Gus Potter

Hiya Nailbiter.. good choice of name for this situation. Good general advice from @George For all.. a few of my thoughts.. in no particular order.. If you are a self builder and newish to the game (say have self built less than a couple of houses that have basements) then it can be a challenge to get your head around each part of the design.. say basement and superstructure. A key feature here is to recognise that the bit that goes on top (the top bit) can have a big influence on how the basement (call this the bottom bit) is designed and how much cost that will attract if you don't recognise that the top bit and bottom bit don't interact. There are big savings to be made here. Self building tends to drive you down the road where you want to spend as little on say an SE / Architect etc as possible. You tend to split things up into different work packages.. it's the only way you can (with limited experience) to see conceptually how the finances will work. I've no problem with that, I've been a self builder in the past.. before I was an SE / Designer so can see both sides of the coin and I have myself isolated each work package... and thought.. I can steamline later I'll make a saving? I didn't but at least I still kept my shirt but I was younger then... too cocky! Every site is different. The design decisions you make are driven by many things. Say you are planning a self build with a full basement, have one on my books at the moment. My scope of works could be to act as an independant consultant who keeps a brief on how we are developing the early design. The other part of my brief is to design the bits that no one wants to. These tend to be the nasty bits and relate to the common practice of say TF suppliers / basement designers shedding off design liability to the Client. The main thing here is that we recognise that the actual concrete box basement could be braced by the floor at ground level.. here lies big savings! Also it there is a flotation risk ( as it's a full basement) and we are getting our heads round how we deal with that. The actual basement design and tanking system is driven by for example the ground conditions, water table and how we are going to get rid of the foul and surface water... you don't want you sewage running back towards your basement which is an inviting sump! We are spending time understanding this. The Client has spent targeted money on a site investigation.. they got me in early to comment on the scope of the SI so we have been able to discuss / plan together. Now we are getting close to being able to give the specialist basement designer a better quality of information which includes the Clients specific requirements which they have spent a lot of time putting on their wish list which needs to be met. All that saves money / time and hassle. To summarise.. my Client and I have not yet decided what type of water proofing we are going to adopt and in what combination. We know we will get something to work but can't do so until we have got lots of the drainage etc conceptually nutted out. @NailBiter I think you need to get a handle on the ground conditions, drainage before you can take a view on what Nadura et al are saying? In fairness to them they can only give general advice. If you want a bit of general advice post more info on your site. Do you have a full basement or a partial one for example where you can let any ground water out at the low end?

You've nailed it. Sometimes I make note on my drawings to say why I want a something to be the way it is. I made one today.. "we need this small timber strut to stop a big steel beam from twisting" it's £1.00 bit of wood but is essential to make the design economic. Now for the purist I'm deviating from the BS method of detailing. But after 40 years in this game I feel.. why not just put a few extra notes on the drawings to help folk that may not be aware of the pitfalls? In the last few years I've just started writing this stuff on my drawings in plain English rather than being a smart arse and making folk jump though hoops. Contractors, Architect's et al and have a hard enough job as it is. Why do I do this plain English thing.. short story. I had a dispute with the NHBC (not the first or last time) .. big claim several hundred thousand which I won on behalf of the Client. NHBC sent Professor Barry Hasseltine up to Scotland to investigate. Prof Hasseletine wrote a lot of the books that we as SE's use and also had a hand in the design codes we use. The Prof and I agreed and the claim was paid. His report astounded me.. a teenager could have understood what he had written.. his English was very basic but very elegant.. he told a captivating story... evidence based... but at the end he included his qualifications and experience just in case a dafty though his plain English indicated a lack comprehension of the problem.. wow! What a skill and craftmanship in report writing he demonstrated.. that is one of the main reasons I try and write the way I do on this forum... keep it simple and use plain English. Raft slabs, ground bearing slabs, how we insulate them and move more towards making the Passive slab affordable are the things of the future. I got into this about 15 years ago.. it's exciting and I'm still learning.. I've got a grasp of the SE design but still trying to find a way to make it affordable for common constuction. I've got a few local builders getting into it now so the wagon seems to be rolling. I can tell you when and where you need to reinforce slabs on EPS, but I've spent 15 years learning how to do this; firstly in a commercial environment, cold stores and in the very competetive cold formed steel industrial shed market (take this as 700 buildings a year all over the UK!) and much of this happened long before the self build folk caught onto it. Yes.. lots of SE's take fright when faced with this kind of thing.. but many Clients want to have their cake and eat it.. in terms of long term service and risk. SE's are an easy target as lots of folk know we carry high levels of PI insurance. The easy way to explain this.. we as SE's that carry the PI insurance (the important bit) need to make things safe so they won't fall down and kill folk. If things start to bend a bit and your windows, doors, roof, basement starts leaking after say ten years then so long as you the Client accept this (serviceability) risk then we can progress. A big changed happened with the adoption of the Eurocodes which let us "negotiate" the serviceability so long as it does not compromise safety. Clever eh? but for the less "open" type of designer. a way to win your design brief! But for the average self build on BH that needs lending it doesn't fly as you can't negotiate the serviceabilty. The SE needs to make the design compatible with the mortgage lender criteria. @saveasteadingThat is why you may be correct on over designed slabs etc but it just does not fly for the average member on BH.

