Ferdinand

Yep it is a good example of what Planning Consultants do on a wider canvas ... know about ambiguities and what liberties can be taken, when these are in a continual state of flux. F

Shoulda’ moved to Mansfield! Now comes with complimentary Tory MP. It’s going up in the world. They had the Top Gear reserve team filming an item about the “Le Mans(field)” Race last week. Not the kudos of Clown Shoes, Delilah, and the Chipmunk, but it is a start. Ferdinand

To buy all at once, would look at the multipacks of 4 or6 tools. Very consideaprable savings indeed. Previously I have been a Metabo shop, as about 8 or 9 tools were inherited. Now I am moving to cordless, new ones are Makita. I am avoiding de Walt as they seem to have split into separate consumer and pro lines, which is a little confusing. I also have a full set of one of the Aldi Workzone offers, which gave me iirc 4 tools and 3 batteries and 3 chargers for about £200. Detail sander, grinder, jigsaw and multi tool iirc. These are the ones I lend, if any. For me they are also the ones I use less regularly, so may pass muster. For workshop style heavy tools, I might mix my brands. F

IIRC E7 was designed as a way to demand-shift the peak demand, so that power stations could be utilised more efficiently during the overnight dip. From that viewpoint, they would need flexibility for Rates etc to tune to the different demand and generation mix in each area. For example, for darker mornings in the Far North, or Air Conditioning (?) in the Far South, or commuting hours in the Smoke. F

I think @PeterW has it .. it is all grey. Another example is on habitable vs non-habitable rooms and overlooking. A bathroom or a utility is not habitable, and may therefore be OK closer to next door than the distance required by facing habitable rooms. SO if you install a large utility facing next door's kitchen and turn it into a habitable room later then that may be a technical breach of planning. A similar thing may be if you install obscured glazing to an overlooking roof window, which happens to be a stick-on film that you can peel off later then you peel it off. Technical breach. Both difficult to enforce on as relatively minor, and it can be changed back in a morning. WHich is why someone may insist on real obscured glass. iirc that is why in Scotland they insist on permanent and solidly built wheelchair ramps, as an attempt to prevent them being taken away later. Ferdinand

Can you sue a Private BCO? *innocent face*

Not sure if relevant, however if you did your drains first you could plumb your welfare hut in temporarily and save on weekly suck-out for the loo. Would also reduce traffic.

@Tony K There is value in using standard grids, but being a slave to them can make some things difficult. For example, sinks and range cookers, and chest freezers do not conform to that. And I love my 1m wide cutlery and pan drawer .. see below. And you need sufficient flexibility in for when something else does not quite come out as expected.eg if a door suddenly needs to be 150mm wider, or a wall needs an extra thickness of PB you forgot about. If you do everything to +-1mm with no adjustable-But-looks-planned elements, then there is a chance that you will be hoist by your own petard. So plan for a sufficient adaptability. You can use things like bin gaps, places stools go, tray slides, wine coolers, and a row of units that finished on an open wall not a corner where the end can be +- 6 inches. Personally I have found Howdens good, but it is branch based, and they keep offering me 1000 or 2000 screws free if I have a kitchen quote from them. Grid, Yes, Slave to a grid .. a rigidity too far. Ferdinand

In these circs you need to find something inconspicuous that needs 20 welds which you can do as practice first. Do you need a gate or a window grill somewhere? Can you repurpose eg some robust skylights as glass balustrades?

The other option I can see is an access platform of the boom lift type. That would reach, but would be perhaps £120+ a week to hire, and I am not sure it would be suitable for using heavy tools. F

One application I may see would be to protect original material walls that might get splashed by a shower, or above a splash back where a sink is against a stone wall. (Talking about the aerogel). Maybe. Ferdinand

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I am not entirely convinced of this claim.

I would do that differently ... I would extend the A frame roof further out on the same profile, to give a car port and sheltered area that could be filled in later to give more house, and I would also make the slab similarly larger. If budget were available, the rear half of that could be a workshop. It might mean a sacrifice of something else, but would offer a lot of extra upside for the relatively small extra cost. If you need to there are quite dramatic things you can do such as no interior finishes at all for a few years ... a lot of couples including my parents lived with rush matting on ashphalt for years and years back in the day when people expected it to take time to restore a house. Painted breezeblock or raw plywood are fine for walls, especially now that walls are much better insulated and floors warmer. And you can get double sets of nearly new patio doors off eBay for a couple of hundred; I got two sets for under £300 last year for a covered way for a tenant. (A covered way is an ill defined thing that happens to be exempt from building regs so I could JFDI). There are loads of them where someone has decided that something not new is not good enough for them. On one of mine, the last of the house felt that white upvc was classier than brown upvc. That alone could save you £2-3k if you are having 3 sets. F

AGree with Russell. However at 25 degrees walking on the tiles with magic shoes may be an option. Your other option could be to install anchor points for roof ladders, or at least a safety rope. BUt safety first. F

Not necessarily. But it will tell you the terms on which anything can be done. Mine gave me the right just to give them notice.

