AndrewFitton

It’s a very heavy clay site on a hillside in one of the wettest parts of the U.K. - construction round here can be challenging unless it’s done just so. There is a small estate up the way which is 30 years old that has very worrying looking cracks all over the (big) retaining walls. The main contractor was superb in getting the groundwork’s right here last time, and building control said they were excellent but I’m not sure I’ll get them for this. I feel comfortable with the idea of a chartered engineer now it’s been floated but I will go and see the builders who I worked with to build this and see what they think too - and whether they would act as main contractor again.

Thanks good thoughts here. Yes strip foundations. No ground gas. The only thing we have is very very heavy clay but the original main contractor put stupendous amounts of hardcore to about three feet deep and it’s compressed the clay to dry putty 20ft round the house and stops heave. The only problem is digging a trench in the hardcore is a special job as even a digger will just scrape it but I’d rather have it than not. Id use the same main contractor again but they are always busy and this will be a tiny job for them. I’ll ask them which engineer they would use.

I actually built my house 9 years ago. After living with it I have one gripe which is the utility room and en suite are not big enough. No problem as the house is essentially a box with a small single story “lean too” box built in block and sip and if I take down the lean too box and put up a two story box a metre wider two metres longer the job is a goodun. The bit that I bother on about is the whole house is on a beam and block floor with under floor heating although the underfloor heating in the Lean too does not need extending as it’s almost too efficient already but can you extend beam and block on to new foundations - feels like you should be able to. The main question though is I could do with some really good engineering drawings put together and priced up. We didn’t have an architect first time round as this is a kit house that came with extensive plans. This extension is hardly going to trouble the creative juices of an architect but strictly the new box has got to work as well as the rest of it ( which works really well). Would you use an architect, a building a surveyor or a suitable buildings engineer for this?

We’ve got two sets of french doors, one with three glass panels either side one off the living room and they have to be hooked open. If a sliding for can be fitted without a load of complex ironmongery and that looks okay I’d do that if I had My time again although I don’t know how you’d do it with glass walls as we have. I won’t have bifolders - the family room had them in the plans and we binned the idea after seeing the contents of a garden ( dusty soil, leaves, many flies) get blown into a house elsewhere.

Most sofas I see come in sections. Our seven seater came in four sections and bolted together. I can’t think of a stick of furniture that hasn’t gone up the stairs fine including the piano (which came down again 6 months later) and the idea of any bit of furniture dangling from a rope doesn’t feel attractive to me.

If in doubt add more. There are so many weird environmental conditions kicking about now it really does pay to make it beefy. We’ve got a meter of hardcore 20ft round the house to counter heave risk and the blocks are laid pretty much solid as I recall to the full with of the foundations below the b&b floor. They are not expensive to buy or lay.

A lot of the stone in the pictures isn’t coursed. Our storm mason appeared with a lot of reclaimed uncoursed stone with a rock face and an uneasy stand off set in as I absolutely insisted it was flat faced and coursed. Ultimately I won. I’m glad as I find uncoursed stone looks far too busy but if it’s laid in courses and is tidy it just works so much better. try looking at it with coursed stone and use a softer render (we have parex natural lime) and oak (as it’s oak framed) at it feels very natural and has settled into its surroundings

We’ve a klargester tank with a very good pump. We get it serviced annually as frankly poking around a 6ft tank of your own and others faeces or replacing a good pump which can be way over £500 when it costs 140 for the peace of mind of an annual service is no contest as far as I’m concerned. We’ve had one problem with it when my daughter conspired to wash pounds of dough down the sink two christmas ago which stuck to the float and the tank, tripped the fuse and brimmed - that was pretty horrible and completely avoidable if people did as they were asked and didn’t force literally handfuls of sticky dough repeatedly down the sink. It also highlights you really don’t want to be doing any repair on it unless you are mad as a box of frogs. Other than that it has been un-noticed and a picture of efficiency.

I guess I qualify for this site as I built my own house 8 years ago. I'm now replacing the small garage that went in temporarily and cheap with a large oak frame garage (it’s an oak frame house ). The site of the garage is unusual as it sits forward of the house behind a large hedge in an urban setting. I need to get plans in quick and I can’t find a decent architect who will react quickly so I could usefully do with trying to draw up the plans this weekend on my Lenovo laptop. I don’t really care if the cad software is paid for or free but I need something easy to use I can pull together elevation and ground / grid plans in a weekend for a simple (but fairly large) garage structure. Anyone got any recommendations. Many thanks Andrew