Gus Potter

This is a bit of a tricky subject. Below is a link to a technical guide... lot's of references to technical standards. That said, it does mention benchmarking and the importance of preparing the substrate. On a large scale you can basically do a few panels, the Client, Contractor, Architect, PM etc discuss this at length and agree on what is acceptable. If you are a home owner then you can do roughly the same. Plaster a wall and a ceiling, if all agree on the standard of finish then progress. Make sure the painter / decorator is there too as they are the ones that have to work with what they have. Too rough and they may walk away or charge you more. https://www.google.com/search?q=plastering+flatness&source=lmns&bih=834&biw=1760&client=firefox-b-d&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjl4-Hjwd_rAhUBYxoKHXBRAyIQ_AUoAHoECAEQAA Another key point is that plastering / taping is a craft as demonstrated by some of the members / conributors who make a living from this type of work and you get what you pay for. To paraphrase Ruskin.. Pay too little and you risk wasting all of your money, pay a bit too much and you lose a little money, but maybe the decorator will charge you less as a properly plastered job is a dream for them.

Hi Miri Piri. Don't be put off. There is a lot to take in. I try an break stuff down into a lot of "little jobs" dip in and out and sleep on it. SEPA have some good stuff, also there is a lot of practical advice from the suppliers of say septic tanks and so on. Much of this is written in layman's / practical terms. The main thing is to enjoy your journey. You'll be amazed how stuff suddenly starts to come together and then you're onto the next stage. All the best.

Good evening Miri Piri. Looking at water supply and septic tank/ perhaps something that treates the sewage to a higher level such as a some form of treatment plant, more costly but can offset the cost of a soak away type drainage field. Broadly speaking, to get you a feel for things, you often see information presented in tems of bedrock and superficial deposits, in some ways it's much easier in Scotland as you don't have to deal with sink holes that can occur in limestone, deep clay, complex ground conditions and soil layers that you get down South. There is some tricky ground in the Forth valley / Glasgow and so on for example. Also, you don't have to deal with mining that occurs in the Central belt. I think you Mum talks sense. A superficial deposit is the soil that generally sits on top of the bedrock. The term soil is used by Engineers to often describe the stuff you build on rather than the "top soil" on which the grass grows. Roughly, Tonalite is a form of granite. The UK was not always one land mass. Essentially it was originally part of two ancient land masses that came together. Once they came together there have been a number of different ice ages, which have eroded the land, melted and dumped stuff where the ice melts, this is often called "till". It can be fine minerals, small pebbles, boulders the size of houses, more and anything else that the glacier picked up on it's way. The Late Devension age is split up a bit but roughly the last period (say 22 -33 thousand years ago) relates much to the last major ice age although there was a more recent one on the west cost, around Loch Lomand. So this descibes when the till was laid down. Diamiction often describes how this stuff (till) was then moved about, further mixed up and redeposited. In other words you could have a good mix of material, some more suited to water extraction / sewage soak away. You mention that you are on a slope and that water comes into your mum's garage. But you have a field above so that surface water may not be suitable as a potable water supply. The key here may be to tap in above the house to the ground water that lies deeper and this could give you a good reliable supply. If you are interested then to do this you want to look for the fractured / weathered rock and there could be a decent layer of this not too far down. The best way is to dig a few good sized holes with a jcb first. Dig through the top layer of soil until you hit the rock, clean it off and have a look at it. If it looks like it has fractures of a good width or lots of small fractures (you probably won't see gaps just bands of the till that have washed into the gaps in the rock) in it then it's worth exploring more. If you don't fancy that then call a few of the bore hole companies and they will give you some good pointers. As the surface ground water is high and you have a sloping site you will probably struggle to get a soak away to work at a sensible cost if at all. From what you describe it seems like the top layers of soil that could be used for a soak way are thin and not very permeable. For the sewage you may be able to use a treatment plant and run a small discharge pipe to the burn? Lastly before you spend any money give SEPA a call or drop them an email to check if there are any restrictions on a private water supply with regards to radon.

