Ferdinand

I can send you a piece of string to provide the answer to that one ?.

I am still learning to drive my presets ! F

Looks good. And because there is a change of direction at the door, people will look before changing direction. THought you had done this, based on the avatar, and that they had been knitted from ganja, which would explain a lot. Good job.

I think you now have one house, not two, in the looks, and it is a good stripped back basis to consider what you actually want to do. The facade is simple enough to be unified, and that dormer is now a unifying element as a subsidiary echo of the other one, even though I do not like it very much personally. IMO the cladding on the LHS would be better down to the plinth. I would now say park the exterior, and think about the inside and what you want / how you live, and how it relates to the surroundings and the back garden e.g. View axes and so on. E.g. Consider new windows, or moving existing ones. I have already pointed out a dozen possibilities, but also consider your intentions for the windows, and think about the performance of the fabric. IMO it may well be worth a full new set of windows, and eg dark grey upvc might work well. THat means you can change their sizes and shapes. Also consider how you will get light into all your shared spaces at different time of the day e.g. Put a tall narrow glass panel in the hall to the sitting rooms near the front will give you angled sunlight there early in the day. (Update. That little bit higher change is a second level elaboration ... the thing you will want to play with once you have done your first lot of thinking about the interior. The exterior is at 70-80%. Leave it alone and think about the interior. Come back to it in 10 days when you have made some progress on the inside. Ps IMO the central element wants to be at one height or the other, and not in the middle .. unless there is a necessary reason at the detailing stage ... at this stage it is just adding the Knick-knacks back on that you just got rid of to make it simpler. Do not pfaff about detail when there are still big things to work on like your interior and in-out relationships.) F

WIth this posh new car the number of things with heaters is ridiculous. IT takes a little time to switch them all on ... windscreen, rear screen, mirrors, steering wheel, seats. There is even an ice scraper inside the fuel cap cover, which works well except when that is more frozen up than the doors. MInus five degrees here. F

As for a self install, I think the possible required maintenance checks and certification are one area where you may have an issue. I have a sense that there may be some kind of enforcement bureaucracy attached to this. The presentation I linked may have more.

This was introduced under a Private Members Bill type procedure in about 2007-2013 by an MLA called Ann Jones. Fire deaths And injuries in Wales were averaging 17 and 502. Clearly at that rate it will take two or three decades to save even 5 lives per year, assuming sprinklers save all the pot Niall lives they can (which they probably will given the record), as in this country we only renew at most 1-2% of housing stock per year. I expect that for te first 25 years at least there will be no detectable change, There was a Report from BRE pointing out that it was not cost effective at iirc 6.7m per life saved, but the decision was presumably made on principle and influenced by Fire Brigades who usually support the measure. See this piece from Wales Online https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/new-homes-fitted-automatic-fire-2051716 I am not sure how that perception changes after Grenfell. There is a fairly recent monitoring report presentation here, which has an installation cost table on page 67 http://www.cewales.org.uk/files/8614/8163/8572/Llandudno_Sprinkler_complete_presentation.pdf Personally I think there should be potential significantly to reduce the cost of these systems by perhaps 50% or more over time, so I am agnostic about the measure (though quite happy for somewhere to be running a long term experiment). At say 1-2k per house I would be a strong supporter. At 3-4K, not so much ... spend the money on a different Ill in society, such as impact of drones, insulation/ventilation programmes, or houses on corners that get lorries in the front room depending on research. F

A quick one for @JSHarris. Jeremy Has your idyllic valley suddenly turned into a frost pocket? Asking out of genuine interest. I suspect it may be big enough to avoid it if you have decent air movement in there, or are not right at the bottom. Ferdinand

VIdeo or it did not happen. I think big snorkelling or worm charming are more our style.

