Gus Potter

Hi Terry. First, thanks from me for the effort you have put in to make your post. It takes time to write this way so appreciate the time it takes. This is Buildhub and if we were all to agree then it would die off pretty quick. I often argue for simplicity, make the case for simple stupid and yes that comes at a slightly reduced performance initially but after 5 - 10 years then I do think I'm in strong position to make a valid case. I designed my own self build UFH 30 years ago so I'm not inexperienced. I'm also and SE / past conctractor so can, if pushed can draw on hard commercial facts about buildability and how you often want to keep your market options open as a self builder. For all on BH, always keep an eye on not just cost but the buidability and long term performance. Self building is about saving money and compromising. There are some on BH that are worth millions, but they still monitor cost and buildability. @TerryE"I had just turned 65 when we moved in. Doing a self-build was only feasible for us at this stage in life when we had enough capital and time and effort available to take of some of the trades and jobs ourselves to reduce cost." Fab, love this! I think you'll be well rewarded. Some folk self build to make money, some do it to build the dream.. sometimes it takes a working life to indentify what that dream house is! "If you are talking about a 50 year horizon,." My primary qualification is a Civil Enginner.. I work for the general good so take a different view at times. @TerryE I feel that your position about automation is about similar to the argument that our predecessors might have had 100 years ago about replacing gas and paraffin heating and lighting by electricity. Technology moves on, so reject it and get stuck in the past or accept and embrace it: this is a personal choice. In my case, our design choices reflect some principles (like all-electric and near zero maintenance), but beyond this they were largely driven by return on investment (RoI) criteria: I have minimised our running costs, and we won't invest in "improvements" unless the discounted savings over a 10-year per period exceed the net investment cost. @TerryEYou can reject my argument all you want, in this case you, I think, are making the straw man argument and I'm not falling for it. You're all electric apporach sounds idiot proof. But if you look back on my previous posts you'll see I've never critised all electic UF. But.. it's your house and your money. I'm not giving in here folks. Can anyone tell me if they have any idea what the ongoing maintenance cost of automated UF is over 10 years when the moving parts and software gets out dated. Remember that these UF pipes are buiried in the structure and need to last a LONG time.. come on anyone? So my design ethos for wet UF is, put in plenty shortish loops, the pipes are not that expensive, build in redundancy.. we are only talking about a few hundred extra in pipe cost. Do that and your UF will be a joy, take care of it's self. Think ahead.. @TerryE feel that your position about automation is about similar to the argument that our predecessors might have had 100 years ago about replacing gas No I'm not stuck in the past.. but my past experience of UF, when most folk, on BH had never heard of it, education allows me to think how will I deal with the future.. if you can't see that then more fool you. Often my arguement is about trying to get folk to think pragmatically, but also innovatively, often good design is to build the things in with the bricks that you can change and in the case of UFH give plenty length of tales, redundancy so as the energy market changes it allows you to swap the method of energy delivery easily in say 20 years time. I honestly despair at the folk that are calculating the UFH output to the nearest watt.. it's all bollocks in real life! And for that I'll take the flack.. but it's not my money folks.. it's YOURS!

That is the secret of any UFH design. I'm still going to be a philistine and say you UFH needs to be workable for 60 years, cheep and easy to maintain. So we need short loops with long tails coming up from the floor. In the grand scheme of things I think much of the stuff I see on BH about electronics is bollocks. Most of it will work for say 5 -7 years, any software will almost be impossible to update. What planet do you live on! I'll say again I was into this when some of you were not even born.. 50 - 60 year service life is the target to preserve tour asset value. The pipes can las tthat long.. con=mpare with steel radiators say 15 years. I've just taken on a new Client that has bought a house that is filled with home automation, it's out dated, yes it contains lots of at the time state of the art and very expensive shite.. and it's all going in the skip. It astounds me that folk think that this home automation, apparently clever UF design is actually going to add value to your house.. to me, yes indulge your hobby, but no way is anyone going to pay extra for your automation and control stuff, rather they will write it down and often treat it as a liability. To design a UFH system that will last.. we need short loops, redundancy, put extra pipes at external doors where the cold comes in. You can stick your loop cad up your own pipe and start to trust your common sense. Honestly I look at some of these posts and think.. aye right! But can anyone here tell me how and how often the performance of your fancy UFH system with weather compensation has changed and how often after five years they are having to replace the valves and update their software, put in loads of inhibitor .. you won't as you'll be too embaressed I guess. Now what about say 7 years.. any takers here. Honestly I think some folk on BH need to start thinking about maintenence cost before professing about their knowledge as folk on a budget may think that you are giving good investment advice when in fact your just indulging in your fantacy and basically gas lighting folk. So any takers to come up with long term maintainence costs to rip me to shreads? Go on give it a go and take a 7 year cycle..then look at ten years..