And a Hi from me too! Hope this helps a bit although a bit long winded. I'll assume this is some kind of reinforced concrete raft rather than a basic ground bearing slab ... yes.. may be stating the obvious and that we are talking about a self build rather than say a tightly controlled and site managed design where you have professional staff on site most of the time. My starting point when designing anything like this is to look at what resources the Client has availabe to "manage" the construction and control the quality of the work. Do they want to use general builders and thus say be able to obtain more quotes or do they want to go for specialists for each work package and thus limit the spread. There is no free lunch here.. it's about getting the right balance that will work on your project for you and that takes a bit of work.. but get it right and you can save a lot of money. Ok say we have identified they way you are set up.. the time you have available and your budget. If I have this information I start by looking at how flat and level we can get the medium under the concrete slab and what that will cost in terms of labour and expertise on behalf of the Contractor. This could be type one with a bit of blinding or your insulation. Remember the sheets of insulation are not perfectly flat.. and can take a fair bit of weight to make them so! Don't believe me.. go and ask the insulation supplier how flat their insulation is... not the thickness variation! I'll often specify what is directly under the slab with a level tolerance of say +0.0mm to -15mm (half an inch in old money). What I don't want to have is a lot of really low spots.. the slab needs to shrink as it cures / dries out so massive thick bits of slab are not good as they lock the slab to the ground and promote cracking. @saveasteading et al have a more nuanced take on this slab shrinkage which we have discussed but stick to the basics for now. By setting a limit of +0.0mm I can then be sure that the slab is not going to be thinned out from below and compromise the cover to the reinforcement and what we call the effective depth. The effective depth is used when we design the slab for stength for example. But if you are a contractor any low spots .. needs extra concrete and that has to be factored into the cost. Next I look at what is going to go on top of the slab.. how flat ( low and high spots) and level (measured over set datums) do we need it to be? There are common industry standards for this.. I'll not post now as it's lengthy although have posted info on this in the past. Anyway we need to know the tolerances of the top of the slab. Say you get your slab laid an you have low spots.. now your cover could be 10mm? Once I know the top and bottom limits / tolerances I can get on with designing the slab itself so it will carry the loads require of it.. There tends to be some intial criteria here..for small DIY self build designs and I make some comment: 1/ Ok don't be clever at this stage.. there will be plenty time to get smart later.. fix problems that will arise during construction..when the rain is pouring down say and folk don't turn up.. go simple stupid for now. 2/ You want to be able to get everything off the shelf. Your A393 mesh is.. harder to get flying end mesh in small quantities. You can convert a mesh to a flying end on site by cutting it with a Sthil saw / angle grinder. For another day but plenty of folks on BH have done this and can tell you how to do it as do the builders I work with. 3/ It looks like your slab has some loading that causes a downwards and upwards bending force as you move along the slab.. hence the reinforcement in the top and bottom. Your SE has identified this and maybe made a judgement to go for a thicker slab and stuck to a standard off the shelf mesh. Ok some folk may disagree with the thicker looking slab.. but in the round I'm guessing it looks a good play if you take into account the buildability and top / bottom tolerances as above. 4/ There are load of folk on BH that say.. hey we didn't have to use this or that. There is a fundamental misunderstanding that can arise here. A true ground bearing slab is NOT a reinforced concrete slab but what you have looks like a reinforced concrete member.. just like you would see in a multi storey carpark. When we design reinforced concrete there is a bit in the design codes that require a minimum percentage of steel.. often this minimum percentage steel works for most of the raft type things. Summary.. It looks to me that this a slab that could be justified on cost based on a DIY job.. but ask ten folk like me and you'll get ten different answers! But here is the where I think you will struggle and find it very difficult to set out the mesh and get it compliant with the design. yIt may look great on the drawing but any bent rebar comes with a bending tolerance as does the mesh. I don't think your designer has taken this into account and the site circumstances. I feel your 30mm cover is too ambitious for this type of project.. you are making a rod for your own back and I would not design it this way for that reason. The U bars don't in real life come like this.. there are bend radius tolerances and length tolerances. You can find this on the rebar suppliers web sites and also in BS 8666, etc for those that want to check. In other words I think you cover is going to make this very hard for you and you will struggle to execute this. Recomendations: 1/ List how you are going to do this part of the work.. the sequencing and what the skills are of the Contractors you have in mind. This will help as if you can explain this to yourself then you can explain to others. 2/ Go back to your SE and ask if you can increase the cover. They may say yes but there may be some local areas of the slab where we need some extra lose rebar.. say under walls or columns. Fine.. Travis Perkins et al do 3.0m bars off the shelf and you can chuck them in where the stress in the concrete is higher.. but your SE may need to do a bit extra work. 3/ If your SE protests then ask.. hey I told you this was a self build.. you tell me how I can reasonable achieve a 30mm cover without breaking the bank! @TonyE hope this helps and all the best..

