ToughButterCup

Townie.

On Radio 4 this evening Evan Davis and the Leader of the Council....

Hello: congratulations on getting planning permission in 10 months. As you know the secret of how to do that - most of us waited double that time and more - , share it here please. What a beautiful house you have planned . I love the detailing in the gables - shakes perhaps? I've read the replies, and they mirror closely the feedback I had on my house (not on BH - but visitors) wasted space lack of bedroom size use room 'x' as room 'y' instead. How and to what extent does the building as planned fulfill the brief you gave the designer? What did you ask for, and what do you think about what has been offered? My opinion about your house is close to irrelevant. In ours, we wanted light airy space, we wanted small bedrooms, we played with room layout for ages. And yet many who visit say (politely) pokey bedroom, could have had this here instead of that, why isn't this a bathroom instead of bedroom ..... Since you are some time off breaking ground, there's a golden opportunity to go and have a look at houses all over the place: airBnB, weekend holiday rentals, open days for self builders, passivhaus demonstration houses. See what you think, what you like, what you want to avoid. Good luck, Ian

unless it's stickered properly, is heartwood, knot-free and has no shakes in it. As @Russell griffiths says , it will be the most expensive wood on site. The cost is somewhat offset by the learning (by doing) though ...

The brief answer: don't. It's too much effort and time (three years minimum) and needs significant amounts of space - level hardstanding . Thinking through the stickering (level storage) process is also important. Get that wrong and you build in warp. Bought the chainsaw (DIYmax) - about as powerful as a motorbike - and the chainsaw mill. Went to the local (50 miles) decent saw mill (T K Knipe in Cumbria) , bought a couple of oak trees : French oak. Why French oak? Because it's straight grained. I could have bought any amount of local English oak - but the local wind and turbulence round the local hills causes the oak to twist and adapt (to stay upright). That makes it completely unsuitable for cladding - OK for other stuff, but not cladding. I also bought a Chestnut tree - high tannin content. (Ash is relatively low) The issue is the milling to thickness, drying time, cut and trimmed straight run length. There is a huge amount of waste. (Which I used for shakes). We finished up buying Siberian Larch (pre- Ukraine war) from ProWood in Bolton. Haulage cost £100. It took three days hard work to store it all perfectly level and covered properly (so air gets to it, but it stays reasonably dry) . I ducked the issue of chamfer by having an 8mm shadow gap between each plank - no additional processing. Board on board would solve that problem another way. This is the result. The 8mm shadow gaps are now 12mm shadow gaps. Lots of little things in the house are made of off-cuts: window sill, stairs, kick-board, skirting, window reveal lining, toys for the grandchildren, birdboxes. I really really oathe throwing it away in the skip. If you consider getting it felled and sawn, get a survey done first - it might be rotten internally. Then work out how much straight run timber you might get out of it. Balance my somewhat gloomy, Eeyor approach with a local chippy - a drinking mate. Cheerful, gentle man-mountain. He's building his own house ... "Ya've jus' clad yer ouse mate" I grin. "Yer, got meeself sum larch, an' did it lark" he says "Ooo djer buy it off ? I ask "Went down 't estate, felled meself sum larch and jus' did it" "Wot? His nibs (Duke of Westminster) trees?" "Yer - looks awraght dunnit "..... "Dja dry it then ?" He splutters into a pint of Wainwright's .... " Yew fookin' self-builders - cut, milled an' purup in 't same week " Yeah, right. 🤨 But I took the point. By the book needn't ......

Its interesting isn't it: brings to mind that dreadful saying - " If you know, you know " Most of us don't, and I suppose thats why so much poor work is accepted by so many (me included) . We just don't know. I paid my university fees by starting a window cleaning business. It paid well - and I worked at it for seven years while qualifying. It has taken me twenty-odd years to look through windows, rather than at them. @twice round the block , it must be hard for you sometimes looking at brick-work done by a (say) DIYer. And @Dave Jones keeps a sledgehammer in the back of his car I bet....😏

I heartily wish I'd done what you have: joined a group like this years before I needed to. Preparation time is never ever wasted

If, in your opinion, he's rushing, make your snagging retainer larger, and longer before he's paid. You'll have done Due Diligence beforehand ..... Yes?

Always knew you were off yours Dave. Getting me coat, its OK. 😔

Self-building is nothing more than a series of tests of character. Worrying about each of those tests is the first step towards solving them. Don't push any into the background.They come back to bite you. Solve the quoted problem by detailed planning and research, and you'll have 4 allies - four willing pairs of hands. Here's a starter for your thinking : not exactly the same as your plans, but a good start .... have a look at their YT channel too. Good luck Ian

If you are are asking the question then to me, that means wait. And then one day, you'll walk past the wall and say " That @MikeSharp01's signature line is spot on" OR take a leaf out of @Onoff' s book and do so much careful preparation and planning that you forget what the job specification was. Perfect time to start a different job. When that's finished come back to the original job. In the meantime SWMBO will probably have changed her mind. But the walls will be dry. Easy innit: when you know how. Trust me I've been prevaricating for 8 bloody years now. Expert by Experience me.

