Simon

You're right, it wasn't what I wanted to hear....but it kind of is what I expected.... Thanks for your help gents, much appreciated.

Good evening gents, I really could do with a bit of advice....for which I thank you in advance. To cut a long story short, I need to connect what I think is 1/2 inch (measures just over 0.8 inch OD) steel/iron mains pipe, to metric 15 or 22mm copper pipe. The ONLY fittings I can find have a thread for the imperial side....the pipe I need to connect to has no thread.... Please, how might I achieve this obviously unusual feat? Thanks Simon

I think I will just have to go back to the Heritage Officer, who will be the third one we've dealt with, and see if I can make him see sense.... No wonder Listed properties are falling into disrepair, or people buy them out in the sticks and never ask permission....

We are talking about a 3x0.9m section of wall behind a building, hidden by bushes, that we want to render over rather than have as red brick? People do this to their houses all the time (A neighbour has just had done to a large garden wall), and don't need PP. Just because we live in a not particularly interesting cottage that has been given a minor listing, we are at the mercy of opinion based Heritage planning. Everything they have made us do is the most expensive option, not withstanding that said outbuilding is closer to an 80's built chalet property next door, which has far more of an impact.. This whole thing has been such a MASSIVE nightmare, they left me with absolutely no will to go back to them, for more bureaucracy, and delays..it's made me ill, and I need this building finished on health grounds....I SO wish we had never got involved with a Listed Building, if you can't see the sense in what I'm saying, never mind Brexit, this nation is finished!

Additionally...if they chose to send a disabled person to court/prison over this, they will demonstrate all too sadly what has become of Council Officials...

Thanks for your replies Guys. Particular thanks to Sensus... I think this whole thing serves as a reminder of how Councils have b****ardised well meaning legislation, designed to protect aspects of our culture, turning it a club with which to beat their residents. I see what you're saying, but given the absolute hell they've put us through, this is just a step too far....they could choose to ignore it, given it makes ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE TO ANYTHING, but that would just make too much sense. Thanks to their demands doubling the cost of this build, it is money we just don't have, and they know I can't just earn money, due to my MS....I'll go to prison before I bow to anymore of their sh*t....

Hi Guys, I hope you are all well! Just wanted a tad of advice.... After the two years it took to get PP for our Garage/Outbuilding, work has finally started :-) To cut a long story short, we originally intended to have a 1m brick wall to the rear of the new building, as it is dug into a bank, which is what we submitted to MS planning (Main house is listed by the way). When it came to start, the SE who designed the raft instructed this retaining wall be concrete block for extra strength. We decided to have this built, and render over the section of this, visible to the 4 people who live behind us, until the hedge grows back. One of them has grassed us up to the council already, with barely anything else built, and we have had an unannounced visit by the Heritage Officer, who is demanding we cover the blocks with bricks, for the hedgerow in front of it to enjoy.... With all the other stuff we had to do in order to get PP for the build, which we went along with, due to the visible aspects of it, but we just don't have the money for this, given it's lack of material difference... How would you proceed? Thanks ever so much Simon

The ground round here is a hard clay based substrate... Also, although I am grateful for any pointers, could we please not forget my original question, which also referred to likely structural drawigs required by BC... Big thanks guys!

Thanks Guys, At the moment, we are shying away from conventional trench fill, as the garage is 10.5x6.5m, with the building on the side being 9.5x4.5m. 1 metre depth trench round all that lot, plus a slab for the floors, and it's one hell of a lot of spoil to get rid of, and concrete to fill it....

Hello All, You guys are an absolute fountain of knowledge, so I was hoping a might tap you up for a little advice? We have just had planning approved (Hoorah) for a Garage with a Workshop on the side to be built on land to the side of our house, though not in any way attached. This is just a single skin timber structure, with pantile roof, no living accommodation. However, due to it's size, Building Regs will need to sign it off. We are already considering having an SE draw up a plan for a raft (which is looking like costing around £1,000+Vat), to save on excavation, and concrete among other things. My question is, what else are building Regs going to want to see? They seem to be a little 'uncommunicative' with us, maybe as we are looking to project manage ourselves, and not just put the whole thing in the hands of a builder...anyhow, I've been told they will want specs, drawings and calculations for the both the walls, and roof structure/trusses etc, as well as the raft, which will mean extending the services of a professional to draw these up to...is this the case, and so are all my plans of building it with friends from a plan dowloaded online going out the window? I apologise for my apparent naivety, but an already tight budget has already been stretched to the limit by changes we had to make to the design of the building, to get it past the planning office... Anyhow, big thanks for your time guys. Simon

JS is right sadly.... We have to ask the Heritage Office (in our case some Twentysomething graduate that used to work for Boots, I kid you not!) to be allowed to do ANYTHING in, on, or round our own property....evn if we want to give it a fresh coat of Limewash....

We had also considered the appeal option.....but it's another three months....with no guarantees, and we were quoted 2 grand for a specialist....money we are having trouble justifying, after the Heritage office have changed their mind over their original advice, saying pre-consultations never consider all the facts, so are often ignored...but they shut-up whan asked what is the point of them then!!

Says it all....I bet the HO that is telling us what we can or can't have hasn't actually been to our house, to assess it in person, just deciding what blocking reason they can use, from our plans and pictures, and Google streetview....

Yes, you may have noticed in my posts yesterday, that we were thinking we might need to get a consultant on board....all this for essentially a timber 'non-permanent' structure...don't you just love planning offices! We spoke to one already, and he was less than 'complementary' about MidSuffolks Heritage Team....