When we design prefabricated roof trusses we sometimes use a thing called a "superchord" which is basically a sistering thing which strengthens the rafter locally. If you look at the stamping on the timber main truss rafter in the photo copied below, the web, rafter and sistering.. all have similar markings in terms of print colour and text layout. What you see may be part of the original truss. The timber use for a trussed rafter in the UK is not that available "off the shelf".. usually a UK truss timber grade is TR26. Thus it's not a common timber that you would use to alter a roof. It may well be that what you see (sistering each side of the rafters) is part of the original truss and that could be assocaited with say an extended eaves or a series of point loads say from another roof framing into it as other have mentioned I would go back an look carefully at the timber stamping and the eaves detail etc before jumping to a conclusion that says the previous owners have been mucking about with it.

Cracking insight from Jilly here.. so much info in seven lines of text.. Folks read every line of Jilly's text, learn and digest the deep knowledge she is imparting. To get the best out of this you'll need to go and do your own work.. Jilly is saying.. here is where you need to look out for your own benefit. Just a quicky for any doubters here.. Jilly talks about underpinning.. she has been there and worn the tee shirt in terms of piling etc on her domestic project.. she knows her stuff. Or bluntly.. if you don't take her advice then don't come back on BH complaining later if it goes wrong.

Hi Chris. Had a look at the link to your blog... looks a great project... keep posting! I'm wondering if what you have is really a true bow string truss in the Misson hall, it looks more like it could be what we would call a traditional raised tie truss. Once the amount of "raising of the tie" gets beyond a certain point they often rely a bit on thick walls to prevent some of the spread. What's the wall construction? Below is a diagram of common prefabricated trussed rafter shapes which can be handy when trying to describe roughly what you think you have. There are many different types and variations of roof. Traditional roofs often work in a similar way but common ones are the King / Queen and raised tie. I think I can see where you might be wanting to do re hanging a part Mez floor from the roof assembly. I take it the floor would fly past the windows so you have part of the window below the floor and part above? You've got me thinking. There are a few things worth having a look at..but all this needs to take account of the location and material delivery. My Sister lives on one of the Islands.. some folk buy a camper van and use that to transport materials to the Islands. Be careful as if your van is sitting on the axle stops and you're all dressed up in you building gear Calmac (ferry operator) et al may ask to look inside and make you pay for a commercial vehicle. Anyway within reason you could have a look at forming a ridge beam to run gable to gable with a bit of intermediate support to support the mez floor. It would be a long beam thus not practicable to get to the Hall in one length. You could use short steels (that fit in your van) and bolt them together.. messy. Another option is to turn this into a joinery excercise and see if you could form a parallel timber truss (see diagram below) on site to run gable to gable. You would form the connections with plywood gusset plates and a structural glue (Cascamite or similar). This is much more flexible as if you make a mistake it's easily rectified as you're using off the shelf timber and ply. The mez floor could be hung from this.. Your in the middle of the ocean so Architecturally a Nautical approach is a good approach? I don't know if you going for a traditional look or would consider a mix of old and contemporary? Anyway say contemporary. I'm thinking tension wires may be a good option for hanging the mez floor. I've got a job on at the moment and I'm using wire assemblies to strengthen a roof truss that come as a kit as it's a small domestic project. The loads I have on this job are pretty small so I was looking for the thinnest wire I could get away with architecturally. Have screenshotted a bit out my CAD file below and the web address is: https://www.s3i.co.uk/fork_fork_tensioner_wire_rope_assembly.php# Caveat.. I'm not affiliated to the supplier, don't warranty their performance etc. However a big plus point is they provide declared loads for their assemblies which we as SE's need to have and as the come pre assembled we don't then need to test them on site etc. Surprisingly the prices are pretty reasonable for small quantities and they deliver.. well hopefully they will when the Client buys them.. At some point is does look like you'll need an SE to guide you and make sure what you are doing is safe. As your on the Islands you'll need to stick to the book regulation wise or the locals will shop you if a newcomer, until you settle in an become resident. That's it for now.. hope some of this helps.

Ok to finish. Cracking part of the world. Keep posting about your bale house as very interested. Would love to have sight of your warrant drawings to see how you are dealing with the loadings, movement etc. wishful thinking... Fundamentally though if you keep the straw dry, well ventilated and the perimeter drainage around the house clear it should last a lifetime or more. If you go and plant loads of trees close to the house then it won't last so long. Are you local to the area and know the climate well? Lastly.. depending on where you are there may be a bit of salt from the sea in the air.. make sure you specify the right fixings. I have family that live on the islands and it can play havoc with fixings etc if you use the wrong ones.

