Reiver

Ooops! ....how did they miss that on the drawings - I thought using CAD was meant to show up stuff like that. May I ask what remedy (if any) is going to be applied?

Sure am!

+1 - only ever walked along it, but a beautiful spot. World's End near the start of it is one of my favourite places in Wales.

If I were in your position, I'd be asking your SE as to the thinking behind the approach - just out of curiosity as much as anything else, always keen to learn. It might be that having the strip foundations allows using a thinner/simpler (and hence cheaper) slab??? and cheaper spec. insulation as well maybe?? I'm sure I saw a diagram of a loadbearing slab somewhere (maybe on here) and it had thickening up round the edges as well as a pretty thick layer of concrete on top.

I guess you could, as I think I'm right in saying that cooked take away food is liable to VAT?

Well yes, but NO!!!! Second homes have completely buggered the housing market for young couples/first time buyers in this area, all the small properties tend to get snapped up as private holiday homes for people from out of the area.

Micro inverters are meant to be better if some of the panels are likely to be shaded at some point, as they optimise each panel's output, rather than the shaded panels dragging down the output of the rest. I'm thinking of going for a bit of a hybrid system with battery backup so I can run all lighting (low voltage LED) off solar - but then I am a bit of an OCD electronics nerd

+1 - it's funny how all the best opportunities seem to come at the wrong time in life!

How about a houseboat on the quarry pond? I don't think they need planning - you'd just have to issue yourself a mooring permit?

No, they just burn . And some - CAA rules make Building Control seem easy - imagine having to have every pack of blocks, every bag of cement approved and traceable and you'll get the idea.

Could you not send them the letter from building control stating that it is an offence to occupy property without completion certificate and tell them to sort it out between themselves? (assuming your BC is of the local council variety)

Cheers for the tip @joe90 , that could save a lot of headaches!

Dunno really, I'm new to this self-build thing. But I thought the idea of BC was to make sure things got done properly and safely, regardless of the technology? If they're so narrow minded/out of date that only brick-and-block will do, then someone ought to be complaining big time, as it seems there's lots of other ways of doing things that can be more environmentally friendly/cost effective. Maybe you need to get a decent structural engineer on board to prove to them that it's safe/proper? Please let me know how you get on, 'coz I'm approaching this with an objective thinking-outside-the-box view and nigh on 40 years as a multi-disciplinary engineer/ materials specialist and I'm up for using anything that'll get the job done safely and solidly.

That's odd, I can see some planners having a quick cough over the suggestion, but from the BC point of view as long as someone qualified has done the sums to make sure it won't fall in/blow off what's the problem??? And there are varieties now that are much better aesthetically than the typical industrial trapezoidal box section finish.

Thanks! That's odd, you would have thought they'd use a decent glue; the odd 1 or 2 times I've joined planks side-by-side I've used urea-formaldehyde stuff which seemed to be stronger than the wood itself. However I guess it's a mass-market product, so anything to save a few pence probably applies ?. Shouldn't be too much of a problem in this case as the outer end can be supported along most of it's length and the inner bracket can be made to support where it's most needed, which I guess will be just behind the front edge of the tread.

Cheers! that's the lots-of-little-bits-of-timber-stuck-together stuff I was thinking of - just wish I knew the proper term for it.... And Worktops-Express seem to have some good prices on them, will enquire if they can do custom lengths, as I could get 4 treads out of a 2400 x 600 board.

Love it! very much what I was originally intending, only with no balustrade, fixed to the wall instead..... and probably twice as wide!

Curling is a good point, I guess finding 40 metres of 1/4 sawn timber at that kind of width is dreaming..... or stupidly expensive. Would a couple of thinner boards glued back to back with mirrored grain sort it I wonder? Then also going cheapskate I've seen those boards made up of little offcuts of timber stuck together....but what do they call it? - I've seen versions in oak & beech as well as softwoods. The outer edge would likely be some simple brackets into the wall...... rebating the wall and setting them in would be cool, but very time consuming, I have better things to do with what's left of my life. I was assuming the hole would only be giving vertical support, no torsional moments, but @PeterW's suggestion for a bracing arm underneath makes a lot more sense and would make the treads shorter and easier to make and install, even if the centre pole becomes a more expensive item.

Thanks for the tip: doing it that way rather than threading the treads over the pole would likely make assembly a lot easier too :-) BTW, I was assuming tying the outer ends to the wall - easy since it's circular.

