Ferdinand

There's a pool in my cellar Dear Lisa, Dear Lisa...

What happened to this thread? It has turned into Toxteth circa 1986.

The carncil will want the footway reinforcing for that, and the cost is likely to be £1000 ish I would say. You may be OK as it is a minor road, but they may also have views about enter-and-leave-in-a-forward-gear ie off road turning space. The easy way for that may be either the @ProDave idea, or possibly a sweep driveway if ProDave would impact your back garden. F

My view is do the comprehensive PP and do the drive + wetroom now. If you can put up with a manhole in your utility (if allowed now - don't know about that) then it could be done. You need to work out a table of you options and what is required for each, and the various costs. Not too diifficult and estimated from online tools (eg whatprice) should be good enough to give you a feel for the possibilities. Start a thread about the overall project and ask for help. F

Suggest a separate thread or on the other one. Ideally you would tell us where the existing drains go (look under the cover and see the directions), and where your plans would send the black and grey water from the new shower room. F

2 hours could put you as far away as Chesterfield or Colchester, so I think you probably need more criteria to avoid diluting your search. I would develop some criteria for the place you want to live - coast, walking country, shops, flatland etc. IMO the budget should be possible depending where you look and what you want, as by the time several years have passed you could have saved more. I have a perfectly acceptable 670 sqft bungalow with 3 double bedrooms, but most people want more. I could point you at a plot that just got permission for a 2 bed detached dwelling that is on sale for in the 30-40k range that may be replannable, but I am nearly at Chesterfield and that is 1hr 45 says Google. There may be much to be said for buying somewhere with a garden, then living in the existing and selling off afterwards - or similar schemes. The budget you need imo is an elapsed time budget to find the best solution for you. For 200k and those criteria you could probably buy a very nice house outright as an alternative. Ferdinand

I do not think you will get that drive - far too close to the junction. I have a number of 15m in my head for the minimum distance, but I have not looked it up. Usually ones closer were there already. You will need to be the other side of the path, or as @ProDave says off the existing next to your new extension. That side the kerb already looks to be at dropped height more or less, so you could just JFDI and see what happens. Perhaps not while you are the subject of planning's attention already, however - ie maybe leave it some time after the existing project. BUT consider your extension project. You can probably stick this drive on the same Application at minimal cost, once you have decided how you are doing it. Then if you delay one for >3 years, building the other will lock in the permission anyway. I'd go further and say include the new space for your eventual kitchen extension on the same application as another volume like the shower/porch, to give a symmetrical double roof and a nicely articulated attractive facade. Then you can build that as and when without more Planning Faff and Cost - just be careful to do it in a way that you know will be what you want in the future. There is usually no regulation for when have to finish the implementation of a Planning Permission. Your bloke doing the PP may well have suggested doing it in two planning bites, if he is not aware or is locking in future work (which is unworthy of me and probably casting an entirely unjustified nasturtium). Even if you never build it, the PP will always be a selling point worth 2-5k or as a persuader. Now, having addressed the other issues, what about this permeable driveway surface ?? What about the alternative to permeable from your document linked - traditional with surface runoff management which keeps water on your plot, which can be a soakaway or a flowerbed or similar. Why not use that huge lawn for what it does best and take the runoff there? It may need a conversation with the Planner as to what they will not quibble about. Elephant Trap: That manhole on your plan on the other thread looks as though it may cause issues for your extension - consider carefully what it is and what it does, and how you will integrate it. It may be that you need to move it - which will be easier now if that is where you plan to take the output from your new wetroom. Ferdinand

Welcome, Chris - I am just the other side of Mansfield. Don't do what I did once and put a foot in a half meter cubed test-hole half full of water in the dark whilst wearing posh trousers. Ferdinand

My estimate was out of pocket cost - £1800 per sqm * 303 sqm = approx £550k plus a plot which would be the thick end of £150-180k maybe. Equals 750k or so, which could easily be the "best part of a million" once it has had fees and more fees and extras and higher specification and more charges for getting bits done quicker and budget-creep and contingency and necessary breaks away and supplementary kit and repairs to the supplementary kit and gold-plating :-). Nothing wrong with gold-plating of course if you do it at the end after you have paid for the rest. > playroom could become fifth bedroom/grannex since the bathroom is next door Good stuff - the detail of different views may throw up other things. Best of luck, and spend spare time on thinking first not regretting later in all aspects. F * £1800 per sqm is reasonable for a complex-ish self-managed build. My plot price could be some way off as I am not that familiar with the Scottish sub-regions - except that Edinburgh seems to be expensive !

I would say that it is better to bring it to a head, but you also need an eye on the old friendship and how you will preserve it (or not). Difficult to advise on the latter, though it could end up as friends who disagreed one and move it, Christmas Card acquaintances or never-talk-again, and how you handle it coupdl determine which. F

Is there a chance that you could get the bit extra via a Non Material Amendment, under an explanation such as making it more thermally efficienct? F

I thought those tiles were relatively easy to retrofit, even in a warm roof? Can they not go through one of the triangular voids, or is it the position of the hood etc away from an easy route? The only things that needs care should be the membrane and insulation, subject to that. I sure hope so, as I have to retrofit one in about a week ?. F

No - this was a Second Year student project when he was 19. There are other things from earlier on the same theme. And for example a measured survey of one of the classicist buildings in Edinburgh - apparently they sent groups of students out to crawl over and manually survey buildings in different cities. I'm quite blown away by the maturity of it at that age, and the quality of the paintings, though I guess that there might be some derivative elements in the design. Of architects I know now, most still sketch, and I think it has a lot of value in getting a feel for the design rather than just creating a techno-model. I sometimes think in sketches, as do others here. And some think in models. Some aspects are quite modern - eg master suite with dressing and bath is what a number of the larger projects have on here. Others - eg many rooms downstairs - are older concepts, but for 1957 it is quite good, and for a student very gimmick-free. The relatively small size of the study vs the reception rooms is something we were debating on here just last week. The four double bedrooms are great, but all with dressing rooms is a bit "To the Manor Born and Chucked into the Gatehouse by the 1950s Inheritance Tax Laws". I'm quite tempted to use the material to start my own standalone blog - I've been sitting on a suitably self-build sounding domain for some time now, and it would be a nice Christmas Project.

