Russell griffiths

You need to pay more attention to the junction areas, the area at the bottom of the new walls to the old, builder will lift his plasterboard 20mm above the floor upstairs leaving a big gap with no dot n dab, this space heading downstairs to whatever plaster finish you have down there. This is your week area, concentrate on these and the mass areas will be ok.

Sorry got bored after the first paragraph, as said above break the question down into sections. The structure, then layout. Kitchen choice is up to you, if you ask ten people you will get multiple answers, we all like different things. We can only advise on good practice, not if blue is a nicer colour than green.

Water is cheap to buy. , harvesting tank, digging, plumber are expensive. It just doesn’t add up.

Sort of like your first thoughts. But I would get two battens and screw them together to make a corner piece, then offer this up into the corner and screw through on an angle.

They are a bit big, but once in that’s it, with steel you need to fix floor joists into the way of the steel, that’s a pain. Or pad the steel out with timber then fit hangers, with the glue lam you cut out a few steps.

Why are you thinking of ASHP if there’s gas in the street then just use that with a modern boiler. That house will be as leaky as hell when it comes to airtightness, just improve the insulation levels, better windows, properly fitted. £140,000 will just about get what you want.

Just visited a mate doing a loft conversation, he has used gluelam beams instead of steel, they are huge 450x150 , but there is no need to noggin out any steel to fit joists, it all nails on the sides with hangers. Looked like a lovely job.

Forget the rainwater harvesting, unless it’s a planning condition. Total pain and waste of money.

Nope, most are stained red or blue, some are gold coloured, but mast that are just treated do not meet the standard for a 600mm spaced truss.

Find another structural engineer. if they don’t know it they will just over engineer everywhere and cost you a fortune. ask your Icf supplier for an engineer. if they cannot tell you a good one then I would choose another Icf supplier. simple really.

You need to add a better picture than that, bit more detail draw whole house and new toilet location. From a rough guess you will have to put a new inspection chamber at the location you want to have that junction. You cannot put a 90 on it’s side underground without providing access for future unblocking duties.

You owe me beer.

@ToughButterCup needs to be a bigger bird than an osprey mate.

My boards are 143 on the cladding 93 for soffit.

That answers your question do you want to play with the big boys or dither around like a wally if you don’t buy it somebody else will, if you have the funds get it bought get it knocked down and build the million dollar house the site needs.

Pick something cheaper than the cedar, I’ve just fitted mine and I cannot for the life of me work out why I didn’t have larch and save £4-5 grand, it looks ok now but in a few years time I think it could look like any old timber.

Spray adhesive in a can, spray wall, lay plastic, stick to wall, spray plastic stick on foam, lay screed, trim excess plastic and foam with a Stanley knife.

If you first looked at it with the view to knocking it down then do that. trying to bring that up to a good standard will end in just another poorly built house with a nice extension stuck on it. you can roll a turd in glitter, but it’s still a turd.

Your friend is correct.

@Chanmenie don’t forget all window reveals

I’m not really sure how you can compare durisol with anything else really. It doesn’t have a continuous insulation layer, just blocks oddly wedged inside the woodcrete. How can they tell you that has the same insulation value that a continuous sheet of insulation would. Very poor block manufactured, the dimensions are all over the place, does not have a solid core of concrete just a lattice work. So if your block is inherently porous then you could use the concrete core for some element of keeping stuff out, water etc, oh but you can’t because it’s not continuous.

Not an expert so I will take the salesman's word for it, why on earth would you do that, have you heard the saying DONT ASK A BARBER IF YOU NEED A HAIRCUT.

Dig a hole 750x750 and 600 deep, look at it every day and work out what is going on. If it fills with water when it rains that is ok, but what happens the next day, does it drop or just sit there. Look at it for a month working out how long it takes to drain and so on. You will work out a pattern.

In your area it will be all about budget. Look for old cottages or bungalows that would need complete modernisation, then don’t bother and knock it down. Or look at graven hill, if that’s your taste.