Now that is a cracking word "monocoque"! In summary though monocoque is a bit of a genreric term. In the early days it was used to decribe a modern method of construction where basically the ceilings were laid down with shear studs "thingies" on top and later a top layer added to make a permenant load bearing structure. Now we think of SIPS in a different way.. but they tend to need reinforced internally to carry vertical structural loads. This is where problems can arise as if you don't get the loads from above lining up with the reinforced bits in the SIPS you are in trouble.

Simplistically a bending moment is a turning (rotational) force. If you want to take the wheel nut off your car you get the spanner out and apply a force to the end. Say 25kg (you are partly in a bad mood). 25kg = about 0.25 kN kilo Newtons ( a bag of cement weight wise) which is the units that Engineers use unless in the US say where they have pounds lb. Ok, say your spanner is a short one.. 0.25m long. The turning force on the nut is 0.25 (kN) * 0.25m = 0.0625 kNm. This turning force is called a bending moment when we look at say a beam.. torsion when we are trying to take a wheel nut off. Now if you double the length of your spanner to say 0.5m now you have a turning force of 0.25(kN) * 0.5m = 0.125 kNm or you only need to apply 12.5kg to the end of the spanner to get the same effect cf the shorter spanner. If we have a beam over say a set of bifold doors the beam is much longer than a spanner and the loads are much larger. The maginitudes of the rotational force (moment) increase a lot. We can calculate the moment at a point along the length of a beam and then convert that into the stress that the beam material is experiencing and check to see if the beam is ok. For comparison a 254 x 102mm Universal steel beam that is fully restrained to prevent it twisting might be able to resist 70.0 kNm or so bending (moment) force.

Ok, for another day. Catch you another time. Keep up the good work, I enjoy / learn from your input. Off to have something to eat as starving!

I feel more comfortable detailing (if a non composite lintel) as per the picture as it simplifies the window head weather proofing and less risk that some daft window installer will put a screw though it. Yes, check the obvious first as Nod says.

Interesting point and a good spot! This is the way I would detail this as the concrete lintel looks like a non composite prestressed lintel and essentially impervious. On the other hand if it was a composite lintel that relies on courses of masonry bonded to the top of the lintel for strength then the above detail is definitely not correct as the tray at this level creates a slip plane.

Lots to learn indeed, every day is a school day for me too! These jobs require careful thought, not just the engineering challenges. When you come to sell is a potential issue. Who want's to buy a house, part of which could be potentially demolished at the owners cost for the water board to access the drains? You may get build over permission as discussed above but it comes with a caveat as you can see from other posters. If something goes wrong with the sewer then you will suffer disruption and possible high costs! One way to mitigate this is to look into taking out an indemnity policy to cover yourself now. It would be worthwhile researching the cost of such a policy. They tend to be a one off payment and the policy gets tacked onto your deed paperwork.

Point accepted. And there your problems really start! Agree. In Scotland they can ask for photographic evidence , if they are not satisfied then they can ask you to open up the works. The onus is on you to comply with the all the buildings regulations even something is missing from the approved drawings / specification. Go back and check the wording of your warrant approval. Try your best to get along with BC and look forward to enjoying Island life.

My passport says I'm a citizen of the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland." I do not support Scottish , Welsh or English nationalism in any way. We live on a small island and face many global threats to our way of life. We have a massive immigration problem, some legal, some not. It is putting tremendous strain on us., some is stressing out our health care system financialy.. but there is a big threat from radical "Islam". It is the big elephant in the room. In Scotland we have this new hate crime bill. I have to be very careful about what I say as I could face 7 years in jail for posting this. What you folk don't really know is that if you say something that can be read on the internet in Scotland then you are fall under Scottish law as you are deemed to have published this in Scotland. You could be hauled up to Scotland in our courts. Also if I report you for a hate Crime even anonomously it will go on your record , thus if you are say a teacher in England and they do a full record check then this will flag up that you have been recorded for a hate crime. Do you know about this? Now most of us up in Scotland are absolutely against this law. Also in Scotland the next thing they want to do is to abolish jury trials for rape cases as not enough blokes are gettting convicted. But Imagine if this was your teenage lad that got a bit pissed, the girl is pissed.. now it is down to a single Judge to determine rather than 15 adults. To make matters worse the Scottish Gov have now taken control of our legal system. @saveasteadingI wonder if this is cultural matter that has to be worked around pragmatically. Yes it is. It's basically a contrast between say living in London and contracting where every one is shafting each other and a bunch of adults being fair to each other in Wales or up Durham/ Yorkshire way. If you want to go culture then a Yorkshire man is one of the hardest folk to deal with. I know as have just had a Yorkshire man as a Client, six foot two, retired Quantity Surveyor.. we are still friends. Most folk in Scotland don't get hung up on folk moving about the UK. Some get touchy.. say I trucked down to Cormwall and started shoving haggis down your thoats? Now for you folks that do think that you want to have a bash at English nationalism.. Up in jockland we have 1/3 of the UK land mass. Also we the sea bed and fishing rights that extend 200 miles from the Scottish coast, the defense envelope that comes with that and a bit of oil, yes we may cut out the gas but you'll still need to oil the hinges on your doors? Yes I know when you look at the BBC weather forecast Scotland seems small.. but that is the BBC for you. We also have the land that defends the high north arctic circle, the big submarine base with deep water access. For the English nationalist.. do you really want to give away 1/3 of your country just to get rid of the jocks? Oh and then you'll give away Northen Ireland.. yah dafties! @saveasteading'Can you come and inspect the drainage trenches'? Yes of course: 2 weeks on Tuesday at 11.30 and don't fill them in. No.. It won't work up in the islands.. it needs much more give and take.. also our ferries don't run if they turn up at all. The Scot gov have just spent £400 million on two ferries that are stilll being commissioned, we could have ones that work for £20.0 million.. so we could have had 40 working ferries by now. Bc are still ok but seriously underfunded. All of my posts about this is trying to encourage @JWHIT not to try and apply mainland rules to an Island situation. It won't work. rather get with Island life and enjoy.

