Month and he gave it the thumbs up. ?

Why do you need it planned for cladding? The look?

Regular buying from Ali express. Quality is mixed. Can be lucky sometimes. The real super cheap stuff is mostly also cheap made so I started staying clear of that. You can get fittings and other bits (others here bought lamps) with CE standard so will meet current British standards. And most of it is a fair bit cheaper than cheapest UK supplies even after shipping. As of returns, buy it on credit card and Ali will take care of it, no problem. Only takes ages and you will pay for shipping. And btw., I just discovered, do not buy clothes there. A Chinese 5XL is barely a British Large(and 5xl is most of the time the biggest size they have) ?

Common saying is that always invest into material first before going into technical solutions. So get the Insulation and the airtightness right before you invest into fancy PV panels. Invest into top insulated windows, doors and insulates floors/walls/roof. If price sensitiv, keep the xlarge windows/glass fronts to a minimum. Next is a good/economic mvhr. This might also take on your heating if you like, some do, some don't (it's essentially warm air heating) If you think about heating, Ground Source heat pumps are fairly expensive and take a long time to pay themselves back. Air source heat pump is much better economically. If you already have Gas at the property, might even be worth considering gas boilers. If not, you have to see what gas installation costs are. Any photovoltaic system will take around 25-30years to be worth the investment. Unless there is a pay in tariff coming back OR you do a full on DIY system and materials can be bought for cheap.

Love it!

It needs fire retardant treatment as far as I know.

Been asking this question to a few guys but could not get anywhere just yet. I have my neighbours Garden Wall in one corner of my House coming really close towards the House/Foundations/Wall : (on the picture to the right is the red brick wall, the dirty floor is the old building that has been there and that will be exactly replaced , so the wall will be approx. 10cm away from the house in this corner) Problem is that I will at a later stage have to hang my cladding somehow on the outside of the building. But in the corner on the picture above, there is no way of accessing the bottom part of the building. Ripping down his Garden Wall and rebuilding it after is not really an option. I had similar problems when I build my Garden office, as it is about 10cm away from 3 different neighbours fences in the back corner of the garden. I just solved it by erecting the Stud Walls with outside Membrane and Cladding already attached before lifting it in Place. But this was a 3.5 meter wall that was fairly lightweight. The Wall at the House will be much heavier . The Building is a Timber Portal Frame, so the Ends will be full house height in 1 Piece . There are no Cranes to lift the Wall in place. At the moment the only thing I can think of , is doing the same as with my Garden office. Building the end wall complete with Cladding and everything and than just calling enough blokes in to lift it up . I am up for better Ideas.

Hello, i see a few things here . You mention PV panels for your house. Unless you got some pay-in tariff ,there are plenty of way more useful things you can spend your money on. As others mention before , planning can possibly be a lot cheaper : Planning application including architects plans and planning consultant - 7,000 -You only really NEED a fee of approx. 500GBP. Nothing says you need an architect or planning consultant

@MikeGrahamT21 Did you end up buying it. Seems all perfectly fine with me, but not many usage reports out here(or anywhere) so also was wondering if anyone used them. All together good impression.

It provides for a much higher tolerance to mistakes and also to movement in the timber. Hence why it was used for centuries. If the board on board shrinks or moves by a few mm, the wall is still covered since they overlap by 10mm or more. With T&G if you are unlucky it will open up gaps again. This will most likely not happen if you buy high quality T&G timber cladding. But you pay a premium price for that. Board on board or board and batten is essentially just what it says. Boards. No need to go to a "cladding supplier". A good quality board from a sawmill or timber supplies will do just fine. And that is a lot cheaper than whatever they sell you as cladding . Is mainly a question of A:Style you want B:money you can/want to invest Into cladding.

Board on board How it looks on the wall Or like this

Looked at both. Very similar product in terms of behaviour. WOOD is more expensive by approx. 30% and also depends if your installer can do it (if you ordering through an installer, mind that they might also charge a premium since they are doing wood blown in, which is a "greener product") I would stick to Cellulose as its proofen and tested + a bit cheaper and I can't see Steico Blown in wood fibre being that much better to make up for it.

@lizzieThan it's decent stuff. Probably not cheap but looks good.

