Jml

Love the low cill georgian windows. New houses near us, built as one off units, in the georgian style, often include them which greatly improves the appearance of otherwise, often plain boxes.

So if I appoint someone to do say groundworks for my extension, do I become responsible for their H & S?

Thanks for response, think will stick to 2-d, can mentally convert most things to 3d, apart from stairs which I always seem to have problems with. Good advice re: length of columns and keeping simple which is what we are aiming for. We are hoping to minimise columns as most of work only infill ground floor extension and vaulted ceiling in place of current flat roof. As your not that far away from us can I be cheeky and ask would you recommend your SE?

Many thanks for the responses. We have to go for full building regulations as building over a sewer, but seems wise to do so anyway so no nasty suprises from building control. The net seems full of generic detailed construction drawings, sections etc. and I am concerned we will just be paying for regurgitating these. I spent many long hours trying to get the as is measurements exact. It took me a while to be able to ignore 5mm differences when working in mm on CAD, having once spent hours trying to find out where the difference was in a room. So the bungalow as is, am fairly confident would be sufficient for most purposes. Not so sure about the extension part as will depend on build up of floors, walls etc. for thicknesses, which is partly cost driven and may vary when it comes to the build. Also if the structutal engineer suggests too complex beam work we may change the building layout and simplify. Did you get the drawings in 3d, I have been working with 2d only?

Managed to get a structural engineer recommendation. On phoning him he says we need architect drawing for him to work off so he doesnt also need to do them and therfore we pay for them twice. We did the drawings for the planning permission, for our extension, in what way do these architect drawings differ or add to these? Is this something we could do ourselves?

We have ikea units in our utility room bought at same time, can’t tell the difference, had no problems with either.

We bought a Wickes kitchen with those features. Purchased ‘granite’ worktops seperately. We designed it, but they do designs for you and they matched the price of similar design (but without rounded corners) from b and q.

Draw plans to maximise permitted development, including in the roof space and perhaps even get Permitted development certificate from council, to size of new build, if that not large enough, apply for planning to extend exsting house to area you want in new build. Then submit new build plans arguing better designed, sustainable etc. Bit long way round and may not work. Also worth checking design and access statements for other rebuild properties to see how they got around it as sure many will have tried.

Worth also checking if there is a more recent update on the guidance, which might be more favourable!!!

Out of curiosity just did google search ‘cotswold district council policy 22’ second item down a pdf, don’t know if you have seen it, seems pretty onerous! But read JSHarris post below. Replacement-dwellings-ADVICE-NOTE-FINAL-VERSION.pdf

Can you easily make any of the outbuildings ‘part of the house’ into a garage, workshop, office, utility room etc. perhaps, in order to increase current houses footprint?

Around us developers always remove any ‘problem’ trees as long as not subject to TPO, before putting in planning application, usually at the weekend so the council cannot be contacted to slap TPO’s on them. A good number of mature trees have disappeared that way, especially if blocking potential new entranceways, as housing plots subdivided.

Off on a tangent. We also have a 1950 bungalow, for which we have two current approved planning applications. The first, which we are not going to do, is to convert it to a 2.5 storey house. When approaching builders, most suggested knock down and rebuild, as the difference in costs in their view, was not significant, due zero rating of new builds and then the choice of insulation etc. can be made from scratch and you are not constrained by the original bungalow. May be something to consider or not!

No problem. Just for piece of mind think I would need a site visit from SE, as would hate them to rely on my description of existing structure. Any local recommendations, to me, welcome! Cheers.

That sounds like something we need. We also hope to keep it simple by using existing window openings for new door entrances and hope not to need too many pillars.

Not sure I would be confident enough for SE to rely on my descriptions. Bungalow was built in 1955 and has all solid walls downstairs some of which we want to remove. The roof and dormer, an existing extension, has a confusing mix of structural beams which even after crawling around with torch, am not sure how they work together.

Yes, many thanks, had read that thread. I had assumed that SE would need to do a site visits. As ours is an extension and recofiguration of our existing bungalow, was expecting a site visit to be necessary in order to confirm load bearing walls and exiting roof structure etc.

We are also looking for a structural engineer. Located in the Leatherhead area, we have one recommendation but we understand they tend to over engineer solutions, which makes it expensive, on a limited budget. Any recommendations much appreciated.

Good to know, as we were concerned that the plans were the only things they would work with. In addition to try an minimimize costs, we have added a lot of frills, ie fully glazed wall to the rear and increased roof height to the extension for the planning application, knowing that in all likelihood that they would be too expensive, taking the view that it is easier to remove these later than to have to submit a further planning application to add them.

For our extension and redesign of our bungalow, which changes the entrance hall etc. we have drawn up plans to minimise structural work, so use existing door and window lintels where possible as money is tight. We need to appoint a structural engineer for building regulation submission. I was wondering wether SE’s just provide details per the plans or wether we can discuss design with them to minimise costs. Whilst we have planning, from developments being undertaken around us the local council does not seem bothered about changing internal designs.

We have full size fitted neff microwave in our kitchen, approx those dimensions, does not have rotating centre though only slatted shelf

Need protected stairs if have three storeys or two storeys plus rooms in the roof space. We currently have east facing lounge at front of house which is very dark for most of the day, so are moving it to the west facing rear of the house in new extension.

What about moving the stairs to the other side of the hall, subject to headroom for access to the playroom? This would allow you to move the kitchen door and upstairs you could change the door access to bedrooms 2 and 3 to make them both square. Access to the lounge could also be made from the hall leading to the playroom to give you more room along that wall.

Many thanks, great news that we don't need the manhole!!! But, I think I'll leave removing it to someone who knows what they are doing, otherwise could get very messy! This means I can now try and design our drainage system, probably means lost more questions under the drainage section though.

Many thanks for your response and the link. I have read Thames Water build over guide and unfortunately as we are building over a sewer manhole, as shown in the picture above, we will need an agreement from them and are unable to self certify. What has me confused is that we will have to make at least one if not two connections to the sewer we are building over, one for the bathroom/utility room and another for the new kitchen. The former could use the connections as shown in the manhole, but would we be allowed to connect to the sewer with a rodding eye or dead leg rather than a manhole at that point?