Ferdinand

Try these. https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=636 My comments are do no make it totally flat or it will scream ‘barrier’; put some texture in the height and depth and focal points somewhere else. Also the whole could die in a single catastrophe if you make it the same throughout. . Bamboo is good, so are fruit trees, or something deciduous in front of an evergreen. If you are having a potting or storage shed, that will be tall enough to hide a chunk of If, and can then be planted around. Of course, they might move their containers along, or get another two or three ?. You could put a bank along there or mounds and grow things on different types of soil or to make them taller, or if you have lots of soil to lose rather than be muckawayed. Also: https://www.countryliving.com/gardening/garden-ideas/g3367/privacy-landscaping/ Ferdinand

I think that is a well-considered, and considerate for your neighbours, scheme. Thank you for the comprehensive info. But (as Michel Roux says when reviewing Coq au Squid Ink...) - It looks like a complex build with a stonking budget. An extra 1200 sqft ish plus a huge garage and some well-chosen luxurie; all in 240k-270k give or take at a guestimate? I would get some ballpark estimates before doing planning, as once you start you are spending money and have a timescale, and you need to know where you expect to be before mounting the helter-skelter. If there is insufficient cash to lubricate the ride all the way you feel the splinters. - I have not looked at the internal layout in detail, but yes to all doubles. - I think you may get concerns about “massing”. That may mitigate towards a lowish profile roof on the garage. Perhaps box section corrugated would do it and also save 6-7k or so over th3 proposed. - I think that your high hedge is crucial in making the appearance more acceptable to the street, and would perhaps supply street views more prominently than elevations for the planners and when showing to neighbours; they will only see the side above 3m. Offer a Planning Condition to retain it if necessary. Or argue for a 2m fence or wall based on the current high privacy barrier. - I am not a fan of such complex roofs, with multi tiers, as it emphasises the piled-up style of London surburban housing - But London planners seem to like them. Personally I would prefer the side roof to be full height, but that would need a more articulated wall design on the side. - I think I would have the garage towards the front not the back, as that would move the driveway more from the corner, and make the ‘parking spaces’ part of a perceived enlarged back garden. But there may be an 8mpact on your rear “glass wall” window. Ferdinand

(*) RTFM - Read the (previously) floccinaucinihilipilification-ed manual.

I have been hearing good reports of Vincent Timber for nearly 20 years. I am sure that Kevin McCloud built either a briese soleil or a pergola out of something interesting - was it the fan blades from a jet engine?

Suitable for a bulk purchase? (Just saying ... I don't need one, but a small number of people will need a lot of slats, which can be ordered standardised and trimmed to length).

I think you need to approach these two through your wider design goals rather than as more standalone questions ... how much heat storage capacity do you need in the structure, and what is your planned route and method for letting any moisture out of your walls. That in turn depends on the type of structure you select, and interplays with it. You need to be looking at thermal spec, decrement delay, and so on. eg for EWI it will impact o; permeability and wall thickness whether you choose PIR or EPS. Ferdinand

Did you get any of these into contracts, or was it case of meticulous supervision by you, @JSHarris? This is presumably to something like +-5mm, perhaps 10mm. A downside of achieving that would be to make change difficult wrt the plans linked to the contract, whilst not doing that means the risk falls on the self builder. I think that I would look into dealing with this by putting the big ones into the slab eg soil pipe, whilst using some arrangement in the floor buildup for electricity distribution, combined with as little service void as possible. I do not have a mature scheme of this type for a new build, however. Ferdinand

You are getting off fairly Scot free so far - hope that you do not have problems with any big ones.. There is a reason I take great care to check trees when buying a rental. This little tree at my grans former cottage cost 3k to remove. In one day. Shredder at about 4 minutes. Tree is about 25-28m, and already a big tree in the when dad lived there as a boy in the 1930s. My extendible loppers came from Aldi, and also include a pruner type blade. Probably not as industrial strength, but probably half the price. F

I put a building on a concrete slab - sort of conservatory - next to a Victorian brick building on clay, but cannot remember how I handled that. I rather suspect that I improvised a movement joint to allow a modicum of slip, but the new building was timber, and the slab was not rigidly attached to the other building. Any stresses would appear where the roof plate or side joints occurred - all of which were timbers. F

The only points I would make are 1 - Have a master off switch inserted on the supply side of your CU, such that it can be worked on more safely and you can switch everything off should you need. 2 - Think carefully about future expansion possibilities. The extra cost will not be that much. Though you are perhaps doing both anyway. F

