Russell griffiths

Somebody tell me if I’m wrong but you can forget having a mezzanine area as a bedroom, without a fire escape route not including those stairs you wont get building control sign off. I think you need to decide what this space is for.

Now we have seen some pics, I am completely split in two different directions on this. 1.. you stand absolutely no chance of getting planning that close to those trees, trying to convince the planning is one thing, but getting a foundation system designed that the tree officer agrees to is another thing. Then you have the cost, to get a system designed that will hold the extension up but not effect a tree with a TPO on it will be pretty expensive. So it could stop everything dead in its tracks. 2. The tree was there when the original house was built, so we can presume the house foundation was designed around the tree(s). So maybe the garage sits on a very well designed foundation also, in this case you might have crossed some very awkward bridges already. If this is the case you can argue that all the work in the ground has already been done, there is already a single storey structure there, so going up another few metres isn’t going to hurt anybody. I think i would proceed with a lot more research go and find any original planning documents for the house, try and find anything relevant to foundation design. Get a local builder/ landscaper to dig a couple of trial holes to try and confirm what sort of foundation the garage sits on. If the foundation is acceptable for a two storey structure then proceed with getting some simple plans done. If the foundation is not up to par then I think this idea could be dead right now. As you could spend many thousands getting consent only to find that you then need to chuck £30,000 in the ground for a foundation system. To end up with only 30 sq metres of liveable space, it’s not a lot for your money.

Put up a pic of the house and a sketch of where the extension is to go. My initial thought is £120 isn’t enough. And if that is your budget then why would you give £15 grand away to project manage it. And why would you spend £10 grand being told you don’t have the budget. Get a small local architectural technician to do some very brief outline plans £5-600 max, ask 2 local builders to have a look and give you a ball park figure. If all is is good then go further. That is a small project and budget to spend that much on overseeing it.

As nod says, but make sure you mist coat the bare plaster again after you have sanded and filled.

Flat steel plate with multiple holes in it, available from most builders merchants, screw this to the frame to use as a bracket, not the thin builders band, these are 75mm x 120mm flat plate. You can cut it into 2-3 bits if you want.

You will want to look at changing the black alcathene pipe completely soonish. They tend to be very thin wall, and 30-40 years they start failing. I repaired my neighbours one 4 times before I convinced her to change the whole thing.

Put a bit more thought in your plumbing. You generally don’t take the water main into the kitchen anymore, normally it’s to the plant room/ cupboard. The days of having your stop tap under the kitchen sink are a thing of the past.

More confused now, maybe a sketch will help. If you have a supply feeding the house you live in, then why not use that for the new house, simply change the bit your side of the stop cock. If Thames are saying the supply pipe won’t take a new metre, then surely that’s their problem. They supply the pipe up to the stop cock, you own the pipe from the stopcock to your property. Is it you that wants a meter or are they saying a new property requires a meter. Ive knocked down my place, renewed the plastic main to the new house and didn’t tell anybody. Just paying the bill.

So if your main is 9m long then where are you getting the figure of £5000 from. At that length you would have it dug out and reconnected in a morning, materials would be no more than £100. Plastic pipe is very cheap. I would get your groundworker to dig you a new supply in and get a plumber to connect it leave enough length on it reach the new house with a cap on it, put a tee in the line to run to a builders supply stand pipe which if you plan it right you can leave for a garden tap, leave it long and it can be cut back when your finished and probably run up the wall of a new shed or greenhouse.

I thought the lead replacement scheme only applied if main was under 25m in length.

A portable wheel wash could be a bucket of water and a brush. They cannot stipulate what you use, but you must ensure no dirt is carried out onto the highway. So. provide a hardstanding on site where the trucks park to be loaded, ensure it slopes back into the site and not onto the road, provide a house and brush, if a vehicle is parked on a hard water free surface it won’t take muck onto the road, if you allow them to turn the site into a swamp and drive on the road then expect trouble. Its really fairly simple, demolition contractor digs out a large area and brings house down, crush the brick n concrete and compact into this hole, that’s your hard standing, no brick or concrete needs to leave site.

@Alan Ambrose ive only looked at this for 30 seconds but something doesn’t look correct on drawing 3. What part of the structure is actually load bearing, as you have the Larson truss sitting on the non structural plinth wall, if the Larson truss is structural then doesn’t that have to go down to the basement wall, or floor slab, so is the oak just for show ? a large oak frame was put up by my neighbour recently and his kit came clad in sips panels, oak was the structural element and the panels did the insulation side of things. I was very impressed with the fit and finish, it was a high end build. It looks ok to me that you have two houses there one inside the other. Is the oak the structure or is it the larson and the oak is for show.

