Ferdinand

Care to identify?

Lock bumping was warned as my main hazard. So I specified anti-bump anti-snap cylinders. One comment on no. of keys - when I ordered 3 keyed-alike thumbturn cylinders for home iirc we were given 2 keys per lock ie 6 so no need to order extra. Ferdinand

A staircase with a shallow slope is one of the great hidden luxuries that makes a house feel sumptuous imo, even at the cost of an extra square metre of space (or two). It is like getting the orientation right - people who instinctively like the house may have trouble noticing why. And it makes a significant difference to whether people can keep going upstairs easily when old; we reckoned our parents found it convenient for an extra 5 years+. And far better for the fat people we are all becoming. I lived with the one below for several decades. It is a magnificent bruiser of a thing - Jacobean oak and pine with a gallery but sooooo comfortable. The shallow angle allowed my parents to keep going upstairs comfortably for a few extra years. Originally it had about 28 layers of paint from the Victorians onwards and we had two slaves architectural students who spent a whole summer restoring it. There were 18 steps between floors, which were a little shallower than usual and I think the angle was under 35 degrees. Suggest go for roughly that. And a generous half landing with a window seat, or space for a resting chair, is good :-). But that is more difficult in a modern setting. My other favourite is generously shallow and wide open well circular staircases. Suspect also that when falling down shallow staircases less damage is done as you go down less height for a given length of horizontal travel, as do half landings and curves (you stop quicker hitting the wall or floor less hard). That is just me guesstimating but feels about right. Looking at Jack's numbers, I think I might try for something like 165-70 rising and his 270 going if the house could take it. Ferdinand

Welcome. This is all interesting in a nerdy type of way. The only thing regulated is the title "Architect", and ARB (Architects Registration Board) * occasionally gets into a flounce about the wrong people using the title. Since I am not in the Profession I can afford to be both a) mused and b) mused. eg Renzo Piano and Daniel Liebeskind (https://www.dezeen.com/2012/10/09/watchdog-apologies-for-saying-renzo-piano-not-entitled-to-be-called-an-architect/) or John Pawson (https://www.dezeen.com/2013/08/01/arb-threatens-dezeen-for-calling-john-pawson-an-architec/). Pawson has the Architecture degree but did not complete the professional experience requires. I appreciate that the law makes it very tricky in only regulating "Architect" and not "architectural" etc, and EU mutual recognition requires EU-qualified architects to be recognised, but ARB only recognises them when they are actually written into the UK register (probably hence the above), and some of the consequences are a little peculiar. I feel sympathy for ARB on this score: In the piece linked above, ARB actually suggest that Pawson be referred to as "Architectural Consultant". I can do that, and could call myself "Architectural Consultant". I may even be able to market my business as an "Architectural Practice" (haven't checked that all the way, though). Personally I think that architect should be allowed to be a generic, and "Chartered Architect" be the term that is legally protected - to be more like other Chartered professions. But this has been an issue since forever. I know architects of 40 years standing who are not allowed to use the word even though they still do jobs occasionally since they are not registered with ARB. My own father had a spat with ARIBA about this in the 1970s. Lord help us if the Chartered Institute of Builders tried to create a parallel practice . Ferdinand * Nice paraphrased quote from Arthur C Clarke in A Fall of Moondust. "Boards are hard and unyielding. They are made of wood".

I would take a little care to say "main entrance" in your Planning App, just in case :-) .

On the other hand some cheap wooden doors bend like bananas in the humidity, so the fitting could more than cover the difference :-).

A Preference is not compulsory. Kittens are unnecessary here imo. Door at the side and staircase across is a pattern used on many (millions of?) small houses from the 1900-1940 period, particularly terraces and semis. Still used more recently eg http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-46867593.html. Brand new chalet bungalow: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/new-homes-for-sale/property-41266902.html

Everything is negotiable. +1 for JSH comments. I would just ad an aphorism (?) that the easiest negotiated reduction is the one that the contractor has already taken off the price. Comparison: when buying a car we look for an already offered good value price, and start from something already in our favour.