@saveasteading Thanks for the like. But for all. There are a few on BH that are not "perfect" , I'm not going to link to other members. But self building requires a certain drive. That puts you out with the normal bell curve. I say, pursue your dream, I've done it like many others here on BH and the personal satisfaction, quite contentment you get is worth more than money. Yes, the journey can be hard but the reward is well worth it.

No offense taken. I actually like it if folk remind me of my spelling / grammer, so thanks. For all on BH I'm a bit cack handed with grammar (now corrected). On BH I relax, I'm a bit dyslexic.. but good at maths, building stuff and when it comes to contactual stuff in my day job I pay particular attention to go the extra mile. When I need to write legally I'm on form as I check, check and check again, that is why I win most Claims I take on when I have that hat on. Incedentally my cousin has the same affliction but flies fast nuclear capable jets (retired) for the RAF but now works as a "consultant". My nephew (30 years old ish ) works in cybre insurance and trousers above 300k a year as his basic wage before bonus which is more than double his basic, he is diagnosed as dyslexic also. One of the guys at uni that got better mark than, he sniffed it by the way, was major dyslexic.. but was for a while the lead Enginner on the Forth Road Bridge renovation. If there are any folk BH that have a "spelling / grammar" problem, don't let it hold you back. Just check your shite if writing contractually or legally.

Your text is easy to comprehend, informative and the thing I love is that you knocked that out in short order, mark of a professional! I've still got a bit to learn. That is a good question.

Welcome to Build Hub. The secret is to give a bit and you'll get more in return. Photographs are really helpful and enthuse members. There is no such thing as a "stupid" question. Don't worry about how you write, grammer, no one will jump down your throat, it's not a competition! All the best.

I do because even if you make it smaller that could change the whole design. To be blunt A miss step has occured. FIX it now, accept the delay, the extra cost, get over it and then move on and enjoy the rest of the journey.

LARPing Just looked that up! Yup I agree and I work with builders that have to put up with the same shite every day. Agree. Some SE's design on nominal sizes when they should not as manufacture's connections ( Simpson, Cullen) work in actual sizes, does my head in as an SE if that is any help. I wrestle with this in my day job when designing say self builds or extensions. I want to do good SE economic design but I know that if I standardise stuff then the builder gets a volume order and that often out weighs my lean design. It's sad but that is the way the builders merchants thing is working now. At the end of the day I want my designs built at least cost to the Client and I have to bend to market forces. I say hey, this is how small this joist can be but I've made it bigger as it will reduce cost at the end of the day as we are standardising. Sustainable design goes out the window! Many of the professional bodies are talking about sustainable design, I think ok on big projects yes, but on the smaller jobs that really sustain the economy, they are talking out their arse. I don't want to say anymore on that as I'm not in the place or can be bothered to fight a disciplinary case. @Alan AmbroseThat's a big order. Now I'll bet they want to do proforma invoicing, cash up front.. but they will be lucky if their big clients pay them in 90 days. I do wonder sometimes if their accountants know what they are doing. Profit is sanity, turnover vanity, unless you have share holders.

Ok it seems like the OP above has a big old house and wants a bit of luxury / not too bothered about bills, probably clocked that to install efficient systems is going to be disruptive / expensive and so on. So Nick. Is there any merit in tandem but small system propane gas boilers. In the summer one of the two just ticks over to meet the hot water demand I look after an old house that has UFH and in the plant room there are tandem propane boilers that switch depending on demand. It's out in the country so if one goes down there is a back up. @Indy does that float your boat?

My advise is to stop now and get professional advise. This could potentially cost you a fortune. A good professional advisor and a local one should be able to help sort this out as they will have a rapport with your planners an BC. Ok you have made some miss steps (water under the bridge) but now is the time to fix it not later! If you don't then you'll always have the worry on your mind, unless of course you are so wealthy it does not matter.

No I'm 61 I shite you not, respect your advise and it seems I need to "get with the programme" more. Now you being from Wales, you should be tighter than I am.. are you going soft?