Thanks once again JS! You should do this for a living and charge for your services! We have tried the compromise route, but once the Heritage officer said it was too dominant, the planning officer (who two days before saw nothing wrong with it) will not be moved on the height of the building. Our parish council strongly supported us, but they were ignored (not unusual, according to them). We have tried suggesting to reduce the ridge height, we have given examples of other listed buildings in the area, which already have similar complementary structures (wish we'd bought one of them instead!), but the MidSuffolk PO are like the Terminator, they can't be reasoned with, they can't be bargained with.... We are happy with the lower building, but just know they are going to start on the footprint next, it seems they just want to be obstructive....I spoke to someone else with similar issues....4 drawings, and two years in, they still don't have agreement.... We just thought if we got them to put on record what they don't like with this building, if we attend to them and re-submit, they'l be in less of a position to refuse?

Good morning Guys, I spent some time over on the Foundations forum yesterday, and the help I received there was brilliant....so wondered if you might be able to do the same here? We have a Grade II listed thatched cottage. It is 400 years old, and consequently, is quite....bijou, with no storage space at all (loft, cupboards, etc) when you've got as much paraphernalia as us, not to mention the professional dancer daughter, with a container load of dance costumes....anyway, I digress... We knew the house wouldn't work for us in it's current state, so we came up with the plan for a Suffolk cartlodge, with storage room above, and asked the council HO their opinion BEFORE we bought it, wherein we were told, it just has to be 'in-keeping'. Having bought the house, we drew up the plans, and took them once again to the council, this time the Senior PO said they all looked fine. We submitted the plans, and NOW they come back and say we can't have that as it affects the listed houses 'dominance'...and that it must be single storey, with any storage in the roof area. They ignore next-doors cartlodge, admittedly single bay, but as tall as our cottage, and literally 3 metres away! Now our proposed building, is away from the house, set at the rear of the plot, behind a tall hedge, and would be painted Sadolin black. Roof-space storage is not only nowhere near large enough. I also have MS, and as my mobility decreases, I won't be able to access it anyway. So in many ways single storey works better from my perspective, but would leave an even larger footprint, which is why we discounted it before we started all this. There is much more to all this, but I sense you are losing the will to live, so will get to my question.... Are we better off getting them to write out the refusal, setting in stone their objections, or amending the original application, and facing months/years of continual goal post moving and ending up with a totally compromised building, that doesn't fulfil our need? Many thanks for your time guys. Simon

Thankyou all SO MUCH! You guys are a mine of information, and we now see lots of possibilities open to us, not just a zillion metric tonnes of earth moving and concrete, as we had been (poorly) advised...we are very grateful, and if any of you want to drop down our very nice local, I owe you a nice cold beer!

Thanks Rich, That was for C25, delivered to a village 12 miles north of Ipswich....does it sound fair does to you?

I'm sorry?

Thanks Temp, I get what you are saying, but, we aren't looking to skimp on the slab, it's the 45 m of 1m depth trench under all the supporting walls that is presenting the issue, as that's one hell of a lot of concrete for essentially a large garden shed....not forgetting the oversite..., and we've got to have all that earth grabbed away....the costs really start to add up.... Ooh, I asked for a quote for concrete, and got the following answer: £79 based on RMX supply. £45 per m3 un carried below 6m3 and £68/hour waiting time after first 45 minutes on site per load. Can you make sense of it? we can't :-(

Thankyou all so much for all your great advice, we really had felt like we were hitting a wall (pardon the pun).. We had been led to believe an SE would cost MUCH more than that....nearly £2k...and as we are probably going to have to get a planning consultant to deal with the council going forwards....anyhow, will def look into getting one on board, I take it you are nowhere near Suffolk JS?! And thankyou for that other idea Declan, it was something we hadn't considered, and could present a useful saving, as the non-garage section of the building is light storage only,,, Cheers guys

Ok, thanks again, wish the other people I have spoken to had been so open about the whole thing, rather than making it sound like a dark art! So what you are saying is, we need to employ a structural engineer? It's a cost we hadn't bargained on to be honest, budget being so tight, we just thought being basically a large shed/barn type building, the foundations would be similarly simple....whereas it's the total opposite...these kit companies specify everything from piles, to just 100mm raft, and everything in between! The two groundworks quotes we had, didn't seem to worry about loads, just talking about standard sizes, and depths. It's been further complicated by having to reduce to single storey, so trying to save on some costs, as some costs have nearly doubled, such as the roof, so we hoped the footings could be reduced in spec, from the original two storey building. Can I take it, these calculations are not possible for the layman? Once again, thankyou for all your time.

Thanks JS, So what you're saying is, the foundations need to be able to support anything that's thrown at them, and as such need to be well over-engineered? It was so much easier when our house was built....no foundations to speak of, made of used wood, and lumps of clay, and 400 years later it's still here, without so much as a crack! Starting to think we may well forget the whole thing, comfortably into 5 figures just for a base, it's just not worth it. Thankyou for all your help, at least now we know....

Thankyou for all that advice JS, at least I now know what I need to get where I want... Yes the footprint is quite expansive,, but the building will only stand 3.5m tall, be mostly softwood, with an oak front, and weatherboarding, with reclaimed Norfolk clay pantiles, surely much less weight than a two storey, double brick skinned building with concrete tile roof?

Thankyou guys, Yes, JS, it is non-habitable, and while I can see it from the garage floor side, a 1m depth trenchfill, with oversite and a re-inforced 150mm slab on top, does seem a little like overkill for an outbuilding we just want to use as storage space for household items... and it looks like the groundworks are likely to cost three times the cost of the building on top of them...