Project details

[Conor]

12 hours ago, selfbuildaberdeen said:

Hi Dave, yes a large separate living room is something I wanted for this reason but just could not fit it into the square footage. Thinking some extra quiet appliances and a good extractor will be worth splashing out on. A partial wall might be an idea though.... depending on the routes of foot traffic.

 

I like your idea of the gable for the upstairs bathroom also.... tbh something I had never considered. How much hassle would that be at this stage do you think? Do you have a 1 and a half story or 1 and three quarter?

Search for movable acoustic walls... We have a similar layout and will be using them to Seperate the kitchen from living area. Need to design them in from the start. 

[Ferdinand]

Quote

Do you have a 1 and a half story or 1 and three quarter?

 

Can somebody give me a quick definition of the difference there?

 

Edited July 3, 2019 by Ferdinand

[ProDave]

43 minutes ago, selfbuildaberdeen said:

Good to hear other people are not bothered by it. Might find it a wee bit noisier with the kitchen being in the middle right next to the living area but we will see. Iv lived in 1 bed flats smaller than that open plan area so im hoping iam used to it ? 

I think I am over sensitive to man made noise, as a result of spending my childhood living on a house on a very busy main road, that was never quiet (I could never go back to living in such a noisy location)

 

When we first moved into out house, the only living room complete was the "kitchen / family room" so for the first 6 months we sat in there in the evening to watch tv etc.  It really annoyed me the noise of the fridge starting up or the dishwasher running.  I would not want that as my only living space.

 

We now have the other living room complete and that is much quieter, away from all that noise.  The tv in the "familly room" only now gets used if watching something while cooking.

[joe90]

8 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I think I am over sensitive to man made noise, 

 

I am a bit the same and love the very quiet rural location where we have built, but, the sewerage treatment plant blower is like a fridge, not noticeable normally but when I want to sit “quietly” and enjoy the view it intrudes. On my long to do list is to bury it in its own concrete bunker.

 

[selfbuildaberdeen]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

 

Can somebody give me a quick definition of the difference there?

 

We have a 1 and 3 quarter story so our external walls will continue up into the 1st floor for about 1m before the sloped roof starts. In a 1.5 story the sloped roof starts at the point of the first floor meeting the ground floor walls meaning the internal walls upstairs are normally built in and floor area is reduced....

I may stand corrected but this is my understanding

Edited July 3, 2019 by selfbuildaberdeen

[ProDave]

11 minutes ago, selfbuildaberdeen said:

We have a 1 and 3 quarter story so our external walls will continue up into the 1st floor for about 1m before the sloped roof starts. In a 1.5 story the sloped roof starts at the point of the first floor meeting the ground floor walls meaning the internal walls upstairs are normally built in and floor area is reduced....

I may stand corrected but this is my understanding

I think it is even simpler.

 

So very simply, a 1.75 storey upstairs will have a floor area the same as downstairs, accepting the edges of some rooms will have limited height.  Whereas a 1.5 storey will usually have a boxed in "eaves" area and the floor area upstairs will be less than downstairs.

[dpmiller]

well in that case we must have a 1.66 storey- the bedroom wings have full floor area but the bathroom has a deep storage void to the eaves each side of a dormer...

[Ferdinand]

So what is a roof with "gutter cutter" (aka Half Dormer) windows called ??

 

F

[the_r_sole]

.

Edited September 26, 2019 by the_r_sole

[selfbuildaberdeen]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

I think it is even simpler.

 

So very simply, a 1.75 storey upstairs will have a floor area the same as downstairs, accepting the edges of some rooms will have limited height.  Whereas a 1.5 storey will usually have a boxed in "eaves" area and the floor area upstairs will be less than downstairs.

Thats much better english than my ramble thank you

[ProDave]

It is very subjective.  Planning here won't normally allow a full 2 storey house in the countryside, it's against the local vernacular, so insist on 1.5 or 1.75 storey. But I have seen one passed and built where the walls went up to about 2 metres upstairs with only the tiniest bit of sloping ceiling, way above normal head height.

[joe90]

Our planners were hell bent on “room in roof” but there are 2 story cottages around us, it took an appeal to the Secretary of State to get our way ??. I like the look of dormers but to get passive type insulation in the cheeks makes them very chunky.

Edited July 3, 2019 by joe90

[selfbuildaberdeen]

4 minutes ago, joe90 said:

Our planners were hell bent on “room in roof” but there are 2 story cottages around us, it took an appeal to the Secretary of State to get our way ??. I like the look of dormers but to get passive type insulation in the cheeks makes them very chunky.

No one likes chunky cheeks ?

[Ed Davies]

Also, dormers shadow PV.

[eandg]

As an urban slummer I've never quite got my head round 1.5 storey, room in the roof type properties. For some it may be a planning requirement but for the bulk who go 1.5 presumably it's because it's a fair bit cheaper in terms of materials (particularly brick/cladding etc)? 

[Ralph]

2 hours ago, ProDave said:

It is very subjective.  Planning here won't normally allow a full 2 storey house in the countryside, it's against the local vernacular, so insist on 1.5 or 1.75 storey. But I have seen one passed and built where the walls went up to about 2 metres upstairs with only the tiniest bit of sloping ceiling, way above normal head height.

