saveasteading

Not something that is easy to answer. Cheapest/ most durable/ most attractive/ boxings for columns and beams allowed? Then we could make suggestions but you cant find a builder who would do it that way, or at the budget. In principle, for small buildings use cavity wall and timber roof, with a steel beam if necessary, then any builder can do it. Do work to some approved standards please, whether they are required or not.

We should never make holes in webs or flanges without a check. In reality there is usually some spare load capacity, and spread out fixings will be ok....but a phone call to the SE is likely to result in a straight forward 'no problem'. Also consider out of balance loading..If the timber is all on one side, then the load will twist the beam....which is bad thing. I prefer to fix using purpose made 'timber to steel' screws. This allows for careful tightening , and some adjustment. Concealing the head without risking pull-out may require consideration.

Insulate. The pipes will tarnish anyway. In fact insulate a lot. Pipe insulation of the higher quality then box around.

That looks like my rendering skills. Except I know it is wobbly and make it rustic. My guess is that this is wobbly render rather than loose, but do what PD suggests....a light tapping with a hammer to listen for hollow sounds.

Doing it again I would write the floor construction tolerances on the drawings. NHBC seems to only refer to the final floor level, and not to the subfloor. Obv there are some expectations or it could be +/- 100mm. I come from doing commercial projects and can't believe how poor house building is allowed to be. Then this amount of packing would not be even argued about......'nobody cares about the subfloor level...it doesn't matter' The slab is not thin here, as there is a footing under it. That gap will be filled. Haven't decided whether folding wedges or drypack...or both.

Absolutely splendid joiner, but says slating is better by a roofer. Or perhaps locally that is simply the expectation. I guess if I was a good joiner I would pick and choose too, and clambering over the roof and cutting slates is not the pleasantest thing.

It is time to form the new openings for skylights, I think 8 of them. The joiner is staying on to do the framing, but we need a roofer to prepare, repair some sarking, then fit the skylights and retrim around with the slates. There will also be gutters and some finishings to do. From Inverness or Elgin people are travelling without any quibble. PM if you prefer to avoid it being too public. Thanks.

It is time to form the new openings for skylights, I think 8 of them. The joiner is staying on to do the framing, but we need a roofer to prepare, repair some sarking, then fit the skylights and retrim around with the slates. There will also be gutters and some finishings to do. From Inverness or Elgin people are travelling without any quibble. PM if you prefer to avoid it being too public. Thanks.

The timbers are all different dimensions, but near enough for a rustic job.

Recycling: We had to demolish 1/4 of the stone building, and rebuild in stick (kit as they call it locally). The stone was crushed by the demo company, using the jaw basket on the excavator. It all went to make the very rough base of the new driveway for future parking/garage. The roof timbers were cut apart and de-nailed. 20% unusable through worm or rot. The rest was trimmed on the table saw to get rid of the surface worm-holes. Then together with galv roofing salvaged from the courtyard roof, this was the result. The cladding was bought locally at a very good price. It will house the water tank, log store and, so they tell me, sauna!

One our site managers called me 'the skip inspector'. That other MD I mentioned, also took to allowing a limited number of skips per project. He then found that site managers were hiring grab lorries instead....hardly buying into it. But he did spot this so it was stopped. One of our managers got the message, but dealt with it by squashing down the contents with a digger. Good idea but again hadn't got the fundamental principle. He was rather good at recycling copper from a demo though....none of that in the skip. Happy to pass on more tips on request....I got an award for it. Actually it was more for efficiency of design, but it is all waste whether dumped or used unnecessarily.

Highly recommended. we don't have one on what is effectively a £400k job. My pet subject. In my business we allocated a fixed, and low, number of skips, but also had a plan for what could go in them and what to do with the rest. On occasions I had skips emptied and refilled properly: Air is very expensive to cart to tip and pay landfill on, and the skip companies make a lot by sorting and consolidating. Site manager had to fill in a form of approximate contents.....so it became easier to think rather than dump. A couple of examples of savings. A few contractors really bought into this, and I once found our electrician's boss flattening lighting boxes and tying them up neatly, reducing volume by 90%...he then took them to a recycling centre. Another company MD (we were in a waste reduction group) banned skips on a house project and used hippo bags, allocated to different products. His surprise saving was in battens. Prior to this the roofers got to the eaves and sawed off the timber , and it fell to ground then was skipped. With Hippo bags they didn't fit so might as well take them up and reuse as cut to put in the bag. Similarly, a bag full of half bricks is fairly obvious and unjustifiable. Damaged bricks can obv be hardcore. In a skip they disappear. In our study we found that the cost of a skip is not £300 or whatever, but about £2,000 when you included materials that were being dumped without thought , or shouldn't have been bought in the first place. Timber packaging from steel deliveries we gave to schools for woodwork if we hadn't used it for shuttering. The big contractors claimed and boasted of 'zero waste'. But it wasn't true....they defined zero as 'what couldn't reasonably be recycled'.

