ProDave

The outward opening is silly. We don't have that here. We need to provide a set amount of "activity space" in front of a WC and in front of a bath or shower, and the door swing is not allowed to encroach on that activity space. Yours would easily achieve that with an inward opening door. If this were me forced to comply with that silly rule, the door stop would be fixed with just a few panel pins, and the day after the completion certificate was issued I would reverse the door swing. I think the cupboard you have created between the two rooms is the issue. I would make is smaller to give room in the shower room for the basin.

I thought about knock down the wall and extend the lounge into entrance area. It would certainly give a much bigger lounge, but it goes against my personal hate of having stairs going up from a lounge. If that doesn't bother you, it's an easy way to gain a bigger lounge.

If you can't find a "timber frame supplier" to do it, employ a good joiner. Perhaps because TF is much more common up here, you often see houses or extensions built of timber frame, not by a "timber frame kit" supplier but by a joiner. 2 blokes with some basic woodworking tools can build a timber frame kit, either on site or off site. That's how our house was built, by a local firm of builders who built the kit themselves in their own workshops then brought it to site to erect.

I am going to ask a very dumb question (I am an electrician so not used to the "ways" of plumbing) These are thermostatic mixer valves that can send the output water to a primary or a secondary port as explained. So here's the dumb question: Why have a different one for the shower and the bath? They both do the same function, so I am staggered there is a "bath" version and a "shower" version, and even more staggered at the stupidity of having the ports opposite way around depending on which one you buy.

There was a spate of "sheds with hot tubs" here when Tesco were selling them very cheap.

It took me a while to figure the satellite photo of the house is North Up, but the layout drawings are West Up. I would move the front of the garage (and extension) about 1 metre towards the road. the reason being, the front wall of the extension would then line up with the dividing wall between the two first floor bedrooms. That would then leave the possibility to later add a second storey to the extension, and create a corridor through the back first floor bedroom to get to it.

My only experience with "rising damp" was in a previous 1930's semi. The root problem was a fault with the rendering, the base portion bridged the dpc, it had cracked, some away from the wall, and soil had got into the gap so wet soil was bridging the dpc. the problem was compounded by the previous owner sticking polystyrene tiles to the wall to "hide" the damp and wallpapering over that. Stripped off the wallpaper and tiles, fixed the rendering and dpc bridging and it dried out fine. Check outside first that the ground level is not above the dpc and there are no leaking downpipes. If it's behind kitchen units, I would strip off the old damp plaster up to worktop level and leave it as bare brick behind the units. Try to install some vents somewhere to allow some air movement behind the kitchen units perhaps.

That's the point when you see it all marked out on the ground and think "Gosh that's small, better make it a bit bigger......"

Om my what a disaster!!!! All I can say is my Rationel windows arrived when they said, were all packed well on substantial pallets,, unloaded by hiab without problem, all unpacked without any damage found, and all fitted perfectly. Only one "issue" is I got the order slightly wrong an have keys inside on the doors when I really wanted thunbscrews, but that's something I will change later on.

I have been considering roof windows (see my recent thread) I have decided I don't like the plastic velux ones, but I do like their painted wood finish version which I think will work well with the painted wood interior finish on the Rationel windows. I quite understand the scaffold issue re a spray render. Let's hope they mask the windows properly!!!!

Why is the scaffold coming down for the render? how will they do it? Normally you just remove the hop up's leaving the scaffold with a greater clearance between the scaffold and the walls.

Glad you like them. I didn't realise you hadn't seen them before. I know them as I have worked in houses with them before, and the local rep also visited our site with his normal small demonstration window to show us the details. I like them as apart from being good windows, they are a very clean profile from both inside and outside, and of course the bonus being they were the cheapest of all the ones we had quotes for. Also only Internorm offered a very slightly better UW value, but at twice the price!!! We also have a few 4, 20, 4, 18, 6.8 windows. Those are mainly the doors and a few of the bigger windows that have toughened glass that's a bit thicker, so they narrow the inner gap slightly to keep the overall glass unit thickness the same. P.S what make of roof window have you used?

