Ferdinand

Get the swing doors like that correct, and you can go into it like Clint Eastwood into a saloon bar...

It does all seem remarkably complicated. What about one of those things which which give you both types of head at £80, as recommended by @Nickfromwales ? That is, thermostatic mixer showers. I bought 2 and they seem fine. What is mitre-ing the corner in aid of? Is it a sort of self-torture thing like building Blackpool Tower from matchsticks because you can, or is someone in the house octagonal on plan? Bemused. F

The trick I was talking about was to do a highish level bed platform in bed 4 built into the space in bed three where the medium or high levels cupboards would go over a desk or seat in bed 3, or a little lower over a bank of base unit type cupboards. So one gets a bed and other gets a desk or built in seat or low level cupboards in the same space on the plan. Just throwing out another idea, which may or may not be useful. I have not seen one of those for some years, but they seem to have dropped out of fashion whilst mezzanines are in. F

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Plagiarise plus donation to BH?

WHat are his recommendations? Imo you need him to say clearly that remedial ground works are unnecessary, or similar words, or how they can be made unnecessary which proposals you then incorporate in your plans, otherwise you could land a very expensive Plannign Condition from an overcautious LPA, added for mainly better-do-it-anyway reasons.

PS ON the skylight, none of the drawings seem to show where it is or exactly what size it is, so you may already have PP in practice to move it and change it. They are unlikely to enforce on the basis of 'it looks a bit different to me' where nothing is specified precisely. PS2 Do you really need 4 bedrooms? Bed 3 with an ensuite and not Bed 4 night be a better idea, depending on usage plans(?) Bed 4 does look quite compromised. Or leave it bigger with the option of a stud wall later. or even do the overlapping bunk bed thing, or put a sleeping mazzanine for bed 4 over all or part of bed 3 open to the rafters. I have not calculated roof heights for this last comment.

Cheers. this is where 3D CAD packages can be useful. OK. WOrking with the anti-clockwise version, which places the top flight of stairs in the same position on the x-axis on the plan as your half staircase, but 1m lower on the plan to be in the side gable bed3-4 part rather than the main block. We know that moving my red rectangle about 1m towards the top will place the top flight in exactly the same position in all three planes as the short staircase in your current plan, so we know that that will fit headroom wise if your existing design works The cost is that the staircase in my concept is now protruding into the main block of the house by 1m and the open plan layout is somewhat compromised, though less than in your original. The questions then become 1 how far that red rectangle can me moved towards the bottom before the headroom becomes unacceptable and 2 how can that constraint be mitigated to let the red rectangle be moved further towards the bottom or, more precisely, how can the stair tread to ceiling height be optimised at the point the staircase goes through the wall upstairs, such that the open plan living space is not compromised while still meeting both building regulations and the look and feel and flow you want for your house? things you have to adjust in this Chinese puzzle, assuming a hard constraint on the outside dimensions and ignoring an extra semi-dormer window because it looks twin axis and complicated, include: - thinner roof eg by using shallower rafters on that roof plane or section closer together and hence shallower. - less or thinner insulation in that part. - putting your skylight exactly above the staircase where you need the headroom. Glazed skylight is about 200mm thinner than a normal roof build up. This may be the simplest - get a non-material amendment for a larger skylight. - allow a step or three to run into the main block of the house upstairs ... no problem since it is basically a corridor there. Each step which runs into the main block will give you about 150mm of extra headroom at the wall transition. This may be the other simplest way. - make the floor of bed 3 and 4 a bit thinner or the ceiling in that part of the snug a bit lower. - make the top flight longer than the others to run into the main block slightly. That may impact your levels further down - very careful reading of the Regs, which often give you leeway in directions you might not expect. (I think there is also a totally different solution using staircases with winders, or even three x quarter-spirals, by treating the top flight as running left-right rather than top-down on the plan above. BUt it looks complicated to resolve and less elegant in circulation routes to me, so I will ignore that one) Ferdinand

Cheers. It is all very tactical, and depending on the material there are horses and courses. For a comparison this morning I can buy Knauf 12.5mm Wallboard, either square or tapered edge, for about £5.11 a sheet, delivered free if I order £300 for my bulky order. That is the indicated price minus normal bulk (6 for 5?), trade (10%), and gift card (another 10%) discounts from my local Wickes. http://www.wickes.co.uk/Products/Building-Materials/Plaster+Plasterboard/Plasterboard/c/1000220 That may not quite beat the price, but it may be more convenient. Others may well have better sources. There is quite a bit more on the Savings threads. For another eg, the Vapour Panel is £9.26, which is not quite as good. Unless you catch one of their 5% off trade specials, or 15% off but not trade days. Hope that helps. Ferdinand

