Ferdinand

Read the free design ebook devised by Caliwag of this site. It is designed to help you find out about the right questions to ask, and to broaden your horizons. Someone will have a link.

You could try asking the person selling yours for a recommendation of a surveyor, or alternately an established local estate agent after discussing that yours will be sold in the next n months. Then you should get their best recommendation. We actually had a full structural on ours before we sold it and gave the report to potential customers to help them not be scared :-). On a 5000sqft 16C onwards house it cost under £500 by a surveyor who was an adviser to the National Trust. One thing he opined was that the NT would have spent 1m+ on the restoration. Ferdinand

I'll just make 2 comments, Peter. 1 - Think about including a SureStop lightswitch style water cutoff, to make it easy when you go out / away in winter. 2 - If you are doing a shower room in your bungalow conversion, make sure it is the one downstairs (already done?). The people who did the conversion here put the bathroom downstairs, so we will need to replace it when the prospect of mum needing to stay downstairs only happens in a few years. I plan to steel some insights from new generation Hiltons - cascade shower head in one side and a separate shower head at waist level so you can do your feet standing up, and a bench in the other side with a waterfall type shower where you can wash sitting down. Ferdinand

A Comment reproduced from the orginal copy of this blog post: ProDave02 Aug 2014 10:48 AM Crofter, my Static caravan has a living room, kitchen, diner, two bedrooms a toilet and shower room in 28 square metres, so it can be done. But everything is smaller than you would really like and there's precious little storage space anywhere.With the size of your build, I would look up the English definition of "mobile home" (I believe it may be a little larger than the Scottish definition) so it's very likely your build could be made to fit within that and so avoid building control?

A Comment reproduced from the orginal copy of this blog post: Crofter27 Jul 2014 11:04 AM Small is beautiful- or at least that's what I keep telling myself as a redraw my own plans endlessly.On paper, I managed to squeeze a bedroom, en suite, and kitchen/diner/living space into less than 30m2. Then I visited a friend's 30m2 gym and was horrified by how it would actually feel.

A Comment reproduced from the orginal copy of this blog post: MattTweddell24 Jul 2014 09:17 PM Could always use one of those toilets that has the sink built in to the top of the cistern, then the used water goes into the cistern to be used for flushing?

A Comment reproduced from the orginal copy of this blog post: ferdinand16 Jul 2014 09:15 AM The utility room door trick is quite like one I plan to discuss used in my bungalow where the kitchen table can have one side up against the path to the lounge, so the space that would be dedicated to somewhere to move the chairs back into is circulation space the 99% of the time persons 3 and 4 aren't there, eating.Also used in the Aldington House I mentioned in the last post :-). See: F

A Comment reproduced from the orginal copy of this blog post:ferdinand 15 Jul 2014 05:54 PM In England it is LPA by LPA. Planning Resource have a summary here.CiL may be England only :-).My LPA doesn't do CIL (yet), but in future I may wish to do something similar elsewhere.Ferdinand

A Comment reproduced from the orginal copy of this blog post: stones15 Jul 2014 04:30 PM [Ed: The point re CiL startnig at 100sqm was actually wrong for new build, and is now moot as self-build is exempt from CiL] A very interesting point re CiL. Is that country wide or just your local area. That would seem a very compelling reason to keep a build below 100m2 if the contribution was going to be excessive. Provision of a garden room / studio / study etc in lieu of house floor space or a garage with guest accommodation built over it (under permitted development) may resolve some of the limitations, but one assumes you would be subject to VAT on such work and this may be more than the CiL.Other than the cost of a building warrant, the main savings going down the mobile home route would appear to be structural engineering costs. Can we assume these are 3-4% (either hidden or upfront) or higher? Is the saving worth the restrictions on the size you can build and therefore layout? Value wise, such properties always appear to be worth less than an equivalent house. Not an issue of you do not intend ever moving but an individuals circumstances can quickly change. I like the idea of constructing offsite in a dry factory environment, although the restrictions of road haulage regarding maximum height and width dimensions could again have a real impact on what you could construct and still fall within the definition of a mobile home. J