So I'm trying to price up a couple of spiral staircases, 14 steps apiece, 270 degree twist, 2.75m height and 1.2 metre radius: I know that's big but I have history getting stuff up and down them before ?, and then there's what's above..... I have a couple of enquiries out for ready made items, but the replies so far are errrm, not cheap. So I wondered about making them myself, the central pole is not a problem to obtain (friendly steel fabricator), and it shouldn't be too difficult to cut out the steps on the bandsaw and then cut the pole hole on the CNC router. The one thing that seems to be not so easy is obtaining boards of some nice wood (ideally oak) at the required width - the steps need to be 435mm wide at the outside, and at a guess they'd need to be at least 38mm thick? Local merchants and all the online sellers I've found seem to stop around 250...300mm wide. So would the best idea to glue two narrower boards together? or are such pieces of timber actually available? Any advice gratefully recieved, thanks.

This reminds me of a property in the Scottish Highlands I was interested in last summer, the agents made a big point about the wonderful hot tub outside. Mmmmm, thought I, for hot tub please read "midges banqueting hall". Anyway, when I went to view another spot nearby in November what do I find by the side of the road??? the remnants of a dismantled hot-tub, presumably awaiting collection for disposal ?

As there's no obvious oiling/greasing points I would agree with OnOff - likely "sealed for life" bronze bearings - so as long as they don't start creaking you can stand down the lubrication.

It doesn't look like a bearing surface from the surface finish, but which part of the machine exactly are we looking at please? - hard to tell without a slightly further back view.

Sorry just spotted a mistake line 13 should be 50mm apart

You're right about not wanting the room too acoustically "dead", but looking at your pic, there wasn't much in the way of anything absorbent knocking about, hence my suggestion of the carpet. In a "normal" room, with some carpet on the floor, some furniture, some curtains and a few random humans there's generally enough to calm things down a bit, but I've been in some places which have gone for a very modern look where there's virtually nothing absorbent and they sound horrendous. One of the main things to avoid in my experience is hard, flat parallel surfaces as the sound will just bounce back and forth for a long time giving a nasty "flutter" echo in many cases. If you have the freedom to do so this can be sorted to some extent by angling walls (or the ceiling) to make the room non-rectangular or by making the walls non-flat. Now on to isolation. The best way to isolate sound is to build a "box within a box" structure, with no rigid ties between the inner and outer skins, only some absorbent stuff. Then the generated sound vibrates the inner skin, but that can't be coupled to the outer skin as they're separated, that's sort of the principle of the ceiling diagram you posted above where the plasterboard is resiliently mounted from the existing ceiling. This approach can be taken to ridiculous extremes as in one studio in London where IIRC they poured an inner box of reinforced concrete with 18" walls and a 12" concrete ceiling inside the existing building - all floating on an isolated floor. Coming down to a more practical domestic level the box-within-a-box can still be implemented, particularly if you're building from scratch. At it's most cost effective have 2 stud walls based on wotever x 100mm timber with slightly less than 600mm between the verticals, the 2 walls at least 75mm apart. Fill the gaps between the verticals with 600mm wide (hence the spacing) x 100mm thick mineral wool slabs of a reasonable density (like RW5 or 6), the outside surfaces get covered with double overlapped plasterboard - though I suspect cement bonded particle board of a decent thickness will do just as well and might be easier to fix sometimes. Similarly for a suspended ceiling, beams THAT ARE ONLY MOUNTED TO THE INNER WALLS OF THE BOX with double plasterboard/CBPB underneath and mineral wool on top - then a gap and if you can stick some more mineral wool slabs in between the joists of the floor above (thin battens to keep it there) so much the better. Obviously the more mass you can put into the outer layer of the walls the better it will work, so if you can do one or both in high density brick or block it'll help, but you need to keep the mineral wool slabs and the air gap. If you wanted to go heavyweight on the ceiling it might mean smallish steel I beams to carry the weight I guess, but I'm not an SE. Then there's the floor - it has to be solid or you'll have to make it part of the "box-within-a-box" Do all of the above on a suspended timber floor and you'll be wasting your time and your money. Done on a decent concrete slab it ought to be OK, though I've seen some perfectionists advise putting thin foam rubber strips under the outer boarding to isolate them from the floor, might be useful if the surface isn't uber flat.. Lastly you have to mind the gaps. It doesn't take much of a hole or a thin flimsy door to spoil things, likewise if you're going to be going loud and have NIMBY neighbours in close proximity, thick triple glazed windows will likely be needed.