All the timber you are buying is pretty much dependant on where it comes from. In general all the Larch grown in the UK is of fairly low quality. Makes sure you are buying Siberia Larch or European Larch from somewhere like Poland, Czech, Austria, where there is a proper winter and some mountains. This makes the larch grow slower and the wood of a better quality (harder wood). I don't know if this is something that regularly happens, but I was advised by UK timber dealer and sawmill to hang Cladding wet. This is complete rubbish and should be avoided at all costs. Only a sales tactic to get rid of wet timber and never heard this anywhere else. So either air dried or kiln dried. When properly dried shrinkage and movement with Siberian larch should be minimal, specially if you keep the timber on site for a few weeks before installing to let it "adjust" to local conditions. Also normally you should get way more than 15 years out of a decent batch of larch board. IMHO the most solid form of cladding is Board on board or board and batten (also Wayne Edge does something similar) as it allows the timber to move. Does not matter which one you use, all timber will move at least a little so I would prevent faults by using a technique that has been proofen for a few hundred years. Value/money siberian larch is pretty unbeatable. The high Sap content is making it so durable and it is still easy to work with. Instead of pre drilling, I would hand nail it.

Depending on your time, you might be able to do a lot yourself. Not Structural engineering but Building regs are manageable. Look at @JSHarris blog for some inspiration. But generally speaking you should be able to get a Structural Engineer for somewhere around 2k£. I did mine online and found it excellent even many people are against that and rather have somebody local. With regards to a renovation /barn conversion it might be beneficial to have someone looking at it rather than doing pure desktop calculations. But even than, shop around. Quotes vary massively (mine where between 1250£ - 7650£, all local, all for SE calcs.). BUILDING REGS. wise I found the local Building regs officer very helpful and would go with them, they will answer all the questions and when you hand in your "homemade" plans, will advise of what extras/changes they would need. Have a look on templates and just copy+paste. Works for me.

Sounds like a plan. Where about are you located. Might have a man with a machine for you. Load should easy be enough for anybody on here. Unless you planning to insulate the taj mahal. ?

@oldkettle No. Not exactly cheap. But I figured that having several different layers of insulation by different installers would cost even more and cellulose is quite effective in getting in all the corners so don't need to worry that there are cold spots in the wall. Only alternative would have been spray insulation but it is even more expensive and I did not want to take the health risks that might arise in the future (discussed elsewhere). Only way I could see a cheaper insulation for the house was doing it with rock wool or earthwool and I dont want to do it all myself and wouldn't trust an installer to get it 100% right. It's not that easy to get the mats in every corner to perfection. The slab needs different insulation. Doesn't work with cellulose.

But I am just struggling to accept that the price for chemicaly treated shredded newspapers is approx. 0.71£/kg . Even when considering shipping(expensive) , this seems nuts. Recycled Paper cost around 0.03- 0.06£/Kg .

@bissoejosh yep, had the same problem . Not just with Cellulose but with a lot of materials . For your cost per m3 , this one helps: https://www.thermofloc.com/palmCMSv3/_dateimanager/Verdichtungstabelle/Verdichtungstabellen_Thermofloc.pdf Warmcell gives following ballpark figures 360mm walls @ 63kg/m3 36deg 360mm roof @ 56kg/m3 So most of the manufacturers sell on prices per bag (in my example it is between 9.90GBP -11.00 GBP/bag) Each Bag is approx. 14 KG This gives a estimated price of 0.71 - 0.79£/kg Assuming average of 60kg/m3 (for exact calcs, see the table on Thermofloc) the price would be somewhere around 42.60- 47.00£/m3 (which again works out as 12.78-14.10/sqm on a 300mm wall ) below are the Thermal properties of Cellulose (even though German, might be able to understand some bits ) https://www.thermofloc.com/palmCMSv3/_dateimanager/downloads/Leistungserklaerungen/Q-4-412a-Leistungserklaerung_Thermofloc_F_DE_2018-11-20.pdf These are figures for a wall without windows and doors, so have to calculate openings into this, obviously. Installation costs are approx. 14.50GBP-16GBP per m3 (obviously extremely variable and might be much more expensive depending on where you live and how difficult your setup is) @joe90 PM me

I am just looking for options to get Blown In Cellulose as I already sorted an installer who is good (very fair prices) but still not really happy with the prices for the Cellulose. Was wondering if anybody had some experience in buying the Material directly. Had an offer from a UK company for approx, 11GBP/bag delivered and one from Germany for approx 11EUR/Bag . Bot delivered but from Germnay would be minimum order of 800bags, aka a full lorry. So would stick to the UK company. Both are not too bad, but would have expected much better to be honest. Anybody keen on sharing order process. (Material only)