flanagaj

Do you have a link. I briefly dabbled in casting concrete clocks / furniture using GFRC, so could always manufacture large 20mm thick wall panels, but would prefer the look of a cast wall.

I really like the industrial look of concrete casting, and am thinking of having a single wall in the entrance hall with a floating staircase. Is it a case of adding some vertical rebar from the slab and building a strong plywood form. Just concerned that there is no leakage of bleed water, otherwise, it can look terrible. Any other options?

Can anyone shed any light as to what legal fees you can expect to pay for purchasing a building plot. We have been quoted 2k +vat, and am struggling to understand how they can justify that amount. A lot of the due diligence is outside of the legalities of a title transfer and associated Land Registry registration.

Agreed. I will get this arranged ASAP. Thanks

Plot is in the process of being purchased, and am just doing due diligence before any exchange occurs. So now I know it does require a drainage field, then I need to go back to the vendor and ask the questions. So would you advice a percolation test be performed, even though the British Geological Survey have the soil type as loamy / free draining, and the water table at a depth of 30m (property next door has a well)? The plot is large enough, but as I have no idea what size the drainage field will be for a 6 person sewage treatment plant, it's difficult to actually answer that question.

Does anyone have any idea of how I can ascertain that the site meets the required points of the regs? We will treat HM Governments Building regulations 2010, Drainage and waste disposal section H2 as the primary reference as it was issued after BS 6297: 2007. Just to be clear this is a summary and the full documents should be read and understood if you intend to carry out this work yourself. A drainage field must be at least 10m from any watercourse or permeable drain. It must be at least 50m from the point of abstraction of any groundwater supply and not in any Zone 1 groundwater protection zone. At least 15m from any building. Sufficiently far from any other discharge to ground to ensure the overall capacity of the ground is not exceeded. The field must be down water/slope of any groundwater source. No underground services or water pipes are allowed to be located within the dispersal area. No access roads, driveways or paved areas should be located within the disposal area. A percolation test must be carried out, please see our guide. There is also a great deal of requirements listed on the Environment Agency web site (General binding rules: small sewage discharge to the ground - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)) Will the solicitor dealing with the purchase be covering these points or is this something that I need to be doing myself?

Thanks for the link. I am rather surprised that the PP had no mention of the required drainage field. The tank cannot feed into a water course as there isn't one in the vicinity, so it will require a soakaway of some sort. I suppose a percolation test is required to ascertain the associated sizing. Tank is a 1-5 person system.

Just looking at the planning application that was approved for the plot we are in the process of purchasing. The PP used Nitrate mitigation calculations based on a Graf One2Clean system, but when I look on the drawings, I do not see any provision for a drainage field. Is that because a sewage treatment plant can feed it's water into the same soakaway as that used for rainwater? Maybe drainage fields only apply for the traditional septic tank based systems?

Thanks for this. Makes much more sense doing the slab this way. Did the contractors who did the slab also power float it?

Wrong levels, sides collapsing, wrong location, uneven base. Aside from the second point, the rest are avoidable.

That's a good point.

This is a confidence builder. The depth display is a very cool feature. I suppose using triangulation with satellites for GPS is actually very accurate.

It's not so much about saving money, but mainly due to wanting the job correctly. I have used multiples trades in the past when we renovated our house, and 50% of them were ****. Maybe I get a good digger driver in to pull the footings and I can then do the drainage myself. As @ProDave stated. Drainage is planned on paper and all relative to the height of the excavated oversite. If you hammer a stake into the ground and get it set to finished floor level, and use this as you reference point for all laser level measurements, how can you possibly get things wrong?

Maybe I am not doing it justice and am massively over simplifying things, but if you consider that every aspect of groundwork is carried out relative to finished floor level,then it seems very straightforward to do all groundworks yourself. One you have used simple trigonometry to mark out your footings you dig to the required depth (according to soil survey) and relative to finished floor level. Put pegs into the side of the trench according to required concrete depth. Calculate required concrete volume and poor footings, levelling to pegs. If you buy a decent rotary level and you understand about drainage then you can then install the foul water system to septic tank and the required drainage field. The only part that I'm unsure about is being able to operate the excavator to create a flat bottomed and levelled trench. I could potentially get the digger and maybe practice on some smaller areas first so as to get familiar with it. Was thinking about site entrance. Have any forum members done this, and if so, would you advise against or say that it's very viable. I've got plenty of time that I can devote to getting the groundworks done.

That is very nice! Love the galvanised guttering too. I'll keep this image to hand.

Fair point. Once we have exchanged then I am going to engage with an architect to see whether our ideas are viable. Just not sure how receptive the LPA will be to large scale changes.

One other point I forgot to mention surrounds the finished floor level. The PP obviously has proposed elevations, but when it comes to the finished floor level, is this something that is open to you to decide, or will the architect provide that information once a topographic survey has been carried out?

Thanks @JohnMo / @Russell griffiths some really useful information there. I am not too far from Swindon, so will definitely head up there.

So having had our offer accepted on a building plot with full PP, I have been researching like mad the whole groundworks stage and my head is spinning with questions. 1) Installation of septic tank and drainage field 2) Trench or Strip footings. How do you run the soil pipes through the concrete if you go trench fill. I understand that for strip you just use concrete lintels. 3) Installation of soak away 4) Beam and block OR just install the concrete slab with UHF straight away and be done with the the concrete / insulation / uhf / concrete layer approach 5) How will the soil pipes run to the septic tank and does the approach differ depending upon whether you go beam and block or solid slab floor. I have seen that with beam and block, the pipes simply run in the void under the beam and block floor. 5) What order are these things done. Does anyone know of a good resource for this stuff. I have the Housebuilder's Bible, but this does not really cover this stuff in much detail.

This is a new dwelling, and I currently only have the drawings used for the planning application. Stairwell is no problem as the ground floor has been designed so that the stairs enter into the upper floor space in the middle of the floor.

I am trying to work out from the drawing below. Where the floor level would be upstairs and how much head height is available. I think there is enough room to get a bedroom in the loft space, but not sure what size and headroom. Not sure if anyone with any knowledge might be able to provide an idea.

Looking at securing finance for our build, but want to understand what actually needs to be done to get a completion certificate and to then move onto a standard residential mortgage. We are quite tight on funds, but we are also fine if we move in and still need to tile floors, fit the additional bathrooms, utility room, exterior cladding. These are areas that I am completely comfortable doing myself and not only will it save us money, but also mean we can move in and tackle these jobs when time permits. Thanks

Any idea is better than no idea.

I too am interested in this. Does anyone have any experience of using estimators online, and if so, how accurate were the figures that they calculated. I was going to upload the drawings that were used for the planning application, as I need to get an idea as to what the expected spend will be.

The granted PP does not have a plinth