saveasteading

Good point. Same with aluminium. We have an oak worktop, 'sealed' with Danish oil. A damp pan creates deep black staining. Will never use oak worktop again.

They are all going to like you too...it helps massively as they may have choices too.

As you are extending the building, there is little justification for going any deeper than the existing. So a few more spade-fulls and you will know. To avoid digging it again, take a photograph with a tape or measuring stick down to the the bottom of the footing, and showing the depth at ground level. Take a note of the depth from a fixed point: block to brick junction is a good one, Distance to ground, then to concrete, then of the base itself. 150mm outside the wall is pretty standard, so it all looks normal. Absolutely no need to dig internally. The walls themselves will need to be stiffened... that is a different matter. What is the garage wall construction? And excuse my pedantry. The term is dormer window.

Buying by the box can easily save half the cost, maybe more, so I wouldn't rule it out. There must be a spec sheet.

Also with some stainless steel. There are several 'recipes' depending on the use. eg different in swimming pools to roof screws, to cooking pans. Some of the worst staining of hardwoods is the reaction of the metal, so do check further. Stainless threaded rod is quite pricey, compared with normal rod, but would be a lot easier than making your own. If capped off and no weather reaching it, there shouldn't be any worries.

I wonder if that is too sensitive for them, if some of the exhibitors may be in delicate health. They can't exactly advise people to refuse deposits and only use kit companies with healthy cash accounts....when their income depends on many businesses who insist on large deposits.

Stick build gets the raw materials on site straight from bm.

https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/highland-housebuilder-ptarmigan-homes-collapses-313055/ More detail here. Went bust. Sold to their own co as a prepack. Big debts. Flash hq. Bust. Worried for the clients and subbies.....who is owed that 800k?

If they all used the quantities that the original estimator provided, then the differences would be for their labour rates, their overheads and profit, and any risk they include. Using the same bill of q, and faitly detailed drawings, you might find 3 similar builders within 15%. If you just provide them with planning drawings then they will include more approximations and that could be +/-20%. As nod says, it is a lot of work doing a quote properly. The builder is staking their livelihood on getting it right. If going to 3 builders that is fair.

Much tidier at the top and won't affect the strength significantly. Fill all the voids with concrete. Any advice to the contrary is from somebody tired of mixing concrete.

It will be overturning rather than lift-off. Still seems wrong, but let's await your design. I have seen rock being broken out for concrete. Not a design error, just rock encountered early and nobody stopping to think. Radon barrier. I expect there will be a stage where this will be easier than directly onto the rock. On top of hardcore probably, also acting as your dpm. Direct venting, if necessary, would not require fans, just ventilation.....you have enough wind.

OK, to me it is a mistake then. Computer generated (accurately) but needs to be manually removed from the model and the maps. It distracts from the genuine issues elsewhere, mostly caused by development ( where not a sea issue). I have tried to argue to LAs that they should not allow new developments to shed to watercourses at all. They seem to have been persuaded by the developers that 5 litres per second per acre is acceptable. That is a lot of extra water straight into the rivers. I'm thinking that councillors and planners just think that 5 litres isn't much. The loser would be the landowner, as there would be ponds and lagoons. £1M an acre dropping to only 950k. Ahhh the big landowners again. But then I would also be stricter on exception sites. Did anyone see Grand Designs in Essex this week. Whyever was that permitted?

They have had floods of underground facilitiesthere. Not so cleverly putting electric stations in chambers that flooded. So it isn't much more to be sitting on the ground, esp when developments continue around the area. That does count as flooding. I'm not sure what you are getting at. Floods don't have to be biblical, they can be very local, and that is the way uk rainfall has been changing.

I have used every method of my table apart from ICF, which I tried to make work on a few projects. But that was as a professional. The order changed according to dimensions, function, appearance. Perhaps too a prejudice against brick, or the layers thereof.....if I could, then bricks were out. As an amateur diy builder I think the order changes, esp according to skills. Few could do brickwork. There's no bricks left. When did you realise we were getting low? There's no bricks left.

A lot (all?) of the housing developers are wrong? Savings come in speed and internal works. Plumbing and electrics are through an open skeleton. No chasing. The internals can proceed before the outer skin. Non load bearing stud is cheaper than block. Etc. Excluding the cost of time, there isn't so much in it. Perhaps also depends a bit on the local cost and availability of decent bricklayers.

How long was that? I think that was the issue....it didn't last long on mine. And when you bought a crock it was already likely patched with radweld. There was quite a business in rad repairs and replacements. Something is much better now. Wasn't egg white suggested too?

Patent that. Not a permanent seal, but an indicator. Otherwise it sounds a bit like putting masking tape over the leaks.

Yes. If you asked me the difference, that would be my immediate thought. OR Big squares are the cheapest buildings structurally and in details. Every edge or change of direction will cost say £100/m Oversails about £300/m Plus £100k for the difficulties being designed in. Make that £350k, although i prefer the miami to the alpine, and the finished value would reflect the extra, if built in the right area. So what is your QS saying, that you are asking BH?

Do you mean that it deflects under your foot, or generally?

It reminds me of the additive they used to sell for leaking car radiators. Some fibrous stuff that filled the holes when the water leaked through the holes. Gunked up the rest of the system too. I think the other problem was that it just sealed the gap but had little thickness or strength. Same for this airtightness Snibbo? I am so dubious of the merits, apart from making a leaky house pass a test temorarily, that I won't even read up about it. Let me know if I am wrong!

Of course. Somebody will do this for you at a cost. It can be approximate or more exact, but you will not know for sure until you finish designing and get contractors to quote. Even then you may get +/- 20% variation on the same design. I just used gut feelings from experience in saying what the relative costs were. If you were a real or potential client at this early stage then I would spend 5 minutes getting a rough feel of the cost, or an hour on getting a budget idea, or a week working out a quotation. The latter would be a waste of effort while you have so many options going on. Presumably you have given your architect a budget. Ask them how they are targeting it.

Has anybody suggested bolting your footings to the rock? Depends on the depth of course, but there is little point in breaking out granite and replacing with concrete.

Hunches for me, but based on a lot of experience and also considering each new product as it is introduced, discounting most. My concern re old newspapers cellulose is that it may have been finding a use for a waste product, rather than a genius new product. Paper gets wet and soggy and slumps. Insects and rodents like soft sheltered nests, buildings have flaws. I foresee papier mache at the bottom of a void.

So we are agreed on that. I said £1M plus too. @GK22 does that work for you? The difference between the Alpine idea and the Miami one is probably about £250k for the same floor area.

which one are you referring to ? This. Though I see it has been cut and pasted from another project, or a book of typical details.: a steel building.....which i think yours should be with all these shapes. It isn't much like your design at all, so it seems to be a distraction and I will ignore it. This sort of detail: a lot of effort and putting the building at risk, only for the sake of the crisp eaves detail, is the stuff of the 'wrong sort of architect' as far as ai am concerned. I am all for spending a bit on style, but the fundamental purpose of a building is to keep the weather out....or is that Philistine? But the client will be paying the extra, listening to the gurgling and removing leaves from the 'secret' gutter several times a year, not the architect. Let's be positive..you are being shown lots of ideas.