If it for a room in the new house, then imo your extras for working around it, risk of differential movement, managing the joints etc, will be more than the money you will save. IMO do not bother unless you can see a very very good reason. F

Scotland has some excellent timber, which can be sourced in site, kiln dried, and visually strength graded. eg this bloke sourced some local hardwood last year that he wrote about on Monday. Scotland also has a brilliant line in slightly over-generalising giraffes ? .. as does elsewhere. (Apols for over generalising in that last comment). F

@Lift span The retaining wall is probably for your architect and structural engineer, but there is nothing to stop you leaving that deep trench and spanning over the top to make a patio or veranda. YOu just need to make sure that the tench is drained well and accessible for maintenance. in pronciole you could just drain the bottom and fill it with gravel; if it moves just rake it flay or top it up. Personally I would want to be able to get down in future here to see the condition of the house structure. Here is my other comment ... one way of ordering the basic project. 1 - Resolve how you use the spaces. Move the Bed 4 to where the study is. THat is to make the bedroom wing a bedroom wing, and clear the way for south light to come into the big living space. IN fact turn the current study and the underused bathroom, and perhaps part of the utility, into two bedrooms and an accessible shower room. Redo that maze of doors such that it is slightly separate and can be a 1 bed - living plus kitchenette - shower room compact grannexe with minimum adaptation for when you need one. that is a killer feature in a house this size. 2 Let the light in. Have discussed this prev. DOuble height flush bay window to give 2nd or 3rd aspect to both living spaces, plus a pair of skylights above the new double height hall either side of the ridge, near where the stairs are. DOuble height entrance with lots of glazing, as discussed. YOu could put a complete band of roof windows in if you wanted. You can play around with the height and how many panes in the double height window, but imo consider making some of the millions sufficient that you can put a smaller study in so that the stud wall does not show, and you get a nice tall window in the study. Move the walls between hall and living spaces such that the entire stair is in the hall, lit from above by skylights. @Mr Punter's through hall may work with this, as stairs are off to the side. 3 - Resolve facade. Have discussed. 4 - Kitchen / dining. To me that kitchen may be big enough, or may benefit from extension. COnsider later. But that dining area looks like a long walk. WHy not have a thru cupboard with doors each side? it could be made to work for both living spaces from the kitchen. YOur fridge would need a new home. 5 - Living spaces. Treat these as a free form zone, and put in stud or movable walls as required e.g. To give a small study whilst still letting light through from the south. THere are systems of movable walls available, or you can stud. THe customers tend to be leaseholders who do not want to get BFONTed (*) for charges for permission to make structural changes. There could be an argument for opening up the ceiling of your upper living area to a cathedral ceiling, depending on the roof structure. PErhaps for a storage or sleeping mezzanine and some drama. 6. Manage heat. Depends on handling of windows and entrance. BUt use your skylights for stack ventilation, and perhaps put auto or remote control on them. 7 Cladding / appearance. IMO your looks could be either modern and sharp, or smartened up house with a nod to earliernstyles. THe latter is well embodied in eg smaller Lutyens or modern extensions to older buildings / small public buildings done from about 1900-1975. Go and find some ... they are everywhere e.g. In small extensions to ancient churches which are contemporary but subservient to the earlier building. I think the cladding on the RHD in your design looks good. YOu could match it to e.g. A vertical cladding on the LHS, or a vertical band of horizontal cladding. 8 What I am trying to do here is to give a different view so you have good qs to ask your architect, and can be more equal in the dialogue. WHen you have some good ideas, suggest getting a friend who can draw or paint to run up a couple of impresssions of what it may look like, based on a 3D view you print out. Watercolours are ideal, and you can hang up all the versions afterwards. IT is a bit like the impressions they used to put on the end of Time Team. EXample: Best of luck. Ferdinand * See Die Hard, 1988.

