Gus Potter

Yes it is. There is a lot of real practical info on BH. If your just researching then the best thing to do to help yourself, save money and make in informed decision for your site is to learn as much about the ground as you can in laymans terms. Try if you can to read a little about clay soils, gravels, rock and how ground water behaves. Next have a look at your site.. what is next door for example? Could your neighbours do something at a later date that may say raise or lower the water table? Your neighbours could also include the council / water board assets for example; roads, parks, sewers and so on. Although hard to start you'll soon get a feel for the terminology of geotechnics and start to enjoy the fact that you are getting a handle on what can be a big cost risk. At first all you are trying to do is to learn enough so that you can ask the designers good questions. One of course is.. why are you doing it this way.. I'm paying you (designer) so can you explain why this is the best way to meet my requirements.. maybe you are just interested in the front end cost with say a 10 year guarentee or maybe you want more long term security / guard against water ingress say 20 -30 years down the line. If say you are near the top of a hill on free draining gravel ground (see saveasteading on gravel soils called Esker) then the ground water is highly unlikely to develop any significant hydrostatic pressure.. here you are really talking low risk damp proofing. At the other extreme.. jump now to say London and London clay which is pretty waterproof.. they use some of these type of clays to make dams out of. Here you could have other houses and say pavements close to your basement. Although the natural water table may be low you can experience times where water gets trapped against the basement walls. Significant water pressure can build up enough to damage your water proofing system. Sounds scary but once you have read a bit and learnt how soils behave you'll start to get a feel for your site and confident to ask the right questions. Select the right water proof barriers and water proofing system. This will be easier as you have an overview of what you need for your job. Lastly on a self build you are going to have to deal with the "builders". If you put this early work in then you'll get off on the right foot with the ground workers.. they will recognise that you "know a bit" and will be less likely to try and pull the wool over your eyes. They will then warn the brickie.. "Client knows a bit so don't muck about".. all the way up the chain!

If you have any DPM left pop another bit over the insulation as it can provide a slip membrane for the screed to shrink, helps reduce the risk of getting cracks in the middle for example. Maybe you are going / have done this anyway.

Hope this helps. Say you have some concrete pads to support columns. When the pads are cast they may vary in level, say + / 15mm. Often columns need to carry two basic forces, axial load and shear load. Sometimes they need to transmit a bending force to the concrete pad. There are three common ways to connect the column base plate to the pad. 1/ Cast in holding down bolts in cones. Usually waxed paper or polystrene. The cones are narrow at the bottom an wide at the top and this lets you wobble the bolts a bit to get them through the holes in the base plate. 2/ Cast in bolts with no cones.. need to be very accurate when doing this so avoid if you can. 3/ Place the column, drill out the concrete and use resin to fix the bolts. Works well with lowish forces. To get the column base plates level you often aim to set the top of the pad 20 -25mm below the intended level of the bottom of the base plate. The steel erector then uses shims under the centre of the base plate to get that plate level in the centre, then adjusts the bolts to pull the column plumb. It rocks about on the shim in the middle. Sometimes they use steel wedges round the edge of the plate to get it level and the column plumb. Now the grout. If you have cones then if they are not fully filled then the column can move sideways.. as the bolts still wobble about in the cone holes..not good! You can't get the cones filled using ordinary mortar as it does not flow enough to get under the plate and down the cone holes, and you can't compact the mortar in the cone holes. We know ordinary mortar etc shrinks when it cures.. and when it does so the nuts on the holding down bolts can come slack say after a month. The specialist grouts you buy are what we call compensated grouts. The grout contains an additive that expands as the grout cures and this is balanced against the shrinkage of the cement component. Hence the terms you see such as "non shrink grout. The grout sets up pretty quick. Once you get most of the steel up nip back and just give the nuts a check to see they are still tight. To keep life simple and for the cost I would just buy a bag of say the Sika 111 or a similar one part grout. all you need to do is add water as per the instructions and mix. If you start using a separate additive you'll only use a little and have to get the mix spot on. Make life easy and use the thinking time on the other exciting parts of your project.

Hello Grey Sage. You'll get plenty good info here to enable you to take a view on what is best for you. To get the best out of Build Hub can I suggest as a starting point you provide a bit of info on what you know about the existing construction. For example. The floors .. suspended or solid, wall type / cavities, roof construction, windows and existing levels of insulation. Also if you can give an indication of the floor area of the house and ceiling heights and number of storeys.

