Gus Potter

Have a look here, they may have something that floats your boat. https://www.ejot.co.uk/ If not on their website use that old thing called the telephone and give them a call.

This is elegant at first glance. It might float your boat.. but I honestly despair at times. You write a lot of good stuff John but what about say a young couple that come to buy your house. Will you make them aware of any potential maintenance issues? Now you may have all your faculties at the moment and I'm sure you think this is your forever home, but when you get less "sharp" and need folk to maintain your house who may be less dilligent.. what then? I totally get that your house is your hobby.. but in my day job I need to give Clients best advice. That includes protecting their asset. I do love you technical grasp and hope you don't mind me taking a more general view.

This is an important question. To address this I go back to the HSE act 1974. This was a vital piece of legilation as it made breach of the act a criminal offence. Jumping quickly ahead we had the CDM regulations 2015 which in part also reinforced the statutory stiffness. In other words it means you can't go about desinging or carrying out work if you are not competant to do so. In the UK It's got little to do with if you are a chartered member of x, y and z. All that does under UK law is to help you demonstrate competancy. Competancy can be demonstrated in different ways. The law is a good law as it is all emcompassing. There are many Engineers and Designers (lots of these work for and are involved in Contracting where we are looking for experience and competancy) they are not chartered but many also have a deep understanding of boots on the ground Civic responsibility. So no, being Chartered does not make you better or more qualified, it just shows you have attained something, through a process that demonstrates your competancy. That is the law. I refer to a well known goetech book, its the go to bible. The guy that wrote it was a director of a massive Scottish Structural Engineering Consultancy.. he had an HND in Civil Engineering, he wasn't a chartered SE or anything. But many well known Chartered Engineers were glad to get a mention. The reasoning behind the law was to capture all the tom, dick and harrys.. say dodgy plumbers and moonlighting "Architects" or tech designers, builders that thought they could do design that were desinging stuff that was unsafe to build or later compromise the safety of a building. The actual problem is that the law as it stands is not being enforced. All the tools are there that would allow our courts to send people to prison for statutory breaches of the law. Next is the Civil Law aspect. Now to practice well you also should to hold indemnity insurance. If you employ anyone then you must have employers liability insurance as that is a statutory requirement, public liability insurance is an optional extra. PI insurance is also and extra believe it or not! Technically you can practice in the UK with no PI insurance! It's totally irresponsible but some who moonlight do so.. I hold 2.0 million PI insurance as an SE and Architectural designer which is a lot more than most small Architects and small SE's for example. My cover is wide ranging. So what needs to happen is that the law as it is stands needs to be enforced for everyone that does any kind of design work. We need to see some prison sentences dished out from the local plumber right up to the Architect and SEs when they put folks safety at risk.

Aye and no. Below is a good photo of a small turbine base.. I'm the (expletive deleted)wit on the far left. Doing the corporate stuff but thinking.. this is not maybe that good for the enviroment and creating jobs as puported.. But I've got much better looking as I've aged, taller also! Every cloud has a silver lining. I can't remember the output of the turbine, tall from memory, but not that big, just a farmer getting some extra income. I think you can see it from the M8 motorway in Scotland. What it does show is the amount of rebar that goes into something like a modest wind turbine base. It's practically there forever pretty much. It does as the more you increase the height the larger the base needs to be to resist the dynamic wind forces. It's not just the over turning effect it's the constant variation in dynamic loading. Mother earth does not often appreciate this kind of "vibration" and load change. We need mass concrete.. when poured it gets hot! It cracks and shrinks and curls up like fury and part of all that rebar you see is to control that cracking and curling effect. If you put a pork chop in a frying pan it often curls.. same to some extent happens with concrete. Technically concrete has two dominant forms when it is cast. One is plastic shrinkage.. that is when the chemicals in the concrete are busy creating the concrete we see.. this can apply to raft floors in self builds. The other is drying shrinkage, less dominant in turbine founds in say CLAY soil.. but in SANDS in England drying shrinkage is a consideration. Drying shrinkage is probably the dominant factor in self build rafts / screeds and so on. If you look up the construction videos of the Hoover dam this is well explained about how you need to control the heat in mass concrete. Now you don't have to be an SE to figure out that wind turbines are maybe not as eco friendly as at first glance? Below is the bit in the middle that the concrete ring sits onto.. to which the nice bit of steel turbine gets attached to. That's the bit you see above ground. Now it's almost impossible to upgrade a turbine base.. unless the tax payer is footing the bill. In that case it all hands on deck for a great design fee.. all paid for by the public of course.

Yes. The cover can sit at angle.

I just expanded for a bit of fun. The building industry is not full of nice folk. I'm representing a Building Contractor and Client in Scotland at the moment that has been pretty much been ripped off by a small bunch of very well known designers and one " SE? Engineer". This bunch have been on my radar for a while with designs that I've checked and found them wanting as they are incompetent and downright dangerous. The Engineer is puporting to run a limited consultancy company..but there is no record on companies house? The "Architect" is moonlighting it appears.. I'l find out in due course if he and any of the others involved are insured or not. So yes my suspicion is at the moment that my poor Client is a victim of a bunch of chancers puporting to be Engineers and Designers. The Engineer in question is well known in Scotland, big player..in the business papers and so on.. hiding in plain sight, seems he may be a chancer and a fraudulant actor! I'll catch the fu.ker and have his house off him if I can to get some of my young Clients money back. This could be one of your kids, excuse my lack of mercy.

