bgmill

I want to resubmit a previously approved planning application that has now expired, however I have since parted ways with the original architect and not on the best of terms. Can I resubmit all the original drawings as-is or do I need to remove the title block from everything first? Thanks.

Do you have any pics of the inside of the windows?

@Kelvin Overall, how would you rate the Lindab gear? Besides the ease of scratches, would you recommend it? We currently have this specced for our build, also in anthracite to match windows

That's really good going for such a modern house with that much glass. We're going to be at about £1200/m2 to weathertight (including roof but not insulation), and that's with no muck away, easy groundworks and a much simpler design than yours.

We have a main contractor quote to weathertight (including groundworks but not windows/doors) that's around £1000/m2. I'm considering asking for a breakdown of materials/costs prior to each phase so I can shop around and try to get better prices but I wonder how this might be received. I'm guessing he's factored in whatever discount he gets from the local BM as extra profit on the job.

I had a guy with a proper cultivator/stone burier come and do our plot. It got rid of 99% of the stones and was definitely worth the cost.

Yep, this one uses GPS so there's no perimeter wire to run or any of that faff. Setup is literally a case of mapping out your cut zones by driving it around the edge with the android/ios app like an RC car via bluetooth. It uses something called RTK (real-time kinematic positioning) to get down to cm level positioning so it just needs a good view of the sky. You can access it on wifi but that only works for me when it's docked as my wifi coverage outside is fairly poor. I'm running manually triggered mows at the moment as I've only had it a few days but I'll setup some schedules this week.

I ended up buying the Mammotion Luba and, although not 'stripes' as such, the parallel lines do look pretty good (plus they're actually straight, unlike when I manually mow!). Edit: this was two cuts, one at 0 degrees and then another at 40 degrees.

It's hard to tell in the images but it looks like there's open gaps/missing mesh too - you'll end up with birds/rodents/bats in there if it's not resolved. Agree with JohnMo though, the stuff you can't see will be 10x worse than this (which looks bodged to me). That brickwork also looks a bit shoddy/rushed to my untrained eye. Lots of irregular mortar joints, some of which are huge.

I would be inclined to cut a seating area into the hill, like a half-sunken fire pit enclosed on 3 sides.

* Mammotion

I'm currently looking at robot mowers as I'm already getting bored of cutting the grass and it's not even June yet! We doubled our lawn since last year and it now takes me around 3 hours start to finish on my Stiga Park ride-on, plus some extra time strimming before and tidying up after As the area is fairly large and I don't want to have to install boundary wire there are only really three that I'm looking at: Husqvarna 450X NERA, Kress Mission RTK 5000 and the Ammotion Luba AWD 5000. I'm swaying towards the Luba right now as the reviews all seem great and it's half the price of the Husqvarna. All three do 'systematic' cuts so leave parallel lines rather than the random cuts you get from non-GPS units.

I feel thoroughly ripped off in that case. We paid our architect £5k up to PP and then a further £10k for building regs. It took them 11 months to get sign off from BC due to lots of errors and omissions, so we not-so-amicably parted ways before any detailed construction drawings. SE, soil survey, topo survey, M&E, SAP report, etc was all on top (another £5-6k). I'm concerned about going to the build phase without any detailed drawings or an architect to oversee things but that's the reality of where we are now.

We've upped our beams to 225mm deep to mitigate bounce but now I'm wondering if our 440mm centres will be sufficient. We have lots of 5m+ spans with our longest being almost 7m.

Looks great, would be interested to know what your total cost so far was considering you did the majority of the labour yourself.

If we started over I would definitely choose an architect that has proven experience/accreditation in PH design. Ours spoke a good game and convinced us that they had the skillset but it quickly became clear that they had little ability or desire to go beyond basic building regs requirements in terms of thermal performance. Not a single mention of PHPP modelling and they wanted to draft in a specialist when I queried some quite obvious cold bridges in their designs (at my expense). All told, I've had to take a far more active role than I had wanted to - constantly reviewing their work, challenging poor decisions and researching alternatives - which has eaten up huge amounts of my time.