Good post Alex. Interesting stuff that it worked out financially for an ICF superstructure in Scotland. How did you make that stack up? Do you have a trade connection or can this be done by a self builder from "cold"? Have you had a chance to finish it all off and look at it holistically, installing the services and so on. How future proof is it.. can you run an extra cable in the wall without major drama or are you a bit stuck on any alteration / extension you may want to make? Good point you make about the Scottish Islands, I have family that live in the islands and it is a completely different economic ball game. You have the ferry / transport cost, there is, if you are lucky a couple of folk that have a 16 tonne 360 digger..you need to make friends with the local dump.. try getting a skip to Tiree?.. and trying to get someone with a pecker when you hit the granite dyke. A granite dyke is an igneous intrusion. Often you'll find that the earlier islanders avoided building over a hard spot where the hot granite from deep in the earth made it's way to the surface. If you are unlucky this will manifest right under your found or septic tank and make life difficult. That is partly why there are gap sites on the Islands, but more often than not it's to do with who owns what and family history. Alex makes another good point about buying a mixer and doing it your self..been there, but yes when you look back you may have lost a few quid but it's that thing about knowing you have built you own castle with your own hands and that has value, it enriches life, so perhaps appreciate that? Just to touch briefly on ICF bracing. It's essential, firstly someone could get killed if it falls over..concrete is heavy stuff. If it bulges/ start to tip a bit then it's very difficult to fix in the heat of the moment. The key here is to make sure that you have someone , perhaps an SE who has the authority to oversee the operation.. that comes at a cost but.. there is an expression that is used to describe piling contractors and it is "who dares wins the job"..so if you employ someone to do the pour make sure you know where the risk lies and who is responsible if it goes wrong. Better to brace it to death and save the aggro.

Hello Galvtheouch. I'm kind of local to you, but more from the Biggar / Agricultural area so can see where you are coming from. If you want to do ICF as a superstructure? again I can't see this panning out financially unless you own the ICF and concrete company. While it sounds attractive to mix your own it's frankly bonkers to spend all the money on ICF and think you can hand batch stuff that won't leak. You can make a concrete wall pretty water tight if you get the grading of the aggregate / cement / water content / correct compaction under control but this is not for the lay person. If you want to know more ask a Water Board Engineer how to construct an undergound water tank that does not leak...is a basement etc not just a tank with some added insulation the reverse of this? You seem to have an agricultural type backgound and thus practical skills that a lot of folk would give their back teeth to have. What about just going back to say timber frame, use a 150m kit which you can build yourself, erect with your telehandler, seems like you have a lot of space so perhaps use the digger for the founds, pan mix the foundation concrete, check your mix, make the savings elsewhere and utilise your practical skills. Just as an aside.. it's well worth looking at the stuff that Jeremy Harris has posted. I'm probably going to get pelted for this but to simplify. ICF and low U value house basement / slab / basement slab designs are basically pinched from industrial building / cold formed store design. In fact, is not a lot of current design based on lots of stuff and design codes / principles from Canada, North USA where they are used to dealing with low temperature, permafrost, mitigating heat loss etc.. we just rebrand this in the UK, make it sound difficult and charge more for it. In terms of ICF. If you are doing a basement then in Scotland I can't really see this panning out profitably unless you live in the centre of Edinburgh even then, there are not many real live jobs as the ground conditions are difficult. Even the superstructure, I can see some of the merits but.. All the best

