flanagaj

So this got me thinking last night to see whether there was a good solution to installing these around door linings. I came up with the below approach. If fitting them to stud walls then the dimensions of the wall will be 95mm and therefore your rebates that you cut with the fine kerf will be straightforward. Block walls might be trickier. it all depends on how and who fits the trims to the stud work or blockwork.

That is very nice!

So, the proposal for the new extension should our plans come off, is to have a polished concrete floor in the kitchen / diner. I just love the industrial look to them. What I am trying to understand is that with underfloor heating, would you need to use a specialist company to pour the concrete and power float it first, and then call in a different contractor to polish it? Keen to hear how others have achieved this.

It's total floor space and not just the ground floor space. You got my hopes up for a moment that I could halve the project costs!

That is a very good price. I was looking at £2.20 / concrete block.

if you need to purchase 7500 bricks and 1500 blocks, can you get a better price than TP or the builders merchants?

I was just looking at the estimator service. Keen to understand how they go about deriving the labour costs and material costs. Are they accurate?

Are the results in 'Chinglish' ?

Consensus does seem to be that you should run them internally.

We are purchasing a property that needs to be extended and modernised. The appearance it pretty much already agreed, as we are going to mirror the next door property. Basically after a service for the following. 1) Drawings and ideas for room layouts 2) Get planning application in and then provide structural drawings 3) Maybe manage the build to plate height, but if this is expensive we might just get a single contractor for groundworks / super structure to plate height It's a two storey extension and a single storey extension of ~ 120m2 total floor space. Any advice as to potential costs / other options that might be worth exploring.

This is my summation of the situation as well. The fact that you can dispose it at your local recycling centre indicates to me that asbestos cement roof sheets are no where as deadly as these companies portray in their marketing spin. I have a job like this shortly, and I am going to suit up and do it myself. From sites I have looked at, it would appear that you will pay around £1000 to have the roofing removed from a single storey extension.

So I have just had a look at a 3 tonne machine with a pecker and also a 1 tonne dumper and seems I can hire that for < £500 for three days. I was then thinking of simply dumping it in the front driveway and get it collected with a grab truck. Maybe three days to demolish a single storey extension and a garage is way too long, and you could do it in a day? I understand that the most cost effective way of disposing of rubble is with via a local farmer, but how much can you expect to pay for a full grab lorry load?

When breaking the slab, would you cut through with a stone saw near to the main structure so as to risk any damage to the house?

We are having an extension done, but the property already has a 1970s single storey extension attached to the house, which is in poor condition. I am thinking that rather than trying to salvage anything from the existing extension, it would be better to demolish it and break up the concrete floor. Questions I have 1) Can you do this yourself and apart from a stone saw, would you need any heavy machinery, or would it take an age and someone with a jcb could do it in a day? 2) What is the best way to get rid of the waste. Would you get a concrete crusher in to crush the bricks / concrete for use as hardcore in the proposed extension? 3) Do you need to notify the council or could this be part of the planning application for the house extension? The extension is shown below.

I think that is very rare

Thanks Kelvin

I have read that the waste from a water softener is very saline and not suitable for disposal into a septic / domestic sewage treatment. I doubt this can be disposed off via a rain water soakaway, does it effectively rule out having a water softener?

Ok, so it is more for aesthetic reasons? The bathrooms on the property are all on the side of the property and won't really be visible.

I am trying to understand why soil pipes are run internally these days. When I renovated a property in 2006, I ran the pipes externally and never had any problems. Plus, I didn't have any boxing in to do internally. So is there a reason why this is done, or is it simply for aesthetics?

I have subsequently written a letter to one of the neighbours who used to also route their waste to the shared septic tank, but for whatever reason decided to install their own sewage treatment plant. They hopefully, might be able to give me an unbiased view (agent / vendor) of the system and whether it has had any issues in the past.

So the property deeds of the neighbouring properties do state that they have provision to route their waste to the septic tank in the garden of the house we are ear marked to purchase. The tank does not drain to a water course and goes to a drainage field outside the property boundary. Given the house was constructed in 1920 and it does not look like it has been modernised for at least 50 years, I suspect the system is very old. This then has the inherent risk of it being in a poor state with most likely a drainage field that could be heavily silted up. Whilst we are within our rights to install our own system and leave the existing system for the neighbours, you still have the hassle of what options you have should the system start to smell ..... Such a shame, as we were smitten with the property before we discovered this ball ache.

So basically, it's rather subjective?

2000/m2 to just get the shell done seems astronomical. That basically means that self-build is pointless, unless you are fortunate to have either been gifted the land or got lucky with planning permission. I am hoping that due to inflation and high mortgage interest rates, the building sector will quiet down and trades will naturally become cheaper again. It was only a few years ago that a full self-build (fully completed) was £1000 - £1750 m/2 and the upper figure was a high end finish.

I am hoping to do a fair amount of an upcoming conversion myself, but I need to understand where I can view the various regs for different aspects of the trades, eg, regs for waste pipe runs, plumbing regs ... Are there any useful sites that might provide help with these matters, or is it a case of just posting on the forum?

Thanks for clarifying.