@Conor has done a lot of good work, detemined fellow. Honestly, I don't as you don't use your own name but thanks for the kind words. I love helping folk as my job is also my hobby. I do have a wife who loves me though! I think you need to post some decent sketches with dimensions. I was floating some ideas but until you put some flesh on the bones there much more I can say. To be blunt I love a challenge. I'm on BH as I learn a lot.. from loads of folk on BH, it is a two way street. Look you need to get to the bottom of the drains / sewer and start to do a bit of the hard graft at your end. Stop speculating about cantilevers etc and find out what the water board will let you do and what they won't. I'll design you cantilever slabs all day long.. but not now or give you advice on this until you get the basics sorted. Frankly I'm surprised that you have got this far and non of your designers have said let's see what you have under the ground. I often say to folk.. I want to have a look at your title deeds.. Sometime I do this and the project gets abandoned at an early stage.. but these customers always come back to me as I have saved their bacon. Can you get your money back from the SE and designer? How did this happen where you got this far? How much money do you have to spend on this? Draw it out for your self and you'll soon see it it tricky and expensive. I may be sounding a bit tough but you need to confront the elephant in the room.. which is this big drain. Look closely at the drain diagram I posted and study..

Hiya. I'm Scottish base and have family that live on one of the inner Hebrides and have lot's of experience dealing with BC on the Islands. Also I deal with Scottish Building Standards on a regular basis and have done so for the last 40 years. Some of the BC officers I know quite well, we have a chat on the phone about our careers and reminisce on how good the old times were. In other words they are folk just like us.. there is the odd exeption but that is life. In the round though BC officers actually do have your best interests at heart. It would be great to have a BC officer or two join BH! On the Islands there is a lot of politics. Some Island builders are really shite, cut corners in a big way, some are better / good. BC know who they are so maybe you are getting a heads up and not just seeing the wood for the trees about the work that has been done by others. Now you are doing a bit of work yourselves.. well how much and when did you start doing a lot yourselves? It is in your own interests to build your house right? There is always friction on the Islands... BC know this but are not corrupt at this level. There are loads of other Islanders and folk moving there that do DIY projects so you are not the first and last. @JWHIT "surely this is trespass" My advice.. get this right out your head now. If the BC officer can access your site then you have a Health and Safety issue and they can hammer you on that. The HSE law is quite clear on this all over the UK, if your site is accessible then you are on a hiding to nothing. Have a looked at your site security? Don't pursue this route as you will likely regret it. Too late for that, BC can hammer you much earlier. There is no argument in law for shoddy HSE by saying.. hey I'm insured. Insurance is for when you have tried to do your best and things still go wrong. If they can see bad things from outside the site boundary then surely.. you may be making a cock up? If you try and play hard ball with them then they will pull your trousers down and you won't get to pull them back up until they have run you ragged. Now you may feel that the BC officer has turned up with no appointment.. but they are allowed to do this under UK HSE law (not just Scottish law) .. part of their remit is pubic safety.. they can hammer you on this too! To lay it on a bit thicker they may start to ask if your project should fall under CDM regulations., just to give you the run around. In summary: 1/ Yes there is Island politics, don't worry too much about the main Island Contractor not getting the job. 2/ Phone the officer up and ask when they are next on the island and arrange to meet them in person. This is so imprortant. You are on an Island.. you must get to know folk.. the emails you get from BC only show a snap shot.. sometimes they write stuff that seems really daft / aggressive.. but they are pushed for time and under funded. Cut them some slack and cut yourself some slack too. Keep an open mind as while you see this as a personal opinion then they may be able to give you good advice? Also if you hit it off with them then later on when you apply for a completion certificate you'll probably find that part of the process much easier and not get hit with a load of things that don't conform. 3/ Build a rapport with the officer.. recognise that they may be trying to help you rather than hinder. You may have a young and inexperienced BC officer. Be very careful here not to bully as their boss will then give you the big stick! Listen to what they are saying.. put forward your ideas and have a bit of fun.. seriously they are just folk. To finish @Kelvin may be able to give you some advice about how you deal with BC when relocating to the north of the UK ( Scotland) 4/ Some of my family live on Tiree. Clocked this at the end! Well it does.. Some of the building regs are open to opinion / discussion / detailed design. BC officers often hold professional qualifications / have great experience. They are entitled to question. As before one big stick they do hold is the public safety issue (I do it too as an SE) . Lot's of folk on BH think that this is their house and they can do what they want. BC say and I.. that house has to last for 50 years at least and you may sell it to a family in a couple of years time. Our duty is not just to you but all the folk that come after. Just copied this right at the end. The above is misleading as if it is deemed to be a risk to public saftey then the LA can effect immediate access as what they do will call on the Fire service, the Police , gas board and me as an SE. You see.. who knows what building regs have been compromised? Is it just an extractor fan of a serious structural defect that could cause a gas leak? If push comes to shove and I'm acting for the local authority.. I'll find a legal way of getting into your property if I feel there is a safety issue. You are pissing in the the wind! If you have nothing to hide then you should be relaxed about all of this.