Hello MiriPiri. You'll love living there, does get cold from time to time, but depending on what area of Aberdeenshire (I'll call it AB from now on) your in you'll also get the dry weather from the rain shaddow of the mountains. A few less midges too and you won't always have to sit out in the rain. Also, the Northern lights to look forward to. I'll touch on your wish for a private water supply. This can be perfectly feasible. Simplistically, I'll assume for now that your plot is not way up in altitude and that you can't access a burn with no agriculture above.. thus a borehole. You do need to negotiate the consent process but that is doable too with a tactful approach. Often folk think that a borehole has to be massively deep. But in Aberdeenshire is still rains a lot so the main water table.. "productive aquifer" (there are what is called perched water tables but this is more complex so I have left this out) can sit relatively quite high. AB is full of granite and hard to drill through, unlike parts of the South where you have limestone etc. But we are not looking for solid rock as this does not transmit water well, in fact solid granite not at all, in relative terms. What you want to look for here is the fractured rock.. the layer that has been weathered during the ice ages, not cooled slowly.. the rock that is like hot toffee / moulten glass that has been dropped into cold water and is full of cracks between the blocks of granite. This is where you get the water from. I'm not an expert (although Scottish) as have a preference for rum but this water does make the lighter whiskys? Now, if you want a private water supply you may also want a private sewage arrangement so you don't have to pay the council tax element for sewage? In principle you want to ensure that any discharge from the treated sewage does not contaminate the water supply or that of any neighbours. Sounds complex? Well it can be but to get you started, have a look at what is round about you. Are you on a slope and stuff like that. With a bit of finess and basic understanding you can get lucky and design the water extraction to take place at a lower level in the fractured rock, the sewage dischage at the surface water flow level and make this all work safely. Here is a link to an educational resource from the BGS where you can look at what type of ground you may have. http://mapapps.bgs.ac.uk/geologyofbritain/home.html This is worth a look as it will also help you understand what you may have to deal with when you are looking at the foundations and so on before you start to spend money on consultants. If you get stuck then post here. You mention merging the house into the landscape, if you hit granite then you maybe want to work with nature rather than trying to fight it and the associated costs of doing this. Just a last point.. AB is a bit radio active.. Torness Nuclear Power station is less so apparently.. so that can be a spanner in the works from time to time. On the other hand the environmental consideration is a good bargening tool, you do need patience though. All the best, keep asking questions and enjoy your journey.

Great comments everyone, the breadth and depth of knowledge is remarkable on this site. What a resource. Turning back to T-logic's post and focusing on say small extensions, slapping holes in walls to form more open plan areas and so on, say jobs with a builder cost from £5K to £40K. Due diligence. Sadly I see about one job a month where had a bit of actual due diligence actually been carried out rather than just looking on Facebook (I'm not talking Columbo here) the customer/ client could have saved themselves a lot of grief. It's old fashioned but what about looking at some of the magazine sites (Which magazine for example).. they tell you what to do in terms diligence.. or you can look on this site. The next step could be Companies house.. for say a director check, maybe the council online records for enforcement notices, the HSE etc. Then take references and actually follow them up. Make sure it's not a best mate, wife that is giving the reference..and yes I have seen this! If you get a sniff that something is not right then resort to credit referencing if you must, but if you get a bad smell at this point then really keep looking elsewhere. The Sole is bang on with his comment. There are standard contacts available (for example the JCT suite of contracts) that are crafted by legal experts, some of these terms are based on case law. A designer always thinks twice and three times before ammending the standard terms, for a reason, so it's not a case of form filling..it's serious stuff! As a word of encouragement. I would say that in 90% of the 5 - 40K jobs I deal with the Client only employs the designer up to the warrant (BC stage etc). Often they do have / sign a contract.. but it's the builders own contract and the t&c's are unfair. There is some extra protection for domestic clients (Scots Law, can anyone expand) but this only kicks in once thing have gone wrong and there are a few other finicky bits. In most cases on small jobs the reality is this. The Client can't afford to spend the extra on professional supervision and preparation of a fully comprehensive design / tender package/ management and contract supervision.. Also, they often visit sites such as "bob the builder.com" and don't appreciate the value of independant advice as these site have a commercial interest.. the police policing themselves and so on. Possibly one key is to recognise that one purpose of self building is to save money, or to use the money you have to get something that you otherwise could not afford. To achieve this you need to put in the work and do your research. There is no free lunch but your time is often free. T-logic. I do think you have picked up on some good points that could be commercially viable. However, before you loose your shirt, perhaps consider seeing if you can develop a buisiness locally. Build your network of local builders, access the merchants and get to know the sales staff. Work on your Client base, provide a great service, deliver real savings and build a reputation for good work. People will start to seek you out! Can I suggest you start with the small jobs. Actually, these are often harder to do than a house but you can cut your teeth and learn. Make sure you get some PI insurance and some PL insurance in case you run over someone on the site say. I work with a number of local builders who have a self employed QS. A good few of them have worked with the same QS for years. They trust them to price right, too high and the builder has no work! The Qs's they use make a good living and have a good quality of life in the main. It's all to play for so I wish you all the best T-logic.

tlogic.. Have you an academic interest in this? I think you have touched on a really good point. This is a very expansive subject! If you wish, can you outline what sort of information you are looking for?