Similar to mine from Screwfix, McAllister, reviews well, same price https://www.screwfix.com/p/mac-allister-yt623105x-2800w-100kg-hr-shredder-220-240v/727FG Similar looking to mine from Makita. From about £200. https://www.alanwadkinstoolstore.co.uk/machinery-c111/shredders-c249/ud2500-garden-shredder-2500w-electric-240v-p38443/s41905 In the absence of a better deal, I would go for the Screwfix, but you may prefer the more expensive Bosch which does seem to chop better with double the throughput. Bosch: This one is more like mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XGRVgvHMNc Ferdinand

(Just before anyone asks - Jeremy and his village got bonfires banned). I had a thread on this 2 years ago, where I ended up with a Qualcast Electric one from Argos. The Qualcast was a rebrand of what seemed to be a standard mechanism in a lot of them. It has proved satisfactory for what I do across a couple of renovation projects and my own garden. The reason I went for that was that it was £90 whilst the others with the same mechanism were up to £150-200. It does not do substantial branches (yes, I know - a definition on wheels), but they can go for somebody's log burner outside your valley, especially where you are. It does not cope brilliantly with very green branches, but is acceptable to me OK. What it does do is compress the stuff about fourfold to fit in the garden dustbin. I think you have 2 options - go for something that is petrol driven and a heavy duty shredder; or go for something more like mine that is more a compressor and crusher. Bosch, for example, have some electric ones at more like £300-400. I would suggest going for a decent electric on the best deal, which is cheapo enough to give away or throw if you hate it, and consider something bigger if you turn out to need it. I would say borrow mine for a day, but it is rather a long way and I am not due down there in the next month. Bosch: https://www.garden4less.co.uk/bosch-quiet-garden-shredder-2500W-axt-25-tc.asp What seens to be the current version of mine at Argos: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/7501935 F ---------------------------------------------- So .. bought one of the 2.8kw electric ones this morning for just around £90 (Qualcast / Argos), and it was happy to shred probably 80% of all the stuff. Shredded some of the stuff already in the skip, which made enough space that the shredded remainder (except obvious fire wood) would fit in the space created thereby. @recoveringacademic will be keeping a couple of bulk bags full back so that I have some available if I need any. The shredder is adequate for branches up to about 40mm, and just needs not to be driven too hard. I can see me having this, and a secondhand lower end petrol powered one able to do things up to about 3-4" - and not one of the middle sized ones. Thanks for all the help. Ferdinand

I mainly concur with @Alex C here, but I am not sure it is fixable completely as we get both just-started and nearly-finished types of request. I agree that this design is quite unresolved in detail, but I think it embodies and begins to articulate what is required by the OP. I am more frustrated by “I am going to apply for Detailed PP on the 13th of next month; any last minute ideas?”, which can involve gold plating a nearly finished lump of coal, as I am by “here is something I ran up on Windows Draw this morning in half an hour; please advise”, which can involve debating a box in a vacuum. I think we get plenty of both types, but personally I prefer the latter as it is part of an individual’s long learning process, whilst the former cannot necessarily be improved except minimally and maybe cosmetically. Though like an architect we are perhaps more creative with lots of constraints. I think that time invested up front us worth its weight in octopuses, so I am usually happy to spend what time I have. Personally I try to aim for more fundamental concepts in a design, as if an OP had read something like A Pattern Language first. I think that with varying emphases we can cover a lot of ground; others are better on different aspects. My own bugbear is If we suggest something which is already on a different version of a design which has not been uploaded. But is there a little para somewhere on the joining process, which advises how to ask good questions, and what information helps us supply good answers? [I am guessing that this is probably in place already, because I think our admins have probably thought of that]. I like to see 1 - Some sort of requirements statement. 2 - Plans 3 - Context - plan of surroundings or Google earth 4 - Questions to address Ferdinand

So, clay and rock based things that do not float..

Make sure the topo identifies anything off your plot that you may need to address ... eg the pavement across from your driveway, where your splays will go etc. It will add very little to the job, whilst a return visit will add loads.

What a cop out. Build a wall-of-death bicycle window or up-and-over-backswards backflip window. Make it happen or they are not walk-on windows ! (Update: Or a bridge over a pond as the only route to your door)

Cheers. Did not know that Ozzie was in the set. Now I need one of one eighth of an octopus in my freezer.

Need an octopus emoji. Was feeding somebody stir-fried octopus and Prosecco last night. F

Off topic .. quirky but interesting plan. Ferdinand .

