Gus Potter

That's the great thing about BH that I appreciate. Henry Ford et al the car maker alluded to this. Best way to learn is from others mistakes and not repeat in the hope that it will be ok on the day. For me the details look expensive to build, hard to supervise and even if doing it all yourself when you get to the door openings the forming of this it will be really difficult, time consuming, frustrating and at the end of the day you may cut corners. In this current climate it's not easy to buy anything that is not bog standard. I would have a serious think about how this complex detail is going to cost you. Think about a trade off. Maybe accept that in the round the base detail may not be perfect in terms of energy loss in isolation. Make a saving here by going for a standard detail then use this saving to deliver more benfit else where? If you are concerned about the environment in the long term then we should be designing things that will last for 100 years at least and can easily be maintained. We should have a mind to others that come after us.. we have a duty to design such that things can be adapted at reasonable cost for later generations? Ask yourself what is it you are trying to achieve?

Interesting topic. before you go for these types of floor finishes please consider this. I hope this is helps a bit. To start from the top, these types of polished floors are expensive and you don't want them to fail. If you have a beam and block floor say the following is not applicable. If you have a ground bearing slab, maybe the UFH is in this slab. Under this could be insulation, or it could be on top but all generally rests on a bit of hard core on virgin ground. Now if the ground is a sand then this tends not to shrink settle so much, but if clay it will shrink and settle by different amounts, often more than a sand type soil. Clays shrink when they lose moisture. Thus when you put a roof / building over clay the moisture content will drop. Sand is less effected. But there is more so you are not off the hook yet. You builder or you may put down a layer of hard core and compact it well but the soil underneath will still move about, it is not your builders fault. For the avoidance of doubt you often see specified for a ground bearing slab that is not carrying other loads "anti crack" reinforcement.. could be say an A142 or A193, sometimes A252 mesh. This description "anti crack" is acually a misnomer for the unwary. All concrete cracks and during the curing and hardening process the forces generated in the concrete are quite large. Steel is quite stretchy! Actually in the modern design codes we talk about "crack limitation" , "crack control" They recognise that your structural slab is going to crack and that you design to limit the crack size to what is acceptable. Now if you are designing a nuclear waste storage facility you want to make the cracks as small as possible, and if you are putting a polished concrete type screed over the top you need to take the same approach. Thus you often need to spend some extra money early on and design all the stuff underneath for your fancy / expensive floor finish. Next when you pour a screed or slab you get an effect what is called curling in the concrete @saveasteading has some stuff on this. I experimented on my own house to see if this was just applicable to big stuff or not.. turns out that even for my DIY (even on a 3.5 x 3.0m slab) job the theory is correct. What happens is that during the curing / drying process the top of the slab shrinks more than the bottom and this causes it to bend up, particularly the corners. I went round with a bit of wood tapping the floor and it was solid in the middle and sounded hollow at the corners. Now I know if I add a bit too much load to the floor at the corners it will crack until the mesh takes up the load. I'm not fussed as I have a wooden floating floor so if the concrete does crack we won't see it. So the key things for me are that if you are intending to have polished concrete floors / fancy finishes then you need to spend the money on designing from the virgin soil up. The companies that provide these floor finishes know this and I have touched on the ins and outs.. you have little chance to if any to make any claim against them unless you have a grasp on the design from the virgin soil up. In summary, you can't polish a jobby. You can take the risk of having a cheep standard slab and steel mesh say A142 under and have confidence that you can gold plate it with polished concrete.. but much will depend on how much shine you can apply.. all shine wares off eventually.

Have seen plenty Schuco stuff on commercial projects. Robust system, but the profiles can be bulky at times.. lots of frame, less glass. Express Bifolds.. same and the handles / locking / escutcheons they offer may not suit everyone. Have a look at the Origin system. I have theirs, not without fault but generally a happy customer.

Very clever! hat off to @saveasteading its almost counter intuitive to use a smaller diameter pipe. Yes I too think you could make this fly with careful control over the laying of the pipe and the odd extra inspection chamber. On a straight run its even more promising.

Hope all well at your end George. The thermal mass thing seems to out of favour on BH at the moment. But yes I think you are hinting at how a Trombe wall works.. and that will play havoc with standard software! Spot on George.

They look like they are functional but actually not. Each year they paint the sheep a different colour in aid of the cause they are supporting. The thing they miss is that millions of folk drive by each year and think it's some farmer playing with paint but they always look for the sheep, often without thinking. It should have a sign up saying / spelling it out that " the sheep are this colour this year in support of this cause". Past years have been breast cancer, epilepsy, autism.

True enough.. but we can't see the whole elevation and the context in which the building sits in the landscape. It may be that the apparent lack of symmetry is intended?

Suggest you rough something up for now to get the completion certificate. Finish the rest. Make a list of the things that bug you, prioritise and tackle in order.. or do the first few.. then go on holiday.. plant a blackthorn hedge and make slow gin, get a pig.. and roast it when fat.. or just relax in the knowledge that you did a pretty good job. A land owner once said to me.. don't worry Gus.. you won't see it from a galloping horse. You are a land owner!