Does make you wonder if stick building is a safe way, good for the local economy at the moment.. You buy the material as you go, support your local joiner etc to build the kit and so on? After all, if you go for a mid range kit supplier then they too may not have the clout to get the insulation etc on time, where as your local guy can pick up a few sheets just to keep you on track.

SER certificates in Scotland. Here is some food for thought. Firstly you don't need an SER certificate to get a building warrant in Scotland even if there is structural work involved. You can submit structural calculations along with your normal building warrant drawings. The argument is made that if you submit calculations (traditional method) it will cause a significant delay or it just can't be done. This is not the case. In fact, if you have a designer who regularly deals with Scotland BC then often it makes little difference. You do get a discount on the warrant fee but this is often offset by the level of information that is provided by the traditional route to get a warrant. To explain. A lot of self builder's don't employ their designer to supervise / manage the contract so a good comprehensive set of warrant drawings with a well written specification can really protect you at the build stage. This is one example of where you recoupe your perceived savings with an SER certificate. An SER registered Engineer follows a checking / audit process. The calculations for say a raft foundation are prepared by one company, the kit is designed by another and so on. All these companies often have in house designers and this need to be paid for. The SER Engineer Ltd checks to ensure that for example the building is stable. Another function of the SER (Ltd) scheme is to check that all the elements of the design are coordinated so that the design is safe. Now you have lots of cooks! Alternatively, you can employ someone who is not a member of the SER Ltd company (for example an Engineer based in Wales, France, England, even USA etc) submit calculations to Buildings control who will then check them. Scotland BC have no commercial interest and their role is primarily to ensure your safety and that of the public. In terms of overall cost it's worth considering getting someone who can design your kit, produce the panel drawings, design your insulated raft, the other bits and coordinate this into a comprehensive work package. That will give you the best chance of a result without a cost overun and trying to herd lots of individual designers, checkers.. like chasing cats. You will end up with one point of contact on tap, on your side, and that is where you will start to make savings. Oh, and Scottish Water.. yes this can take a bit of time, you need to do a bit of work now and again as if you are connecting to, or building over one of their assets. It's fair for them to make sure you are not doing something that will impact on them, but they are fair, reasonable and helpful.

That's some good numbers Nod. The thing is that you have a lots of experience / knowledge and know your way about. When land values are on the rapid increase (or you get a repossession, contaminated site, or overcome any burdens) it's not so hard to make a good return as the mistakes you make on the actual build get kind of lost. But what if you live in an area where you don't have that benefit. Then when you get your build cost wrong there is no cushion. To encourage all is there not merit in starting when you don't have the experience at the 15% .. yes that's tax free too and work from there, if you get it for less then that's a bonus. If you do another and gain experience you can make the kind of savings / profit that Nod mentions.

Just to chip in. Christine. A good few years ago in Lanarkshire (Biggar area etc) a good check to do as a contrator was this, at the last minute before you send out the price. I still use this as a rough check, it's an old rule of thumb to some extent. Lots of folk work on a price per square metre.. but is that internal floor area, external foot print area (includes the wall thickness) or actual floor area (minus the internal wall thickness).. very confusing. As a rule of thumb for an average house a check you do as a contractor on an average self build is to say the labour cost is about a third of the cost of the build. You cross check this against the square metre price. The key thing is that it's easy to make a mistake and this can put you out of business. So if the two values of the sq m price and the labour / material ratio look off then you need to sleep on it and look again in the morning. It does not matter too much at what point you add in the profit margin. Once you have that ( the basics) you add in the high end kitchen, bespoke stuff, ground conditions etc. Then check again. For the first time / average self builder I found that overall over a period of time that the average saving for self building and project managing your self was about 15% compared with buying off the shelf. Buy that I mean that you buy a plot and get a builder to do the lot... Yes, I'm using a broad brush approach. The same rule applies if you are trying to get a handle on what your return will be. If you are a more experienced self builder then you can increase the return.. or as we are normal folk.. you spend a bit more on the stuff you like? I think I can see where you are going with this Christine in that the land value varies so much depending on location and so on and see why you are looking to strip that out to get a like for like comparison.