So based on that you have one month and a bit to mitigate your risk. Perhaps get an option agreement in place with the final field person if you can, for expenses plus a suitable sum, to cap the liability so you know where you stand, then consider a borehole as that number sounds acceptable for a borehole. You will have to pay him a smallish fee plus legals, as you know. Make the agreement long term enough to cover you selling it on, and make it transferable to a purchaser. And see if you get a good ideally binding estimate on a borehole, which sounds like a way of avoiding all the water problems ... maybe. But it sounds like the one to buy anyway. But decide PDQ if you are building or selling on; PP is a rapidly wasting asset and land values are another pin the tail on the donkey operation. Everybody buying it will do as much due diligence as you have. Alternatively lock the PP in by digging a suitable something soon after purchase, which will take the pressure off. Glad to see you are making a fist of managing the risk. F

I think that would be argued under loss of amenity, but I do not see this being close enough to anything to impact that. I think it has to be very close indeed. Useful note on loss of amenity https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Planning_objection

Thanks that is quite useful, but I would need to see all the adjacent buildings and relationships, and orientations, and topography to comment in much more detail. I think I have pointed out most of the potential forms of objection that should be available. Things you will be able to do could include eg making the wall facing the neighbour less blank, or more interesting, or smaller eg a mono pitch low on that Side, or a partially hipped roof. As a wildcard, could you put your upstairs what we It is on the end and make the whole thing single storey; that feels like an extreme compromise however. I think you are correct to have a conversation if you can. I think an informal phone call to the Planning Officer to try and identify their latest concerns may be helpful, to ask about their interpretation of their policy, and to explore what they generally would think of as acceptable; they will have to form an opinion on that for their report. But take care not to make commitments, and you can only expect useful indications in return. But it will still be useful, probably. Ferdinand

Online salesman and potential forum reading thieves. Yes.

Being harsh. Looking at it from the point of view of the land to the left of your garage on the pic, I make it that your garage is 1m or so from boundary, is essentially 6-7m high, and that the ground it is built on is higher already than next door. From the other side it must look rather .. er .. imposing. If I have that right, then I would probably be objecting very vigorously on grounds such as massing, overlooking, shade depending on the orientation, dominance and scale. I might also try my hand at a Visual Impact objection if I could make it stick. I would also possibly argue that it looked designed to be a future dwelling by stealth, which is not a planning matter but could stir up a useful controversy in the minds of the planning committee. I would probably want no windows on my side, and to lose the upper room or move it a lot further away .. like attached to the house. I may not have those relative dimensions right, however, and am not entirely clear wrt the relationship between the dwellings. A crop from the large scale council map showing the adjacent plots and properties, or from a Google earth, might help. Ferdinand

Can I add a few late comments here? I second @Mr Punter .. take the time that you need. You have put a lot of things together; now let it steep at least for a little to make sure that you get your decisions as right as possible. I would counsel deliberately exposing yourself (wait for the next word @pocster) to things outside your immediate experience here ... eg go and visit other houses to see how they are laid out and hw your friends live. Delibrately ask them what they would like to change or do differently. What facilities do they need. See how 2 people or 2 people plus one old mum live in a house. Get a list of questions to be thinking about etc. Have a few nights away in modern AirBNB etc. Do some scenario planning as to how you will live in it at differ not stages of your lives, if parents move in, if disabled or frail etc. You can design for adaptability without having to put all the extra stuff in now, but you need to have thought about it. Tou have some excellent comments on design and layout. I would add to think sooner rather than later .. say when your app is in but being processed ... about how to manage the construction, especially on hiring vs buying then selling items of kit, and getting things like trade accounts set up. My specific comments on the design: Make all your shower cubicles large ones ie one dimension 1m or more. It makes a huge perceived difference. Make them wall to wall at the end of the small oblong rooms. I would try and make all bedrooms en-suite .. there is space for a pair of ensuites between beds 3 and 4. I agree you need space for a full disabled shower room downstairs .. you never know when it might be needed. Inwuld make provision for that corner of the downstairs, and perhaps the pantry, to be a potential granexe with kitchen in future. Very little extra work required to do that. You have extra space for your stairs; use it. Make them shallow Ie say 35 degrees not 42. That just makes it feel comfortable, and much easier for older people. I am not clear what happens behind that settee on the landing, as it is blocked whichever way round the stairs are. Personally, I would consider making that the Yoga spot, as you potentially get light and a view, plus space to stretch out. It could be made into an informal Carrel when not being used for meditation. I think your grouping of ensuites is rather scattergun, and will cause pipe routing and potentially noise issues. I think your parking needs thoroughly reconsidering. It was very awkward in the initial sketch, and it is still. A two or three car long tandem or trandem cul de sac is unlikely to work. I think I would have three or four generous side by side in front of the double garage (which is a good size), with a turning spot for reversing down the N side of the house all done to recommended turning dimensions, the latter leading on to a porch or portico such that people can alight and vehicles can be loaded through the wide door. Ideally that turning space would be wide enough for a full size removal lorry to reverse in to prevent having to carry things the extra 10m, and ease future deliveries. The NE corner of the plot looks as if it is looking for a use. I would make that into either trees/shrubs, or possibly a workshop or work / hobby room. You could stick your storage there for the build, and leave it afterwards .. but remember that you may want it out someday. My take. Ferdinand