Dan_the_man

I believe the flue will work. Please see the below image. The flue is brought outside to a lightwell just past the red beam, this would be classed as outside air. The total length of the flue is 4m and it can be hidden as the ceiling in that part of the house is 2.8m high where as in the extension the ceiling will be around 2.4m high. I can fit two 300 x 300 flue inspection hatches along the top of the boxed in flue which should satisfy gas safety requirements. The below ground drainage for the WC and kitchen sink will be included in the final plans. So if both of your issues are resolved you have no other issues with the peninsula.

I really want the living at the back too. The views are nice out the back. I have decided to ditch the kitchen island and make it a kitchen peninsula. I do not know if this is cheating or not. This gives me 1100 wide between the two kitchen worktops. The pinch point is 880. The door for the understairs storage has 923 to the back of the peninsula. The laundry is behind the stairs inside a cupboard with two doors. This can be seen on the third image. I could make the peninsula 650 wide to give even more space at the pinch point. Would apricate peoples thoughts.

Here is the existing floor plan with what walls will be demolished. I have since made a change where I am demolishing the wall directly opposite the to be demolished chimney breast. I will have to butt up against the party wall a 152 x 152 steel beam and place the other steel beam as close to the existing stairs as possible. This can be seen in orange on the drawing. I am trying to fit in a decent sized kitchen, dining area, and living area along with a 1m wide downstairs toilet all starting from the living room back wall. I will be leaving the yard wall as exposed red brick.

I have never considered this design. I will have to spend tomorrow playing around it with. The dining table would have to go in the middle of that kitchen as there is so much open space.

I have been able to make another 101mm of space which I can use either side of the island. This would be as good as I can do space wise is it still too cramped?

If I made the island 300mm shorter does it help somewhat? Or is the island still in the way especially at that pinch point. I would at least have easier access into the understairs storage if I changed the door opening direction as the island is less in the way when walking into the understairs storage. I would apricate your thoughts.

It is a terraced house. There will be a lightwell directly above the cooker hood. It is fairly easy to vent the gas boiler out as it is less than 5 meters in length. Having a washing machine in the toilet is bad for two reasons, cramped to work in and secondarily means I have to reduce my food storage cabinet by 100mm to 300mm wide.

Managed to answer my door hinge question.

Here are the NI building regs for activity space. They do not appear to be as strict as the Scottish ones. Would need to look through it in more detail. http://www.buildingcontrol-ni.com/assets/pdf/TechnicalBookletR2012.pdf

Here are detailed dimensions.

I am in Northern Ireland. The build is not a new build but an extension onto a 1910 terraced house.

I have decided on a ground floor layout and was wanting peoples thoughts on it. I will place the gas boiler along with the consumer unit in the downstairs toilet. I assume this will be ok regarding building regulations. I will place the washing machine & drier in a cabinet in the kitchens behind the stairs. This can be seen directly behind the kitchen island sink in the images. The hallway into the kitchen and downstairs toilet will be 900mm wide. When the door is open I do not have enough space to rest it against a wall. If I place it on the left hand side it will protrude into the bathroom door and on the right it will protrude onto the beginning of the stairs. My solution to this is to use either a fr30 bifold door or my preferred option a folding pocket wall door such as https://www.scrigno.co.uk/product/frames-for-sliding-doors-applauso-p20. I assume the scrigno pocket door meets fire building regulations. I am knocking down a load bearing wall so I have to place a support beam in to support the upper floors. To the side of the steal beam there is a wall that juts out 91mm so I was thinking of just plastering the bridge between the two walls. This does mean I lose 61mm of space in the kitchen. I have made the space between the kitchen and island 1050 but I could afford to make the 800 island 750 to allow 1100mm space. My one concern is between the island to the support beam is only 768 wide, is this wide enough? It does means the passageway is far narrower than the kitchen passageway. I can afford the island to be 300mm shorter at the top so this would reduce the narrow corridor from 1000 long to 700. I will have 45mm of space beside the hinge side of each of my 400mm kitchen cabinets. Will this be enough clearance to allow drawers to fully extend from the cabinets, I intend to use blum zero protrusion 155 hinges. On the above two images you will see the wasted space behind the two corner cabinets. I intend to leave the chimney breast in place knocking down 554mm of it as seen in red. This makes me feel less guilty about leaving that wasted space as to knock down the whole chimney breast would cost extra money. Would love to hear peoples thoughts on my plan.