Don't forget Dave Allen. Nod.. your neighbours are miles away.. will you be lonely. On the plus side the soil looks fairly uniform.. good ground?

Dave.. it's almost blasphemy but have you checked out the farming forum... you may be already a closet member? They have a lot of good stuff on this, you need to rake about but it is there. They have a good few Scottish members that talk about wayleaves, money etc and the law in Scotland. I know your heart lies with BH.

I bet the poor designer is kicking themselves for missing it at maybe even at the planning stage. As a designer you can get really wrapped up in it, deliver a cracking design that really fits all the requirements .. .and to your horror you miss a thing like that.. or worse.. it does not happen often.. but we are all human.

Dave.. Am I right in concluding that the cable may be routed through your old place? If so then is the reason for holding onto the old place a means of generating income / investment or does it hold sentimental value? Either way often everything has a price. If sentimental, say it was left to you by a relative, then they would have maybe done so in the hope that you would derive maximum benefit from it. It can be reconciled this way? You almost have a responsibilty to make the best of it to pass on / preserve the family wealth for future generations? To start with you may want to discuss with an open mind, make sure you say that everthing is without predudice. Open a friendly dialogue with them, get to know them and the project manager. They may well let things slip about their other options and costs. Use your local knowledge / grapevine. Ask them questions.. safe distances, maintenance zones and so on.. often they open up.. they are not being unprofessional just talking about their job at a technical level.. it will come out in the wash eventually anyway. Best to learn now for free. Having seen the early development of the wind farms in the Borders I would take a leaf out the farmers hand book. You will find very few farmers that go in hard at the beginning. They listen first, nod in friendly way, engage and find out as much as they can for free..they then think it over and absolutely extract the last pound of flesh just at end..or.. they just say NO and get off my farm.

If you take the pipe internally there is always the worry that it will block and flood internally. One way of gaining reassurance for rain water is to use say 110m solvent weld pipe inside and through the wall. On the outside do the pipes with your 63mm rain water pipe and introduce an air break so if you get a blockage then the water remains outside. Screen shot below is for boiler condensate pipes but it conveys the idea. Have seen one condensate pipe locally that was connected into the rainwater pipe with no air break or no non return valve. The pipe blocked at the bottom and the water flooded the boiler, exited the boiler and flooded everything else.. consumer unit the lot! @SuperJohnG Looking good. Do what you can in time you have and maybe one day come back to if it really bugs you. Could just be one of these jobs that gets done just before you sell.. one day.. if ever.

Quick question to all. Can you still edit your posts, where do I look for the edit up to an hour after posting tool?

Hi jayc89 Often you'll gently ask if folk they have a budget, but only after asking a good few questions first and carefully listening your Client's response. Some Client's are quite happy to state their budget early on, some not. An easy way of broaching this is to say.. well something that size based on current prices may cost £ x amount, is that the sort of figure you could work into your budget? 5% is a low figure to take this up to technical drawing stage. You could almost call these construction drawings. If the 5% includes planning and BC (building warrant in Scotland) and a SE input then I would question this as being too low. They may be loading the job elsewhere? On say a 40k simple extension with a knock through to the existing house if you can get your professional fees in the range of some 10 - 15% that is often a good deal. The main thing here is while an extension may seem small it often involves the same scope of design as small house. Small things can sometimes be harder to design than larger spaces. In technical terms you still need to design the insulation, drains, maybe heating, fire regs, get light in, keep the place from over heating.. it's a long list and each element takes time to design / draw and it still needs to function practically / meet your soft requirements and look great!

They should be as they are based in NI, part of the UK and marketed as complying with the current standards. The main thing here is to look at the price in the round. Although the tiles may be cheeper, the verge closer, ridge system, clips and other accessories may/ may not be. You need to get a price for all the things you need then compare. It may get even better!

Would it grow on these? Almost a tourist attraction between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Part of the M8 public art project intended to raise awareness of types of cancer and other conditions.

Good sketch. Can you drop the duct so you get some insulation over the top of it to mitigate the cold bridge? In parts of Scotland it regularly gets down to minus 15 -18 deg C. We have a 5.0kW stove with a bottom intake that can be ducted. I do have a duct from the solum space to hearth level and it pops up just under the intake but is not actually connected to it. When the stove is on you can really feel the air flow if you put your hand under the stove, but the cold air is drawn directly into the stove rather than over your feet / under the door. The rest of the room is reasonably sealed so when the stove is not on the room is ventilated.. it's not a passive house. One day I may connect the duct to the stove intake and see what happens.

Looks good and exciting to be moving to the warrant stage. From an SE point of view it looks like you have a fair bit glass there, big openings thus building stability is an issue? Your SE may have already expained? This could be complex / costly to achieve with ICF. Also you have the weight of the building on sand with some probably hefty localised loads. @saveasteadingmay be along to give some pointers here about building on this type of material. SIPS maybe good but check for availability of contractors to install and your preferred method of build / cost curve etc. Also, again, bear in mind that you may want to make some changes as you go. I would price up the twin wall TF as others suggest and compare. Lastly don't rule out a standard TF with brandered out walls for example to get the insulation thickness required. It may not be quite perfect but it gives you more scope to adapt as you go and it's something that local contractors are maybe more familiar with, so savings could be made here.