Clearing out a little, I have come across a cache of material from my father's Architecture Course at Sheffield University in the late 1950s. There is also a brochure from the GRP products he was offering around 1983 from one of the original Raleigh Buildings in Nottingham. Lots of interesting projects - this is one for a "Country House", and I can see the stripped down style of the period, but there are also quarters for a maid. And a lot of illlustrations done in watercolour. And the scale is - yes - 1 inch to 6 feet. Here are a few pics, which are just auto-colour-balanced. The entry was done in haste so there are a couple of duplicates.

That is asking for an inappropriate quip. But I shall restrain myself, as the Bishop said to...

I think that depends on several things, including the physical form of the roof, and the condition of what is there already when you come to repair it. One thing you could consider would be a whole new roof, including OSB, on the top. If the roof is between parapets that may work, but may leave you hostage to further deterioration of the existing (eg if the old OSB is wet and swells). Or you could take it off and start from scratch - or switch to a different type of roof. Is the physical form such that you could eg go right over the top with a membrane? (Perhaps not or you might not have used GRP anyway.) I have seen fibreglass repairs work for years and years, but if it is nearly new and you are planning to be there for decades, it sounds like a bite the bullet and start from scratch may be the way. Ferdinand

It is about the risk management. Any clauses in your rental agreement need to be lawful, fair, and enforcible of course. One that probably requires advice imo - I would not be confident drafting such a clause. Ferdinand

I don't honestly know to the first. There is a genuine crisis in funding, so I am sympathetic to the need - which is why I argue for a different system. Personally I would target the exemption for corporate style run by charities which impact on local small businesses - important but that would only nibble at the edges. I am also sympathetic to the idea that funding pressure has now gone as far as it should. I'm inclined to think that doing that to HMOs (and making BTL generally more difficult) is cutting their noses off to spite their faces as HMO residents are the people who can least afford it, whilst driving properties from HMOs to owner occupation is driving down people per dwelling and without more supply of housing will drive up homelessness - which will land on local councils. Of course, there is a rising campaign by Councils to apply Council Tax to Student Housing as well. TBF on that one, it is driven partly by a Govt decision planning to make that be funded locally, rather than subsidised. F

Indeed - it is complicated with lots of different factors and is a VOA thing of which the Council may choose to take notice, rather than necessarily a Council thing. The rulings are buried in the VOA Manuals somewhere. There is a lot of variation documented in those threads. Stuff that may affect: Is there a loo in the ensuite? Room size? Locks on doors? 'Cooking facilities' (microwave installed by T?) Is there a shared lounge? Exclusiveness of 'estate'? Do you offer in room services eg cleaning (which may affect the exclusiveness). etc Also of course, if it gets applied to yours, it may not get applied to the one next door. F

(On a slight tangent ... another issue that is both important and current) I take it you have something in place to manage the risk that your HMO may end up as 4 x Band A dwellings for Council Tax purposes? Currently happening all over the place. https://www.property118.com/hmo-council-tax-changed-room/ https://www.propertytribes.com/hmo-individual-council-tax-banding-t-127628090.html I think this is Bristol? Band A is £1260 a year. https://www.bristol.gov.uk/council-tax/council-tax-charges-and-bands Ferdinand

Haha. It is all always different, and it changes with the wind. You may find 3 or 4 different definitions of HMO in one Council or in different areas of the law, License schemes introduced under questionable pretences, and which may require you to commit offences or contravene building regulations to be in compliance. See recent events in Liverpool, for example ?. But that is off-topic, and you are just a mouse dealing with Councils who far too often act as blind, lobotomised elephants. F

Washing machine is not on your list... And the Landlords National Purchasing Group may be worth a look: https://www.propertytribes.com/lnpg-it-worth-it-does-it-save-money-t-10096-2.html

OK, so... just in case you have not covered these yet (bet you have, mind) 1 - Make sure all gaps with downstairs are well sealed to air (and runaway beads...). Well-insulated loft hatch? 2 - Ditto make sure that your loft has adequate ventilation - usually via slots at the eaves. and 3 - My normal practice if I am insulating a loft is to work out where I will need to walk in future (eg if some joker has put the boiler up there in the past, or for an MVHR unit or similar) is to fix a walkway at rafter level over the first 100mm layer of insulation, and then putting the remaining 170mm of rockwool over it, congruent with the walkway, such that plumbers and gas men etc can just whip off a couple of pieces of rockwool and have a safe, secure walkway / environment to work with. It also potentially saves me having to deal with elephant holes in the ceiling. To do that with your graphite balls may need a little bit of thought. Ferdinand

Watch out, there's Amanita about. (Also known most suitably as the Destroying Angel).

It might help to specify a town ... Yorkshire is a big place.