Yes don't use MDF, use say 18mm OSB or an 18mm ply board as you can easily point to the load bearing capacity. This avoids the keen BC asking questions say about B&Q MDF, what happens if it gets wet? When you design a stair the handrail has to be able to carry a certain horizontal load and so do the spindles or in you case the ply say. No need to paint, if ply then when you are finished cut it up and make some nice shelves in the attic / garage with it.

Hello Pamela. That's you up and running now! Hopefully this will give you some food for thought, even if to rule things out. For all the information that is provided on a warrant drawing is particular to Scotland, but hopefully other BH members in the UK may find something of use. "Have planning and building warrant sign off for a single-story side extension (roughly 74 m2) and part remodel of existing 1950’s bungalow in West Lothian, Scotland. Next stage is deciding to either project manage or ask Architect to take this on." Yes this decision crops regularly. I imagine you have asked your Architect what the project management fee will be and what the fee will be to produce a full tender package of information. As a rough guide expect this to be at least if not more than you have already paid your designers to get planning and warrant. To get your head round this the building warrant drawings are prepared so as to satisfy the requirements of the Scottish Building regs.. they are not full construction drawings. Some warrant drawings will be more detailed than others depending on the approach the Architect/ SE has taken and what level of input and drawing detail an SE has provided. A starting point here is to look at what level of drawing information you have and if you are able to use this as a basis for a contract without exposing yourself to too much risk.. say by way of extras or the contractor swapping materials / doing something that may compromise the structure for example. Ideally, we would like to hire a main contractor to build the extension to watertight/ weathertight stage which will have an agreed start and end date. Thereafter we are content to do the internal works ourselves alongside other trades, when needed. For this part we are flexible about project finish times as we are aware that material costs are increasing and this is a way, we can offset some of this. We appreciate the pros and cons of this route. For your particular set up (we do this in the central belt of Scotland) what about having a chat with your SE. I'm reading between the lines and guessing. What can work is that you say to the SE.. look we want to do as much as we can ourselves but need to know if the founds / main structure is ok. What will you charge to update your drawings for tender.. the devil in in the SE detail and can you make say three or so visits to site to check: 1/ The ground is ok before they cast the founds 2/ Once the underbuilding is up to drop by and just have a look 3/ Come back once the main structure is up but before anything is covered up 4/ Be available should the builder just want to give you a quick call if there is something they are not sure about. 5/ Hard to ask this but once you have a rappore with the SE.. be like our "Dad" and if we get stuck give us a few free pointers. It's a halfway house but with a bit of thought and effort on your side it can work. In terms of the JCT contarcts I assume you have had a look but have posted links to the ones; homeowners with or without consultant. With consultant https://www.constructionbooks.net/jct-contracts-2016/jct-homeowner-contracts/jct-build-contract-and-consultancy-agreement-for-a-home-owneroccupier-2021-9780414098282.aspx No consultant https://www.constructionbooks.net/jct-contracts-2016/jct-homeowner-contracts/jct-building-contract-for-a-home-owneroccupier-2021-9780414098275.aspx It is our intention to produce the contract/tender paperwork and we have seen on other websites the amount of paperwork that would accompany an invitation. However, what are the basic requirements that we need and is there anywhere we can see completed templates to give an idea of what level of detail is required? Currently looking at a JCT contract. You'll be hard pushed to find this as much is intellectual property of the designers. There is some generic stuff on the web. Why not go back to your Architect / SE and say, if we pay a little can you advise. That said there is good generic info on the web. "In the above situation who would be responsible for the CDM Reg? Us or the main contractor? Depends on the contract but if you go for the homeowner with no consultant then the contractor is liable for the CDM. The link below to the HSE helps set the mood re CDM for a homeowner doing an extension with no consultant. Well worth a read. https://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/areyou/client.htm Apart from the paperwork what else is involved in a project similar to ours? Timelines and pitfalls? For example, we are aware to record any amendments/suggestions by builders that we agree to so as to evidence ‘extra’ work for contract and payment purposes but are there other things that we need to consider? With regards to timelines – how long should we be considering for the tender process itself as well as the works if the plan was to commence March/April 2022. Any guidance on this is much appreciated. Great point here. build a rappore with your builder, it's really important as they are in and working on your house.. you can even make new friends.. just like a lot of folk do through work.. but. Take loads of photographs on a daily basis if you can, record the weather and put absolutely everything in writing. This can stop you falling out in a serious way. Some good builders I know (central Scotland belt) are booked up for the next 9 months at least so 2022 sounds sensible. Also, material prices will hopefully have stabilized a bit by then. The best time to be starting founds our way (I'm in East Kilbride) seems to be May time.. had some great weather this time of year recently.