Surprisingly yes. Once you change the loads and the stiffness / positions of the beams framing in then you need to review the whole thing. If you move the steel supports you need to go back and check the bearings and so on. It can be quite involved. Then sometimes you need to redraw a lot of it, change the detailed specification and so on. Before you know it the clock runs up. @saveasteadingmakes good points.. good flavour of how things add up. I think your SE is probably doing you a favour here. In the grand scheme of things if you want to open it up more then pay the SE and enjoy the result. If you like the open feel then others will often too. When you come to sell you'll get your money back anyway?

Well done to you. Have you decided on a traditional weighted window with the ropes and pulleys or ones with what are called spiral balances. These are visible but a modern way of creating a nearly traditional sash and case window. If you are going for the ropes, pulleys and weights you need a good rebate to fit all the wieghts in, usually about 100mm rebate to be safe. Next is the glass and the type and shape of the window, astragals etc. I would make a sketch of what you want and send it out to some bespoke manufactures for a ball park figure as they will vary widely.

Remarkable response from an Engineer to dismiss a Client in this manner with no apparent explanation. If a reasoned explanation was given the there would be no need to "scoff" However here lies the rub and maybe "scoffing" was not the appropriate response. Yes the small buildings guide is under review. I know that @saveasteading has a particular interest in this so have included a link at the end of this text to download the latest guide available online. I also attach the document I have down loaded using same link. Page 3 of this document contains the critcal text that deals with the withdrawn aspect of "SBSG" In my view paragraph 2 is misleading. Many of the BS Standards have not been withdrawn as suggested. Some have, in particular the wind / snow code but much of the timber design codes are still valid but with a few nuances. It is for example perfectly acceptable by BC all over the UK to design to BS 5950 for hot rolled steel provided you take into account the latest available information in the euro codes. A specific example here is that the Eurocodes require a haunch sharp end stiffener check/ design in a portal frame when in the BS left this open to the designer to check. Paragraph two then introduces uncertainty and contradiction. It says that the designer should take care when using this guidance.. it does not say that you can't use it. BC say that this guidance has been removed from the technical hand book. So what! Provided you can produce a reasoned, valid and safe design based on the latest available information it is ok Just because BC have removed this from their guidance does not invalidate understood Science and Engineering skill. Paragraph 3 is pretty much a rant but finishes by saying that as Designer you can do what you want provided you can prove it is safe. In my view it is still ok to use the SBSG as a basis for design provided you recognise where the changes in wind load / snow loading may impact on the guidance. It still is a good document for preliminary design. In actual fact unless you live at a high altitude for example in the UK the Eurocode changes will have little impact on the guidance. The wind may have a slight differance but generally it is the dead weight of the roof covering and the access load / deflection under normal loading that will goven the design anyway. For any Enginner not to discuss and offer reasoned explanation to a Client when specifically asked is a disgrace to the SE profession. Gus Potter. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjD6Z7ftcn2AhWVQkEAHfBJARwQFnoECAcQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gov.scot%2Fbinaries%2Fcontent%2Fdocuments%2Fgovscot%2Fpublications%2Fadvice-and-guidance%2F2020%2F02%2Fthe-small-buildings-structural-guidance%2Fdocuments%2Fsmall-buildings-structural-guidance%2Fsmall-buildings-structural-guidance%2Fgovscot%3Adocument%2FSmall%2BBuildings%2BStructural%2BGuidance%2B%2B.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2nnn0liJPfV762mn9NosnA 1226535124_SmallBuildingsStructuralGuidance(3).pdf

Hilarious. Was talking to the spark about the upcoming IEE 19 regs and said I fancied arc fault protection.. until he said you have two fuse boards and.. then pointed out that I have been at doing my own house for longer than I "predicted"... and I may be best spending the money on other things. I'l stick with diversity for now.. and upskill to selectivity next year. On my office wall hangs a hand line drawing of Bradwell Nuclear Power Station which is a work of technical art, a Hemingway hat and my Teady bear from when I was about 4, one Teddy suffices as not of Royal descent. I'm not sure what will be banned next!

Delightfull.. thanks for the heads up Onoff. Sparkies use a term called diversity. @Carrerahillmay pop up and explain in detail how this works from the IEE regs point of view and the theory. But in summary I understand (I may just know enough to be dangerous!) that although the sum of all your appliances may exceed 100 amps they are less likely to all need maximum demand at the same time. Also, the fuse (100A) in the cable head is apparently called a sand fuse and does not blow with a short surge. Then often at the local sub station there is a 600 amp fuse. But if you have say one of these electric Ferarris that do ultra rapid charging at some 400 amps? you may be on a loser and need separate phases for example.

Keith..Welcome then.. lot's of interesting stuff here. Don't panic! Draw what you have on a bit of A4 paper and what you had originally . External ground levels, the brick / block coursing, the kit, the floor, suspended or ground bearing slab etc. Take a photo or scan and post. Don't worry about scale as just draw the blocks and say their size. Lastly it's not a drawing test, just convey the info as best you can. Gus