Adamantium

I’d prefer not to have it due to cost but also my wife hates it. Can’t stand the breeze and the noise. it would only be for occasional use at night. We will be getting mvhr, I wouldn’t be against getting a cold air heat exchanger added to that. underfloor cooling sounds like a genius idea if ufh is being installed anyway as I imagine there’s no noise or breeze.

SAP calcs only no, thermal modelling but two south facing children’s bedrooms with much glazing. extra thick external block walls (500mm), but two loft bedrooms too which I suspect will get hot. UFH throughout ground and first concrete floors.

I’ve just cut air con from my build to save money but in the event I have any extra cash this is the first thing on the shopping list to come back. thing is I have no idea how much it should cost and have been told there are different types. module in each room - ugly central unit with ducting to each relevant room and one external heat exchanger - no separate control for each room - or is this wrong? would appreciate some advice and maybe a recommendation of who to use?

I should point out that I don’t have any expectation of the policy being useful. I’m spending the money solely as a requirement should I need to sell or remortgage.

Mvincentd, any chance you you could pm me the name of your bc company so I can try to save another 2500 from my quote?

Protek asked me which bc I was using and said assent weren’t approved by them. I’m assuming you are using bc that is on their approved list. Their premium is .1% of the rebuild cost - that’s incredibly reasonable.

1.1m build cost so cost looks fairly consistent. policy is 1500 the rest is survey. the others are 0.8 to 1.2% of build cost.

Hi all, A about to demolish and have been advised by builder to get a structural warranty. I’m using Assent for building control so they suggested a few companies who they are approved to inspect for in order to combine inspections and save money. Four quotes came back all 8-12k inc surveyors. The builder said he had another lawyer client who had diligently gone through the same process and found that Protek were the cheapest. i called them and they came back at 3800 - am over the moon with that. My self build lender will accept anything including architects cert but hsbc who I assumed were a good representative the high street will not, but they do accept Protek. i only want the insurance if I need to remortgage to a different bank or sell though I don’t plan on either. Because of the above the question, it shouldn’t matter but I’ll ask it anyway - does this price sound dangerously low to you? Seems odd to me that they were so much cheaper. I told the expensive quotes that I was going with Protek and a few commented that Protek was a decent company. Too good to be true?

Yep. He is.

My builder is handling the transfer of gas and electricity. Water too I assume. the builder has some contacts for doing this properly.

Thanks for confirming. The services are actually permanently moving to the garage, not temporarily. Do you think that matters?

Hi all, About to apply for a demolition notice but the services will be rerouted to the garage which will ultimately be the plant room. This building is not being demolished so other than phone/internet, I see no reason to disconnect the services. Am I obliged to disconnect if the services are unaffected by the demolition?

Just wondering if the 750k limit is per application fee? I ask because a) I need closer to £1m and b) because I know first direct’s max loan was not a max loan it was just the max per application fee. Has anyone seen or heard of this before?

It's not a typo. I get QS services for that, it's not the banks charge, I pay the QS directly and so don't intend to employ another.

At the moment, handelsbanken seems to be my best bet - lovely people to deal with. It hurts that I have to pay £10,000 just to set up the mortgage, £2000 for valuation and £14,000 for continual monitoring by QS before the staged release of funds.

Completely understand. thanks for clarification. As for the internal wall thickness, I'm open to suggestions, no question, but given that the eventual wall thickness is about 500mm that's sounding like a lot of insulation and a very large gap. I recall bringing this up with the architect who mentioned a concern about the wall ties being too long for the larger gap. Apparently we'd then need stainless ties which removes a large chunk of what is saved.

I specifically requested that I wanted to achieve the same finish as the houses of his that I'd seen. They lay the blocks on their side in the inner leaf on purpose. Yes it's heavier and more expensive but it gives rise to a more solid feel as well as creating nice features like deep window reveals etc. Every door way is mounted within a thick wall which really make a different to the feel of the whole house. Why would i dismiss that?

The architect likes to build houses that are substantial in look and feel. This means making visible wall depths thicker. It also makes for a much heavier house hence the chunky foundations initially specced. FYI sewer I am avoiding is 860mm across, not sure it's analagous to the example above. I am hoping the proposed section will be suitable, but the architect is currently silent on screw piles versus augured piles. I would hope both are an option, but don't know why he doesn't seem to have an opinion yet. Final question, can anyone recommend a reasonable and decent company to do this piling. I am based near watford. I wondering with the extent of investigation done if someone has come across a more reasonable, yet competent company. Thankfully, this is not bleeding edge technology piling.

The SE has come back with this. Seems to be CFA piles. Should I push for helical screw piles? Also, is there any reason why the entire foundations now have to be piled. Could the rest without the same limitation be a standard trench or is it a case of the majority of the cost being bring the equipment rather than the actual piling process, hence might as well get the whole lot done. Finally, is there a huge variation in CFA/Helical piling costs? Should I be looking for a piling contractor myself now or leave it to the main contractor? piled foundation suggestion.pdf

The minute I saw the word helical it did make sense.

Just want to say a big thanks to everyone, regardless of the outcome.

I have huge amounts of drawings since the detailed design of the house from the ground up at least is complete. With regard to screw piles, I'm not sure if thames water would allow them. When they refer to piling being 1.5 m from the sewer, they insist on continuous flight augured piles. They make no mentioned of helical screw piles. I would image they have the same impact on the ground for all intents and purposes.

Soil sample showed london clay, but I'm told it isn't susceptible to movement but without looking at the soil investigation report I don't know the bearing stress. The SE certainly does. I was hoping a slab might be an option. Are the terms slab and raft interchangable and are they significantly more expensive than conventional trench foundations? 2m deep and 2.4 m wide sounded like a lot of concrete/block work to me - can't imagine his preferred option was so cheap int he first place.

Dear All, Although we have a structural engineer on this, i would really appreciate any suggestions that i can put to him. We are putting together detailed design drawings for the tender process. There is a main trunk sewer running front to back under my property. Thames water will not allow building within one metre of the sewer, so all my house plans involve the flank wall of the house running parallel to but a metre from the sewer. We are constrained on the other side of the plot and so can't move the house further from the sewer, all we could do is make it smaller which creates significant delays, adds additional costs and might require planning permission - which I'm sure we'd get but I'd prefer to not have to start again and lose a year, nor do I want to make the house smaller. The issue is that the main lank wall does not sit at the edge of the foundations. The proposed trench foundation is 2.4 metres wide, with the wall centred on the middle of the pad. (it's a heavy house so I think the structural engineer requires a pad of this size). The wider foundation defines the closest point we can be to the sewer and so the wall if central to the pad has now moved 1.2 metres further away (minus the thickness of the wall). We could potentially pile just down that side but if piling the minimum distance increases to 1.5m. I'm wondering if there is any alternative type of foundation for a very heavy house with a 225sqm foot print that will see the outer walls sit right at the edges of the designed foundations. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Adam ps. I'm trying to keep cost down, but at the moment I'm just hoping that there is a solution rather than worrying too much about how much it will cost.

Dear All, I am now going through in detail the costings for the build and am looking to reduce areas as much as possible. i have looked at IDSystems and was pleasantly surprised by their quote for two sets of sliding doors (one four panel spanning 7.5m and one two panel spanning about 5m). I'm just wondering before I commit to them mentally if there are obvious other companies I should be talking to. I've been told that rather than a smooth gliding system where the weight of the glass is always on the wheels, I should consider a levered system that rests the frames on the ground when the glass is not travelling to avoid accelerated wear and mishaping of the wheels, bearings and carriages - any truth in this? Thanks in advance.