Yes they do need to comply with the regs in terms of the max 100mm spacing between the spindles and if open treads then no gap more than 100mm. They also need to be able to carry the standard domestic loading stairs. The handrail height has to comply where there is a risk of fall from height. Landings need to comply where it is a safety issue but not for future stairlift installation. But they can be rough as you like in terms of appreance. Just you can't have nails etc sticking out of the handrail etc.. It's not to onerous. From a practical point of view.. you'll have lots of folk coming to look / admire your new home.. that last thing you need is for someone to get hurt and spoil it all.

Great info from all. All I can add is great to see raft foundations.. and the base plates need holding down bolts so the nuts protrude a bit too. In terms of drainage this can go above and below the slab. For me.. best way to make either option work is to leave yourself plenty leaway in terms of pipe position and fall. When the drains are below the slab even the best contractors get the odd pop up holes a bit off.. the pipes get a knock when concreting. Cut yourself a bit of slack on positioning and it will pay dividends later when the pressure builds, lots of trades on site and you have to make on the spot decisions. For the shower trays I would try and leave almost a partial depth generous box out in the slab, check with the SE re rebar positions. In some cases you can omit the top rebar locally but you need some extra bars and diagonal bars round the edge of the boxout to prevent the slab cracking at the corners of the box out.. very important if you are having polished concrete floors. Mention this to your SE and it's a two minute job to add these bars to the reinforcement drawings. Partial depth box outs.. the seasoned contractors / addicted self buiders etc will be quick to point out that this sounds great on paper but in practice hard to execute if not sometimes impossible on site. The easy way is to know where you want the box out with some easy reference points to measure from, jump back onto the slab 18 - 24 hours after is has been cast, cut out the depth you need with a sthill saw and gently break out the green concrete. This is the easy way especially if you have omitted the rebar. TBlew keep us posted!

Evening SillyBilly. To get you moving I would explore further cutting a pocket for the 3 x 145 lintels so they rest fully on the brick 102.5 mm. Wrap the ends of the timbers with DPC to keep them dry. I'm not sure how to interpret your plan view sketch but by the sound of it the loads the lintel are carrying are not too high.. thus you probably don't need a pad stone under these particular lintels as these bricks have a descent compressive strength and the mortar looks faily sound... the timber with the grain orientated horizontally will crush before the brick. When you get a chance just check with your designer that it is ok to do this. The two studs to the left of the doorway can come in handy and sometimes they have a structural intent...they may also be helping to restrain the masonry / carry vertical load and also as you may expect act as a sub frame for the door. You''ll probably be strapping out what was the existing outer leaf of the wall and adding a bit of insulation too. If you have transferred the vertical load to the masonry then you can maybe add studs if lateral restraint to the masonry is required and these may be able to be arranged to work around the drainage. The main thing is that by pocketing the lintel you are probably doing no harm and this will let you crack on while you check with your designer etc. Just be sensible.. clearly if you are going to knock holes in the masonry for doorways near the lintel support then it may not be enough to hold up the extension during the construction.. let common sense prevail! All the best with the project.

The ply liner has advantages.. but that is predicated on the fact that the the liner is well fixed to the inner skin.. which is supposed to be plumb assuming masonry inner leaf... and that relies in part on good workmanship. The other thing is that if the ply box is off the square you have a pile of work to do to fix the lining so the margins around the windows look sweet. On Aluminium windows the frames are slender so any out of plumb effects really show up on the finish. On a wide (masonry) cavity wall I would look to see if they can be supported off the outer leaf if the inner leaf cantilever is large..weigh up the options.. each house is different!.. let the window fitters fit, square stuff up and positively fix the frame. Then do the finishing to get an even margin around the windows. Just as an aside if you have a timber frame (TF) on the inside then this fixing to the outer leaf is a non starter in my view as the TF moves about up and down by a fair bit. In other words the window is fixed / stays still as is fixed to the outer masonry leaf.. on the inside the TF is going up and down and this will not look good when viewed from the inside!