Every last bit of research I have done about this issue makes the same point. Here's Scott Brown (Kiwi carpenter) on the subject - well worth following

Can you pop up a ladder and show us the top view please. Better still, pop into the roof space and take a photo (flash?) from below. A view of the guttering in that corner would help also - i.e. has the roof slipped far enough to nudge the gutter ? The facia board might have moved .... I know it's raining at the moment, so the sooner you can show us those photos, the sooner we can help. PS, just a thought - have you cut back any ivy this year ? Left to its own devices, it's powerful stuff .....

Yes, @Alan Ambrose, I've seen someone do stuff with that and IFTT.... in haste ... I'll look it up later. Ian

Write a plan - copied and pasted from anywhere... Diggers Monthly Magazine will do - put a pretty picture in - photograph the gardens nextdoor - submit and forget. Everyone else will.

Thanks very much for that. Very useful to know. Thanks be to God for people who know their stuff. I was fishing for a reply from you @George Pragmatic, sensible, cheap. It's the '...not a lot of skill...' bit I like best ============== If anyone ever wonders why BuildHub attracts such a wide audience among self-builders, this thread is more than adequate demonstration. I've gone from - How the Hell do I do this, to - why I should do this, but not that AND why I should or shouldn't. Saving money time and effort. For people new to BH Quick cautionary note 🙂 the responses given above are not professional opinions - they are merely the advice of interested online colleagues . It's up to me to evaluate their answers and take the final decision. ==============

Top idea. Thanks. Cheque's in the post.

450mm at one end and 700 ish at the other I know from our piling trial pits (one was right next to this wall) that we have glacial till under about 700mm of MOT1 (put there during the build ) Height : 450 to 700mm ish and the forces are the weight of the MOT1 and gravel next to the wall and any cars parked close to the wall.... I assume that a car parked one car-width away from the wall will have no real effect on the wall. At best, only two cars will be able to park right next to the wall: and by right next to the wall I mean one car-door width plus a bit next to the wall.

A depth of 1 m of C25 concrete -- wow! Thats a lot, @LnP Debbie suggests we use RAAC. Ever the bright spark...... I suppose I could get my Paddle Mixer out and whisk it up into a bit of a froth. Its the autoclave I'm struggling with I'm with you @saveasteading - it'll fall over rather than sink..... Does that imply that the foundation design should anticipate that force - maybe tilt it a bit to the right (away from the path in the image above). The deepest the wall gets is 700mm or so - not much. Just waiting for @Russell griffiths to say that I'm overthinking it (again)

.... of the intended design..... and the reality of what's there now .... erm, needs a bit of strimming maybe 🫣

No, 'we' don't. Not all of us. Those who of us who do not comment may just be sucking our teeth and thinking.... there they go again, bashing architects ... but we aren't in a therapeutic relationship with the architect-bashers, so we say nowt. I would never consider a building project without employing an architect. And I would (did) spend ages choosing one.

Cheers @Bonner.....

I need to prepare our carpark: one edge of it has a low wall which supports part of the parking area. The stone (local stone) wall forms the border to a footpath. I would like to calculate the minimum depth of the foundation. I need to take the wall down, dig out the back of the wall to make space for the foundation [ and the shingle drainage and french drain] , then put a block wall up, and face that block wall with the stone I took down. The wall height varies between 450mm and 700mm. The ground is medium clay, and it's fairly damp most of the year. (I think its glacial till ) Wet Clay repose is (say) 20 degrees or so. This is the first site I googled that gives me a formula to calculate the minimum depth of the foundation The formula is given as where p = the soil bearing capacity w = density of the soil and the angle of repose is that funny phi (or is it summat else ?) looking thing That means p = 250 kN per square meter w = 1760 kg per cubic meter Angle of repose is 20 ish 1 - sine 20 is 1 - .342 = 0.658 1 + sine 20 = 1.342 Minimum depth is ( 250 / 1760 ) * ( 0.658 / 1.342) = 0 .1420 * 0.490 = 0.6958 Here's where I'm stumped ---- is that 0.6958 mm or is it 69.58mm or is it something else ? Thats the trouble with google: a little knowledge = danger. hence this post I 'feel' the foundation needs to be 100mm of C25. But it would be good to know why I'm wrong - or, more rarely, right.

Welcome. Photos, thats what we like. Specially if there's a knotty little problem like: Looking forward to that - because I messed up (well ... bodged it), so I'm keen to see how you mess u.... errrrr, do it.😑 Ian

Whassa matter @Pocster - you need a biskit?