LSB

you are welcome, I will get it posted next week and let you know how much that is.

The latest edition is the 13th and I think another is coming out. But, I have this lying around and wondered if, for the price of postage, anyone would like it. I also have the 13th which I use quite a bit and like.

Thanks, we are waiting on the SE calculations on these, but that's probably a good idea.

When looking for first homes for my daughters lots of 'starter' homes only had showers so I assume that this is okay. My MIL also changed her bathroom to have just a shower.

sorry, I don't understand what you mean, could you expand. thanks

Hello After demolishing the top of some block walls as they were not in a good state we are building the wall back up. This needs to be on a slope to allow for the roof. This is a rough diagram to show. What we need to know is: Where the above shows mortar, is this what we use or should we be using concrete. The part blocks are cut to approx the right shape and we will put sides where the area is too small. This is how far we have got, not mortared in yet. The roof line is as per the string. TIA Jill

we were in for 25k by the time we got PP and discharged conditions so 7k would have been wonderful

we didn't see anyone visit our site, but when we had the first refusal they said they had been. but, for the 2nd app they didn't come again, another refusal the 3rd app was approved, but no additional visits and no plan changes, just a contamination survey included

as we have a cesspit we don't have to pay waste. but, we do have a meter for incoming And, I always clean up after my dogs, even at home and agree it is disgusting. There is a beach near here that pre-covid used to be clean, but since it started I no longer go there as it's so bad

my usage seems quite low compared to some of you at 165 for 2 of us and 2 horses, maybe I should wash more ?

where do you get the details of usage ?

the trouble with 6a is that it doesn't bend as well as 6 and will break if you force it and as it is thicker it can be tricky to get in / out of RJ45 sockets

thanks It's funny you say that, I was helping out at a village fete last weekend and someone who walks the nearby footpaths commented on the progress. I guess I just have the project plan to see ahead.

This blog is for me to look back over time to see how things have changed and to assure myself that we are making some progress, albeit very slow. I appreciate all help and friendly comments, but appreciated that this is not an exciting blog. Looking through my diary for the last month it seems to say, work / work / work and not on the conversion. Moving to a new factory seems to entail lots of extra hours. Good to add some OT to the budget, but by the time the taxman etc. have their cut it's not as much as hoped. Anyway, this weekend 7th / 8th August is the server move which means the rest of the office staff can move so one more busy week with them and it should slow down. The factory is a different story, but that's not my responsibility. Anyway, back to the conversion. After looking in more detail when replacing some blocks we realised that the crack in the middle of the long back wall went from top to bottom and was not level, but luckily hadn't cracked the somewhat limited existing foundations. Thanks to BH and advice we went from the plan to stitch to removing the whole section to replace. So, from this To this, and hopefully soon the gap will be no more. To provide access for drainage and just add more space on the back, which is south facing, we have been removing rotten sleepers and the steel girders which held them up. This picture is back before everything started growing, now the whole bank has been covered in bracken as you can see in the picture above. So again, from this To this, which will ultimately be retained by gabions and cleared the whole length. Getting out all the tree stumps, rotten sleepers and metal girders is quite a labour intensive task, thanks for diggers. As of 2019 this stretch was completely impossible to get through with lots of weeds and tree branches growing through what is now our windows. I didn't think at the time to take any pictures, but I'm beginning to become part of my children's generation and trying to remember to take photos daily of everything that does and doesn't move. Not something that was ever done when I was young. So, onwards to August, building up the gap, extending some internal walls and if we can get a floor saw then breaking more concrete, hopeful at an auction tomorrow. Good luck to everyone on their build and back at the end of August. Jill

So, that will work for the high edge of the roof, but not for the South side as we are very limited with the height of the roof and the windows will be right at the top of the wall as this is how the openings already are in the barn conversion.

The roof will be raised seam zinc or steel. Windows vary in width as follows. 1. 1175 2. 1870 3. 1000 4. 1860 5. 1500 6. Not measured yet, but probably 1860, it's still a shed for storage and won't be cleared until we have an outside workshop. I haven't decided on the type of lintel yet, I was going to use steel, but not for any particular reason except they weigh less to lift up. Do the lintels already have steel bars running though. I also wondered about BC, do they just allow whatever is there. These windows are all for existing openings in the barn along one side. The North & East side will all be new ones in a new wall. The West side will be new openings in existing walls.