 

I thought there would be no way we would get a 2 storey build passed in open countryside here but there was not a murmur from planning about it. The couple of neighbours that we had to notify just assumed that it was 1.5 and are only now finding out that the ridge height will probably be north of 8 meters.

[PeterW]

I did some estimating on this a while back (need to find it...!) and i'm pretty sure that for a 150 sqm GIA property, the difference between 1.5 and two storey was negligible as the decrease in floor area was offset by the need to increase the insulation levels in the sloping roof (a roof uValue is lower than a wall uValue) and with a perfect 45 degree pitch, there is nearly 1.5 times the ceiling plasterboard so it doesn't offset the wall/ceiling for the first floor.

 

From memory, the most cost effective was 8m x 8m square over 2 floors with a room in roof of 8m x 3m  with roof pitch at 35 degrees. 

[recoveringbuilder]

29 minutes ago, eandg said:

As an urban slummer I've never quite got my head round 1.5 storey, room in the roof type properties. For some it may be a planning requirement but for the bulk who go 1.5 presumably it's because it's a fair bit cheaper in terms of materials (particularly brick/cladding etc)? 

I wouldn’t agree with your thought on it being a good bit cheaper, this is our second one and a half storey  because that’s what planners want here and with all the different angles inside and out and dormer windows etc they take a lot more work hence a lot more money than if you were just building straight up to the second floor, it took our builders a full month cutting and shaping insulation and plaster board whereas it would have been much simpler had the walls and ceilings been straight, a two storey is not something I’ve ever considered fighting the planners for.

[joe90]

43 minutes ago, Ralph said:

just assumed that it was 1.5 and are only now finding out that the ridge height will probably be north of 8 meters.

.

that was part of my appeal, next door neighbour is room in roof and the planners kept telling me it was only 6.9m high, when they were out I went round and measured it and and it’s actually 1.3m higher than they had planning for (but it was many years ago.), I presented this evidence but was told it did not matter. On my appeal I mentioned my full 2 floors was lower than the next door room in roof and of a hip design to reduce “mass” and I won ?.

[Simplysimon]

6 hours ago, ProDave said:

It is very subjective.  Planning here won't normally allow a full 2 storey house in the countryside, it's against the local vernacular, so insist on 1.5 or 1.75 storey. But I have seen one passed and built where the walls went up to about 2 metres upstairs with only the tiniest bit of sloping ceiling, way above normal head height.

obviously a thick brown envelope changed hands ?

[Jeremy Harris]

2 minutes ago, Simplysimon said:

obviously a thick brown envelope changed hands ?

 

Was in a planning meeting last night.  What is clear is that planning policy has little bearing when it comes to decision making.  I sat shaking my head in despair at our clerk as our chairperson advocated approving a development in open countryside, that was specifically in breach of both local and national planning policy.  The chairperson's (socialist) view was that we should encourage development for farm workers.  The house in question was a 168m² three bedroom detached "single farm workers accommodation".  The chairperson also failed to understand why it might be a good idea to attach an agricultural tie to the decision (and the applicant strongly objected to an agricultural tie, which was rather telling).

[ProDave]

There was another one up here.  The planning policy starts with a general presumption against building in the hinterland (countryside)  The exceptions are in an established settlement (the clause that allowed our PP)

 

Some years ago a planning application for an isolate house was granted.  It was obvious to a casual observer that they had taken a slice off a field, and it was not hard to predict, they would carry on slicing up the field one plot at a time.

 

Sure enough 2 years later another application for the "next slice" which was refused.  That went to appeal who refused it and also stated the first house should never have been given permission though they were powerless now to do anything about that one.

[Ferdinand]

4 hours ago, selfbuildaberdeen said:

No one likes chunky cheeks ?

 

Not only is Orville still in mourning for Keith Harris, now you have made him cry as well. You brute.

 

 

 

[joe90]

I was told after our first refusal that I didn’t give a decent enough bung to grease the wheels. As I have said before our appeal officer said our local planners were not abiding by their own policies! Which is why we won our appeal.

[Jeremy Harris]

21 minutes ago, joe90 said:

I was told after our first refusal that I didn’t give a decent enough bung to grease the wheels. As I have said before our appeal officer said our local planners were not abiding by their own policies! Which is why we won our appeal.

 

I was at a planning committee meeting for a small housing development (about 28 houses) a few years ago.  It was passed, against a stack of objections, including from the planning officer, and despite being way outside the development boundary.  I walked out just before the meeting ended and was stood behind the door from the meeting room, chatting to a journalist from our local paper, when the developer's representative and his planning consultant left the meeting (they couldn't see us where we were stood).  The planning consultant said to the developer "I thought we'd have to give him a bigger bung than that".  The young journalist stared at me with wide open eyes and said something like "Did I just hear what I thought I heard?".  I said yes, just watch for Councillor **** getting another new car soon.  Sure enough, said Councillor (who doesn't work and lives on benefits) was driving around in a brand new Range Rover a couple of months later...  No one seems interested in stopping stuff like this, and what seems to happen is that small groups of "like minded" people end up with more influence than they should have on planning committees.