But you have now! Below is a screen shot from the Sewer for Scotland guide, same pretty much applies all over the UK. It's pretty clear that moving the sewer is not an option.. too expensive and where would you move it to? Also any type of deep foundation strip / trenchfill directly under the side extension could well compromise the existing house foundations due to it's depth.. you are getting into complex / costly Civil Engineering territory. The manhole up the side of the house is a big issue as you need to maintain access. However, this is worth a look at in principle. Say up the side of the house you put in two or three carefully bored piles near the boundary and then run beams / make a cradle from the gable of the house to the piles near the boundary. Your side extension then sits on part of steel cradle but avoids the manhole and doesn't extend over the line of the drain. At the rear, as you are piling anyway you just do the same maybe with a cantilever concrete ring beam. This could work and reduces the risk that if something goes wrong the water board come along and demolish your extension. It would only be two steel beams that span over their drain which you could dig under. I would draw this but have clocked off the day job. Sometimes it can work where you bridge over a sewer with a bit of structure (not a monhole) and negotiate access with the waterboard. In the round though.. unless you have a very high value property then it's unlikely going to fly cost / benefit wise, unless you work for / own a piling company.. I see this quite a lot where plans get draw by an Architect.. the SE does a design based on the plans.. but no one does a bit of due diligence to check the drains! The professionals should be much more alert to this early on. But often a Client doesn't want to pay for this fundamental early work. Some of the checks are really simple.. a site walk over, a walk round the surrounding area, topography of the ground and a service check. Undertake due diligence! The sewer may even be mentioned in your title deeds. Your drawing needs a bit more detail as dimensions of what you propose vs what you have are critical. In other words a decent plan existing and proposed plan is required.

Look folks. What is happening in Scotland has nothing to do with science and all to do with political ideology. Trying to rationalise this is not achievable.

Do a soakaway test. Your drainage Consultant is flagging this up and rightly so. You use the word "alarmed" and if that is what they are indicating then there probably is a problem with a normal soakaway. You seem to have a propensity for understatement in this case? But if that amount of money is at stake then there may be an Engineering solution available or a deal with a neighbour... yes it will cost you but you won't lose all your dosh. I find this stuff fascinating, the challenge, investigating and finding a solution. If you want a bit of help from BH folk.. there are a few folk that can help that know do their stuff but to get the best help.. then you'll need to post a lot more info... be careful before you do as it may compromise your position later.. as you know. If you do want to post info then basically the full shebang is required. Site plan (dimensioned) and address, any geotechnical info you have, the building footprint, pretty much everything you have and then you'll get some free advice. Yep a clever option. But are you over a major aquifer that supplies drinking water? You are in a zone one! Are you over the North Downs main aquifer? Good solution if you can get the neighbour or Water company to take it for a fee?. With a bit of attenutation you could actually win a watch as you could supply flow to say ditches that suffer from dry weather / intermitant flow. Just mulling over ideas. Ponds / swales etc can work if you know enough about the ground, flood risk, ground water levels etc.. What if you had no roof gutters and drained the water into a swale, raised planters ( attenuation), wide French drain or use a louvred edge roof detail. Or you can have gutters which is more traditional and do the same. Now your 5.0 m from the building no longer applies so long as you can show the structure won't be affected. There are lots of options. Yes this is a general rule to avoid compromising the founds ect.. as above I'm thinking... just say we look at all other options and nothing works or to do a deal with a neighbour costs too much. If there is this much money at stake then why not say deepen the founds and let the rainwater soak away under the building? like it did before the building was there? In reality what happens is the neighbour may see the pound notes flashing.. you say.. hey we have another solution.. push too hard and you'll get nothing.. The above is a bit of a glib statement.. there are many challenges to doing this, geotechnical and SE wise. If you are on chalk then is has up and down sides but fundamentally it should work.. but it will take a lot of work to convice all parties involved that it does. I would look at all the other simple options first. Some you can use to compliment the Architecture and look great if well designed. No gutters can be a problem as the splash zone impacts on cladding design etc. Hope this raises your spirits a bit... if required.