Hi Mike2020. @Roundtuit needs credit for this one.. the ten years. In terms of you 50 hours a week I can from experience advise that you may want to consider breaking this down. I have discovered from my own project that; 1/ I'm not 30 years old any more with endless physical energy. 2/ Best to break the day down into physical work and thinking time.. 3/ Have a large lunch and a sleep after, lets the brain work on solutions for the afternoon. Each to their own I suppose, the main thing is to set yourself up so you get a dail (at best) or weekly burst of reward for your efforts and this keeps you motivated for the long haul.

Hi Temp. Just to take a step back. When you are doing the panel drawings for a joiner to work to for a timber frame you look at what off cuts you are going to generate. Now a standard length of timber is 4.8m and you can end up with say a few handy offcuts that you can use. Now although you may have a 3 ply 150 "lintel" on paper it may be that it is not carrying any significant load. If you you are using 145mm studs for the walls then this is an easy way of using the offcuts to build out the thickness of the wall over a doorway / window. The actual width of a C16 timber is 45mm so 3*45 gives 135mm, often the OSB board on the kit is 9.0 or 11.0mm so the joiner just needs to put a ripping on the inside of the lintel and this allows the plaster board to plane through with the 145mm studs ( we cut ourselves a bit of slack on 1.0mm). It's the simple stupid approach but economic practical design. If the 3 ply lintel is carrying some load then rather than trying to find a hanger then you can often support the end of the lintel using a couple of vertical studs and these you fix to the wall. Have a look to see what your 3 ply timbers are doing and look for the simple easy options?

Quick question.. For domestic houses do we not look at the number of bedrooms first.. then jump to the British Waterways flows and loads guidance and this gives us the flows.. and we use this to design the drains and the water usage. Now I could have a bathroom with two baths, maybe three all in the same room.. but the flows are based on the number of folk that could be in the house and this is dictated by the "normal occupancy" for domestic purpose and this is derived from the number of bedrooms? To be pedantic.. you fit a new kitchen with and island unit. In the island you have a tiny sink for tipping out the gin you can't finish, you have another sink for day to day stuff then in the corner you have one of these massive deep 1960's 700mm deep sinks with a mangle over as you still like to do all you washing by hand and that sink holds the same amount of water as this baby bath. Now the folk that wrote the regs know / hope that it is uncommon that you may be.. so drunk to the extent that you are chucking out your night cap / washing the dishes / and doing a last hand wash all at the same time before you hit the sack. Dan F .. hope this helps.

Yes, but you still need a carrier for the plaster. The surveyor is correct, it's just they may have assumed that you know that the lime plaster needs something solid to "stick / bond to"

Hi Mike2020. Your project sounds great. On these jobs it's easy to get carried away and do stuff that at the time on an ad hoc basis.. fire fighting!. For example you have moved in, have kids, a day job and need to do things that just have to be done in the interests of family harmony... that is life when you don't have a money / time tree growing in the back garden. Taking pictures is really important. Sometimes on these big old houses (DIY) projects your head goes down and you feel you are not making any progress. At that point you can sit down.. look at the photos of when you started and say.. hey look.. we have done quite a lot and this can lift the spirits and spur you on. Before you buy your dehimidifiers then reflect on where you are.. do you really need them.. have you checked you gutters, down pipes, cut back vegitation next to the outside walls, opened the windows during the day. It's a different mind set.. imagine you are a custodian of the building! You'll often find that once you get a handle on your house you can really appreciate what you have bought. learn to live with it and adapt.. that is the joy of owning a 17th centuary house..