The roof is technically flat @ 12 degrees and this wall with 6 windows is the low side, so I guess it is taking the load.

More about these lintels. I've been looking at lintel calculations, which takes into account the weight above. But, these lintels will have one brick above, to make it level with the blocks, but it is then the roof. How do I calculate what I need in the scenario. Yes, I am getting an SE, but I'm just looking at designs and wondering how it works.

This isn't really building materials, but tools, but wasn't sure where to enter. We need a floor saw to cut a 25m concreate passageway so we can dig it up. We've tried the digger and the concrete breaker with no luck. Hiring one is about £250 per week, but delivery (10*2), plus a new blade (95), plus VAT = approx £450 per week. Does anyone have any better ideas, we've considered buying one to then sell on, but how do you know they work. Don't suppose BH has one to loan. Because we both work full time so don't get much done in a day we also don't want to hire when you are paying even if you don't have time to use. We also can't find anyone who is interested in digging it up for us as we don't want all the groundworks done, just this. TIA Jill

I wonder if whoever bought it at auction had actually viewed it.

we have 6 acres and no neighbours so it is way down on our house for both those reasons All the houses on the road I live are are very old, character, individual large houses with large or very large gardens / fields, but that site only reckons about 500k for them when they sale, if ever on the market for a huge amount more.

This link just goes back to this forum thread, could you possibly send me this link again.

I did a pre-app re knock down and rebuild and was told that as it is in the countryside that would count as a new house and there was no chance of that as I don't have the funds for a 'special' house. They only reluctantly gave Class Q because the SE said it could be converted. There is a place near here where the idiot knocked down everything and the planner spotted when driving past and he lost his planning and his barn. He sold up and moved on shortly afterwards. Our barn has a footpath running along the wall with the cracks and as it is at the top of a hill you can spot it from the road. All my neighbours support us, but who knows who is walking / driving past and is jealous.

Although it is a barn we are converting it is a modern one (60's) and constructed of single skin hollow blocks. Here are pictures First one was large, but following mortar lines. We cleaned out the gaps, but there was already lots of mortar missing. This is now repaired. This is the one that HID thinks needs stitching as taking down and rebuilding will be a lot of work. This does seem to stop at the floor and not affect the foundations. This is another one that follows the block line, but the mortar is still in situ so not sure what to do . HID does understand your comment and thinks it may work. But, he's not sure what to do about this one. We have a couple of others like this. As you can see on the larger crack picture the foundations are not much to write home about. As a class Q barn conversion we can just leave the walls and foundations, in fact we are not allowed to remove any external walls. But, the replacement roof will be much heavier that the one that we took off. We have to use the same covering (metal sheets), but we will be adding insultation etc. so we need to be sure that the walls can take the strain. The SE hasn't been out yet as we are still preparing the site for him to come and look to do the diagrams to create the BC drawings.

I would love to have left the floor, but as we cannot go up and had quite a lot of roof at 1.8m we had to go down. What we have in the remove / crush pile is pretty much solid 6"+ thick concrete. Obviously, there is mud on the rubble, but not mixed in. This little lot is a side pile that is too heavy for our digger to lift and put in the main pile. We have this currently from approx 20m * 4m = 80m and will ultimately have about 200 sqm. There is a small area which is already low enough as the roof is sloped. The plan is then to put in mot type 1 sort of layer, sand, dpm etc. etc. to raise the floor back up to 20cm lower than where we started. After removing the rubble we dug out old sand / mud and stones all of which were used or stored elsewhere. Most of it has become the build drive as the deliver lorries were getting stuck coming up the slope. With so much crushing it ourselves is probably not feasible. But when we bought our house 20 years ago there we many concrete pig sty's which were knocked down and crushed on site by a company. The lot cost 14k, but we were able to then sell it all via a company (friend) and ended up a little in profit. I have been very careful to remove the old DPM and any metal so I think it's fairly clean. Ironically the person we know who will supply MOT type 1 if we need it will arrange to take this lot away, get it crushed and then sell it to people like us. From the previous lot many of the houses in our village had some for driveways, house extensions etc. We are aware that a lot of this is so solid that it will need a large crusher, the smaller Rhino that we looked to hire wouldn't touch it. thanks for all your points I shall do some sums tomorrow.