oldkettle

Hi, Just had a quote for the foundations and services for our outbuilding. Seems on the high side to me - can you please have a look? South East. I will check how much insulation they quoted for because they omitted this little detail, but there are a few things I don't quite understand. 1) What are prelims - on top of setting up and SE work. 2) why do they need 2 skips (at an inflated price from what I can see) if there is no demolition involved, the only thing to get rid of is probably formwork? 3) 50m excavation (in our back garden, I think the number is slightly high) looks like a 2 day job for a mini-digger and probably less for a trencher? Obviously, no idea about the main item as the cage size may be quite large due to Lawson's cypress in 2m, but mesh seems to be about £600 for 2 layers + cages, the main slab is about 5m3 of concrete + way more on the toes at £100+m3. TA. Quantity Unit Value Total Raft Foundation Set up and enable site 1 item £ 300.00 £ 300.00 Supply structural engineers design and calculations 1 item £ 850.00 £ 850.00 Cut and fill ground to accommodate a 6x9m raft foundation 54 m2 £ 20.00 £ 1,080.00 Supply and lay HEXATHERM XFLOOR 300 (insulation) under raft foundation 54 m2 £ 62.00 £ 3,348.00 Lay hardcore sub base, install timber formwork, install 2 layers of A393 steel mesh with perimeter toe steel cage. Pour RC35 concrete for a reinforced slab as per Structural Engineers design 54 m2 £ 160.00 £ 8,640.00 Supply concrete pump 1 item £ 800.00 £ 800.00 6 yrd skip 2 nr £ 330.00 £ 660.00 Services Excavate trench and install 110mm foul pipe, include connection into exiting chamber 49 m £ 55.00 £ 2,695.00 Additional chambers and back drops 3 items £ 450.00 £ 1,350.00 Supply and lay 25mm water pipe to open trench (connections by others) 49 m £ 6.00 £ 294.00 To terminate by corner of house Supply and lay 65mm electric duct 49 m £ 7.20 £ 352.80 To terminate by corner of house Sub total £ 20,369.80 Prelims @12% £ 2,444.38 Total (excl VAT) £ 22,814.18

Looking at the first floor, there has to be a way to position the top two en-suites in one line on top of each other, thus squaring off both bedrooms.

This is a fantastic habitable space, is there any risk neighbours might complain to planners about it? Just emailed our planning department about temporary habitation rights for the time of the build, read so much conflicting advice while researching.

Your situation is remarkably similar to ours. The plot, the current house, the light, the plans. Have you planned your kitchen already? We have found that we couldn't fit everything we wanted into a 4m wide kitchen. 4.5 is generous for some configurations but I personally feel uncomfortable for some others (say, U-shaped) and simply not sufficient for U-shaped with an island. Light means windows, windows mean no tall units, no tall units mean not enough storage. We ended up redrawing the plans completely because of that, but obviously this is based on our preferences.

And as expected, quick wash runs at a higher temperature. I personally only use it when we actually need dishes quickly as the result is not guaranteed.

That's why I said check the manual ?

This is the one using less energy according to the docs. For us the run time is irrelevant as I load the machine late in the evening and it is quiet enough not to disturb our sleep.

You might want to check the user guide of your dishwasher. The way they usually work (which is also true for washing machines) is faster wash takes more energy, not less, which kind of makes sense: who'd want to use other modes otherwise? On ours Eco mode is 3h15mins (who cares if it runs at night).

From conversations with several builders in our area I noticed that the idea of an insulated raft or insulated slab was completely foreign to them. They really lost interest when I asked about this option.

I've been following this conversation with a massive interest. Firstly, because we are trying to fit 3 levels into 8.5m house and as a part of this effort have been asking the same questions on the depth of the floor structure and the option to sink the ground floor somewhat. Secondly, because like the OP I have been doing it all myself with the help of this forum (and google) - and for very similar reasons. I appreciate the goodwill of those who help us (for free!) shouldn't be abused. Unless I misread the advice badly it sounds like it's time to go back to paid professionals.

:-) deeper sink certainly doesn't prevent it fully. Yes, sure, there are ways but say your nice idea of just using a breakfast bar won't help if a fall is required. The other reason I will probably have an upstand is I want to have a wall-mounted tap which I find far superior to the sink mounted ones in terms of ease of cleaning.

Took me a while to get the picture ? One concern I have is water splashing on the window and to be honest even running towards the window. I've actually been trying to find a sink that is wide (i.e. front to back) enough to be mounted flash with the upstand: sick of dealing with puddles of water between the sink and the wall.

Do you use the same approach behind the sink ?

Congratulations! Did you have to make any changes in the end? How have they explained the delay?

Thank you for the pictures. What is the actual depth of the shelves? Doesn't look like 600, but I may be wrong. The picture also reminded me that I never could understand why manufacturers don't offer more shelves per unit, could easily fit 8 in this space.

This is an interesting one. We never had an integrated dishwasher but are hoping to install one. Has anybody else had a similar problem? I suspect the shelf or worktop above could be affected as well? @ryder72, could you possibly comment please?

Following with interest. IIRC @JSHarris mentioned before that these are not well insulated and there is a risk of condensation. I was hoping somebody would make a double wall system with enough insulation to alleviate this issue.

Looking at the en-suite, it has a width of 1500mm. Thus the shower will be limited to maybe 800? Feels quite tight.

Congratulations, great result!

I can't agree more with what @AliG said about moving the doors to align with the right side of the stairs. I personally would make the island a little shorter as well to leave more circulation space around. We are trying to have 1200mm everywhere (and we are both much shorter than you are ?). In general, it feels really annoying that in a house so large there is even a slight problem with creating a great layout. My wife and I have just spent two days trying to plan a kitchen (she thought it would have been fun ? ) in a 4m by 4m space and we've failed miserably.

Is there a way to create some kind of blocks or sleepers by splitting a large area with formwork? Does it make sense?

@DavidBJ Have you been quoted separately for this work? Curious to get a rough idea of the cost.

Yes, I agree planning officers don't set these rules. Whether it's mostly their management or local authority I don't know. But overall - no bureaucracy will ever stop growing unless forced to from the outside. With regards to pre-application advice, I guess "management" tried to find a source of income. My guess is £50 or so fee does not really cover their costs and the extra planning applications with lengthy exchanges as you described may well cost them even more. I wouldn't want to run this service TBH.

I am a software developer. What I see regularly (and I know there are plenty of people here who can confirm or contest this) is requirements introduced by people who have no skin in the game or who don't actually have to abide by their own rules. Infuriating indeed. So when it comes to planners I suspect they can easily find out what they can or can't do either directly or by chatting informally to their colleagues. They will never care about the impact on us.

Well, if they required FOI request and £10 I wouldn't mind. Again, was not asking them to confirm that I could build a specific outbuilding, just to say "yes, your house has PD", it shouldn't be a research but a DB check question. This way they basically force me to pay the full fee. It's quite surprising there is not a simple checkbox on a planning portal for this yes/no information. All that IT effort - and they don't really use it properly. In our case there was a full PP process so I'd hope they could make checks as a part of it.