Russell griffiths

I suppose this depends on what you contract states, are you responsible for getting the duct to the pole. the lads that came to mine where really helpful, and I had an excavator there already. they may well have called out an excavator if needed. the pole definitely went in to an augured hole though.

They use an auger, not an excavator dig your trench and lay the duct, leave the last 2m open they can cut the duct back and fit a swept bend on the end up the pole.

By the time you are near to finishing your build you probably wish you had a crack pipe.

No norrsken

If you are having a joint, get a detailed drawing of how they join them. we have two windows that join and they have a joining strip that fits into a routered out channel in both windows, loads of sealer applied and screwed together. a friend had a similar thing fitted and he could actually see through the gap between the two windows, no method of sealing at all just a couple of screws 🤬.

You will need next to sod all fall if using box profile sheets.

Do your research would need to be a very special frame in aluminium to get those kind of u values. I believe there’s a fair bit of fibbing going around.

With regards to buying power I wish we could set up some sort of buying group. when I started this build I had 3 builders merchants send a rep to mine to have a look, they made all the right noises and said they would help me out on prices. come the day of ordering stuff, I still found they couldn’t get close to online orders, I wasn’t ordering small amounts either. 5 full pallets of plasterboard and the cheapest merchant was still £400 dearer than I could get it delivered online.

this is my driveway, which looks huge in width compared with those pics of yours. building control walked up and down it for half an hour checking the width, it was one thing they where sticky about.

I think the problem is with your commercial background your used to calling the shots. in this self build world your a very small fish, you will only be ordering one set of windows, not a continuous stream. they don’t really need to be that flexible. but also you will be having bespoke windows that only fit your house, nobody is going to make these without full payment. I personally would find good quality windows by doing your own research, don’t go by opinions on here, lots recommended rational, I went to two different rational showrooms and hated them, so down to your opinion on what you like really. with fitting I would employ a couple of fitters, or even better a good carpenter or similar trade, and then discuss what you would like doing and how you want it done. the problem with the fitters from the window company is they are used to chucking them in a certain way and at a certain speed. you want somebody to work to your schedule not theirs.

Don’t use mortar, it will crumble under the constant deflection of the joists, just a tiny amount of movement magnified many times a day times days a week will result in the mortar wearing or crumbling ever so slightly leading to the gap increasing. either slate packing or a nice timber to spread the load. work out your wall courses, you could get a nice 4x1 fitted to the joists sitting on top of the blockwork, or an equivalent depending on the gap. buy it a bit bigger and run a plane over it until you get a snug fit.

Norrsken but you have to pay for them before install. isn’t this a bit like buying sausages and not wanting to pay for them in case they don’t taste good. you can probably pay for installation separately, but windows will need payment in full before release from the factory. to get a good install YOU need to know how it’s done, do your research find out the right and wrong ways, then question how they intend to do it, question them again until you know exactly what they intend doing and you are happy with it. there are hundreds of posts on here with people being unhappy about something, but they did zero research and then got a surprise when the install wasn’t done as expected.

Two hours with a local planning consultant will tell you if your dreaming or not. I would start there. pointless paying an architect for something that will never happen.

Depends what it’s holding up if it’s just two courses of block until you hit ceiling level then your fine with those, if it’s a wall taking uppperfloor joists then go bigger, or consult your drawings.

Why not talk to a planning consultant, does your architect have the experience in difficult cases, or do they just draw pretty pictures. I used an architect for pretty pictures and a planning consultant for the application, a lot of consultants come from a local government background. ours certainly did and secured an on site meeting to discuss what we wanted and what the planning officer didn’t like, after an hour we had reached a bit of common ground, re drew a few aspects and it went through, first time. we had been told it would be highly unlikely to achieve planning on our plot.

Concrete lintel, but go up a size they are about 150 deep.

The training day is well worth it. Cardiff is the only location I think. unlike other companies catnic still supply this for free. I was rather peed off that after spending £20,000 with an icf company they then wanted £180 for a training day.🤬

You will need a toggle type fixing, pretend the door is a thin hollow wall.

Isn’t the Solution to pour the garden room at the same time you put the house foundation in.

@saveasteadingit wasn’t the weight on the joists/ rafters I was worried about, more the fixings, fixing something horizontal upside down, all the weight is directly applied to the fixings. doing a secret fixing all the fixings are just through the tongue of the timber, this was my biggest concern.

I considered oak to be far to heavy for ceiling installation, but I suppose on a steeper angle maybe the weight doesn’t give the impression that it’s all hanging on the fixings. plasterboard is heavy stuff, so I’m probably overthinking the weight side of it. looks really good. I noticed a lot of these details in more commercial settings, and don’t understand why it’s not used in more domestic. I think it’s probably a cost thing.

With windows you want quality, with your location go and look at norrsken, they have a new showroom just opening in Bournemouth.

Over thinking buy them, install them, onto the next problem we had loads of solar panels put up, the day they went up I hated them, worst thing I had done to the house, now I don’t even notice they are there.

Clever bastard.

There’s not really a question there, just your observations, and you sort of answered them. Retaining walls, use something flexible, gabion baskets, natural stone, timber, don’t use something solid and inflexible, blocks rendered, concrete rendered. this block rendered white trend is a recipe for old tired cracked retaining walls, but it looks trendy in the world of porcelain slabs and fake grass.