400l cylinder as a family compromise (you can be the good guy), your kids will grow up and develop nasty and often lazy habits. Just stick in a normal system with a bit of extra spare HWC storage capacity. Stick a electric element in the bottom of the cylinder for boosting , not available to phone/ app control.. an old fashioned switch.. on/ off at Dads request. Take no prisoners!

You need to work on that.

Hiya. I loved your pragmatic adventure with Grand designs so thanks for that. The desk top study you have will show a big fat line and shaded flood risk zones. Call up the folk that produced the flood risk map, explain what you need, give them your exact geographical coodinates and the actual height of your site above ordinance datum ( it may be on a hillock!), pay some money and hopefully thet will help make the problem will go away. If it turns out you are prone to flood let us know and you'll get lots of suggestions on BH. How come you are in chalk and have a radon risk? @saveasteading knows a lot about chalk and building on it so hopefully he will solve this quandry. At the end of the day at some point you or your kids may want to sell the house so preserving the asset value is worth consideration.

Interesting comment. In a previous post I copied in a design brief as a rough guide. Many on BH know I come from a contracting background and have run a larger contracting business before I reinvented myself as an SE / Designer. I now work for myself as a designer and compete with Architects for work. To enable that I have to generate business and make no mistake this domestic building game is very much a people and a competetive business and I'm up against Architects most of the time. But they don't have the SE knowledge and the younger ones lack the hard nosed business and practical skills. One Key one here is to recognise in this day in age is design flair is not enough, we need to let our Clients see we can deliver boots on the ground and control cost. There are members of BH that are chippies, brickies, trades people. The expectation of customers is that trades folk will come to site, look at their drawings, spend time quoting which can take lots of unpaid hours, the customer milks the good ones for their knowledge and then selects the cheapest quote. I charge a fee for an intial consultation mainly because I feel that it encourages folk to take the process seriously. If you look on the internet you see that Architect's might want £750.00 to have a chat (initail consultation) with you. I just use a different business model that suits me. Now funnily, some Clients ask how much do you think this will cost. I can often give them a ball park figures but then say.. I can offer you two options if you want more certainty. First, I work with a QS so you'll get a high level cost breakdown ( good if you need lending) for a fee or I can ask one of the builders that I work with regularly to spend say half a day putting a price on it... but you'll need to pay them for their time. This also means that when I go to tender the builders and Clients have confidence in me that I will be fair when asked to arbitrate any contract. The builder is happy as I have recognised their skills. Some of the builders I work with are qualified engineers, expert trades people andhave extensive experience , in certain areas, lots more than I have. But I can tell you this.. see when I want a design brief, I usually get it. There is a common law of business that applies to small builders / trades folk contracting. If you are pricing jobs from unsolicited enquiries and you get 50% then you are too cheep, if you are pricing and not getting 1 in 4-5 then you are loosing money and expending too much resource. @saveasteading, @nod , @ProDave et all may be able to add a bit here. @ETC my work is also my hobby and I schedule my consultations in the evenings, you get out the office, meet folk, it's not a bad life. So add up a few £100.00 and.. if you are a budding Architect that want's to set up on their own then maybe my set up might suit you? In the round though. A good Architect will posess all the design and business skills I have, yes they won't be an SE but they should be able to make a go of it if they set up on their own and are able to get along with folk. They key is often to get the basic bread and butter work that pays for the cad license, insurance, the mortgage and then you can look for the profitable jobs.

Hi Sophie. You are not the first and won't be the last to encounter this. There is a huge resource available to you on BH from folk that have been there, worn the tee shirt as self builders. You have access to; Architect's, Civil Engineers, Quantity Surveyors.. many many heating, ventilation, glass experts, brickies, roofers etc with many builds under their belt.. the list is extensive! If you want the best help and suggestions then you need to be open, provide all your plans so BH folk can see how your house is put together. Also fesse up your budget. Importantly also make a list of the things that are most important to you, ring fence them. All you need to do is make sure you don't give away you name and details unless you are ok with that. If you make a mistake the site mods look after you anyway.

To add a bit. There was some smart arse on BH that moaned about me disclosing my rates a while ago. The above fees at £275 a day covers all the extra hours (I charge more when working as an SE, but less when I've got my "architect" hat / drafting and drawing hat on) I need to run the business so my actual time on the job is less, as I have admin, I have to generate new work and so on. But in the round any good business needs bread and butter work to keep the wheels on the bus. @ETC yes folk take the piss, just ask how much it costs to get a "washing machine" engineer on a call out!