Two ways. 1. Remove the cast iron and replace in plastic. 2 run a new plastic pipe next to the cast iron, run it vertically up to pick up the rainwater with a junction to pick up the bathroom. If you cannot fit 110mm beside it I think the next size down is 75-80 ish. Will take some hunting around for the correct fittings if you deviate from 110 but definitely achievable. You can probably get a strap on boss to go on the cast iron, but trying to cut/drill it will be fun, you also have the issue of the height by the window as it would need to go under that toilet junction.

As above, they are for internal walls. If your tight on space look at a different build bethod, sips panels and a block outer skin, or timberframe and brick/block outer, cavity construction takes up a lot of room for very little insulation value.

Modern windows will have a security restriction we are also single storey and my wife was worried about sleeping alone while I’m away, our windows open about 50mm and stop, you need to physically push a button to get them to go further, I have tried a couple of times from the outside to get my arm in and push the button, can’t do it, gaps too small.

Always reminds me of giant rhubarb.

I had a large garden wall that blew over in a storm, claimed on my house insurance.

Nope, why, are you expecting the concrete to be wet ? concrete and aluminium then separating layer definitely. Concrete and wood, no separation needed.

What stage is the house at ? if it’s possible I would re think your watermain location and bring it up in the area that has the tank and the majority of the plumbing stuff.

You said you want to improve the insulation in the house, and start with the window reveals. You have pointed out the correct answer, but don’t want to do it. Im afraid if you want to improve it then you are going to have to bite the bullet. Rip of the plasterboard around the reveals. Get the windows fitted, then either fit insulated plasterboard or a board like jacko board, get all gaps foamed up and get it re plastered.

I’m a bit more interested now as I’m sitting down with a cuppa in my hand. A couple of random thoughts. That is a big footprint to build, just for a garage, it could be built much cheaper in single skin, or timber clad. But you have gone cavity and a car lift, so it’s probably somewhere you will spend a bit of time, so it’s going to be an expensive garage to build with the size and construction method. How about going higher and putting an annex upstairs, I bed annex or granny flat. Home office, gym. Chuck 25 grand more at it. Around here it would rent out for £800 a month, that pays a lot of mortgage. Construction wise i might look at something else. Cavity construction is very poor insulation wise, unless you up the spec to meet current house regs. So if you want a warm garage you will need to build it to building regs standard. If your happy with a cold garage then you could look at a lightweight steel frame with a brick outer skin, if all the bricks are for is making it look like the surrounding buildings. You could put some steel windposts in the block wall if you didn’t want piers, they could take the load of the girder trusses and prevent the long length of wall from getting the wobbles, but I’m not an engineer that’s up to blokes like @George who I believe are. Lots of ways to skin this cat.

I have only read the first little bit, as I basically couldn’t be bothered. However being an ex bricky I hope I can help a bit. You will not have any cut bricks, none, don’t do it. Work it out in brick sizes exactly on the exterior face. if you need movement joints then put them exactly in the middle of a brick so the wall basically stops and starts as if it was two independent walls. All of the above is based on you using basic stretcher bond. Block work will have to fit accordingly, block work is secondary it’s the brickwork that needs to look right.

I have put osb on every wall, so e 11mm some 18mm, I regret all the 11mm and wish I had put 18mm everywhere. Plasterboard on top, which is so easy as your not looking to land the board edges on a stud. A couple of walls I have large mirrors so I recessed in the osb to save making the wall fatter, what a waste of effort that was, 18mm everywhere and then you won’t worry about one wall being fatter than another. You will need wider door linings for internal doors.

We had full height 5.5 m wide doors in Australia we are building here now and thought about having two sets of 5m wide doors, then we thought how often you would actually have the whole back of the house opened up, and decided on one door and one large picture window. Probably saved a good few grand.

I’ve built in Nudura so a couple of ideas. Cut a plywood template, add a couple of bits of roof batten to it so you can lay it on the face af the block and it runs parallel with the block edge every time. Or you can build up to just below your gable and screw a batten to the face of the block up at an angle that you need, then snap on the next block, then cut along the batten, this method you might need to get to the outside face to do the cuts, or you need to un snap them and cut on the floor.