No, that's my Mum in the 1970's. Hi Conner a few points. Have copied text later and made points in line in italic. Hey, guys I appreciate your responses, especially Gus thts really helped me out, Ive tried to sort out the drawings a bit today but unfortunately spent most my time creating a render which turnt out shit but anyway. Rendering is tricky. I'm not very good at it. Sometimes I do it on a very basic level but I'm not qualified to comment. The only things I would say is that in render 2 you have picked out potential staining at the bottom of the timber cladding which is an elegant touch. Well done you. I'm not sure if you have shrunk the sections alongside the render but if you are going to dimension the renders then make sure the dims can be read at the scale you are using. If not take them out and put an info box at the side of the drawings that contains the finished floor to ceiling levels and the floor thickness. Also on your section (generated from the render) there seems to be something that looks like people / furniture but the apsect ratio looks off. Take them out as it clutters you work. Ive been watching lots of videos on cold briding and I understand the concept of not being able to break the insulation line but how can you attach anything to the outside it seems impossible. Ive tried to make the drawings clearer by following your guidance but ive got to the point when im just a lil lost at this point with the project, Id go to a lecturer but the way the uni programmes this suff is mad, we hav'nt been had lessons for past 3 weeks and the hand in is the first lesson back from easter break ,its like they want us to suffer What you are being asked to draw is very difficult. To put this into context.. I've been in the building trade and a designer / SE for 40 years and I find it hard. If you look back at my section through the roof you'll see there are cold bridges, there is discontinuity in the vapour control layer, I'm wrestling with fire protection, trying to get standard off the shelf brackets / standard timber sizes to work, a soil drain is weaved in there and I need a bit of ventilation. You are being asked to produce something equally difficult! For a bit of reassurance these details I posted too a lot of hours to get them the way I wanted. The roof section took several hours and a lot of thought, agonising to get a compromise that is buildable on a renovation type project which it is. Yes it is not perfect and has deficiencies but such is life. I totally get how you feel. Your Lecturer has gone AWOL and the online stuff is rubbish. No support.. left to fend for yourself.. shocking! Id thought I would post my progress, so heres the changes I've made so far plus some 1:200 plans and the shit render I made, If anyone would like the assess my entire project pm me and Ill send the entire project out Take care peeps Also ignore the added pv fin Im sure it wont affect things 😅 If anyone has any tips to sort out the Thermal bridge solution id pay you but im broke student lol Looks like you are pushed for time! Ok chase the marks and don't through away marks on the basics. 1/ Check your drawing title box, and double check. 2/ In the title box make sure you state say " Scale As shown at A3, A2" etc. 3/ If using colour note on the drawing.. state these drawings should be printed in colour. 4/ On your render add in a scale bar.. if you can as it is an Architectural drawing. Think you have one but double check. 5/ On your detail you use numbers to identify materials. They don't seem to match up e.g parapet detail item 22, item 13 on same for example. Fix this. 6/ Your material identification.. some start capital letters other not. Check this and sort it. Tiny things, good you have stated the dimensions but not "Dimensions(mm)" more Dimensions (mm) see the spacing? Remember your Lecturer starts at the top.. if you get the top of a list of materials right it puts them in a good mood.. if that is possible? The nitty gritty. Ok you have identified a cold bridge. Some of the stuff you have drawn is bit off, but ask ten folk like me and you'll get ten different answers! I think what you should do is use you drawings to show how much you do know but don't have time to detail. In the case of cold bridging say something like " potential cold bridge" detail to be further developed in consultation with product manufacturer and SE etc. Use a leader line to point to the area in question. You could use a italic text to highlight these areas, don't use a revision cloud as this has a specific meaning. The fixings.. there is no way you can be expected to know all the ins and outs. Again, say fixing details to be developed by SE and reviewed. In summary as you are pushed for time let the Lecturer know that you know the issues and leave it at that. Hope this helps, keep your head up! Oh and don't check my spelling / grammer!

You must get to the bottom of this before parting with your cash. I see this a lot.. the vendor claims no knowledge.. but I know they know that they are not offering a clean sale. Ask this.. are you the first punter that has pitched up or have there been others who have clocked that the vendor is not playing the game? I have seen this over the last 40 years.. If you can't get a rural plot soakaway or similar to work etc then the plot is often only worth the agricultural value.. it's a fact folks and there is usually no magic bullet. It may be that the plot is worthless.. you don't want to be the idiot that buys it. It may be that you can do a deal where they give up more of their land and you share the soakaway say, now the plot has value. It's time to say to them.. look we need to sort this out or we are off. If you are not firm now you could lose your shirt. Forget CCTV survey for now and get the big stuff sorted. Who owns what and what rights of servitude exist. Understand that first.