Nothing is perfect, that is life. Do you have enough money to build it or do you need to make savings?

Ta for that. When designing diaphragms we often need the larger sizes. Ta for also mentioning the extra width option.

This is a good response. I'll come to this later. The following is a bit of a summary, but provide a bit of context and I've included a nugget at the end for those that take the time to read this post all the way though. For folk that are not VAT exempt also see end. I'm an SE that also does Architectural design, oh and I was a Contractor for the first 20 years of my carear. In the round I probably know more than most about what an Architect does, how they behave when under pressure for example. If you pay an experienced Architect a fair rate for a fair days pay then you will benefit. I'm not bad at Architectural Design and I work with Architects that not that bad at SE design! The process is collaborative and after you have done it for a while it's inevitable that a good Architect will have a good feel for the SE stuff. It's not a competition between SE's and Architects and we all love seeing stuff we have had a hand in designing getting built. On the face of it it takes a university degree and a further 3 -4 years to become an Architect.. and then you have a lot more learning to do, experience to gather. During that time you learn the craft of how planning, BC compliance works, get to know builders, when they try and pull the wool over your eyes, we learn a LOT of stuff; could be about heating systems, glazing, tiling @nod.. the nuts an bolts of how you build stuff and make it look good! Ok lets delve a bit deeper. When I was a builder the BC officers used to come out and inspect my work. But now we speak as I'm now the agent gettting planning and BC permissions for my Clients. There is nothing underhand here.. it just I know who to phone, where to to apply pressure and write in a way that sort planning and BC issues. An experienced Architect can do the same. That has value.. you pay for one professional to sort things out with one another. I agree. But in fairness on BH there are also many who will pay you a reasonable rate for a fair days pay. There are indeed some vocal folk on BH who view designers as just a tooL, to abuse to get BC / planning permission. But many will end up paying too much for their build as they were not willing to say.. hey this designer might be able to save me more than their design fee or maybe have somne contact that they can introduce me to. In England you have this building notice system.. it looks like a good deal but is it really? If you cut corners at the deisgn stage then it could come back to bite you big time! BH is by it's nature probably populated by folk that have an element of common sense and experience of the construction industry so what you see on BH is not truly reflective of real life. So @ETC, you can lead a horse to water! Keep your head up! Ok you mention fees! The fundamental problem as I see it is that Architects / desingers/ SE's (probaly the worst communicators) have not got with the programme and explain to Clients what they do, the spin off tacit benefits, contacts, after sale support (phone friend if you build starts to play up and in general that we want to help get stuff built. Over the last few years I've included when I think it will help the Clinet in my design brief the time it take me to complete each element. From the dimensional survey to getting BC approval. For all on BH here is how you can do a designer quote for an extension. Dear xx Thank you for inviting me to xx last week to discuss making alterations to the house. I've partitioned the design brief below based us taking down part or all the wall between the existing kitchen and dining room, installing French type doors in the east gable wall (off the dining room), possibly infilling the existing back door, changing the general arrangement of the kitchen and lastly considering a porch type extension at the front which would include a wc and whb. As discussed the council permissions can be split into two areas, planning and building warrant. For the French doors and altering any of the openings on the rear elevation I recommend that you first apply for a certificate of lawfulness as the gable can be viewed from the road. The same would apply for a front porch type extension. Taking down the wall internally only requires a building warrant. For transparency I've shown my allocated times. Should you accept my brief then the initial consultation fee of £100.00 will be waived. Initial design and planning approvals: Stage 1: Site visit to carry out a dimensional survey, initial structural inspection. I anticipate that this will take me initially 1.5 days. Draw the floor plan of the two floors (this allows me to calculate the structural loads) and two elevation drawings with some ideas based on your initial requirements (3 days). Return to site to pick up other detailed dimensions (that come to light) as necessary when preparing the first set of drawings and meet with you for a concept design discussion. (0.5 day). Stage 2: Revise the drawings to account for stage 1 design meetings and meet with you again. (1.0 day). In terms of the kitchen unit detailed design I would leave the detail to you but would show the basic outline on the drawings necessary to support any council applications. Stage 3: Complete the drawing work up to a stage where we could seek a planning certificate of lawfulness for all or part of the work. Act as your agent and make a certificate of lawfulness application on your behalf. (0.5 days). Currently the council fee for a certificate of lawfulness is £178.50, i.e. 50% of the full planning fee. Any council fees are over and above my design fee. Total time for stages one to three inclusive = 6.5 days. Building warrant application: The above stages provide us with a pretty good set of layout drawings that then get worked up with more detail to support a building warrant application. In terms of structural design. Stage 4: Prepare a set of drawings, structural calculations and structural drawings to support a building warrant application. At this stage we don't know the extent of the works but taking the key elements: (a) Take down the wall between the kitchen and dining room for the calculations and drawings etc (2 days) (b) French doors and external landing, calculations and drawings 2.0 days (c) Front porch 4 days, essentially a small extension. (d) Design meetings, 1 day Act as your agent and make a building warrant application on your behalf, 0.5 days. The above time span would then be either 2.0 + 2.0 + 1 + 0.5 = 5.5 days for items a,b and d or 2.0 + 2.0 + 4.0 + 1 +0.5 = 9.5 days. Time range for stage four 5.5 to 9.5 days. The Council fees for a building warrant application vary depending on the value of the builder work excluding VAT. For example work valued at: £15,001 to £16,000 fee is £558.00 £20,001 to £30,000 fee is £728.00 £30,001 to £40,000 fee is £806.00 £40,001 to £50,000 fee is £884.00 Stage 5: Provide an element of assistance and advice on selection of a building contractor and be available to answer any queries as work progresses on site. My design fees: I would request the following design fees. VAT is not applicable to my fees. For transparency I've taken an average of the Structural design rate and the Architectural design rate as £275.00 per day. Stages 1 to 3 and 5 inclusive 6.5 days x £ 275.00 = £1787.50 Stage 4 and 5 range from 5.5 x 275 = £ 1512.50 to 9.5 x 275 = 2612.50 I would request that payment of stages 1 to 3 inclusive is made within 14 days from the time that this design work is ready for submission to the council. Stages 4 and 5 paid within 14 days from the time that the building warrant application is ready for submission to the council. Design information will be provided in electronic format, usually pdf. Now my lovelies on BH. This works for me. The above is written as I've already spent time with the Clent. But what I have done by being transparent is to make the Client aware what a fair days work entails and what I also bring to the table. Note my terms of payment. But it's not often I lose a job that I want to do. @ETC I don't want to hear you have been trousering a £100.00 five nights a week consulting but not actually doing any jobs! I often charge £100.00 as lots of folk.. like some on BH will milk you and they can f off!