I've been having great fun recently with a flamethrower for killing weeds. Not so effective for stuff deeper in the ground though!

Cool looking design, would be great to see this rendered in 3D. I notice you don't have a plant room, where will your hot water tank, UFH manifolds, MVHR, etc live? You also don't have a utility, so when the washing machine or tumble dryer is on it's going to make that open plan area uncomfortable to be in. As somebody with 3 kids already, I would also make the following comments on the layout: - Ditch the en-suites in beds 1/2/3 and find a way to create a shared bathroom. They're great for teenagers but will be a nightmare for young kids who tend to get up to mischief when they're bored (like clogging the sink with toilet paper and leaving the taps running - ask me how I know!). You can always add the plumbing now for future proofing but you certainly won't need en-suites while you're using the rooms as offices and likely not until any kids that come along are over 10 yrs old either. - By the same token, personally I wouldn't want my kids having doors leading outside from their bedrooms but I guess you can just keep them locked. - The lounge looks a bit awkward to me and I suspect you'll spend most of your time in the TV room instead - this is big enough for now but perhaps a bit small for a growing family (specifically, getting enough sofa space in there with a good viewing angle might be tough). Kids also tend to have a lot of 'stuff' that ends up living in communal areas despite your best efforts to avoid it. - Similarly, the dining area seems to be far too big for a couple - are you planning to have somewhere more cosy to sit when it's just the two of you at home? You only use a table for short periods a couple of times a day so, unless you're entertaining very regularly, I would look to reduce it's square footage somewhat (do you really need to seat 10 outside of special occasions?). - I would also swap the WC and cloak room around, seems odd to have to navigate through the lounge area to fetch your coats and, again, you won't want kids with muddy shoes doing that later down the line.

Does anyone have an example of what I should expect as output for RIBA Stage 4 Technical Design? via DM is fine - I will be happy to keep confidential. I was charged £10k by my architect (~4000 sqft), quoted as 4 weeks work which ended up taking 12 weeks. Plus another £4k on top for SE and Civils. While I appreciate that these are not detailed construction drawings, I don't believe what I received was reflective of the costs - especially considering the floor plans and elevations have not really changed since the original planning submission. Lots of the notes are just to "refer to specialist design" and I have also had to point out a series of glaring errors along the way, which I would not expect of a professional.

This is timely. We're hoping to break ground in the next 6 weeks so it might be worth getting the windows and appliances on order now and store them ready for fitting.

As it's for emergency backup I'm less concerned about running costs plus not having to worry about storing a decent supply of petrol does appeal to me.

Having suffered a few long (24hrs+) power cuts over the last 10 years we've specced a battery along with an emergency circuit to power fridge/freezer, MVHR and some lighting. Somebody suggested that a cheaper option is a natural gas standby generator (we have a gas connection but will be switching to full electric in the new build). Anyone gone down this route?

We've had a constant battle with rodents in our donor bungalow every winter since we moved in - we planned to only spend one in here but we're now on our third and almost certainly will see a fourth too. I gave up on humane traps a long time ago and now have a loft full of poison and snap traps as it seems this is the only effective method. I plan to pay very close attention to rodent/bug proofing our new build!

Hi @cipn First thing will be to serve them notice to remove their equipment on the grounds that they do not have a current Wayleave which will trigger a negotiation phase (you'll want to speak to their "Property & Consents" team in the first instance). They will likely threaten you with acquiring a compulsory wayleave from the Home Secretary but this is a lot of effort for the DNO from what I understand so they prefer to come to a deal with the land owner where possible instead. As you're offering them an underground route as an alternative you shouldn't have a problem getting what you want but you'll need to dig your heels in and escalate things every time you get knocked back. It will probably take a while though so if you're in a hurry then paying for it might be your best option, and also be aware that to cover full costs they'll want a permanent Easement for their troubles which may affect your property value in the future depending on placement. Good luck!

Over 1 year since my last update and some 2.5 years since we started this process - UK Power have today finally removed the overheads! I'm not sure if this length of time is normal (covid, etc) but I thought it worth an update for anyone about to embark on something similar.