Alan Ambrose

To cover at least some of the downside that could happen during the build - fire, theft and probably injury.

Keep the faith. The decision still needs to be based on planning rules grounds. There’s some recent discussion on here about prep for the committee. Still v useful if the officer comes out with a positive report to brief the meeting.

This is only my amateur's view (I'm an amateur at pretty much everything): >>> Is this something we do, or are we better off using the planning consultant? Suggest going to planning meetings asap to get a feel for how they work. Contact your local councillor as ask for their support. If your councillor / case officer is at the next meeting, introduce yourself. My pref was to do this in a low key manner. The case officer then gave me an update (even though I didn't ask for one) and I thanked him for his work on the application. He also saw me talking to the councillor I just introduced myself to her (we had already exchanged a few emails) and said I wasn't going to bend her ear at that meeting :). I sent them both emails beforehand so to look out for me. There are some here on BH who espouse getting to grips with your local micro-politics. Say hello to the case officer's boss if they're there (they probably will be). Be charming :). While I favour DIY for everything ... I'm thinking planning consultant / architect - as they will stick to the planning issues and they already have a relationship with many decision makers in the room. >>> I have not seen any request for amendments in any of the consultee responses. Maybe this was just a stalling tactic, or maybe he's expecting some conditions from say, the ecology people, highways etc. >>> chance would be a fine thing Yeah, seems 99% are nimbys. They will probably either nominate one of their group to talk or if they're rich/influential find a consultant to talk for them. They may miss the point. One of the applications I watched, the locals made a big deal about access & deliveries - this is in a busy seaside market town. This was obviously their application-killer. Well good point, I thought. Case officer, piped up with 'yeah it's a problem anyway in the town, nothing new, and BTW the applicants already have access for deliveries anyway, so we can't take that away...'. Even better point! Objections blown away.

@Nickfromwales I like the look of the array a lot.

>>> Anyway back to topic There was a topic? I thought these threads were all free association, no? Oh I see…

I say do whatever you fancy and brings you pleasure. A backup plan for the inevitable glitches and for a later luddite buyer might be a good thing.

Reading the officer’s feedback, I think they’re saying: + it is going to the planning committee, so prepare. + he/she thinks they can negotiate a couple of small amendments to the design, making it ‘acceptable’. The good news is that they’re not saying that two storey won’t fly. If they thought that, they would probably say that clearly right now, and you might be back to the drawing board or filing an appeal. Yes, the applecart could still be overturned, but I think things are looking OK. Fish for the amendments (which consultees have not replied yet?) so you have time to think about them and negotiate them. I wonder if a couple of supporting neighbours would tip the balance. Question for your architect maybe?

There are ones for ceilings AFAIK - none for walls?

Sometimes you guys worry me...

>>> You might have got mixed up Yeah sounds like it - easy for me to do Thanks for the clarification.

>>> Plan is to get the Oak frame in place first. This is all being made off site so will just be craned in and fixed. Then the ICF walls will be built around the outside. Then the SIP roof panels will be added. Sounds a good plan. FYI am I trying to get an understanding right now of how accurate, straight and upright you can expect oak frames will be once erected. >>> We need to get the Oak out of the elements as quickly as we possible as the rain affects the finish, and obviously the drying out time increases the wetter it gets. It shouldn't absorb much water, but the more stained it gets, the more work it is to get it unstained. >>> you will need to clean the oak with oxalic acid when it’s all done to bring back the natural colour. Or lightly sand/bead blast it or a combination of both - acid on the very stained bits, then blast all over. >>> we were thinking to allow just a small gap, maybe 20mm, to allow a wet plaster skim behind, but will definitely look into this more and allow more wiggle room. The conventional way is to allow 15+mm (more if you can't guarantee how wobbly the icf is) and tuck the plasterboard behind the posts. Something like this, which has a 20mm gap also (defined by the spruce strips):

Don't suppose you have a drawing or photo rather than us all trying to imagine this in 3D?

@SBMS >>> Most self build insurance policies are not index linked OK that suggests they are even more useless than I previously imagined. Do you thing that mortgage providers catch onto this (which would be a problem if selling) or are they oblivious?

I think some here are talking block walls, some timber frame and others, maybe, metal frame?

I assume your LPA doesn’t have CIL? That would argue a ‘no’. If they don’t, then at least one other here (sorry, can’t remember who) has started a build then proceeded to a different design when it got PP.

I would say that 95% of the time most feel that to agree with the extension is the best course of action. No reason though to back off on the pressure or press for feedback. You could always propose a shorter extension but bear in mind that the LPA may run over the agreed time anyway and you don’t have great tools to prevent them. My LPA doesn’t even bother to ask for extensions.

Jeremyw @G and J @olley @LSB @DIYHacker @GaryChaplin @Nick Laslett @JohnnyB @FuerteStu See above reminder

>>> planning purgatory Oh that's where I've been for 2 years - I didn't have a name for it .

>>> intelligent membranes Whenever that term's mentioned, I always imagine little busy-bee vapour control bugs looking puzzled and scratching their heads...

A kind of longhouse? Nice .

>>> New guys argument was they could be accidentally hit. Our smoke sensors here have only gone off when being tested with the aerosol stuff and when someone was vaping underneath them. So, clearly useless. Sorry, I realise that's not much help.

I wonder whether it's still sensible though? I organised a bunch of extinguishers here, which were fine until some dumb 'management company' took them out with the theory that people might be more inclined to hurt themselves. Yeah, don't bother to try to put out your chip pan fire ... let's just let the building burn down.

A related question. Do the standard providers allow for inflation? - (say) £600K rebuild cost now may well be double that in 10 years time.

>>> Yes, we are essentially building the house twice. This gets trotted out fairly frequently on BH. So, conventional brick & block isn't? Something else covered with SIPs isn't? Yeah, don't worry about it if it works for you. The other one usually raised is 'green oak expands contracts all over the place, how will you keep it airtight'? Err, steel beams do this too, maybe steel doesn't have a great thermal expansion coefficient. Is this a problem in practice? So conventional softwood stick built doesn't move with moisture? Green oak will move across its width but an irrelevant amount on length. It'll also settle down very quickly. >>> We did speak to Oakwrights about it, but their costs were eye watering FYI - I'm having sensible conversations with them re frame supply only. You can get a rough number for retail oak in £ / m^3 from online suppliers. (Last time I calculated it was £2.3K/m^3.) Then see how much the joint work and erection adds to the quoted price and check whether it's honest. I figure the oak frame guys should be charging about 3x the retail cost / m^2.

So, this holds the slab while it's setting and effectively makes a void later, protecting from heave? This assumes the trenches are deep enough, secure, never move, and are strong enough to handle differential movement?