Omnibuswoman

This joist has been rested on a scrap bit of OSB because the wall was built too short… Not all hangers have been nailed to the joists.

Following some enquiries with the joist manufacturer, a number of issues have been identified with the fitting of the I-joists and build that are going to require remediation. These include a failure to place blocking plates between joists as they sail across the supporting walls, meaning that the joists are beginning to twist (see photos below). The joists are glued to the eggerboard above, so making the joists straight again to fit the blocking plates is going to be extremely tricky. If they are not straightened, they won’t perform the function they are designed for. In addition, the supporting walls that sit above each other are not, in fact, sat above each other. There is approx 50mm between the face of the wall on the first floor and the face of the wall on the second floor (we discovered this when trying to send a pipe up from one to the next, and realised that it emerges in a different place than expected). The technical manager at the I-joist company is “very concerned” about this, as the joists are not designed to carry the second floor load - it should be transferred down via the walls sitting atop each other. We now need to explain these issues to our builder and ask him to undertake the difficult job of remediating these issues. Has anyone experienced anything similar? And does anyone have any advice about how to go about this? Should we consider getting an independent structural survey done, or involve Building Control to strengthen our position? cheers Omnibuswoman

One important factor was not increasing the ‘mass’ of the house. We actually very slightly reduced it by removing a winter garden, so the footprint was a tiny bit smaller. This was actually commented on by the planning officer in a positive way. The loss of the winter garden still left us with a 200m2 house, as we changed the second floor from a mezzanine to a full floor.

Yes, a S73 is a minor amendment - in our case we just moved and re-sized a few windows to match the significant internal re-design, and changed a velux window to a dormer. The internal changes were not of any interest to the planning dept, and as the outside looked very similar to the original consented design they were happy to wave it through. It is simply a case of replacing the original design drawings with the new drawings on the consent. All of the other original conditions remained unchanged.

As a starting point, it may be worth taking the existing design footprint and seeing whether it could work for you with some changes. This is the route we took - we based the house on the footprint of the plan that had won planning, then amended the room layout and windows to suit our needs (like yours, ground floor wholly disabled accessible, TF, passive or near passive house for heating load, triple glazed windows, solar panels, etc). We got this through planning under a S73 amendment application and it was easily waved through. However I recognize that that only works if your needs can easily be met by something similar to the existing design, and if it looks like a house you could live in. We used a passive house specialist builder, and an architect he had a business relationship with to draw up the plans and get us through building control. We didn’t want the full architect’s works, just drawing stuff, and his fees packages were flexible enough to accommodate that. Happy to send a recommendation.

You guys 🤪… Back to the balustrade: It does have a handrail around the top, and this bolts into the wall of the house. The upright posts will be bolted into the Balcony floor with three bolts in each foot. I did have a look at Gus’s comments on the indoor balustrade and its fixings previously, but will go back and have another look. I’ll also speak with the SE about whether she did any calculations for the balcony in the first place (which I can’t see on her drawings) and if not whether we now need to pay her to do that. The building control drawings have a wooden balustrade so we will def need to communicate the change to the BC officer and understand his expectations. Cleaning: probably a very long brush with integral hose (which we will need for some of our first floor windows as well!) photo of the balustrade in its original home below:

We have been planning to have a balcony at first floor level, with a wooden balustrade. However I recently found a great glass balustrade on FB market which I have now bought. Do I need to revisit the structure/design of the balcony to accommodate the extra weight of the balustrade, which must weigh around 400kg (approx 7 metres of 10mm toughened glass panels, plus 5 metal posts and handrails). image of original design below…

Thanks all! Sanity has been restored. Plumbing first fix is all done already - DHW tank is in, and all rooms have both waste pipes and hot and cold supplies, all closed off with a valve in the plant area. So it’s only electric that I would be staging. @BotusBuild you’re right about the sparky - he came in last week and did three rooms in a couple of hours. We are getting a good rate from him, and in return I’m happy to have him use our project as the place he goes when his other work is quiet or something has been cancelled. All things being equal I can see him getting it all done by the end of August if he pops in once or twice a week. I’m about to have the main bathroom plastered as I’ve been working to get it useable. I’ll call the BC and see if he’s happy to accept one self-report of the cabling and pipe-work that’s been put in, and then get him to visit six weeks’ time when the sparky has finished the cabling.