@Lift span, TWo more substantive posts to make on this, since I have been musing. This is several possible treatments around turning the Rantzen window into a two storey window with a vertical emphasis, and a flush entrance. Based on your statement that the house is big enough already I do not see the need for more space without a specific purpose, and we do not have an incontestable requirement. Yet. The entrance is patterned mainly to link it to the LHS via similarity to the windows, and the half and half division is treated as the line where the roofs meet. PErhaps your future roof room would be best in the bedroom wing, as it has NS facing gables for windows .. easier for PP at the front, as you could then have side facing obscured roof lights. Changing the existing without major building works will help the cost equation. I have not fully resolved the levels at the entrance, but I am tempted to treat the entrance at GF level, and the downstairs sitting room as a separate living area, and you go upstairs to the kitchen/dining sitting room which together count as your split level kitchen diner living space. THat can be changed by adjusting the entrance, but I think a single core set of stairs is much tidier and less discombobulating. I have not addressed external finishes. Here is your house in case anyone wants to play: TWo storey bay window under gutter. TWo storey bay proud of and slightly cut into roof. FLat window under gutter with S facing veranda with roof to help manage solar gain. I would personally go for that flat window one, as really major work is minimised and it is simplest, and it can be multistaged. A balcony above the veranda would be OK as S facing, or a 2 storey veranda if you want a dual purpose solar gain management idea which does something for you as well as for the heat. Ferdinand

That depends entirely what the base is and what you want to build on it. If your garage is a kit it may be OK. Maybe. You will need either to take a gut level flier based on what you can fund out or get a pro-opinion. Typically a conservatory slab may be reinforced 100mm or just 100mm or so (my last was reinforced 125mm - but it was a full height wall panel job off ebay just sitting on the slab with bolts not dwarf walls with foundations), depending, and a garage would want more like reinforced 150mm. Also, @buildboy, slabs are relatively cheap to put in compared to the cost of a garage, and expensive to remedy once you have built something on it ! WHich might argue to put a new one in. FOr the storage need, one option we have not discussed is kit garages as an item which can be sold on later, though perhaps those flatpack storage containers are more of an idea for that. F

Series 7 Ep 2 I think. Theres a lot to be said for a blitz from the outside and add stairs afterward, though expensive. https://www.channel4.com/programmes/building-the-dream/on-demand/60958-015 I seem to recall another one, but cannot remember,. Ferdinand

Do you actually need more space or spaces? How will you want to use them in the done-over house? What about in terms of integrated spaces or separated spaces? How many bedrooms do you actually want .. currently you have up to 5. ANd how many studies / offices, and what else? Can we have a List? ISTM that the core of your house revolves around a kitchen space and two living areas. How do you use them? E.g. Are they both spaces for visitors (where do friends get taken? Acquaintances?). IS there a children/adult division, or daytime / evening, or clean / messy, or relaxing / chores, or what? One issue is that two of your three most used spaces face overwhelmingly North. How the sun gets through and into the house, and how you manage that, will be key. It is tempting to think about the atrium extending to include the current staircase, so that the whole interior is opened up a little more, with a big skylight at the top. It is also tempting to think about extending the atrium inwards not outwards, so as to avoid any need for a new sticky-out erection. Then you could focus on a different surface / aesthetic treatment for the LHS including a 2 storey bay with a vertical emphasis, and an adjustment of rooms inside .. including doing something with the bed 4 to give south light in both living spaces from the new bay. What is the structure around the Steam Room. IS it feasible to just take that away and leave a double height hall where it was? Or would that require mayor structural buggeration? JUst how tight is the budget? E.g. ballpark 25k, or 75k, or 125k, or more? Can you afford a new facade on the left, or are we limited to eg new finishes plus a small amount of structure? DO you want a new kitchen out of this, or a bathroom, or just a new look from the outside? How we'll insulated is it? ARe flowing, combined living spaces practical, or do we need to keep them separated for the sake of being able to heat room by room? CAn you post the EPC? F