This is another option for the downstairs toilet, it involves moving the washing machine and gas boiler along the party wall inside the downstairs toilet. It would allow proper sound insulation and give ample room to work around the washing machine. The downstairs toilet is 1200mm at its narrowest point. The toilet goes into a stud wall giving a front projection of 650mm. The sink is next to the toilet. The aspect of this design I hate is there is only 1030mm from the front of the fridge/freezer to the island which I feel the island might get in the way. The other option gives much more room around the island and would even allow me to extend its size by 200mm

This sounds like the best option. If I were to remove the 18mm panel on the fridge/freezer cabinet that would mean its only 52mm thick. Would the material be suitable to fix the top and bottom parts of the 600mm wide cabinet to in lieu of having no side panel.

No it is not a new house. It is a 1910 period property. I am just doing renovations to it.

I intend to vent it out into the downstairs toilet.

Not yet. I will have to query this with them.

Would this comply with full uk building regulations? I.e. having the bathroom fully separated with the kitchen. It seems my wooden idea would not have been building regulations compliant.

I am yet to build anything but In my quest to fit in as much cabinetry into my future kitchen as possible I am contemplating the idea of not building part of a cavity wall between a downstairs toilet and the kitchen. The two rooms would still be technically sealed. The weak point of the seal would be two 18mm pieces of wood of the cabinetry of a washing machine in the downstairs toilet and the fridge/freezer in the kitchen butt up against each other. Above the cabinetry would be sealed by joining the two cavity walls at the top. Are there any products which would be 40mm thin where I can seal the two rooms from each other rather than having to relay on the cabinetry. Cheers

When you say re-tender did that involve changing the design in anyway or just getting more quotes from contractors? I wonder if prices are coming back so high because of the uncertainties of a no deal Brexit coming down the road and it's effects on material costs for NI, so they are pricing in this uncertainty from the beginning.

I believe my final renovation cost will be around 140k. So a 15% saving on the majority of that will be massive. I know you only pay 5% VAT on energy saving measures but that would not amount to much in the grand scheme of the build. In Northern Ireland you do not get any council tax discount for an empty home. I suppose you could say I am gaming the system. Another route I had thought of going down is to make the property a HMO and live in it with lodgers for a year. That way I do not have to wait and can still avail of the 5% Vat. I believe I would not be breaking any rules going down this route.

Glad you have found a good builder. I have went down the route where the architect project manages the build. She was charging 10% of build costs but it has now went up to 12% as she has had to become VAT registered. I guess from her point of view she would want me spending as much money on the build as possible due to her percentage cut. She has the tender documents ready and will be getting quotes from three contractors she knows. I have told her to hold off on the quote until I start to see if labour costs reduce any due to the fact we are in a recession and have a 100 year event on our hands. Apparently labour costs have doubled in the past 5 years.

You could still live in the property even if not on the electoral roll. The same applies if you write to the council. But I guess those are the rules. The annoying thing is I am on the electoral roll. I guess if I change it now I will have to start from scratch for the 2 years of not living at the property even when I have not been living there for the past 7 months. The system is very unfair.

The only other evidence I have is from an electric pay as you go meter. If you go to the keypad you can display how much electricity usage has been in the past month up to a year. Surely this would be enough evidence as you cant live without using loads of electricity. As a backup I also could get my neighbours to vouch for me that I have not lived in the property and that no one else has lived in there either. Surely I would be better trying to convince an empty property officer that the property was empty and receive the certificate from them and then just hand that over to the contractor?

Your doors look lovely @MJNewton Unfortunately they would not suit my layout. My middle access is very restricted due to island/dining table and living furniture placement. I have to have the opening on the left or right.