Good for you as you are thinking about things. I note you provide no details on the boundary wall and what is behind that! a Church? .. but no other info.. levels etc. This is the key.. you can't destabalise your Neighbours house or garden. If you can let us see what is over your boundary in a bit more detail.. just get it out now in the first wash.. Yes you see a terraced garden.. I see stepped / battered ground that the previous owner has planted up, and probably messed about with.. look at the crib wall! maybe already dug away ground that leads me to think that it (the stepped ground) was there for a reason. You have a timber crib wall.. date that and you'll probably see that previous owners have already pushed the boundaries a bit. I think you know deep down that if you want to level things up it will cost a lot.. I think you need to draw some cross sections that also show the ground on the other side of the boundary and where the other structures are, put some dimensions to all of this before anyone on BH can give some meaningfull input. Sometimes I look at a set of photos and think.. what is not included! if you want some advice then provide this information and enough detail so folk on BH can chip in with good site specific advice as opposed to try to second guess what you are thinking and what lies on the other side of your boundary wall.

Me too!

Well done you. As @ETC says annotate this up. Admire what you are doing, if you can get handle on this then the world is you oyster. Here are a few quick comments, some are obtuse but you'll learn this as you go.. don't be disheartened mind. Have a look on the internet for some of the terms I use if not clear. 1/ On the curtain wall where the glass comes down you show a flashing to shed the water outwards. Flashings need a safety lip. Show add that as the manufacture of the flashing will recommend it as a standard, so folk don't get cut on the sharp edge and it weathers much better for example, also stiffens the edge of the flashing. 2/ Make sure you show any mastic and note it as say flexible polysulphide mastic or similar and approved. BC can pull you up on this. Contractors will love you as it gives them room for manouevre. 3/ Your concrete anchors look a bit off SE wise. The two near the glazing are too close together (causes anchor spacing problems at detailed SE design stage, you could have to redraw it all!) and too close to the edge of the concrete.. all will trip you up later once the SE gets going. The two holding the I shaped section down are too long. Show them embedded into the concrete by 130mm. Also show the thread of the bolt extending above the nut by 5mm unless you are using expanding anchors. 4/ I think your mansard roof is too close to the box gutter as: (a) You'll need to get a drill etc into fix it... buildability. (b) The box gutter will have a run on it.. how do you achieve this and make all look tidy at the end of the day. (c) It will choke with debris / moss as the cladding is too close to the bottom of the box gutter (d) You will get spashing back up the cladding which could void the manufacture's warranty. BC regs in the spirit of things like to keep things 150mm above the spash zone. Simple solution.. just lift the cladding clear of the box gutter by 150mm? Ok don't get too hung up on the above. The best advice I can give you is to be brave when drawing. If you don't know something just put a note " to be confirmed" and then say why it needs to be confirmed.. it's ok to say you don't know! Below is a screen shot from a section drawing from one of my jobs. I use red colour to flag up a big structural safety issue and softer colours to pick out the bits that make the drawing easy to read. At the top there is a note where I say "also prop the ceiling joists to prevent punching through.." here what I'm doing it to try and communicate why I want something done in a certain way and what other folk need to do to make it all work. You'll also see how I'm flagging up stuff about temporary propping ect SE wise at the top of the drawing, no strong boys etc. This drawing also has a figure of a person.. bit odd .. I do this as soon as you open the drawing you get a feel for the scale, yes it's not true SE / technical detail stuff but my job is to make it easy for everyone to read an understand what I want them to do. I also dimension where I can the height of the person to avoid later "complications" and accusation that I may have shrunk / increased the figure height to make things look bigger / smaller. @ETC? surely not sir? But other's are not so honest as we know.. some folk alter the drawing aspect scale for planning purposes. The drawings above are telling a storey and targeted to the reader who will be a local builder, BC, the checking SE and the Client who has a technical background. The real objective is.. yes to provide the technical detail and that is what @ConnerR you'll probably get assessed on. But run this by you lecturer and see if they will add marks by using colour, adding explanatory notes which shows that you understand what you are drawing and how someone can take your drawings and build something from them. The annotation notes on a drawing are often as important as the detail. I'm not talking about the massive long text list down the side of the drawing.. more the annotation. I use arrows as the reader can see what I'm pointing at! It takes a bit more time but helps avoid errors. Contractors are busy folk and don't have time to read pish. Below is a bit of a fascia detail from the same job. Again I'm using colour and notes to try and pick out the important bits on this drawing. Also see how I offer alternative warm roof fixings to the Contractor but make it clear how I want them to penetrate the timbers. I use a technique to denote things on the near side and far side.. steel fabrication drawings often have this annotation. But if you do this you need to have a text box that explains the annotation.. It can be a good tool as it declutters the drawing if the annotations gets too congested. Below is a totally different style of drawing from the same job but using a specialist steel designer software package. It's two fabrication drawings for the steel fabricator..who take no prisoners if you get it wrong! The first is a general arrangement 3d drawing, the second is what is call an assembly drawing of beam B2. Beam B2 I hope the above gives you and insight into how we communicate by drawing what needs to be done and the different syles / ways of doing it. Keep posting as you make progress with your studies and all the best.