He is one from the old days. A still operating scrape merchant, now a legitimised huge conglomerate business, originally based in Edinburgh. I rented a unit from them when I was just starting out as a young builder. They threw a party for the local councillers, 40 years ago now, loads of booze and prostitutes.. took photos.. That type of corruption is less prominent, but some dafties still fall for it. The corruption now is much more subtle. It's still there and actually worse as it political and at a much higher level, they defend it using lawfare for example. This destroys our public life and will continue to do so if we don't recognise this cancer. It's disgusts me as an Engineer who has a feeling of Civil Duty, my primary qualification is in Civil Engineering, but went on to learn about Strutural Engineering. It's just a different part of the art and craft of being an Engineer. It's nice to know you work for the public, just like a Nurse. This means something to me and it's a great job where you get to create stuff that will outlast your own lifetime. Most of the moral deviance I'm experiencing at the moment is with warranty providers. Hopefully this will change. The boots on the ground BC folk seem to be sound. Some Scotland SE's have been chancing their arm (minority.. but they have been undercutting the folk that want to do a good job) .. story that I can't report on at the moment.

Maybe yes or maybe no. Ok things happen. The first thing to ask is how big is the stair and how big is the load bearing on the floor and to check the beams are ok.. this is important in terms of safety. Next is to recognise that with beam and block floors the bit under the stair may not be subject.. just can't be practically be often subject to the design load that the rest of the floor is designed for.. so you have potential spare capacity. Ok next we want to check the screed.. normally this is ok in direct compression. The screed depth sheds load..sideways so the bearing area of insulation is increased. Next we want to check the next layer down which is the insulation. This is likely the weak spot. Post some details on what you have.. like good details so we can quantify the loads , base plate sizes, insulation type and so on. Don't dig out the screed at this stage until you have a handle on what might not be a problem. If you dig out the screed at this stage it could make things worse. Sometimes I design domestic stairs to deliberately be more vibrant, slender and thus more bouncy! So long as it safe then sometimes it's good for them to be a bit more "lively". An example would be if leading up to a slender (but still safe) gallery, it a deliberate Architectural technique where the user feels they are going into a different type of space and you lead them on that journey.. up the lively stair!

Now to stir things up. Say you have a private regulated pension. The provider goes bust.. the UK gov often pick up the tab. But Private BC's need to hold cover for apparently 15 -30 years.. but if the company goes bust then what? To put this into context. As an SE I hold £2.0 million cover as a sole trader and it's expensive, but rightly so. If, god forgive I do make a mistake and someone gets hurt then the very least I can do is to have adequate insurance that could go to help someone that I have hurt. It's common knowledge that nearly all SE's stop practicing if you have designed something that has killed someone. Personally I would also hang up my boots.. the guilt could be very hard mentally to deal with. But private BC in England.. it's every man for them self! The piper calls the tune.. It's chancers charter! Private BC's are writing very much more liability that is supposed to be on 15 - 30 years for cover time! If bet if you look at their T & C's they have not factored in run off insurance cover. I think that this length of cover (if including run off) is not really going to make private BC's competetive? But what happens when private BC goes bust. I'm battling with a warranty provider at the moment.. deny, delay, defend,they do everything to avoid engaging in a Claim, same will happen with private BC. The thing lots of folk on BH don't get is that if your house is non compliant and someone like me turns up to value it.. it's blighted if not compliant. In summary private BC may be fine to get you over the line.. but in ten years time you may struggle to seek recourse. It's frankly an English gimmic. In Scotland we have a much more robust system that protects the public, not the best but much more in the round. OH I feel outrage from some of the English members of BH..! But deep down I know lots of you know you are chancing your arm!