Can you repurpose something like an ss worktop.? https://www.uktoolbox.com/products/sealey-tools-stainless-steel-worktop-1360mm.html F

Interesting. The other 2 options I thought about were an L shape, as you suggest, or a south facing U plan with a sun trap courtyard in the middle. BUt the main thing on this thread is to make sure that the OP is not restricted in his/her head to a limited template laid down by the outline, and has the confidence to debate the architect as a demanding client. ONe quite different alternative should stop that happening. AS it is the rooms at the back are a utility and a bathroom, which are fine with skylights and the single public room gets sun from mid morning till sunset, and the bedrooms later on. I would want several skylights, at least to give slanted sun in the morning in the lounge. If I was interior designing it, I would perhaps have skylights above the corridor and some form of clerestory between the corridor and bedrooms to get the morning sunbeams in to play joyfully on the glowing skin of ... etc. The toughest constraint for me here was the parking, which can only be where it is due to the corner, and the need to avoid a tandem driveway and go side by side, which is much better. Those spaces are very tight indeed at 5m length. THe one I have done could lose 0.5m off one dimension of every room, so the entrance can be created anywhere. Personally I would probably go for a back door from the car parking, and a 'front' door entered from the south up a path behind the property emerging next to the utility. Perhaps covered over for a FLW style mystery drawing in rabbit hole feel as you walk in. I would aim to shunt it up the plot some way., and potentially have a third room as a study as a third 'bedroom' is a big perceived benefit. But I would not sacrifice all of the extra space - my experience dealing with tenants is that there is a HUGE perceived difference between a 3.5x3.0m room, and say a 3.0 x 4.5m or 3.5m x 4m; in a lounge it gives the opportunity for a second area in addition to lounging without it feeling cramped. The same goes for bedrooms, where you have space for an easy chair or exercise bike or handbag display unit. So I like working with dimensions of 3.5m and 4.5m. Privacy is less of an issue than might be expected here, as there is a 2m fence approved on the fence line, which does not show. Presumably that would be allowed on the building line on the S side too. The final issue here is build cost, which argues against a more complex shape. IF the whole thing can be done with a single A frame roof - I would cathedral the lounge kitchen area and the beds and corridor - and no cross gables, then that will free up cash for other things or and extra space. THere would be an argument for stepping the wall in to make the parking spaces 5.5 or 6m, whilst retaining an overhang. Had I the option I would have chopped off the corner of the lounge to follow the shape of the boundary, but that would complexify (!) the roof and cost several thousand extra, which could be used to pay for 2 or 3 roof lights or a nice holey brick wall at the front. That was my thinking, anyway. F PS posted the blank map so others can play. GO on go on go on...

Forgot one. 10 Do not worry about the architect wanting to divide your kitchen-diner. Build it, then experiment with room dividers in the form of furniture, bookshelves etc, then you can add a stud or glass brick wall if you really need one. It may be worth making sure that you have extra tiles or whatever so that you could take the wall away again and make good later ! You could even put a stud wall thick row of tiles as a symbolic divider that could be sacrificed should you do it. Just do a sanity check on where you would attach such a wall to the ceiling. But this point is a bit anal.

Interesting read from a former member: https://web.archive.org/web/20140702001732/http://www.ebuild.co.uk/blog/20/entry-184-part-1-in-the-beginning/ https://web.archive.org/web/20140701233548/http://www.ebuild.co.uk/blog/20/entry-185-part-2-the-planning-saga-episode-1/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150424213045/http://www.ebuild.co.uk/blog/20/entry-186-part-3-the-planning-saga-episode-2/

Semis do not have to be the same. You could build something big that could be subdivided by blocking up one or two doorways, to give 2 halves ( or a 2/3 and a 1/3) which are different and distinctive, and happen to align with a straight through division of the plot. And that when divided naturally give good privacy. The extra cost required would mainly be in thinking time, and you seem to have the skills and contacts to achieve it. The expensive things are bits like 2 potential sets of services etc. [Bonus comment: There are lots of creative divisions of old buildings into 2 or 3 - a modern version of that?) Ferdinand

A fine design. My comments: 1 - I agree with - hob on island, perhaps bring kitchen out a little, downstairs loo is not generus enough for the house, and equalising the boys' bedrooms. Personally I think a freezer is fine in a utility. 2 - Is that downstairs loo accessible (1.5m turning circle)? I think that is a requirement so it should be covered. I would probably nick a little from the dining room to make it a fully accessible shower room,for disabled or frail guests. I would also make sure there is a suitable sleeping space downstairs for such visitors. Under accessibility, I think you also need provision for access upstairs, even if not fitted eg stairlift - is this covered? 3 - Personally I think the study would work as a study, and taking visitors through a large formal lounge is suitably intimidating! Perhaps a peep window in the side of the porch so you can see who is visiting without leaving the study. 4 - Light. A little concerned that the dining area, and the hall, are not light enough. I would want at least one skylight in the hall, and consider more generous skylight provision in those areas adjacent to the dining area, particularly toward the centre of the house. 5 - I would make the doors from the hall to the dining area substantially glass to let light through, and I would add a tall thin window in the back on the LHS in alignment to give a vista to the garden when standing in the hall. We have one; it is gorgeous. 6 - Whilst I think the study / drawing room would work, I would at least consider configuring that end of the house so that a grannexe would be possible later. That will require some careful thought. 7 - Maintenance. A lot of your house has two levels of roof - how will you maintain the top roof, and the walls / windows on the 1st floor? Access could be expensive. If your roofs are basically flat, I would consider making them walkable-on, and have at least one access to each roof via a larger window from upstairs. Is it possible, for example, to get to the upstairs windows with a pole from the ground? 8 - I would consider a lengthways car port following the style of the porch in front, so that you can get into the house dry when it is slathering down, and eg shopping can be unloaded. 9 - Repeating @PeterW's point, it looks complex to build. Best of luck. Ferdinand

Remember, you *like* roller coasters. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BbU803lYdA0 F (Baa. Reluctant to embed)

Companies House will take time. Rereading, you have an email from the company; that should be enough to get it back if you are so entitled under your cc t&c. F