SimonD

You don't need trickle vents, that's just the default assumption. I don't have trickle vents as there's no way I'm putting them in expensive 3g windows especially when some vents would sit 3.6 meters above floor level. You can simply install natural background wall vents and/or alternatively passive stack. It's all in the building regs. I got my acoustic cntrollable ones directly from Rytons - https://www.vents.co.uk/pdf/BROCH_Rytons_Background_Ventilators.pdf And yes, I'm not into MVHR as after my research I decided against it.

I've just been looking at this with great interest, especially the green roof and what looks like a cantilevered balcony/entrance door on the 1st floor. It looks pretty cool and I'd love a workshop that looks like this with a vehicle lift. The cantilever together with green roof isn't entirely a trivial thing to design from a timber frame structural perspective and will feed into your foundation and ground floor wall design (e.g. where you may need double or triple studs and maximum cantilever distance and load for the selected joist dimensions). I guess you've had SE input for this? Otherwise, I just have some minor points of note, that may or may not feed into your end design. Stud wise, you're either looking at carcassing timber which is 47 x 150mm, with a nominal finished size of 45 x 145 (which some framers do use) or the more appropriate 50 x 150mm CLS which has a finised size of 38 x 140, which is the 'proper' framing timber. Also have a look at your need for the Intello Plus vapour check as I think this is actually designed for fibrous insulation materials rather than PIR. It's expensive and another vapour check and airtightness layer may serve you better. The current sole plate arrangement does look like a cold bridge area as currently designed. I personally prefer the timber frame designs that have a layer of insulation outside the frame as this reduces cold bridging across the whole frame and performs better at junctions and can easily be taken down to cover the sole plate. For example you could use 60mm pir between studs and 60mm outside, or some other arrangement. Hope some of that is informative but I'm now being hassled by kids and have the check out! ?

It is indeed a large chunk of the budget. I tried to design ours but found I didn't have the creative insight to get it right. Even though some of the elements our architect designed were similar to ideas I'd had, he made them work as a whole design. Unless you've already done so, or you're against it, have you looked at kit house suppliers who provide inhouse design and standardised kits, trying to find a local draughtman, or even and architectural technician? Maybe even online pruchase of standardised plans, if there are any?

Brownie points for the site visit, but otherwise that doesn't sound great. If you got a good vibe, I bet you wouldn't be here asking the question? I do, maybe your mind is more made up that you realise? ? Why not give it a go yourself and see how it goes? Then ask for feedback on the forum. Like @Olf suggested, I can attest to Qcad (free or £33 for the pro license) as a good 2d tool and there are plenty of 3d house cad apps out there now. If you end up finding it all too tedious you can always get someone in?

Have you seen any of the designs this architect has previously done? Spoken to previous clients? In my view £50/hour for a chartered architect given the training they have to complete is not bad at all. When we got proposals from architects for our project, prices came in at about £10k to £12k just to get us to planning. Detailed design at 50 hours would, I think, mean using some standard detailing but modified for your particular design. My view on architects is that they do have an eye for design and can produce a building that has, for example, the right proportions, form and function. I think you can pretty much always tell when a building is a "builder/diy" design versus an architect unless the architect has had their hands tied by the developer, or they're rubbish. If you decide to design yourself and want the space and aesthetic to work , you'll have to gain a good understanding of space requirements in rooms and houses etc. including ensuring things like sufficient headroom for stairs and so on. It's actually a lot of work if you haven't done it before. For planning they're only really interested in the external facets of the house, not the internals. You can indeed save yourself money if you agree to take on admin sides of the architect's work, including CDM Health and Safety - none of it rocket science, a lot of it tendious bureaucracy, even if much of it is common sense. ? Keep in mind you will need to add figures for structural engineer and any other professionals and they will need decent reference drawings etc. My view is that the design value provided by a decent architect is worth it to have a nice looking and functional space, but also that some people choose to forego this. But as @George says, do speak to several architects and get quotes before making a decision. We spoke to 6 in all. You might also want to consider a chartered architectural technologist https://architecturaltechnology.com/

Okay, this probably isn't a direct answer to you question but if it's any help, our architect took us through what we thought was a good process to generate ideas and find out what we liked when we designed our place. Given that we've got something we really like in terms of design and looking at other projects he's done, he's pretty good at this part of his work. First he got us to to go around and have good look at properties wherever we went. When looking at those properties we were under instructions to note down the elements we liked about the houses and what we didn't. Then, once we knew what we liked or didn't we looked at different architectural design styles. A good start is, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_architectural_styles We spent a whole load of time looking at the styles we liked, and then again whittling those style down to elements we liked of those styles and what we didn't. So for example, we both like Georgian style but what we particularly like about Georgian architecture is high ceilings and big high windows (we've got this upstairs). We wanted easy acces to the garden from the kitchen/dining area, which, because our house is on a hill, meant turning the house upside down and building bridge to the flatest part of the garden. This whittling also brought us to a couple of architects, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright where again we found some elements of their design we liked, and some we didn't (some Le Corbusier stuff I loved some I absolutely hated). This influenced the design of our house. So for us it was finding general styles we warmed to and refining from there. I was also lucky in that I was working with a client in London and would regularly walk past the RIBA offices and would pop into the bookshop to browse books on my way to the train home!

What in particular are you looking for?

