Jilly

Look at Beehive Farm. Two vets have done the One Planet thing in Wales (near to Lammas). They will give you a virtual tour for a £5-10 to show how they live totally off grid. Be careful about living without any creature comforts, I got pneumonia (pre Covid 19!) by roughing it too much on a house renovation. One benefit of a boat is that you can move on.

My recent experience with pre planning was that I was shoved to the bottom of the pile and forgotten, as actual application took precedence

I found myself tinkering forever (and still am!) I would go for it and find out how you stand, in case you have to think about an Appeal. You can change the internals easily later on the Building Control Drawings and windows usually on a Non Material Amendment. But some things might be specified on your Planning Conditions.

What a great idea! I'd love to get my garden at the site started, but we are holed up at the rented house. I've used straw before as a mulch, permaculture and forest gardeners are really into it, you get some weed growth from unrecovered awns of barley or whatever, but not too bad. What is this method of gardening called and would it work outdoors? I've heard urine is good for decomposing straw too, but might make your green house a bit smelly!

That looks great, it reminds me more of a railway carriage than a Shepherd's hut. I want one too!

People can only object on actual planning issues, such as 'loss of privacy' etc not 'i don't like it'. So go back to the council and remedy the objections if you can. Eg use obscured glass etc. Post the objection and see if any of us can help.

I see what you did there!

Maybe speak to a planning consultant? How about a pre application? These might be very low priority now.

I'm about £100K short of what I would really like to build and so am planning to do things in two stages: minimum liveable, with an extension later, when hopefully I'll be in a better financial position. Incidentally 'habitable' means you have to have the kitchen and bathroom installed, and a few other things before you can mortgage, if that's one way you could raise more cash. Alternatively jig the layout so that you could have a self contained part for a lodger to raise cash?

Yes, we could, but the whole roof will have to come off. I will lo.ok into it once I have some prices

I've had to make a shed load (excuse the pun) of compromises because the permission is for conversion and it has to be exactly the same. I could think about doing a vaulted ceiling over the whole structure, but I'm caught in the trap of not being able to get costings without a clear idea of what I want, but I can't make those decisions without having some prices in front of me.. So I'm getting BC drawings done so that I can put out to tender .

We have explored this with the structural engineer and digging the floor out will compromise the foundations, meaning that we need to underpin: quotes for this have varied from £15-30K, so not an inconsiderable difference. We are compromising by taking part of the roof off to create a vaulted ceiling over the living room (I would rather spend money where I can see it!, with the lower ceilings over the kitchen part/bedroom and bathroom. Demolition is a non starter unless we do it 'accidentally' and I'm too risk averse for that. It's looking like Celotex it is! The other options are just too thick.

2.1m, so its tight

Due to a restricted head height, we only have 100mm from the existing concrete floor to the top of the new floor. The concrete is levelish, but its under a lot of rubber stable mats so I can't inspect it fully at the moment. (next job).

Haven't chosen it yet, but thinking about wood

The insulation and floor will go over the old concrete stable floor.

Sorry, the existing floor is a concrete slab, 150mm thick. The floor will go on top. The minimum u value we could have is 0.28 (the 70mm Celotex would be be 0.22, so that would be my target). The p/a value is correct. The building is just under 60m2. Ie 10+10+6+6/10 x 6 = 0.533 The 0.566 calc comes from the exact figures the architect has.

Sorry, 150mm concrete slab with a painted on DPM or tanking. Th structural engineer has suggested a suspended floor. I don't want to underpin, and it seems screed and UFH will be too heavy.

Hi, I am just having the Building Regs drawings for my stable conversion and need your suggestions, please, as we have a bit of a dilemma because I want hippy, non off gassing stuff! I need something relatively thin with a high compressive strength. Due to restricted head height, we ideally have only 70mm, but we might be able to use a little more. The p/a value is 0/566 (perimeter/area) The architect has quite reasonably suggested Celotex as a cost efficient solution.

I'm in the same position. I'm thinking about what I can do myself to keep the building and my finances protected. Don't take on debt if your income might be affected, and hopefully you have 3 years, Be mindful the old saying 'If in doubt, do nowt', til the situation becomes clearer. Up until now, I had been working on the assumption that many trades and labourers will mostly be in the low risk category for the illness itself, and for much of the time, they don't work in close proximity to each other and so are likely to want to carry on working. Most people will need significant training in how to stop the spread of germs of any kind. I've even been thinking if it might be come fashionable to install a small hand washing sink at the entrance of properties in the future...

I've changed architects as I thought my first one seemed inattentive to detail, but changing has caused all kinds of bother, as I, like you, have been unaware of what I need to ask for. Most people say you need to allow about £20k for fees in total, which yes, does seem extortionate! if I do this again I would probably chose a kit house for transparency.

Someone else pointed out that the Land Registry is taking forever at the moment.

Sorry folks, yes, it's 60mm. Yes, that sounds too thin to me too...

Just having Building Control drawing done and micro managing a bit. It's a block built conversion with feather board cladding. The architects technician is suggesting external cladding as there is room for 60cm and it will be easier to eliminate thermal bridging at the steel lintels. Also it will increase floor space (only 60m2 single storey). However, I had assumed it would be easiest( cheapest) to have internal insulations under whatever we put on the walls to line the blocks (or I could leave them bare but that would be a bit out there...!) as the job has to be done anyway and is more likely to be DIY/less skilled. Also the cladding can stay in place and the bats are happy. I have tendencies to worry about off gassing etc and so like the idea of sheets wool, hemp etc... 60cm doesn't seem much to me but apparently insulation on both the inside and outside can cause problems. Anyone got any thoughts/opinions?

The fieldlines.com isn't working.