A Comment reproduced from the orginal copy of this blog post: ferdinand15 Jul 2014 09:26 AM @ProDaveInteresting.For your double-park-home the obvious thing would perhaps be a 2-module Portakabin which are designed to link together and are irc built on site in one day.Lightweight pitched roofs work. The bungalow in this article used to have one put on top when the experimental 1971 flat roof reached the end of the experiment. It is made of fibreglass.I still have a pile of those white bricks from 1970 outside the kitchen window in my newly bought house, 'just in case'. Yes, we have used some over the years.I'm playing with similar-ish layouts on a larger scale for a passive version of my studio bungalow above. For me one key dimension is 100sqm gross internal area (excludes outside walls), which is the trigger point for the CiL tax. Doesn't apply to self-build self-occupier (allegedly) but I'm looking at build-to-let.Ferdinand

A Comment reproduced from the orginal copy of this blog post: Nickfromwales14 Jul 2014 10:37 PM I see, bath, shower and basin Still think I'd do away with the cloakroom, slide that all down and get a wc in the master using the sliding doors on that rather than the utility. Shower to side, sink and wc to middle on back wall and bath on end?

A Comment reproduced from the orginal copy of this blog post: ProDave14 Jul 2014 10:18 PM I did say it was just a quick first pass.The "specification" was the main bathroom must have a bath AND a separate decent sized shower. I couldn't work out how to get a loo in there as well, so put the loo as a separate room, close to the front door for easy access from outside. So only two loos.Just because it legally qualifies as a "mobile home" by virtue of the fact it could be split in two and craned onto two low loaders, does not mean it will ever move or ever need to move.I got the idea from a spell working for some builders up here that were doing just this, building this sort of well insulated portable building and putting them on residential park home sites. One of them that I wired was built as one unit and could not be divided in two without the use of a chainsaw, though they stuck a length of beading the whole length of the ceiling to make it look like it was a joint line.If I ever did it, I would at least make the frame so it could be unbolted into to parts.There might also be problems if you ever tried to sell a building like this. When the buyers solicitor asks for the completion certificate for example. And that might impact on mortgageability, not that that would concern me, but might bother a future buyer.

A Comment reproduced from the orginal copy of this blog post: Nickfromwales14 Jul 2014 09:43 PM Dave, you definitely were a static caravan in your last life. Out of curiosity and admiration of your ingenuity in creating a Goerge Clarke special here, why ( if I'm seeing right ) have you given this space a cloakroom, AND master bathroom ?!You could relocate the door into the living space and then have a corridor studio kitchen to the left ( as you enter ). I seriously don't think this setup needs 3 toilets tbh. The areas dedicated to cloak and utility should all be dedicated to kitchenette space with all the appliances tucked in there as anyone would expect of such a compact arrangement. All said though, this shows how compact a unit you could have for guest quarters, and a converted static would be great for this, a timber frame unit may not be so easily ignored by the Feds. Unless your a "traveler" of course, and then you can do what the f@@@ you like. :-@Also, I think the ensuite area would be better off as wardrobe space / storage as this unit really could survive happily with one master bathroom me thinks :-)Regards, nick.

