hallega

We have been granted the exemption and I have the confirmation of this, I know I have to inform them that I am starting work and give them 1 months notice, it's the building regs I'm confused by, I have the structural engineers plan, do I need anything else?

Bit green regarding this issue, always done conversions rather than a new build. OK. so we have to inform the council of starting work becasue of the CIL one month before anything is carried out. Do I have to give them a set of building drawings? I intend to use a private company and not the council's recommended building control, can anyone advise me on the next move, it's really quite unclear what happens next. Cheers everyone.

Hi Big Neil, yes it was done in Sketch up, I use it quite often, you can copy and paste the drawing, I'm no expert, but what my daughter has just shown me......OOOOOO!!! Command A, Command C, Command V, that will select all, copy all, paste all. That's the shortcuts on my mac, your may be different. If you only need part of the drawing then the arrow at the top left of the tool bar will highlight what you want to copy. Hope this helps. I also use homebyme which shows you in 3D it can also draw a whole house plan, from basement to 1st/2nd floor and place items of furniture etc to scale so you know if things are going to fit in...it's been invaluable. I drew up my new house plans and then sent these to a CAD operator who then drew them up technically. The photo shows my daughters cow shed ground floor plan to give you an idea on what it looks like, you can even walk around the space.

Thanks everyone for your advice, we are begining to think that she's scared of saying that anything can be removed in case it comes back and bites her in the you know what!

Stanchion to be removed in photo 2 and 3 , we have to put in a new ridge beam, Castellated to remain. Durisol blocks to infill. New rafters to take weight of thermo roof necessary? I think we are having problems because maybe the engineer doesn't know much about steel buildings...?

The steel frame that I have for a conversion has stanchions every 5m one of these is in the way of the garage door, it would be nice to be able to drive in 2 cars together rather than manoevere one in backwards and forwards until it fits the space and then put in the other! Could we strengthen the frame either side of the new wider garage door and remove the one that's in the way? We intend to infill with Durisol blocks, these have a 30/35n strength so they will hold up the roof...Won't they...? This blooming steel is being a right pain, we keep mentioning it to the structural engineer and she keeps ingnoring it. there is one hefty castallated beam on one side of the roof structure, this is nearer to the front steels area, but there are structural walls going up inside as well to hold the roof up. Any thoughts would be helpful please.

Not my cup of tea, I would have been right on the finish, it appears to be very rough, interesting with the hempcrete, like building a cob wall... I actually fell asleep in the middle of that programme, although it could have been something to do with grouting tiles in the silo bathroom (not done that for ages!)..... No...not for me!

Hmmm...looking at the Isotex they don't have the edging as the Durisol block, not having seen these yet I can't make any decisions, but maybe they will be at Grand design show? Thanks for the safety aspect re the cutting and eyes, it's all being taken in I can assure you after losing the top of a finger in the family I am Super careful now of everything.

Hubby uses the laser a lot, marks the floor where the electric boxes are so that he can cut out acurately where the back boxes are in the plasterboard, seems to work Ok.. We are all really looking forward to this build now, it's been a long slog....I'm still waiting for permission for a basement, will know at the end of this month. It took 161 days for the silo's to be refused first time around....ridiculous! Today I drew up a new Tractor shed on Auto Cad....who hoo....it looks OK, had a temporary scaffolding system with a tin roof and were told "you have to have planning for that" errr why, it's temporary...but NO...SO...I'm going for the jugular...serves em right!

Thank you guys for the info, we are going to be really busy with the tape measure!!!!

Because I started my build without planning (naughty...slap wrists) I am being charged CIL on two 2 storey linking additions to my silo's....O'h well, luckily it's not a fortune as they are small areas, about 9sq m. Lesson learnt....it could have cost me a fortune if the whole build was subject to CIL!

Thank you AnonymousBosch, I'll have a look and see if I can find the thread. Thank you Ian, most informative, we were thinking of painting them at one point, but I see your thinking on this. Cheers. Hubby went to see the pour today, concrete turned up with 20mm ballast and the wrong slump, they had to send it away and wait for the right stuff, he said it went very well, no blow outs, bit of water seeping, he's going along for the waterproofing on the outside in a few days time....we're sucking diesel!

Russell, we decided against Nudura as after looking at a couple of builds thought that it was really not for us. When you have another half who has to be dragged out of the "ice age" , (he knows how I think)....it's a problem. Fair due to him though he gave it a go and went on the course. He wasn't keen on the cost of putting up this system, there's a lot a rebar and labour involved, we saw some horrendous sights, wavy walls, blow outs etc., Not for us. He was really against solar until recently when it was get it our loose out of the FIT's we now have 33 panels and they are going great guns, he's telling everyone down the pub now!

Sue B, thanks for that will have a look at these.