Hi Mike2020. I may have pick up your post wrongly.. Have you been told that you can fit the wool boards between the beams and then plaster the ceiling? If so I would avoid. Maybe a starting point is to look at a new house. You have the ceiling beams, below is attached plaster board which acts as a carrier for say a skim coat of gypsum based plaster. On an old house you have the ceiling beams, timber laths (carrier) with a gap between. They used a plaster with horse hair and a bit of stuff from the barber shop. The base coat of plaster (lime based) was forced up between the spaces in the laths.. this gives the key. each lathe carries a bit of the weigh of the plaster and each lathe is nailed to the underside of the ceiling beam. Then the finish coats (lime based) were applied. If you want to use a lime plaster then you need to relicate an old lathe and plaster ceiling either by lathes or by using an expanded metal mesh. The insulation is just intended to keep the place warm.. not to carry the weight of the plaster. This is (lime based plaster on ceilings is expensive) hence my previous post about understanding your house. Hope this helps.

Hello Mike2020. Sounds like a cracking project. Have you taken plenty photos so you can look back on your efforts once you have finished? Before you make a decision on how to tackle the ceiling start right at the top of the house.. look to see what you have and write it down. This excercise often crystalizes your thoughts.. imagine you have to expain to someone how your house works. Start with the roof covering.. work down. Ask youself.. how is the roof kept water tight and ventilated.. how does the water vapour get out / in? get a handle on this (if you have not already done so) and this will help drive how you plaster your ceiling. If you don't know the answers then fine.. but now you know what you don't know. It seems pedantic but it forces you to look at the structure holistically.. can be a lot of fun too! This holistic approach is essential when dealing with "old houses" You want to spend your money carefully and target your spend to get the best out of your endevours. If you feel able, post your findings on BH and you'll get loads of ideas and suggestions.. for free!

I wish you all the best with your windows. For all. One great thing about BH is that if you give a bit you'll get lots of ideas. Some may not suit (some you may think are .. ? ) you but good design often involves looking at other's designs critically and how they interface with your own home / wall construction... often ruling things out is a great way of reaching an informed decision. Once you get into the 3g (triple glazed) world of windows and aluminium frames with wide wall cavities you have two basic choices. Do we try and transfer the weight of the window to the inner skin or do we look to see if we can use the outer skin to support the weight of the window. Now if you have a wide cavity and aim to use the inner skin to support the window then we need say brackets / a box type liner that are going to resist the cantilevering effect. We need to look very carefully at the fixings and how they will perform long term. In general anything that is cantilevered tends to move a bit more. Windows over time need adjusted / maintained as the glass moves about in the frames and the seals slacken over time. Couple this with cantillevered brackets and you have introduced more potential movement.. and these windows are expensive! If we use the outer skin then we also have potential rotational forces as the outside of the frame only has potentially / commonly a 15.0 - 20.0 mm rest on the outer leaf and.. we have issues about not breaching the water seal on the cill below as you need to fix the cill to the base of the window frame. We need for example to make sure we keep the drain channel at the bottom of the glass clear.. to prevent the sealed units from resting in standing water etc. But if you have a wide cavity then in some cases you can use the outer skin to support the window, you can remove a lot of the cold bridging effects and rotational / cantilever effects.. much will depend on your wall construction but it's worth exploring to see if it suits you or if you can get some mileage out of it. You can see on BH much discussion about bifiold doors and the options regarding top and bottom supported doors.. imagine your window is a bit the same.. do we bottom support it or try and support it up the sides / bottom with some cantilevered structure? To finish.. BH is also about having a home / extension / DIY project that no one else has! Not just on the outside but also under the bonnet.. the guts of the structure. Don't be afraid to post up a sketch, just draw it on A4 paper, take a photo and post it.. you are not entering a drawing competition. No one here will judge you on your drawing skills. Have fun exploring..

Any chance of a sketch showing the wall construction, frame thickness and cill detail, will help clarify the 90%? Just draw it on a bit of paper, take a photo and post it?

Hello Sillybilly. If you can post a sketch drawing and maybe a photo you may get some good pointers.

300 a day is quite a big ask on a DIY build. I would go for around the 250 a day. Then factor in the recent weather! Yes the blocks may be laid out for them but do they have a good working space for the mixer? / is it a premixed mortar? If hand batching on site then where and how you store the sand can impact on productivity. If you have let the sand get soaking wet this slows things down, also, if in bulk bags that have not been covered from the rain and sat on a pallet.. then as you work your way down the bag each batch of sand gets wetter.. each batch has to be carfefully monitored.. takes time. Before you take a view then have a look at the quality of their work. Have they kept say the cavities clean, are any solum / cassette vents all protruding the right amount, are they plumb / level. Have they got their wall ties clean, are the right amount inserted, every course around openings etc. Are the ties embedded properly into each leaf say or neatly nailed to a timber frame. Do and cavity trays you can see look neat and water tight. Are the dpcs looking nice and straight. Do the mortar beds look level and of a consistent thickness, are the walls plumb? Good workmanship takes time to execute. Speed an quality are often not good bedfellows.