The only junction is a single doorway between the two areas. Subfloor will be osb with solid wooden floor above to finish. I was initially hoping I could disappear it..until my wife noticed and asked me about it to confirm we were having no elevation changes in the floor anywhere ? Yes, I will take @MikeGrahamT21 's suggestion on that one.

Yes, that would work. A lot easier than the other options too. Thanks!

I'll try to make my excuse as simple as possible, I started my build with work to an existing small extension and newbuild infill extension to the house. When I did this, we were still living in the other part of the house. So I did all this prep work and installed new floor joists for ground suspend timber floor. Now that I've finally got the new floor joist into the rest of the house I've realised a problem. I've just found that my reference dpc for the first bit of the floor is actually about 20mm lower than the dpc for the main house (these are all part of existing structure built in 1920s). I know I should have known better that to trust the dpc level of this old house, but too late now. So to the question. What's the easiest way to raise the floor level? the area for lifting is about 24sqm whereas the rest of the house which is slightly higher and the other side of what used to be an external wall is about 75sqm. My thoughts: given that the joists are not fully fixed and there is not subfloor I can either: 1. remove the masonry bolts and lift the wall plates and then use slate packers at any sleeper walls. 2. insert packers under individual joists in joist hangers and on sleeper walls. Thoughts? and any other options?

Haha, no I reckon not ?

Amazing!

I had one of those and it was a PITA. It refused to self prime even under water. Seemed to get an air pocket in the pump that stopped it from working. I found I had to lie on my stomach to reach down into floaded foundation trenches, put it on its side while running and jiggle it around. Eventually it would pump. Then it just burned itself out one time. I also bought a couple from amazon which were just as rubbish so sent straigh back. I found that some of these pumps require a very high water level to prime and start pumping so it's worth looking at the specs for this. For shallower water, I bought a heavy duty dirty water drill pump,and rigged up an old drill to a piece of plywood with the pump screwed to it. Then I attached an inlet tube from an old pressure washer that had a filter on the end which I stuck into the water. It doesn't pump the same volume rate but does remove water to a lower level.

Sounds like an exciting project. If you gain from the tax advantages of self-build and you know what you're doing it does seem like this kind of thing can be a good investment.

Too right, when you're in the thick of it, it can get you down having to pair back plans and find the right balance. Surprisingly it's also a lot of effort to keep juggling these decision - it has sometimes really worn me out. It's good to have a reminder it's not just me but the reality of self-building.

I've been trying to write one on how not to do it but I can't even fit that in ?

Don't I know it! In our last place I had a double garage that was filled with 4 motorbikes and 7 mountain bikes, and a whole load of engineering equipment. A lovely old Myford ML7, welding station, you name it. The garage was flat roofed so I had to put on a sloped overroof as extra storage and then that filled up with parts! I sorely miss it as it's all in a storage unit now during the builld. I've mostly missed my welding equipment during this build as there are loads of things that crop up where it would really come in handy.

Good luck with that one! Right now I have a semi finished wooden paddleboard and a downhill mountain bike frame with all the bits lying around to go onto it that my son wanted to do during lockdown 1 (paddleboard) and lockdown 3 (mtb). They can't even compete with the Xbox ? but he just going on 13. Not that I'm cynical at all. Aerospace engineering is a tough degree so good luck to your son.

Now that is something I'd like to do. What are you writing?

Haha! A life's work eah! For once, I do actually want to finish something off, but maybe I'm just living in lalaland!

That's what's scaring me a little, and my wife. Because our boys seem to have a tendency to destroy stuff, we're going for a 'family' fit out, i.e. not spending massive money on interior finish but making it simple and hard wearing. Budget is also getting really tight (I can't believe how much money has been sunk into the fabric, nor how much more everything has cost compared to initial budget) so I can already imagine that in a similar time to you I'm going to be redoing a load of stuff.

That is true, while difficult and unfortunate, in some ways I've found the lockdowns have helped not to lose focus on the building work, merely because there's nothing else to do. Oh,other than try to homeschool a couple of young boys...it's easier to build!

That is probably what I'm most scared about. I have to give myself a slap when we're out for a walk and I start looking at derelict properties or infill land, then while I'm working away on the house I find myself daydreaming about how to raise the capital for the next project while living in this house. I've been through a phase of properly hating this house, now I'm starting to really like it again and can't understand why I'm still thinking postively about the prospect of more! At least I'm not the only one. ? Yet I've still got months of work to go here....

Ah, nice one, sounds good! Bucket list and restoration would be good. I'm a good few years away from retirement and not sure I'll have the cash left over for the bucket list but I do have old race bike I've stored away for years that needs a load of work. Hmm, but then I'll have to build a workshop ?. So what should that be, timer frame, brick & block, or icf or maybe something experimental? ? OMG, that's just reminded me we got planning permission to build a 1.5 width garage half dug into the hill in front of our house but had, pardon the pun, buried the idea a few years ago due to budget. Permission still stands because it was part of our whole house planning. Oh no.....

I took on my own build, deciding, for good or bad, to do it all myself. Unsuprisingly it's taken longer than planned and Covid certainly hasn't helped. So by the time I get to go back to making a normal living, I'll have been out of my game for at least 3 years if not more. I'm not sure I want to go back to much of what I did and I'm finding myself distracted by how I'm going keep myself occupied when I finish. I'd like to have some sort of idea. As a result of my investigations into heat pumps, I'm nowcompleting a heating engineer qualification, which will help a bit, but I'm still unsure. What did you end up doing after taking on a self-build. Could you go back to what you did before and did it take you in different direction?