The selection of ply is a bit of minefield. Alan. I think you are taking the right approach. Your starting point is to ask what do we need it to do structurally then make sure you achieve the durability that your require. Brace yourself sir.. there is a bit too it when navigating the selection of ply vs cost. One thing to also look at is if you are using the cassettes to act as a stiff diaphragm then you might want to source 3.05m in length rather than the 2.4m UK size or 8 foot US size as you want to avoid joints in the diaphragm layer. In theory it all is easy anough until you add in windows and doors to diaphragms.. also read as SIPS panels. Main thing though is to look at the off cuts and see if you can turn them into brackets. @saveasteading is doing something a bit similar to you, he has higher walls, internally and externally his wall heights are long span and is taking advantage of the extra stiffness of the ply skins to reduce deflections. For all when we go off piste like this we need to do two things. The first is to make it safe. The next is to manage how much the wall is going to bend by and how much it will vibrate when you shut a door. The selection of ply and fixing is critical to this. OK cost and sourcing material and getting another opinion. You could PM @saveasteading, he is a Chartered CE, also doing a massive project and is as hard nosed as it comes for getting material at the right price.

Ok the key thing is to get your tank fitted and make sure it does not pop out the gound if you have made a mistake with your ground wate level . Stop poncing about worrying about the sound, you still have a house to build! I gave you a bit of free heads up advice about your stair.. so the above is another bit!

Aye, but feedback is that you are, under the bonnet, an ok bunch. Good humour often is based on a fair bit of slagging off, in fact major slagging off ... you seem old school and that floats my boat! xxx

Catching things early is key.

The Brokers I use are: https://hamiltonleonard.com/ Ask for Alan Burns or Michael Hamilton and mention my name. You'll get to speak to a real person and if they can't help you directly then I'm sure they will give you some guidance. They do my PI insurance as an SE ( I do a lot of timber frames, some in England! ) so are familiar with the construction process.