Try a softer broom. Chase the water to the low point. Rope in a helper with a dust pan, hand brush and pail.. scoop water into pail. Dry the last bit with an old towel. Check your damp proof membrane positions. Now you will have a nice clean surface to lay your cellotex on?

Great informative thread this as have a particular interest in this type of construction, solid stone walls. It's remarkable how the body / tacit knowledge has built up over the last 30 years and how we are introducing modern materials. and " More curveballs please"... "The analogy fails though if I say I may come back to that one..." For say steading conversions in Scotland a common roof build as a starting point up may be 50 - 60mm of insulated plasterboard (with integral vapour barrier) fixed to underside of rafters, another vapour barrier as a second line of defense (my personal preferance which accounts for perhaps reduced standard of workmanship here and there). Then full fill between the rafters which are normally 18" centres on a typical steading. On top of the rafters you have the timber sarking boards, then a breathable membrane, then the slates. You may need to reslate so may well need to stick with a 1/2 in sarking board to plane though with the existing... and this chucks up all sorts of issues, the slate nail penetration being one. If re slating large area then go for a thicker board (19mm) as this takes the bounce out of the sarking. This makes it easier for the slater to get the roof tight but also easy to maintain in the long term... provided you have not double nailed the head of each slate.. slate the way the slaters do in your area, you can void the guarentee on the slates (if buying new) to a certain extent but at least you can make an informed decision considering ongoing maintenance. Practically if you look at an old roof the nails don't pull out as they often have some corrosion on the underside which binds the nail. If you have PIR with shiny foil tight up to the underside of the sarking the foil gets a regular punching.. not sure if this makes much of a difference. The point is that there is a fair bit to mull over. OSB is a bit vapour permeable but not much and not enough to let a full fill roof breathe in the Scottish climate. However timber sarking is much more forgiving. The 2.0mm gap is a figure that crops up. Some of the design codes are based on past experience and observation rather than pure calculation. One way to demonstrate this is to look at the suite of Eurocodes, many of the codes have a national annex.. which reflects the environmental conditions in the UK. If you look at an old steading roof you'll see that the sarking boards have shrunk, gaps can be 5- 10- 14! mm. Also the boards have warped which encourages air flow under the breathable membrane. Normally the sarking boards that get delivered to site in Scotland are pretty wet. I have fitted them tight before.. no gap, give them a month or two and you'll see that even a board 100mm wide has shrunk to give the 2.0mm gap, once you put some heat in the place the gaps widen further. Certain parts of Scotland can get pretty cold -18 to -24 deg for several days. Putting a good thickness of insulated plasterboard on the underside of the rafter can reduce the risk of "ghosting" .. where you get some local surface condensation which shows up as darker lines on the ceiling. If in a kitchen then cooking fats can condense more easily here. Although the ceiling may not be "wet" these marks don't go away.

Onoff.. You are a star! .. what lovely hands. Are they yours? and the flints look great by the way. My view is that cement is not an option. All cements shrink.. flints have a very smooth impermeable surface and you won't get a flexible bond if you use a mix with any cement content. Plenty info about lime mortars from other poster already. One great thing is that if you use non hydraulic lime you can do a foot or so every few days.. just have fun! Just put a cover over it to keep the rain off. You may build say a foot every few days, but if it's not looking right you can take it off, clean the flints and have another go. Harder to do if using a cement based mortar. I real life you just need to get on with it, stand back and see how you go! even if you have a template once you get a foot or so up it will all go to pot.

The vulnerable points are where the drain cock is, drafts under where you may have a bit of suspended floor. Please don't fill it (UF) with antifreeze as at some point when you service the heating this will end up in the ground / sewer or local stream. If it gets that cold your other water pipes will burst long before the UF pipes which are insulated by screed?