Interesting. Doesn't sound like the vat inspectors I have met.

No reason why not, but a few lean mixes in the mixer won't break the bank, and won't scuff.

Do you need to attach his purchase invoice to prove the value?

Vat is complicated and worries some small businesses. He probably doesn't want the hassle or perceived risk of a new, to him, procedure. I would let it go. If needed again, you buy the materials.

Post and Beam 2m over 18m is rather steep. OK but not comfortable for most cars or people. Also remember you need to level off at the road, so that uses some of your 18m. 2m over 16m will be 12.5% Kelvin, The bellmouth entrance is likely to be required as tarmac, to stop stones getting on the road. Whatever the material, if you can contrive a slight rise onto your plot then no water will run in. With option 2 a slight crossfall (as the existing slope) will shed the water off the side. If you have any abnormally steep country roads near you, then try driving them and imagine as your drive.

OK sounds unusual. Just check in the attic that there isn't a lump of chimney missing. If a fireplace is taken out to make a bigger room then then it needs a bracket in the attic, which is easy but not always done.

And delivered next day! btw, I had the family do a detailed level survey of the slab, and they found a lot more variation than they had expected. As you can't easily change thicknesses, we have gone for 25 +100, all PIR. Local hollows are being filled with screed to avoid any voids under the PIR. Also btw, the diy concrete slab with fibres has been a great success. Contraction joints cut on day 4 (pushing their luck a bit) and NO signs of shrinkage cracks at all. Recommended for ease and economy. Saved us £2,000 of mesh, plus the labour and nuisance of it, and the pour of 11m3 was done by 5 amateurs

I sat through many a talk by BRE about SAP, EPC and Breeam and never got a sensible answer about any queries. The presenters were simply that. The boffins I met who created the nonsense computer suites (garbage in , garbage out) didn't really understand what they were doing either, and it is they who put in the stuff about turbines, air conditioning....and for Breeam, whether there are buses running or furry animals introduced. We bought the EPC computer suite and played with it, to get good answers. Not what you are supposed to do, but showed where the junk bits of formulae were, to avoid them. Then all these years pass and .....no change. I think you get bonus points for a water turbine too, regardless of its efficiency. (See Prodave experiment).

NO. It is a gimmick and an expensive one. To put it in perspective, about 15 years ago at Ecobuild in London there were 20 companies displaying wind turbines. I spoke to every one, and they were all commercially unviable, just gimmicks. That dropped to none over a few years. I haven't been for 3 years but there was one at last visit and it was basically a yacht model, plus another fixed to a lamp-post, so it could run an led light for one night, off mains.

Dig a hole to bury the clay? clever. Advice....use your prep time to talk to people. Good tradespersons will have other good contacts. Bad tradespersons will have bad contacts. Builders merchants have business cards up on their walls usually, but that doesn't mean they are good. Look at other projects. Be cheeky and speak to the workers, and the client if possible.

Would this be a Victorian age house, or slightly later. They were surprisingly standard whoever built them, and so the chimneys are very predictable and , yes, the 2 pots on your side are yours. I agree with all said. Repair chimney and keep the rain out. Change the flue, which is the cheapest part of the work. In the upstairs rooms, are there still chimney breasts or have they been removed? Often they are knocked out and not supported.

Agreed. I can understand why people specify fancy non-shrink grout (actually expanding is better), because it is easy, pretty good, and moderately idiot proof. The trouble is you have no idea whether it is in contact with the steel or not, unless you drill holes in the plate. I have seen removed columns where there was only 50% contact. Having been responsible for say 5,000 columns I prefer as Tonyshouse says. It is lo-tech, easily done by any builder whether experienced or not as long as they do as told. Dryish mix* with small aggregate, pushed into place and then banged in with a stick against a timber on the opposite face. The flaunching gives a little more pressure into place and prevents any suggestion of edge displacement. This isn't possible though if the column is recessed and doesn't allow access....then the specialist grout is the way. * manageable and doesn't shrink. Then tighten the bolts again.

Feedback time. Thanks for the info, which was used in further research and contacts. I am very pleased to report that the local, friendly, non-national, builders merchant came out best by a bit. they beat the online specialists by a bit, and delivery their standard £15 instead of £100 or more. National BM prices silly. The published price was very much higher, but I suppose is reasonable for a single board. Always worth giving the locals a try.