Didn't think of that Onoff. Baw is burst at this end.

Looks like you are on the right track. All the best with the project.

Aye.. good cat! What about strap with 50 x 25 treated on a strip of dpm. Use stainless steel screws. Fix a bit of breathable membrane to the strapping. 100 x 12 -22 thick larch or something light shade that will weather a bit but vertically orientated to give it some appearance of height.. nothing needing paint etc. Leave a gap between the boards of say 10 -15mm, a gap at the bottom and a gap at the top so it all breathes. The membrane is to hide the bricks behind so you can't see them through the gap. Now if you want to earn some extra points you can fix shelves etc to the timbers... and we all love shelves etc don't we !

Well done Osmononame wading through the fire regs. As a word of encouragement I see you're in South Lanarkshire and BC will help you with this if you approach matters in a reasonable way. What you have here is akin to a three storey town house so nothing out the ordinary in terms of fire design. Alternatively, think about the case where you have a two storey house and you want to convert the attic.. thus three storeys, again nothing off the scale. What is worth while doing is to get an SE on board as soon as you can. You will need to pay for this but it will be worth the expense (you'll probably need to pay later anyway) and it will more often than not lead to an over all saving without compromising on the design. To make the enclosure you also need to protect the structure that holds the enclosure in place.. hence the SE early. I would explore the protected enclosure route first before a sprinkler system, not least as you have the ongoing maintenance and testing, mains pressure or loading (weight) from a supply tank and so on.. you can get some pretty acceptable looking fire doors etc these days. All the best.

DavidC.. "Architect has asked for payment in full for work on compilation of Scottish building warrant (equivalent of English building regs) before starting work it. Am I right to consider this dubiously ? " Sounds reasonable. Essentially you are splitting up the "warrant" design phase from the tender / construction detail / construction phase which are separate packages. Once the warrant submission is made then the majority of the regulatory design phase is complete. Once the warrant application is made it's not uncommon for BC to come back with a few queries. Sometimes the queries you get back are already addressed on the submitted drawings, SE calculations etc. Other times it may be a case of clarification of a few points. Some areas to consider are: 1/ BC officers are just like all of us and may not pick up first time on all of the information submitted so will raise a query. Some will be learning / training so it's well worth while bearing this in mind. 2/ The submission may contain input from different designers; the Architect, SE, specialist truss manufacturer, basement designer etc and some of this information may conflict. 3/ An application may be lacking important detail i.e too much cutting and pasting of standard details etc. I would normally expect payment to be made once the warrant application is ready to be submitted on the understanding that the queries will be dealt with in a timely fashion. Jilly - yes good point. A big issue especially given COVID is that if the council take months to process a good solid application then the designer is out of pocket through no fault of their own. If you have a concern then perhaps hold back a 5% retention. However, have a chat with you designer first as this is a matter of professional trust / competence .. so maybe a bit of diplomacy? As an overview a good experienced designer should have sufficient soft skills to be able to lead domestic (inexperienced) clients by the hand without compromising on the creative side so that the points raised above are dealt with before they become an issue. Fee transparency is one vital part of this as it encourages an equitable arrangement and develops trust. At the end of the day this should be an enjoyable and rewarding process for all involved.. it can be done and lead to a saving at the end of the day.

Ta onoff. Not enough hours in the day.. if you get a chance go and post how you got on with that.

Good point Mike. Looks like you are making good progress. A 150 thick PIR can get you on the ball park and if you have "wool etc" it needs to be thick, as you say. It's hard to get a handle on the best way to go about it. For all, I'm being simplistic, but take Scotland / Wales rural parts of England. Here you can often get a bigger plot for not much more. But where plot sizes are limited and the land costs (Mike - Kent where you are) a lot you may want to minimise the wall thickness and thus increase the internal floor area of both the house and the garden. You can still get a good warm house without loosing too much of the valuable floor and garden area. In summary, there are lots of ways to achieve what you want. You may just want a warm house with low biils.. You may want to have a carbon neutral house.. if you really are serious about that then look at for example the carbon cost of the concrete and so on, how your solar panels are made, what it costs to produce the material/ lots of this stuff is shipped from the other side of the world to make the panels, then the removal of all of that at end of life..the fuel / crushing and transport invoved in that and so on. It's an awful lot to think about. My view is to recognise that you want to build a warm house / extension, do the best you can for the environment, be pragmatic and do the best you can given the available budget you have. Mike has made some great posts that are well worth a brouse.