I would be interested in seeing the upstairs floor plan. the downstairs doesn't look particularly big so I am guessing 2 bedrooms upstairs. Stair position looks a little odd so not a normal layout. Also the plot layout would be interesting. What I am getting at, is making the best of the plot. Would a 2 storey side extension make more sense to give more bedrooms, or a single storey scheme that could later have a second floor added if you need more bedrooms? Is the extension set back because that's the only parking and the house is to close to the road to offer parking in front instead of alongside the house (plot layout would show that) What's your budget and long term aims? is this a house for the long term, or just wanting to maximise it's potential and sell on?

Have a look at the Conder (the one I have) and the Vortex as well.

Looks like a garage to me. Anyway, welcome to the forum.

It's a Scottish building reg. I would have to look up the minimum size of shower and the "activity space" it needs next to it. In our case it will be the space we are going to use for the the pull down clothes dryer that will be allocated for a future shower. You can also meet that requirement by saying you will knock through into an adjacent cupboard should you need to fit a shower. Both the downstairs toilet and future shower provision need to be "accessible" so need all the right amount of activity space. One issue with that is the activity space in front of the toilet. You are not allowed to have a door opening across that activity space. But out combined wc 7 utility will also have the door through to the garage. I couldn't find a way to avoid the garage door crossing the activity space unless it opened into the garage. but discussing with my BC officer he agreed that is not an issue as nobody in a wheelchair would be negotiating the step up from the garage so that door did not matter. As long as the dor from the main house met the accessibility requirements they are happy.

I assume you are talking mixer tap with two tap holes through the bath half way along one side of the bath? A house I am wiring at the moment has that. My immediate thought is HOW the bloody hell would you ever get to the under side of that tap if it ever needs replacing? you can't without removing the bath. So from a simple "I like to be able to fix things" point of view, I would never consider that in my house * * unless the bath backed on to say a cupboard in another room where you could have an access hatch

The trouble with a plant room, is usually it's a mess of odd sized "things" connected by lots of pipes and cables, which even if done neatly, is still some industrial eyesore to most people. So no I would not have that in a WC. But in our case we are having a combined utility room and WC. I thought BR might have something to say, but they are happy with it. all they want is an accessible toilet and space to fit a shower in the future. They don't care if it also has a washing machine and a tumble dryer in the same room, and they don't care if instead of a wash hand basin I have a kitchen type sink in a kitchen base unit instead.

I was cladding my last gable end with the wood fibre board. I came back up the scaffold and there were two wasps trying to get in where I had just fitted a sheet. and more and more of the bu99ers arrived looking for a way in. I suspect a nest between the sarking and the roof tiles. I emptied a whole can of raid squirting it into any crack or minute gap I could find.

Put another log on the fire. SORRY.

That's a good question. The metal CU thing is just for "domestic" you can still fit a plastic CU in say an office or a shop. Mine are all plastic but fitted before the 3rd ammemdment came into force.

My set up is like your first picture. BUT you don't want just an isolator switch, you want a switch fuse. The reason being is the DNO's regs only alllow "their" fuse to protect up to 3 metres of cable. Your house supply will be a LOT longer than 3 metres so it needs it's own fuse. I fitted an 80A fuse into mine in the hope that will blow before their 100A fuse in the event of a fault. Some DNO's (e.g. SSE) fit meters with an inbuilt isolator switch so isolating to work on the consumer unit is not a problem.

For the bathroom, I would have a conventional flat ceiling. for the bedrom, I would give it a vaulted ceiling, but not just right up to the extreme top of the roof, that would leave a lopsided vaulted ceiling if you see what I mean. Instead, on the wall between a bedroom and bathroom, I would start another "false" vaulted ceiling starting at the same level and going up at the same angle to meet the main roof. like this:

1. I would use grey, same as telecoms 2: flexi is fine, avoid sharp bends and install a draw string ready to pull the cables. 3. Yes single exit duct is fine, but it gets harder to add a new cable as it fills up so best to plan ahead and pull them all through together. SWA does not need to be in duct in the ground it is suitable for direct burying. 4: I would exit the house with 1 pipe and put a number of boundary box stopcocks to make your own distribution system to feed water to wherever you need it. (that is exactly what I did, one to feed the stand pipe, one to feed the static 'van, one to feed the house) Don't forget "other stuff" e.g in my case the satellite dish will have to be remote from the house (too many trees) so I have a duct for aerial cables etc.

Time to try a few others I think.