Stones

Friends of ours had their house sprayed. My estimate (and the decorators) of how long it would have taken to paint (3 coats) by roller was 3 weeks. He did it in 3 days using the sprayer, plus half a day either side for masking and tidying up. It's certainly something I'm going to get a price for.

One of my friends did a low energy revamp of his 1980's bungalow, stripping it back to the frame, which he built out, re-insulated with rockwool, air tight membrane then 50mm kingspan, battens then plasterboard. Has worked very well for him.

Welcome aboard the good ship buildhub! Good to see you.

Originally published on the closed forum, March 2016. So armed with our ideas, and having read through the guidance documents on housing in the countryside http://www.orkney.go...Countryside.pdf http://www.orkney.go...ctober_2013.pdf I contacted the council to see if I could speak to the planning officer who had dealt with the outline planning application for the site. Having read all of the comments on here about pre-planning processes, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Orkney Islands Council still operates the very sensible informal approach, whereby you can pick up a phone, talk to a planning officer or meet them to discuss and refine ideas prior to submitting a full application - no need for a pre-planning application and no charge. I did actually ask the planning officer in question about this and she advised that they had looked into such a system, but concluded it would create more work, cost them money and frustrate applicants. So, having run my ideas past the planning officer, she was very supportive and suggested I provide some sketches. To avoid spending any money at this juncture, I downloaded Sketch-up and set to work rendering images of the house. It didn't take long getting to grips with the software, and allowed me to produce a series of images which I was able to send to the planning officer for comment. 3D landscape images Ebuild.pdf Elevations (Ebuild).pdfElevations (Ebuild).pdf I have to say this was a very useful and helpful way of visualising the build and developing ideas. Again, the planning officer was very supportive. Having looked at the general style of the house, I started developing and refining my ideas about the internal layout. Whilst our last house had worked really well for us, I wanted to learn from it and (hopefully) avoid some of the minor niggles. Having carefully assessed how our last house worked, we concluded the following; Utility room needed to be a little wider, ideally with vaulted / raised ceiling to accommodate a clothes airer / pulley. Of the two living areas we had, one was used 95% of the time. The main use of the second living area was as a space for someone to go to read a book etc, so a large second room wasn't required, only a suitable escape space. Not having a dedicated study was a pain. I also had to incorporate a small but challenging wish list from my good lady; The kitchen had to have an island (a peninsula was not acceptable). A mezzanine of some kind had to be incorporated. The latter requirement for a mezzanine dictated in large part how the design developed. Vaulted ceilings above the height I could achieve with a raised tie or scissor truss were required, as was space for stairs, and the ability to look down from the mezzanine to the main public areas. In the end we came up with the following layout; finished externally with a mix of render, timber cladding, tile/slate and metal roofing, to reflect the dual building style of the dwelling. I had the plans drawn up and properly scaled by someone I found on a freelancing website. DB1509-01 - Site 1 - Orkney - Proposed Plans - Redacted - Rev0.pdf DB1509-02 - Site 1 - Orkney - Proposed ElevationS - Redacted - Rev0.pdf DB1509-03 - Site 1 - Orkney - Proposed Elevation and Sections - Redacted - Rev0.pdf DB1509-04 - Site 1 - Orkney - Proposed Location Plans - Redacted - Rev0 (1).pdf and duly submitted them for approval. We received one objection which thankfully only related to concerns about construction traffic, which was withdrawn after I spoke to and reassured one of our new neighbours. Nine or so weeks later, we got our approval and got ready to put the job out to tender. Next entry - Tendering

We had considered Travertine but decided in the end we didn't want the ongoing maintenance, and think the same would apply to Limestone. The tiler we had spoken to advised he would only fit travertine / limestone with the addition of a decoupling membrane (although I don't think that would actually be required with ultra low temp UFH)

Yes, good to have you back.

I often found it amusing how many weedkiller attacks were perpetrated against gardens owned by people, who didn't like gardening. You never know, your grass could be the next victim...

+1

Glad you made it here. Welcome back.

Welcome onboard!

Welcome aboard!

Effectively yes, you can charge it using (off peak) electricity using a simple time switch on the electricity supply. All you are in effect doing is replacing a solar diversion device with a time switch, the unit itself remains the same either way.

Yes, welcome aboard.

Glad you made it.

I was chatting to Andrew directly, but had a chat with Joan the other day. I'm planning on chasing them tomorrow, so bear with me. TBH not sure how they plan to configure them but the idea / requirement was to double the capacity but only have one set of charging / control gubbins.

1950?, impressive. The sum total of finds on our Roman Marching Camp site was a spent shotgun cartridge.

Rob, I saw those genny's in Lidl as well. There are still a few left - and feedback when you fire it up would be appreciated. I think the general consensus that lighting is the biggest must have in a power cut is probably right. Cooking is easy, we can just buy a small gas camping stove. Heating shouldn't really be an issue given what we are building, although with an inverter heat pump (and a low starting current) I don't see any reason why we couldn't run the HP off a genny. I am planning to use a SunampPV for my DHW, and given it is designed to work with variable charging from excess PV, don't see why it wouldn't charge from a genny. I'll have to run that one past them. Seems to me that for the relatively low cost of a installing a changeover switch, I'd be silly not to. At least I would then have the option. The ability to sit out a winter power cut in comfort is very attractive...

We are planning low temp UFH so I'm not anticipating huge issues in that regard. We had ceramic tiles on our bathroom and utility floors in the last house without issue (albeit no UFH). I suspect in the end, the issue is moot as tiles will be chosen according to what we my good lady likes the look of...

+1 on that.

I'm just talking to Sunamp at the moment about making me a 4 cell SunampPV rather than having to install two SunampPVs in parallel. I'm just waiting to hear back from them about unit configuration /size. I'll let you know how i get on.

I've seen the rope / flymo trick used before on very steep bankings. Looked like seriously hard work. My main aim in planning my landscaping is that it has to be either very easy to maintain (so flat or gentle slopes I can cut with the ride on mower) or suitable for fencing off for livestock grazing.

Nice work if you can get it! Looks about as active as the archaeologist on our last build, although the day she was there it was tipping down. She looked like a drowned rat by the end of the day.

All I know is that Orkney was a step too far for them...

I'm building with ICF as well (just started). Not sure what joist hangers my contractor uses, will ask and report back. Which ICF system are you using? Ours is being built with the Amvic system.

Good to hear from you Richard, welcome aboard the good ship buildhub! Looking forward to seeing the lodge progress.