I think I have blasphemed more than once onoff! It could have been worse, I could have mentioned "screwfix spray" ! and what then. Just a thought, I mentioned conservation work and stainless steel.. is that one of my blasphemes? Your right about the spray. How are you finding the Zinga any good?

For all. In a case like this if you get really stuck then you can sometimes use a thick steel plate, 40 - 50mm. You may be able to pick up an offcut from a fabricator ect as this can be a common heavy industrial column base plate size. To do it all correctly then you want to protect it, if it rusts heavily it can swell and lift stuff so galvanising is one way to go. Alternatively if you're happy then clean the steel, spray it to death with galvanising spray and carry on. Russel makes a good point. Have a look at what is above, point loads and so on. If the load above is spread out evenly and you have a good few courses of brick above then the load (conservatively) spreads out at 60 deg, you'll often see 45 deg mentioned. This trick can come in handy when doing renovations / conservation work, sometimes you'll use stainless steel. I'll try this but here is a link to let you see that plates this thick are standard @ 100mm wide so you may get them at a sensible price. https://www.parkersteel.co.uk/Matrix/10/Steel-Flat-Bar

Yes great spot. Every council is a bit different, you may get the odd delay, frustrated now and again, but you'll get past that, it will be worth it. Have you considered "stick building" it? Here you get a good competant local joiner to cut the timbers and make the frame on site and this opens up opportunities to use local trades persons, get to know people and make new friends. You may also like the savings you might make. There is no barrier to having a passive slab, much of passive slab design is borrowed and adapted from industial building design. The difference is that you would use a ~ 150mm thick stud for the walls and pack that with a high quality insulation. If you need more then you can pack out the wall studs. On top of that you line the lot with an insulated plasterboard to prevent / mitigate cold bridging and what we call ghosting. You can create a gap between the insulated plasterboard and the insulation in the studs and this make an ideal service void. If you cut into a sips you can loose some of the structural integrity. So perhaps not so easy to change / alter things later on. As an over view. If you want a timber frame (TF) a common approach is to go to a TF supplier. They design the frame / roof to carry the loads etc on their software which genreates a lot of drawings for production in the factory. You'll need some input from a Structural Engineer any way. For a bit extra they (SE) will produce the panels drawings, just as a TF manufacture does. You give these to the local joiner and these drawings tell them what lengths of timber are needed in each panel, lintel postions, how to nail them together and so on. All they need to do is follow the drawings. Also, if the brickie ect has got the found and underbuilding a bit off the square say (it happens) , it's much easier to resolve these type of problems as you can often adapt a stick built frame more easily. It's quite common to do it this way. What you do when you are preparing panel drawings is to look at the type of contractor (generates a bit of competition on price?) the location, material procurement (do you need a crane or do you make the panels smaller so a couple of folk can stand them up?) and design for buildability as this can save much more than any panel drawing fee you may incur. All the best, you'll love it!

Hello all. CE Marking and Structural steel holding your house up! But first. Great points all, much appreciated (onoff - both posts were spot on) As an aside, be encouraged. The prices I used were based on Glasgow area, rather than say Linconshire. If you live next to Scunthorpe then you may well get a better price. Also, if you have connections to the trade this helps too. We have some pretty big fabricators up in Scotland so if you are near one of them, again more promising price wise. Currently (don't know how leaving the EU will impact) it is a legal requirement that all structural steel must be CE marked and thus in compliance with the BS EN 1090 series of codes. These codes are partly to do with welding quality, painting etc. It has a lot of benefits, but also some negatives! One of the things that attracts me to this is that you have more control (well you hope so) over the provenance of supply.. seen some bad Chinese steel and forged mill certificates now and again. When you specify structural steel you want to include a reference to these codes and CE marking. If you are designing to the Eurocodes / British Standards for example then you need to be sure that the strength / properties of the steel and welding etc match your design assumptions. All a bit dry, but if you are say getting the house signed off by a warranty provider then they too will want to know that the steelwork that is actually supplied to the site matches the design that they are covering. If it turns out later that it does not then what happens?