This is common, I despair at times that professionals are so bad at listening. It's good for business to do so, to listen and understand Client requirements, it's a common law of business.. just listen and deliver what the Client is asking for, but always question if you think they are doing the wrong thing, something that is unsafe or will destroy their financial investment. Sometimes you do the best you can, but some Clients self destruct.. is this you? I try and cover their arse professionally so they don't do something stupid. Now why do you want to do this? Is it some kind of liberal thing that you can boast about to your pals or would you consider getting something close or just the same at a good value? You could lose your shirt here! Ah, Absolute pish as you are resticting your choice of contractors. If you know how to design this kind of stuff.. like I do in the day job why are you here on BH asking about it? So no PH is going top cost you a fair bit more. Ok you have binned your Architect, you are on a mission.. but you have a massive learning curve to go through if you want to make your project a goer. That said if you put in the work then you will reap a massive cost and self satisfaction benefit. Do you have the time to do this? It can be done but you have to be on site a lot.. so you don't end up paying for something that does not get delivered by the contractor. The building business is not for the faint hearted, there are few rules when you get into a dispute with a builder. This is where you make the savings compared with buying a new house off the shelf. Can you cope with a stand up arguement with a builder on site? To get to passive house standards you have to pay a builder more for the quality of delivery. That is your starting point. Post some sketches and you'll get load of helps on BH from folk that have done it and worn the tee shirt, that might stop you losing your shirt! If you have a design you want to go for then that is a great start. If it's you first self build then my advice is that unless you have loads of money ( by emulating PH build and don't mind losing a bit of it|) then just try and go for a practical, maintainable and a well insulated build that will hold it's value. The above is a bit of tough love.. but best to hear it now than later? But to finish. You have a desing you like..you have suffered a bit of torture.. well done you both. Think.. if self building was easy then every one would do it. Self building is hard and you should be proud of your achievemnets to date, even if you have made some mistakes, everyone does including me. . I've been there, worn the tee shirt, made mistakes that cost me money. But Build Hub was not around at the time. All the best on the adventure and your best friend will be the folk on BH!

Ask for say at least 10.0 -20 k plus to be put into an account up front as part of a bond. Explain. You are willing to facilitate this but in no way are you going to be out of pocket if their builder goes bust. Explain you just don't have the time to go legal if they breach the agreement. Say if they erect scaffolding over your property without agreement you'll call the HSE. I strongly suspect that you'll end up coming out on the wrong side of this unless you dig your heals in now. The builder sounds like a chancer / bully and the designers (Architect's and SE) are very at fault as they should have advised your neighbour on how to avoid all of this in the first place. Say to your neighbour it seems like your design team are chancers and you have no confidence. Let them justify why. In my day job I would not allow this to happen at all by designing out this major issue. If you are soft now you will likely regret. If they are doing this now what do you think they are going to leave you having to look at from your side of the garden? Their proposal to build "over hand" is likely going to result in you looking at a mess, maybe drainage problems and so on. Also you need to look at their wall construction on the boundary .. if say a cavity wall are they relying on venting that to your property and so on.. you could end up losing a lot more than you realise at the moment.

Welcome to Build Hub. Your photos are very helpful. As a word of encouragement, you'll get lots of different opinions, all you need to do is sift out what is most appropriate to your circumstance. Here is my first take on your first good post! Ok I'm 62 in September. When I inspect houses like yours you have to try and impart enough info to the Client (You) to allow them to take a view. If you overwhelm them then you are not communicating that well. Sometimes us SE's omit info to avoid confusion. Some SE's are not good at communicating. So here is some extra info. The idea here is to let you see some of the things I might think about and I hope this helps you a bit. Take this photo below: Call it photo 01 And this one, call this photo 02. In photo 01 and as you say you have quite a lot of retained soil and mobile ground water. Now in photo 02 the steels are actually at quite close centres. It makes me wonder if the steels are doing two things. Holding up the floor / structure above but also and most importantly providing lateral support to the wall that is up the left side of the external stair case. This is the key to any remedial solution. I would say the steels are doing more than just holding up the floor / structure above until proven otherwise. Now at first glance you may think.. what if we prop each steel in turn. Expose the ends and wrap in DPC, after we have checked they are not too badly rusted. Then introduce much more ventilation etc to mitigate the condensation But if the steels are also acting to restrain the walls horizontally then we could be making a big mistake by introducing a DPC which acts like a slip plane. I think there may be a solution to this that is not too onerous..but first you need to understand more about how the structure you have is working not just to carry the vertical load but also the horizontal loads from the soil, up the side and at the back of the house. To expand. It may even be that the beams over the garage are forming port of a stiff floor that is also serving to retain the soil pressure from the garden at the rear. I've designed houses this way before where I take the full floor deck and use it to reduce the cost and mass of the rear retaining wall. It's going to take you a bit of time to get to the bottom of this.. but persevere.

Don't panic. Take your time to figure out what is causing the paint to flake. Just ask loads of questions on BH before you spend any money.

Aye and no.. but that is my first thought. Often I look at old buildings / renovations SE wise and think.. if we have time on our side then lets use lime mortars and renders and implement the traditional crafts.. be it an elegantly cut timber roof or what ever. But it's rare to find a sympathetic Client that just wants to do old simple stupid stuff. It's not actually stupid at all. It's actually practicing an art and a craft using traditional materials.. that you have to often make work to modern design code loadings and deflection limits. The deflections for example become an issue when say getting warranties from glazing providers. This is a dilemma.. you can't have your cake and eat it. You have to be able to consider the old and the new. I have to, as at some point, folk might ask me to sign off on it. The big challenge for me is to strike a balance, be creative that works for all. And that is one of the great parts of my job. This is the first place to look.

I suspect it's because you have rushed the process. The walls will still be drying out. I hope the lime render was Non Hydraulic lime, relies on carbonation from the air. You probaly can't. Just let time take it's course and suck it up. Wait two years and let the building settle in, the lime mortar and walls adjust to the new regime.