+1 to the @the_r_sole. I think you are working your way through possibilities, and you will suddenly or eventually come up with something that will work for you - hopefully in cahoots with your architect who will smooth the rough corners. Let me chuck in another idea: of the 2 halves, the RHS is far more self-consistent. The LHS, especially with that 'sidecap' dormer window, looks rather incoherent to me. I admit the window on the left window makes me think of Esther Rantzen. I think that the dormer is out of style, and also rather small compared to what it could be. I am not sure about that high blank wall that is in several of your piccies on the LHS. I think the LHS needs a contrasting-to-the-RHS face transplant, and then something that links the two. One way if you think like that is to draw 10 different thumbnails in 15s each showing different things you can do with it; or get artistic friends to sketch some out. You can actually be very bold with these things if you have a clear idea - if only as another way of exploring your boundaries. Here is what was done to a couple of estate houses in my area decades ago - they have managed to make them look entirely different. Respectful but innovative - like yours they have become houses of two halves. Here is an estate house: Here is how one person extended it: And here is what another person did: The extension to the second one was designed by my dad in the late 70s. It has now been repurposed to be white, but the bay was actually alu looking like fins and designed to stand out plus draw the eye away from the Estate-House core. From outside it reads like a staircase, but was actually a study downstairs and master suite upstairs (ie extra bedroom at the back plus a dressing room and bathroom). Not absolutely sure he did the bit at the back with the clumsy pitch change in the roof. If you blank out the Estate House, you can see how the new extensions have been linked in by some elements (eg the buff bricks, pantiles, angle of roof on the second), but also redefine the face for the house (face on roof on the left, modern element, redefining the roofline on the second). Streetview link. You want 79 Huthwaite Rd, NG17. For yours, you could eg take a large bay window on the left all the way right above the roof, or something similar that runs into a flat roofed atrium. Spend half a day on a pushbike on an old estate made good, with a camera, and see what people have done. Ferdinand

It would be far mor interesting if someone had stolen one and brought it back

So where did Epsilon get one from? Or am I being wound up !

The LHS front would make a very nice flat roofed veranda/dining terrace, which would also help with your solar gain management. COuld be accessed through big doors from the front room. And you could make the downstairs rooms on the other side useable as a spare bedroom, which could be a downstairs master suite for your dotage. F

Didn't know we had any flying in the UK. Aren't they a bit difficult to fly - astonishing performance but will bite your bum off, like a 911? F

We don't normally talk about going on television, but Ugly House to Lovely House is one of the more humane ones, imo. F

I think the need here is that the facade is too bitty; it needs simplifying and tying together. I don't like the dual pitch on the double height at the front as is; it looks like a signal box with a hat. I think you could improve that by making the fenestration or cladding have a strong vertical texture, and obliterate the external perception of 2 floors. As it stands it does not look visually part of the house - there are no seamless joins. I like the previous monopitch version in some way as it balances the facade, but for that you need the roofs to be properly integrated; but on that version the leanto roof does not work. I think that horizontal roofs would improve your first version, so that you have a third element to the facade drawing it together. On the roofs, I think you need to make the atrium roof different or the same - not slightly different and complicated. I think a seamless sweep into the existing rh roof would work, or a flat top to the atrium. I think if you are going for a double pitch, perhaps you need to be thinking about a finished wall surface rather than steel and glass. Have you considered an entry on the LHS of the atrium not the front? Would give you more scope for a seamless looking addition. F

Sussex. Hmmm. I'd allow maybe 12k-15k ballpark plus 10-20% contingency, and adjust the numbers as more detail is revealed, and extra costs come to light. The nice thing is that you get to know the outturn on this element early in the build, so you can recycle the contingency.

If it is just a ‘quote’, then I would say half or double ... obvs it is logarithmic. And the way to manage it is by taking out the risk for them, as well usual cost disciplines. If you eg make them responsible for variable elements, then the price will include that risk that is difficult to strip out. Very important to have a frozen design, to minimise changes, and to have taken more than adequate time up front. Ferdinand