OK. Let's talk staircases. Then I'll be quiet :-). If I fold your extra half-staircases into your main staircase, and move it into the dead space where that large lobby for bedroom 3/4 is (ie into the side block not the main volume),is at present I get a staircase concept looking a little like this, which for the parts you actually need (half landings are part of your existing floor) fits into a space of about 1.8m x 1m, while freeing up a significant space in the main volume. Notes at bottom. (Done in the Pears Stairs Stair Creator: https://www.pearstairs.co.uk/staircreator/) Fits in here roughly. Also a query on a bit of your structure - I am sure it lines up on scale drawings. Gains and Losses. + your main house volume becomes completely unencumbered. + gain space in snug by putting stairs in corner. + bedroom 2 becomes as large as the master + depending on the handing you select, you get a much bigger bathroom + no or minimal change to external appearance + I make it that you get up to +10% useable space for free + personally I think it unifies your design - extra care needed wrt rooflines and levels - perhaps Notes - That is just a concept which need playing with to optimise. I would want as open a design of staircase as possible (glass, metal or cable balusters?). - Care needed wrt to headroom at the top. Anticlockwise should be fine. Clockwise may need something like one of those semi-dormers at the top. - The actual thing is taller than my concept, as the Pears Stairs Designer has a height limit. Depending on F2C height, there may be more steps. - This is a house where you will be up and down stairs all the time. I would place a *very* high priority on shallow stairs ... 34-35 degrees not 42 degrees, even if it involved nobbling slightly into your main floorspace with the last stair or two - I think that would work design-wise. Shallow stairs make a helluva difference to perceived comfort. You could make the snug-kitchen run shallower than the rest - that would work and is where it is most needed. - Since it is perhaps a retirement house, do you need to think about provision for a future lift as well as stairs (ie do not put a steel beam across the future hole in the floor) I have shown the anticlockwise version above, so that your staircase is open to the space on the snug-kitchen flight to unify the space (gives a closet understairs in the snug), but personally I would go for the clockwise version, as it gives the extra space upstairs half to the family bathroom while still giving a bigger bed 2 / large lanbding cupboard. That would give you a nice walk-in shower in the bathroom, and more free space in the snug. See below. Ferdinand

Here's hoping they do not learn about how to write objections . F

How much is a whole pack of OSB or plasterboard per sheet? Roughly. It may be someone has a good source. F

I had to do an emergency boiler replacement for a T in late November. Had to go through one of the online sites and quotes were between 1900 and 4850. The existing would be 350 in Ariston parts plus labour plus at least a two week delay - not acceptable in a cold snap without hot water, and a lot for a six year old boiler. That was for a Worcester Bosch, and also a few bits and pieces, and some jury rigging of control systems. There were some control issues with the ufh that had been there for some time of which I was not aware. Part of the reason I was starting to ask about ASHPs. F

Finish that bathroom quickly, then.... ... and use it.

A lot of HuTHers do their job win labour. They also tend to keep quiet about things like 3% stamp duty.

ARe you constrained as to the position of your front door? COuld It switch by 90 degrees to come into the side of the 'snug-block'? The type of stair I am musing about is one with 4 half flights with half landings, so you can remove the extra half flights entirely. Needs some reflection, though, but would give you a lot of extra space and far better flow. You might even be able to something with an open-well style, which could be spectacular. Edit: OK. have a couple of thoughts which I will sketch up later.

Suggestions. Option 1 - create extra space for kitchen Move the utility door to the other side. Lose the hall cupboard from its current situation and move the snug staircase 1m left to be under the bedroom lobby one upstairs. Move downstairs loo to other side of study so pipes combine with utility, or put inside utility. Make study 3 aspect by incorporating loo space. Put hall cupboard somewhere suitable. Lots of options :-) . That will create extra wall space next to the kitchen both sides for a relaxing-with-chef corner, or whatever you want.

I am going to be contrarian here because awkward questions are useful, but something about that plan feels a bit uh-oh to me ; that it may not work or be inefficient, and I am having trouble putting my finger on it. Forgive my rambling. I think marginal changes may make a big difference here. SImple things first. The plan feels long and thin, and rather intricate with those half-floor levels, and losing a lot of space to the walls and stairs. I think those 45 degree window rebates would be a good feature. I like the basic layout of upstairs, especially an ensuite for Bed 2. I think that having a circulation landing as big as Bed 4 must be improvable; a third to a half of that landing should be in Bed 4 to make it 30% bigger. I think your downstairs wc really wants to be next to the utility and kitchen .. those look like long and over complicated supply and soil pipe runs to the far corner. Is there enough circulation space round that island? IMO you need 1.3-1.5m all the way round - comfortable to pass for two of you, one with a big tray. This has been discussed elsewhere in detail on other threads. Try a search. Now for a couple of things that I need help on from BHers. - Kitchen not integrated I am not sure it is as open plan as it looks, due to the convoluted and complex half level spaces. I think that the space between the kitchen and the rest may not flow; there is nowhere to flump and chat with the cook while supping a beer or a coffee other than sitting at th table. The rest of the gnd floor is functional, and the snug is round the corner and down the stairs. Have you a 3D internal render of the kitchen and snug? IMO It needs something as simple as a 2 seat flumping sofa or chaise longue in the kitchen, or provision for space for one, or integration into another space on the GNd Flr, which does not cost on this plan as is because doors and stairs are everywhere. - Circulation space and routes This seems very, perhaps unnecessarily, complex - going for a perambulation round the staircase to get into the house from the front door seems strange for a start. Then you have 2 lots of staircases, and a hall closet (? - could that be under the stairs?) in the middle of it all, and that big lobby on floor 1.5 for bed 3/4. Between that lot you may be losing an entire extra room worth of space to circulation. I would be interested in what percentage of space is lost to circulation. Will post this now and do another with 2 suggestions. F

THat is interesting. TRying to understand, can you confirm where eg the labour for fitting the windows is identified? Cheers F

Was there perhaps something wrong with the way batches were randomised on site, or differences between batches?

Saved by BREXIT ... perhaps

Is there a design that involves enough bits of wood to require an Octopus to hold them all in place?

Very good point. Probably even better if you paid via an Amex run Amex card, as they fight your corner well. Aha. Section 75 has a 30k ceiling, with a couple of exceptions. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/section75-protect-your-purchases#when How did you pay? You need more detailed advice than Is within my experience on this front, but certain bank accounts have protection policies now.

We are drifting but HMRC for VAT avoidance might get those, since HMRC are now on that one after a campaign essentially by one man.

I used vertical screws and square wedges ... wedging the piece against the screw, or holding it against the skirting to keep it in place, and placing the screw to keep it tight. That also worked for me. Interesting skirting profile, @Nickfromwales. I christen that a Mr Magoo !