A Comment reproduced from the orginal copy of this blog post: ProDave14 Jul 2014 07:41 PM This is an interesting discussion, one which I often have with SWMBO!!!!Up here in Scotland, there is a definite definition of what constitutes a "mobile home" It clearly states a "mobile home" does not have to be on wheels, but must be limited to external dimensions of 16.288 Metres by 6.096 Metres and a ceiling height of no more than a shade over 3 Metres. and it must be transportable in no more than 2 sections.So that gives you a total external area of just about 100 square metres. Internal floor area depends on your wall thickness which depends on how much insulation you put in.Now the big thing about building something that falls in this "mobile home" definition is that it is totally exempt from building control. So it will save you over £1K in building warrant fees, and will probably leave you free to do some things not allowed under a normal controlled building. For instance you won't have to build in all the disabled features, you can have your switches and sockets at any height you please, doorways need not be as wide, etc etc. Not to mention it saves you the time and cost involved preparing all the drawings for a building warrant and all the structural calculations, it saves time and there is no need for inspection visits.I have tried to persuade SWMBO that we could build our house to this definition. It would be smaller than we currently want, and would therefore need more in the way of "garden outbuildings" to give extra storage space and work space. But SWMBO does not want to live in a bungalow, she wants to go upstairs to bed, so that rules it out for us.The other problem with this approach is the size restrictions forces you into a long thin building (think twin unit mobile home) which would struggle to fit on our site, but might suit some sites.Anyway that's a long pre amble to set the scene. a while back I roughed out a possible house layout based on that restriction and came up with this:It's very much a rough idea, no details, not even window positions. But what I was trying to achieve was an efficient layout for a 2 bedroom property with en-suite to the master bedroom. There is a large lounge / dining / kitchen area that one leg can be partitioned off with folding doors to give a separate living room, or an occasional third guest bedroom.The utility room is a bit cunning. there's not a lot of space, so it joins to the corridor with two sliding pocket doors. When slid back the utility expands into the corridor space giving room to do the ironing etc, yet becomes compact and tidy with the doors slid shut.I am quite certain that if building an entirely timber passive house build along the lines of a Viking house or similar, that it's quite a simple matter to build in in two sections that could be unbolted and separated if you really wanted to. The bottom of my picture shows a very rough idea of how the roof trusses would work in 2 parts and allow the building to separate and thus comply with being "mobile". I doubt that anyone would ever ask you to prove it, but you could show them where the building separates if they question it.

A Comment reproduced from the orginal copy of this blog post: stones14 Jul 2014 03:28 PM It is an interesting debate. We all crave space and comfort, but could all live comfortably (in the sense of being warm, dry and healthy) in much smaller homes. Having just returned from holiday in a 60m2 two bed cottage, it puts need and want into perspective. The house we stayed in was great but I think would feel cramped in the long term (with the kids at home anyway), but a lot of that feeling is based on the comparison with what we have now.Having built a couple of circa 200m2 homes, for our current home we decided to downsize on the grounds we rarely used all of the space we had and to reduce running costs. At 130m2 our house comfortably accommodates 3 bedrooms, large en-suite, utility and a 58m2 kitchen/dining/living area. Vaulted ceilings in the living space and master bed give a real feeling of space which in my view is far better than a little extra floor space. We sit in 1/2 an acre of ground with open views to fields, trees and hills so don't have any feeling of being hemmed in. We gave up the spare bedroom as it was rarely used, our thinking being it would be cheaper to pay for someone to stay in a local B&B rather than build a room that is only used a few times a year. House values are an issue (and the traditional view that large houses with many bedrooms are worth more) but I actually think there is a demand for houses with a good amount of living space and only 2 or 3 bedrooms, especially for those with no children / retirees. 5 and 6 bed houses are perhaps great for families but just end up being too large when the kids fly the coop.One could of course go to extremes and take a 30' x 10' mobile home layout as a space efficient blue-print, the use of built on furniture and clever storage could make a real impact. SciFi films sometimes show the future of housing as glorified student type accommodation, and from a certain perspective, there is nothing wrong with such living. Whether you would want to spend your whole life in such a small space is however a different matter. I suspect that future generations will have to face such a reality in order to get a roof over their head if they are building themselves or buying from a developer. J

Sorry for the "Retired Academic". I haven't apologised over there as the thread needs to stay clean. My excuse: Twas the silver hair that won the "first impressions" battle over the cool sunglasses. (PS: Just found a place where I called "Stones" ... "Stoned". Heh. )

