Big Jimbo

Welcome fella. Ask away with any questions you might have.

The poster is only looking to do up, and flip the flat. The lack of heating will be a problem for the purchaser. Heating on 24 hours a day, and still freezing. One of the reasons i have never bought a property that has been done up. Imagine paying top price for the flat, because it looks the biz, only to find the heating costs a fortune to run, and it's shite.

The telebeam system looks good, but i bet it cost. May i ask, why the need ? If you have a Two deep room house, can you not span from back wallplate, to central wall, and central wall to front, inbetween the existing ceiling joists? Basically stick the new joist ends on 18mm ply spacers, to keep them off the ceilings below.

Sorry i can't help, but feel for you, after spending hard earned for that. The whole think looks dreadful. I'm sure there are a lot of tradespeople on this site, and we all know the tales of woe, about no holidays, sick pay, pensions etc. But, £8k for that ! A lot of so called tradespeople need a good hiding in my opinion. Before i hear the bleat, bleat. Yes, there are some good one's but this person certainly hasn't had One.

I don't believe that any of these overlay systems are worth a toss. The only way i would consider any overlay would be floorboards up, 100mm pir between joists, floorboards back, then 20mm pir over floorboards, glued down. pipes layed on top, and then 40mm screed. Even then i doubt it would be great. I would be going for either modern rads, or trad rads, depending on the style of house. In my opinion, with what you have got there you are going to need the heat on 24 hours a day to get a decent amount of heat into the house. Sorry, but i'd be scrapping that. I think you are heading for a big disappointment.

The planning dept will be able to look up if they have any TPO's. Also your application will show any trees or not ? Planning should not be concerned about how, or what method you use to build.

On my daughters gaff, i ground out all the cracks and splits, after stripping off all the paint. Then over filled all the cracks with epoxy resin. ground back flush to the stone, then finished with p45 car body filler. Sanded, and then painted with three coats of masonary paint. Still look good after 4 years.

I am another who hates trickle vents. Expensive windows with sodding holes in. I found an artical several years ago stating that trickle vents were to ensure that gas, etc could escape from a house. I also demonstrated by way of a mates couple of pages of complicated Maths , how many times the air would be changed by people going in and out to work, the bins etc. The BC guy thought trickle vents were also rubbish, and looked crap. He was happy to accept all my justification for not fitting them, and signed me off.

Just had a look at that Peter. I can imagine that would look good sitting flush with the ceiling.

I had about 20. Next door neighbour rallied the troops. She hates me so much that she hired a planning consultant, and a firm of solicitors to object. I did end up with some satisfactory planning approval in the end. (Hooker, coke, and photos mean a married planning officer will do everything they can to get a pass.) Generally i think people just don't like change. Neither do Parish Councils, (who like to think they are experts) Local councillors, (who want local votes) In my opinion the NPPF is very badly written, and open to swinging both ways, depending on the views of the person reading it.

You must be talking about the "Lakes Estate". That place looks grim.

Only guessing, but my vans over the years have been fine when new. A bit of condensation at about 5 years old. By 10 years i'm scraping ice off the inside of the windscreen. My thoughts are the door rubbers go flat, and perhaps start to rot out a bit. That lets the moist air in.

Thanks to you both.

could anybody please point me in the direction of a decent free online "U" value calculator..... Thanks in advance

Make sure that the granted planning permission does not remove your permitted devl rights.

I did my planning myself, which might have been a mistake, but i could'nt face the £30k quotes i got from 2 good local planning consultants. I am also in Green Belt. Parish Council, Neighbours, etc are all anti extending, let alone new build. I did as much research as i could, and nicked several bits from previous successful applications. I did sightline drawings that showed that my proposal was less harmful to the openess of the Green Belt, than what i already had been granted permission to build. My problem was that the lame planning officer just went along with the parish council, (and does in all his decision making) because he has no ability to form an opinion of his own, and just want's an easy life (lazy). This means that he basically follows the reccomendation of the Parish Council, (Who all act as planning officers even though they have zero training or expertise) This makes it very hard to get anything done if you end up with a particular Two planning officers at the local council. Research, research, research. You can't do enough, or pay a very smart local planning consultant if you have one. It's either that, or resort to the hooker, coke, and photos. That also works wonders. Good luck in your quest. Interestingly, Two schemes very similar to what i got eventually passed have both been refused within 50metres of my my place, since i got my PP. Perhaps i should have passed on the telephone number of my fixer. ???

Bloody hell Pro Dave. Gutted for you. That looks like one large problem that you just don't need. Somebody else had a problem with the render boards pillowing. Hope you get it sorted without it costing you.

Sad to hear that. In the 3 years you might come to love it. If it is something you are really not happy with, and if you have some money in it, perhaps pay the cil, flog up, and move on. Life is short.

A bit of both, i tend not to increase the height of the joists, as height always seems to be an issue. I usually work out what size wood i beams i need for the spans. This will give me the minimum acceptable for building control to pass. I usually purchase the next width up in size (for very little extra cost) and look at my layout as sometimes moving a few of the joists closer together can make work to come after easier. So in effect if i was using 15 joists, i might end up using 17 joists. When i sent them off to the joist companies for confirmation, i always get told that i have over engineered it. (I'm happy with that, i don't like just minimum) Always screw and glue the floor above, and joking aside i have ended up with better floors than some block and beam, and with less bounce.

You can have a crack at it yourself, as its a surface mounted sink which should hide your new cut edge. However, it is messy. For what it will cost you, get the pros in.

Only my personal opinion, but i would go for posi everytime. I usually up the spec width wise, rather than depth. Ie; go above minimum spec. Floor above , glue and screw. Rock solid floors. Most of the timber i find, is wet, shrinks like hell, twists like hell, and is generally crap. Engineered timber all day long for me.

It may not just be coming through the blockwork below dpc. It may also be rising to sit at the water table level. French drains around the outside may help, but only if you have somewhere lower to take the water to that has good drainage.

I once got lines in primary school for messing about. I had to write out One to a Hundred in Binary.

I agree with Russell above. Any building system can be built well or built badly.

Sorry, I am rubbish with computers. Check out my thread "Posh shed" Although my shed is insulated to higher standards than you are thinking about, don't under estimate how much it will cost you to build something decent from scratch. Mine came in at just under £13k . It has got a shower and a toilet, and lots of electrics, but even if you didn't fit them, it would have been well over £4k.