40% off B&Q Celotex Offer Still running. Just noticed that this is still on. 50mm Celotex in size 450mm x 1200mm @£3.42 when you order 10+. Free home delivery for a £100 order. B&Q have about 40% off 50mm Celotex 1200x450mm insulation sheets if you buy 10. 0.54sqm each, works out at the equiv of £18 for a 1.2x2.4m sheet and goes in the car http://www.diy.com/departments/celotex-insulation-board-l1200mm-w450mm-t-50mm/307375_BQ.prd I had 70 sheets of this when I first spotted it, and will go back for more if it stays on. Either order from stock in certain stores or phone 0300 303 4481 . Ferdinand

Aluminium is massively recycled which reduces the impact. I can't find a number for the percentage but at school they told us 90%. Anyone have a current figure?

I read that as Chartered Accountant . Welcome. It is useful to have a rough location .. say county or region.

Shouldn't you be able to find your usage from the online stats of your account? For mobiles, mine has a traffic measurement and trigger warning facility built-in to Android.

There may be some useful background and guidance here: https://www.homebuilding.co.uk/?s=barn+conversion

Looking at all these numbers, I am thinking: 1 - Having more space makes a real difference. 2 - Capital for expenditure tradeoffs are probably worth it much of the time.

When I put everything through my mobile phone for a month, it was about 20Gb ;-). Excluding television, but including a couple of episodes of the Grand Tour.

I reckon there is 40% approx in the materials. Looks OK. F

On the roof connection, I think you just plumb it as continuous drainpipe that runs straight into an underground pipe to the tank. Rather than into a ground gutter. I have such pipes on my house but I have never built one. Ferdinand

The only test hole I have ever dug I later fell into in the dark when poshed up. Not a good idea. It was not very deep but it was full of water testing the percolation in clay. Unfortunately the percolation in clay had been insufficiently brisk to be of much use in the circumstances.

You get some leeway / allowances .. but I don't know what without really checking. And at present I am buying not selling :-).

Our Aquatron was perhaps £1500 (in 2000 or so) for the spinner which had to be imported from Scandnavia, then we had to build an Aquatron house (small brick shed) and plumb it in. Then zero running costs. They are now available for a much larger range of sizes. Ferdinand

There is also a piece in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/12/foreign-billionaires-london-choosing-rent-avoid-stamp-duty

Reading the recent thread about treatment palnts has made me wonder if we are overcomplicating things. We have all sweated blood to reduce our heating bills by perhaps £1000 per year, and cut the concomitant environental impact. Good. But spending £400 or £600 a year to run a treatment plant seems to me to be a backward step, as it is as much as, or more than, mains connection (South West excepted!). As a household we are now on mains drainage, but at our old house we spent 15 years on a septic tank, which was then replaced for 15 years by an Aquatron (ie a whole house soil closet with an inert centrifugal separator - a plastic spiral with a hole in the middle - for Number 1s and Number 2s) . The Aquatron requirement was an initial install, no power, and a visit once a year with a wheelbarrow and shovel to get the compost. From the business end it felt just like the septic tank or mains connection. Is there another race-to-technological-gimmicks going on here - like the ones we have seen in Grand Designs where Sophie and Sebastian use the enviro-savings to install an enviro-cost which is not actually necessary. Just musing. Ferdinand

I am not clear whether I get all the Stamp Duty back, or whether I take it off the amount liable for cat and get a fraction of it back. iirc you are darn sarth so I would probably need to buy about 5 houses to pay the same amount of Stamp Duty. There was a fascinating piece in The Times yesterday about how the rich are now renting their £5m pads in London because the transaction costs of buying cover about 5-7 years of rent. Stamp Duty on a £5m house bought through a company which is your second house is 15% = £750k and then there is an annual Enveloped Dwellings Tax of £55k on top. How to kill the Golden Goose :-) Ferdinand

I am after ideally 8x10 or 8x12 but 9 x y would be OK and possibly up to x x 16. Saw one done out as a dance studio in Mansfield on eBay at 8x16 with a laminated floor and disco lights and mirrors. That would be fun. Ferdinand

I believe it is 4m is a double pitch roof, and 3m if a mono pitch. Ferdinand