Due to the amount of work needed to complete the house, and our limited funds, I have been toying with the idea of completing the project one or two rooms at a time. Psychologically it feels more achievable to complete a room, before moving on to the next. We are at a point of having the plumbing infrastructure in place, and the electrician is happy to work on the house in sections. However, this doesn’t sit with the BC inspection schedule to see all first fix done prior to plasterboarding (unless we pay them to keep coming back for each room!!). I am minded to try to speak to our building control officer about whether they would be able to review a video or photographic record of each room (taken prior to plasterboarding) for the purposes of assurance. Any thoughts about this? Has anyone gone this route for the sake of their sanity?!

I have got a pile of door linings of 32mm depth, with the words “nom 27mm” on them. Are these suitable for hanging FD30 fire doors/meeting building regs? I know that I should be fitting 32mm linings, but not sure if that is 32mm nom or 27mm nom. Thanks!

Good point @Russell griffiths I had entirely followed the existing spaces made by the wall frame and didn’t think about the possibility of adjusting that to suit the tiling pattern. Hmmm, fortunately I’ve put up the PB in three sections so I can easily remove the middle section and redo it with a different niche location. Any suggestions as to where it would better go? I’m using standard metro tiles (100mm x 200mm) in a brick pattern.

I have been working on the bathroom carpentry stuff recently, and yesterday fitted the plasterboard to the shower cubicle walls. Having decided to create a niche, I cut out the plasterboard flush to the edges of the battens. However I now think I should have allowed a 12mm lip all the way around the niche so that the cut edge of the plasterboard lining butts up against it. It’s not too late to take the PB off and redo it, but is there an alternative? Is it a fatal error, or will tanking the wall (which I plan to do in any case) seal the cut edge and mitigate the error?? itself)

Helpful for me as I am at the exact same point - caberdeck 22mm flooring, shower tray and floor tiles going down in the next few weeks. I have been wondering whether or not to lay something on the caberdeck prior to laying the tile adhesive for the shower tray...

@KitchenPotcher one passing observation I have is that there seems to be an awful lot of bathroom stuff that is pretty indistinguishable when browsing the net. I have recently been off in search of a bath for HWMBO, and I have waded through a large number of websites. The vast majority I would describe as virtually identical cheap tat from the far east, but branded with various italian sounding names and priced at a level that the general public don't think of as being mugged. Finding genuinely quality stuff for a reasonable price seems nigh-on impossible!

@Richini, have you made any progress with this? I have made my decision having done a lot of looking around. I’ve gone for a simple Grohe bath/shower mixer valve feeding a bath overflow filler which will be mounted on the side of the bath away from the back wall. The mixer is mounted on a stud wall accessible from behind (in the pantry) although the plumber said that most maintenance can be done by removing the front plate. The bath filler will be accessible by removing the bath panel.

Sorry, I was being daft!! Never heard of Bathrooms to Love. Have a look at Companies House and see what their turnover is…

What is the name of the company?

I have also been thinking about whether or not to make a crack at plastering or trying to learn T&J, to save money on this part of the build, but I just don’t think I have the strength or stamina, and I don’t want the walls to look crap 🤦‍♀️

Thank you all!! We are absolutely delighted. Very much looking forward to low electricity bills, especially as we also have solar panels that will meet our hot water needs for 2/3 of the year. What we need now is a masterclass from @SteamyTea on how to further reduce our use so that Octopus are paying us to live there!!

Yes we have used blown cellulose

We haven’t installed the kitchen as yet, but our cooker hood will be a circulating one.

Thanks. It’s timber frame

We used Tescon tape. The wide one was handy for window reveals, and the split one was good for the fiddly bits.

We had our first air tightness test today and achieved 0.25 ACH!! 🎉 Absolutely chuffed to bits with that. We have spent a lot of time taping every possible penetration, but I was still anxious in case we hadn’t quite been as scrupulous as needed.

Thank you Steamy. Much appreciated.