A Comment reproduced from the orginal copy of this blog post: caliwag11 Jul 2014 11:47 AM Great find that Video Ferdinand...thanks for posting.Sadly I suspect very few students at schools of architecture have heard of Peter either. I don't recall his name when I was at S of A. 1976-1981 .He was never really fashionable, somewhat like Ralph Erskine, Carlo Scarpa and many more who cared for effects of climate, light and detail (the nub of Ferdinand's blog): great stuff...let's turn this 'what can an architect do for me?' thread on its head. Jim

A Comment reproduced from the orginal copy of this blog post: ferdinand04 Jul 2014 12:39 PM Absolutely.There always seem to be some bits of common sense that I don't find out until it is too late.

A Comment reproduced from the orginal copy of this blog post: ProDave04 Jul 2014 12:01 PM He talks a lot of sense.I have to say, most of it (to me at least) is common sense. Of course you want the main living rooms looking out onto a private garden. Of course you want those main rooms to get a good deal of sunlight etc. Why would you do anything else?We chose our present plot (over another available nearby) because it faces south and we can get all of that (the other plot faced north making that a whole lot harder)Of course not everyone has the choice to buy a south facing plot with a private non overlooked garden.But all this makes me think back to the mid 1980's when I bought my first house, a 1 bedroom mid terrace "starter home" brand new off plan on the development. It staggered me that the builders paid no attention whatsoever to the orientation on the site of particular houses. They just built 3 different designs of house (1,2 and 3 bedroom ones) all identical across the site. So depending on the position on the site, some have lovely sunny south facing living rooms, others had dark dismal north facing main rooms. It would not have been rocket science to have 2 or 3 different layouts of each house type so they all could have benefited from sunlight. I chose one off plan specifically to get a south west facing garden (with the living room at the back of the 1 bed houses) which was the best I could do. None of the 1 bed ones faced south. I thought even back then "I can do better than this myself"

Has anyone a more organised opinion on burying chipboard? That's quite interesting. Is it actually OK to bury if it has been broken up? Cardboard for recycling I tend to leave out in the rain for a couple of days to be scrunchable, then if I'm being good I'll let it dry in scrunched form, as more will go in the recycle bin. I would use the water butt to water it, but there has been no shortage of rain. I've never had problems burning cardboard, just as long as a something is on top to catch the fly-ash. My other bin trick is to put cardboard then something heavy at the bottom, to make sure it all comes out. Ferdinand

96. RHS = First Number + (First Number * Second Number) or C = A(1+B)

OK. You have my explicit permission to reproduce here, in your name acknowledging me, or in my name if as admin you can do that, any of my posts from Ebuild. I have just started a "consent to reproduce" topic here, where I suggest anyone who wants to give permission joins the list. Ferdinand

Think of all that organic traffic we are losing from people with fat cats that have got stuck inside airlock style cat flaps. The answer is to keep the cat in the shed. (Hmmm. That thread is 3 on Google for "passive catflap").

Is there a newt establishment embedded in the process like the Batty Bat men for bats? i.e. The Bats Conservation Trust advise on setting the standards, and then are the trade body for Bat Men, and make money from providing courses, and advise local authorities and the Environment Agency on policy, and so get a cut on all sides, and have a vested and financial interest in the status quo being as gold plated as possible.

My number one recommendation for quick painting is a Pole Sander - one of these: http://www.screwfix.com/p/pole-sander-260-x-85mm-85-x-260mm/33586?_requestid=288807 Sanding head on a UJ on a long handle - lets you sand from the hip not the elbow and push a lot harder if you need. Many times quicker than hand sanding. For painting I use the Wickes professional range, which did about 400sqm of walls / ceilings in the last house I did with 2 or 3 coats, and Leyland Trade paints. The cost of paint and time probably means that the cost of tools is immaterial, so perhaps have several systems. Painting a loo with a .5m roller would be interesting. Ferdinand