Gus Potter

What depth are your house foundations sitting at? You don't want to compromise them if you essentially undermine them?

There was a recent article in the IStructE magazine just about this and promoting the use of C16 timber. It's pretty well available in Scotland (in EU metric sizes, CLS Canadian lumber standards are slightly diferent in dimensions for example) and for years I've used it where I can. The U value regs in Scotalnd quite often drive the timber external wall stud thickness on a basic timber frame house, call that a major developer type house. You can use C16 at a deeper depth so you can fit a decent thickness of insulation between the studs. The deeper stud in C16 still delivers the strength and deflection limits you need. The problem can be that C16 significantly reduces timber connection performance one you get into transfer beams and anything (say goal posts around openings) that needs to resist sideways wind loading. There is a practical side to this. What you don't want to happen is that the builder mixes up the timber grades on site. When I'm designing I try and make sure that the deep timbers are C24 if I have to use that grade, the shallower ones C16. You never mix grades of timber of the same size. The same applies to steel buildings in terms of bolt grades., you make sure it's not possible to fit the wrong grade of bolt into same sized holes. You can't make it totally idiot proof as a designer but you can try your best.

The practical reasoning behinds this is that shower area in dormers are a big source of water gas. You have to execute the work "perfectly" and it takes a lot of time to design and detail stuff like this. Few are willing to pay a designer to get it right. BC and I know that few builders do this properly, hence my caution. But if you are doing it yourself, are confident, dilligent in your workmanship and understand the theory, marry that up with your particular house (it needs to be detailed specifically, not generically) then it's doable.

It may be that the percentage of Olivine in good Scottish Bassalt is around 5%. Us up in Scotland would welcome the investment. But we might get a bit naffed off if you destroy the environment and wreak our tourist industry.

Fixing insulated platerboard directly to stone walls is likely to give you a pile of problems further down the line. Fixing to concrete blocks has similar risks. Best thing you can do it to post more info. Just draw a sketch on A4 paper, photograph it and post. You won't get tested on your drawing skills.

You make a strong argument at a 5:1 difference. One basic question I have at the moment is why are we in the UK trying to drive this at the expense of our economy and national security when China and the US are contributing to most of the emissions. Brits seem to have gone soft / woke.. they talk about carbon emissions, but our government are not investing in the research and building factories to make the stuff! Now to fund this we need to get rid of this woke fad. We need in my view to start drilling, exploring and selling our good sweet oil, to fund UK renewables. To make a point. The UK has never been bombed since the second world war. I was born in the 60's, my mum who is 95 remembers getting evacuated. We have been very lucky in the UK to have avoided that to date... so far. It's going to come as a major shock to the woke if Putin cuts our undersea internet cables!

I had a quick skim over, thanks for the post. To quote: "Acid can be used to leach elements like calcium out, then a chemical or energetic process precipitates that calcium as calcium hydroxide. Toss that in a kiln with additives of your choice, and with less heating than you need for limestone, you’ve got Portland cement, with only water vapor released." We are going to need a lot of acid? But what kind? Remind any of the raves for older members of BH? The music was great, some great Scottish bands like TTF came along at the end of that period just at the end of the 1980's (The time frequency). The acid (catalyst) is the key possibly, plenty Bassalt in Scotland.

Post a photo and you'll get loads of ideas.

Ok to keep the conversation light. I designed a lightweight cold formed steel building that went on top of one of the cooling ponds for the Bradwell decomissioning. You need to carry out all the due dilligence that is highly demanding in the nuclear sector. Below is a photo of the cooling ponds when they were getting built. When I went to uni at the age of 40 I worked for MacAlpine one summer so for me it's nostalgia. Check out the guys at the bottom left. When they were building this stuff they had no idea of the clean up costs. But at the time the UK needed energy. These cooling ponds are highly toxic. That said you have to be pretty miserable not to admire the skill the Engineers had, the photo is date 1959. @LnP Please forgive me if I don't take your figures at face value. I'm too old and experienced to take any figures at face value. I have been a developer, am aware of how accademia works and common funding mechanisms. On a macro level we in the UK need energy security. We are threatened by the Chinese on many fronts. Domestically our political system is changing rapidly (more polarised) , some may argue along religious lines and we have political actors who are not, let's just say "deep thinkers". As an Engineer (my primary quailification is in Civil Engineering, for the public) I tend to think strategically on a macro level. That said we can still go about our day jobs, have fun and appreciate Buildhub, even though at times we disagree. I can say that I learn loads from folk on BH. I'm not that old / entrenched that I'm not able to change my mind when folk put forward valid aguement.

Stop asking difficult questions! That's why I'm sitting on the far left trying to keep out of view while still trying to keep my job, I was still in my probationaly period at the time.

Sadly this is the case, you make a very good point. This statement in it's self demonstrates one the key aspects of competency. "only do what you do well" it shows risk awareness and competency from yourself, a key skill. This is also sadly true. The following are some of my thoughts on what you might want to ask of a builder, SE, Architect etc before entering into a contract. The easiest way is to you use myself as an example. There is a member on BH that has a large swimming pool project. Now for me there is not enough demand in Scotland say for these. Each year I have to renew my PI insurance and fill in huge amounts of questionnaires, provide financial data and so on. One of the forms is to do with swimming pools, they carry high risk for the underwriter. Swimming pools are excluded from my policy. Now if I had 10 swimming pools come along in a row then I can go back to my insurer and ask how much to bring this under cover. They are going to say.. no chance unless you can demonstrate competency. My insurer's are there to make money. But if put together a proposal to say.. well it's like a basement..(but filled with a corrosive solution, high humidity etc.. hazards abound!) here is what I'm good at.. can you cover the rest.. while I learn, as every one has to do, they would probably say Ok but it's going to cost you. That cost gets spread over the ten jobs. They would also look at my track record and say.. Gus seems to know what he is doing, has been a Client for a long time wqith n0o claims so let's take on a bit of extra risk and charge Gus accordingly. The point of the above is that unless you ask a builder, SE or Architect just what they are insured for and what the amount of cover is then if something goes wrong then what @saveasteading says.. is unfortunatley true. This is often a difficult / uncomfortable question for a Client to ask at the beginning of the project when everyone is getting along fine. I'm quite happy if a Client asks me for the details of my PI cover, exclusions and so on, transparency is healthy. What I can't do is disclose the financials (really detailed stuff) that are confidential between the insurer and my self. To do so would void the cover. In some ways yes, agree.. do not dabble, that's dangerous. That said. For me I'll often take on a design that is outwith the standard design codes. Here I go back to first principles.. that I'm competent in and build the design from there. There are lots of folk that are doing really innovative stuff on Build Hub. Often the only way to justify this is to go back to first principle design. In some ways all domestic Clients have a level of protection under the consumer protection act. There is a fundamental duty of care that applies to anyone that does work on your house or provides professional services. I think if the law as it stands was enforced properly it would discourage traders and professionals from hiding behind a limited liability company. To finish with a bit of a story. When I was a builder I had a sub contractor who was an elder in the Church of Scotland but also had made a lot of money when he was younger as an electrictian working on Gerald Ratner's shops. That was the guy that blew the buisiness when he stood up and said he had made his millions selling rubbish. From time to time he used to give me and the lads the benefit of his approach. He said "the truth will set you free". Now this is absolutely true to this day for people working in business. Being truthful will lose you some jobs.. but in the long run you'll win more, you will also win jobs even though your are not the cheepest!

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.