Hope this helps. For NewToAllOfThis. Lots of fabricators initial estimated prices are based on a price per tonne. If you are buying say 70 tonnes the price tends to be less. If you want a small amount for a one off job the price per tonne goes up. This is partly to do with the sequencing, taking off the quantities from standard drawings, programming, the cutting and drilling line and so on. The 203 x 203 x 46 are what we call a universal column section, UC's, you also often see mention of UB's these are more of an I shape where as UC's are more squat. For NewTo.. You have 70m of UC's @ 46kg weight per metre = 70 x 46 / 1000 = ~ 3.2 tonnes. Take roughly a mid range domestic one off figure of £2200 per tonne. If you get it for less then you can spend the saving on something else! For a smallish domestic job budget on .. 3.2 tonnes x £ 2200 per tonne = £ 7040. For this you get the steelwork with the connections, painting and so on comes next. Often some connections will be a bit more complicated and need heavier, different types of welds and so on, the fabricators know this when they are estimating. Some connections will be very simple, some not, but on balance it often all evens out for standard stuff. Next you need to prepare the surface of the steel. This needs to be done whether you are galvanising or painting it..neither will adhere properly if this is not done. Preparation of the surface is also controlled, often you see a term, shot blast to grade SA2.5.. this is to do with the amount of cleaning, preparation. The steel can lie about in a yard for a while and get a bit of surface rust, it also has what is called "mill scale" which roughly is loose material on the surface due to the rolling process. The shot blasting cleans this off. Here things start to diverge a bit. Some fabricators use the surface area of the section to work out how much paint they need. A 203 x 203 x 46 UC has a surface area of 1.19 m sq /per metre length. So 70m is 70m x1.19 ~ 84m sq. The paint varies a lot in price and the thickness is also important. But take the shot blasting and paint cost as say £ 10 / sq m thus you add £ 840.00 to the 7040 = 7880.00. Work that back now to a painted price per tonne.. 7880 / 3.2 = £ 2462.00 per tonne. All the figures I give are ex vat. The galvanizing is worked out in a slightly different way. Here the galvanizers often work on just a price per tonne but again it's partly due to the section shape / area. The cost of the zinc moves about a fair bit. Take a figure of £ 330.00 per tonne for galvanising. 330 x 3.2 = £1056 + 7040 = £ 8096 / 3.2 = £2530.00 per tonne Not much difference.. but much depends on the length of the section. One of the keys here is that if you have a long section then it needs a long galvanizing bath and there are fewer galvanizers with "long baths" so the price varies accordingly especially if it is a smallish order. If your section is too long then the galvanizer needs to double dip the section, this takes time and uses more zinc. However, there is often an extra transportation cost as the fabricator needs to fabricate the sections send them for galvanising and return back to their yard. So this needs to be added to the price too and these handling etc features can add quite a bit to the cost. What you can do is to introduce splices into the sections and thus make them shorter, yes there is an extra connection cost but this is offset by the range of galvanizers you can approach so more competition on price. Another benefit for the self / extension builder is that often you can collect the steel on say a trailer from the works , thus saving on the costs of a large wagon. Generally galvanising is more expensive than standard red oxide type painting but it tends to last longer. However if the steel is not exposed to the weather then painting is often sufficient. Lastly you may find that your Enginner has specified a grade of steel that is suitable for external use. The steel specification can vary when the steel is external and exposed to lower temperature (steel becomes more brittle in lower temperatures) than internal steel. This again can impact on the cost of the steel.