Well I was rather pleased with the reception, different area maybe. As my daughter and l have spent all the time researching and the hubby "doing" we appear to know what we're talking about (we are very clever at hiding the "I really have no idea what your talking about" syndrome!) Thanks for the advice, and yes it may cause a problem. We are hoping to foam the stanchions first somehow and cut the blocks around them, they were happy with my sketch up design, see below. Because of PD we are not permitted to go outside of the existing build at all. Our lady rep suggested a mesh under the finish plaster to eliminate hairline cracks, have you plastered yet (not in the pub)... Face blocks on edge above doorways with rebar, cut the top off to get the same height as the walls. Hubby has gone along this morning to watch the pour....they didn't seem to have any platforms inside to assist when walking around with the pump, that should be interesting as on the outside there is a 2.70m drop into the void....hmmmm! Are you happy with these blocks, I saw you had problems earlier, it must have been a nightmare, like the 1987 wind that ripped through here and took my barn roof off!

An afternoon of getting close up and personal on Durisol blocks, I am very impressed and so is the hubby....makes a change from "we must go down the traditional route of block, cavity, insulation and more block"....NO.....get with the programme! We are hoping this will also solve the problem for the daughter who has a steel frame to contend with, just spent 10 mins on Sketch up drawing a block with a stanchion in it...seems to work, anyone got any good ideas on cold bridging issues going down this route? We don't have a lot of room on one side as the land belongs to someone else and the building is very close to the boundary, just enough room for cladding and that's about it! The steel will be covered by 40mm of block and whatever cladding she decides on.

Ferdinand, I like the concrete house, I see they used some metal inside as well. I have kept some myself in the connecting area's so that everyone is aware of what they were, polished up nicely. Bit of a nusiance though, I've just left the husband quietly swearing at having to fit door linings, each one is different and very awkward, there was a lot of MDF to sweep up (my job) and now my face is a lovely shade of red, those masks don't suit my delicate skin! Monday we are off to view a Durisol build. Done the ICF foam, not keen, now all l have to do is persude the hubby that "old school" sometimes needs to be updated. It took my daughter and l years to persude him that solar panels were the way to go, we now have 33 and 26 respectively and BOY are they singing or WHAT! He's now telling everyone how wonderful they are.....

O'h.....NO! Although I was tempted to stick one up the council's a.....se !

Pro dave, we asked for temporary but the council said no, we asked for "bed and breakfast"...No...too far from the house, they made us go for full planning. I have no intention of selling them off seperately but in the future who knows what the kids will do, although the kids are 48 and 45!! I am not happy with the rates at over £3000.00 though and intend to argue on that point!

Morning all, thanks for the warm welcome. Not sure what ICBM's are Onoff, but the floors were perforated, there were ducts in the sides, machinery at the rear and gantries on the top, ladders attached inside and out, a lid on each on the roofs, they hadn't been used as grain silo's for some years I suspect as we have been here 32 of those and the folks before didn't use them. The Farm was a working one in the 50's and then sometime in the late 60's early 70's it was sold at auction which then decided it's fate of being chopped up into many areas and sold off as "amenity" spaces of an acre or so, we bought the house, 300 year old barn, a small stable and sand school and about an acre field. Over the years we have managed to buy another 90 odd acres along with other buildings, but there are still 10 + owners of the original farm. OK....here are your photo's, not finished yet, still to put in the bathrooms and kitchens. Underfloor electric heating in all three, hubby managed to cut off the top of his middle finger, break the one next to it and quite severly damage the little finger mixing the screed with a "mudley" let this be a warning to one an all..(a) don't rush the job (b) don't ask your friend who was a milkman to actually handle this machine (bless him, he's 73 and has NO idea on safety measures) (c) don't lean in too close with the bag because it's windy. 60 odd years of doing this job himself, day in day out and NEVER a problem, now he only has 7 1/2 fingers left! We have an amazing friend who did the wood structure inside, hubby took three weeks to cut all the cedar shingles to fit the corrugated profile. they are 5 metres round. The metal entrance doors are now windows pic 2.

Hi everyone, well our planning aplication is almost there, got it once but decided to add a basement, the first was refused and so l put it in again but smaller, we will see by the end of the month whether we got it or not. In the meantime we have been working on 3 metal silo's and have connected them so that we can move between them, this has created a 2 bed property with a kitchen/diner, lounge, utility room, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a chill out area. It's not been a cheap job, my idea of buying a caravan and making it cosy was rejected by the hubby, we then looked at a log cabin at 29 grand and he said no way...so l said why don't we convert the silos! Well we did start them without permission as they were already a gym with facilities but it wasn't insulated and it was an oven in the summer and a freezer in the winter. Then someone gave us the nod and we had to go for planning, refused the 1st time as someone put the red line around the wrong area, no parking, no amenities, and no access to the highway, even though the planning officer arrived on sit, parked his car and we have 90 acres...O'h well. Planning no 2 was handles by a consultant who was amazing, a rotweiller in a jag...like her a lot! Planning came through last friday along with 10 conditions, I'm wading through these at the moment, my worst nightmare is the soil sampling. If you have any questions regarding the silo's, pleaseask and I'll do my best to answer them . Onwards and upwards and as my daughter says "STILL WINNING".