Hello all. Bri44, I feel for you, it's torture when stuff like this happens. Unfortunately, I see this type of problem more often than I wish. I hope the following will help crystalise your thought process. For all, when faced with a problem it can help to rule things out if you don't know what to do next. This leaves you with a short list of your options and this can make the decision making process easier. A lot of folk buy a property in good faith, if there is no trust then life is pretty poor for all of us. I'll leave out quality of workmanship / competency of design, detailing and so on here as others with more specific knowledge and experience have touched on this already. Suffice to say some of the briefs realting to build problems (which relate to warranties) I have seen are frankly unbelievable, a bit like Harry Potter... That is fun this is not. It does not reflect well on the building industry. I'll run through the previous posts and chip in my thoughts. Bri44.. will a developer buy back a house? .. yes they will. I have seen this offer tabled.. Mr Punter.. good point.. in fairness it's not always true that small builders won't step up to the plate when they get it wrong. In terms of quality of work and so on the big builders can be just as bad as small ones. Don't forget that often a big builder will perhaps get a better offer from say a timber frame manufacturer half way through a development. Someone will make a commercial decision but often no one will make sure the cheaper frame is still compatible with say the founds and the original design.. It’s often a case of "well I'm only paid from the neck down"... not my problem. Russell... I would council not to appoint a Solicitor at this stage. That is actually what I often think they want you to do. I may be that they just want to shift something onto next year’s financial balance sheet! If you get a solicitor it will cost you. For the warranty provider/ big builder it essentially becomes some sort of accountancy problem until they actually need to cough up? At the top end, remember that the warranty providers are an insurance company. The NHBC started out in the public interest when the government set out to improve the housing stock after the war.. Whether they are still doing so and by how much is for them to answer. My experience with the NHBC differs from their original statutory brief and I'm happy to stand by the statement I have just made. In summary I often form the view that this enables them to wage a war of attrition, use their financial clout etc and this can head off having to settle for large amounts... they ( NHBC and Developers etc) know that a lot of people will give up or can't afford to seek professional advice. This is a way of mitigating the number of claims that need to be paid in full if at all. Mike makes some good points. As I roughed out earlier, small cracks are hard to diagnose. If you can be sure that the movement does not pose a structural / safety risk then you maybe want to just look at ways of managing the small cracks that will appear from time to time as the building moves about, over the seasons say. The are a good few expert folk on this site that know about rendering systems and so on so hopefully they will chip in with some advice on how you can apply render systems that can cope with a bit of movement. Declan also make good practical points.. all very well on paper and sitting in an office but practical experience counts for a lot and is intrinsic to any build. Experience counts! Mike Graham.. Mike makes good salient points, material behavoir and the importance of looking after the materials before installation. Onoff.. good forensic question as expected! No mucking about here! Bassanclan touches on the NHBC...I've said enough for now and await developments. Turning back to BRI44. Bri. Advice I often give is once you get to this stage where you have battled away, got a bit of a result but no conclusion is to seek out someone who can take the time to undestand your particular circumstances. As a word of encouragement the email chain in this type of case can extend to more than a thousand so you're not alone. If you can find and SE for eaxmple who has some experience with warranty providers, knows how they operate and can get under the bonnet then your are off to a good start. I have found that once you drill down, cut through all the periferal sales and quality guff and really poke them on the technical and structural safety side of things they start to engage. They may be great on damp proof membranes but generally they are not so strong and also less resourced else where.. this can help bring them to the table. It's not a technical thing per say. You use the technical side to appeal to their bottom line and it is this that get results. It make them nervous as some.. don't have a well resourced solid structural / technical side. The argument I make is that this is going to cost you a lot more than you think! So get serious and start negotiating as adults. I'll caveat that by saying that there are some that don't take this commercial and cynical view. I don't want to prod too many bears at the one time. If you want to do a bit of research look at where most of the warranty providers funds come from and draw your conclusions from that. Lastly Bri, although I laid in a bit much of this is to do with people skills. There are say SE's, Surveyors, Contractors and so on that have seen it all... or most of it They are old salts at dealing with this. Often what you may need is just half a day to sit down with them. They will charge you for their advice and for listening to you but for a relatively small fee they could unlock the door. I find that sometimes when dealing with builders, developers and warranty providers that rather than confronting a problem head on and playing against their strengths it's easier to just back door them.. cynical yes.. but hey it was them that let you down so what do they expect.. no friends in the desert I think is the expression.