Design for Comments

[pdf27]

First set of plans back from the architects, we're fairly happy with the layout but I figured it would be a good idea to stick them on here for feedback from the buildhub hive-mind.

 

 

 

Please ignore the fact that the outside is fugly at the moment - the current window positions are carried over from a previous iteration of the design which was a 1 1/2 storey version with very restricted headroom upstairs - that's being changed at the moment. It's off to the QS for initial costing at the moment before we start thinking about the details.

[ProDave]

How does it sit on the plot?  i.e. which way is north or south?

 

No immediate comments other than check carefully how the fixed stairs to the loft sit with building regs.  A more conventional loft hatch and change it after completion might be a better idea?

[pdf27]

Sorry, forgot to include that. It's the house labelled "110" in the centre of the Google Earth snapshot. We're thinking about pushing the house back on the plot a bit so that the back wall is aligned with the current back wall, but that's something we'll discuss with the architect before we submit for planning - also planning to get them to push for an increased ridge height so we can go to 2400mm rooms and a more normal roof pitch. Due to COVID the guy doing the design hasn't actually been on site although someone else from the practice has - plan is to do so before we submit for planning to make sure we haven't missed anything.

 

I **think** that because the ceiling height is so low and there are no windows the loft doesn't count as a habitable room and therefore there should be no impact on building regulations - we're still very early in the design process though so switching between stairs and a loft ladder has virtually no impact. We definitely want permanent stairs though - my wife in particular is a bit of a hoarder someone who doesn't like to waste anything and carrying crates of stuff up a ladder is enough of a pain they end up lying around the house for ages. The architect tried to just continue the current stairs up but there isn't enough headroom.

 

 

[jack]

No particular feedback on the layout, but I'd be doing everything in my power to get more ceiling height, particularly downstairs. Even going to 2400 will make a big perceptual difference imo.

 

Could you move both ceilings up a bit and accept lower head height in the loft? How tall is your hoarder wife? 

 

You could also increase the height of the house by 50-100mm without making much of a difference relative to next door. Certainly, before submitting for planning, I'd remove the numerical ridge height, not include the line between the adjacent buildings, and remove the ceiling height numbers from the sections. Draw it slightly higher than the adjacent property and I think you'd easily add 50-100mm without it being at all obvious that you're building taller than next door.

 

Then when you build it, add another 50-100mm, which is well within building tolerances. 

 

Overall, I think you could go to 2400 on both floors without materially risking your chances of getting planning. Worst case, if ridge height were the only issue reason for rejection, you could always resubmit with something slightly lower.

[pdf27]

10 minutes ago, jack said:

No particular feedback on the layout, but I'd be doing everything in my power to get more ceiling height, particularly downstairs. Even going to 2400 will make a big perceptual difference imo.

 

Could you move both ceilings up a bit and accept lower head height in the loft? How tall is your hoarder wife? 

 

You could also increase the height of the house by 50-100mm without making much of a difference relative to next door. Certainly, before submitting for planning, I'd remove the numerical ridge height, not include the line between the adjacent buildings, and remove the ceiling height numbers from the sections. Draw it slightly higher than the adjacent property and I think you'd easily add 50-100mm without it being at all obvious that you're building taller than next door.

 

Then when you build it, add another 50-100mm, which is well within building tolerances. 

 

Overall, I think you could go to 2400 on both floors without materially risking your chances of getting planning. Worst case, if ridge height were the only issue reason for rejection, you could always resubmit with something slightly lower.

Pretty much matches our thinking, there are several details that should let us get a few hundred mm more height and 2400mm internally is definitely our next priority. The ground level at the front is ~200mm higher than at the back for instance, and the street scene is very varied so we really shouldn't have any issues getting a higher ridge line than the neighbours at planning (to the extent that the parish council recently had to employ a barrister to oppose the district council granting permission to a load more new builds outside the settlement boundary in direct contravention of the adopted neighbourhood plan).

This particular practice did a very similar sized house in the next village over where they had a major issue with the council about ridge height, so I think they're a bit once-bitten. However there are a number of differences (for instance it's inside an AONB, we aren't) which I'm gradually getting through to them. I'm not too concerned at this stage - what we've got is acceptable, and is very representative for costing.

 

Plan is to go for pre-application advice with a strong steer to push for an increased ridge height over next door by maybe 300mm, but we need to get the QS numbers back first and then revise the design accordingly if needed - we'd quite like to stretch it a bit front to back if budget allows, probably adding ~1m on the front and maybe a little on the back.

[jack]

Sounds like you're being very sensible about it.

[pdf27]

10 minutes ago, jack said:

Sounds like you're being very sensible about it.

We're trying to. We've had a lot of time to think about this - we originally bought the place almost 4 years ago with the intention of doing a major refurbishment and loft conversion, but the more we looked at it the more we found was wrong and it's ended up being cheaper to knock down and rebuild. Unfortunately, that required a significantly larger budget and we didn't have that until recently.

This particular practice seems to make very conservative assumptions about cost of ~£2500/m² based on their previous projects, which seems to come from the fact that they primarily do Passivhaus and that tends to attract the sort of clients who tend to gold-plate everything. Given we've been pretty clear our budget is quite a bit below this, they're trying hard to keep things small and simple to control costs, and I suspect that if you strip out the gold plating they're maybe trying a little too hard to keep it compact. QS report (due in a couple of weeks) should give us a good understanding of whether that is the case.

[epsilonGreedy]

I only had 2 minutes think time...

 

The SW elevation window positioning is chaotic.

 

I would lower the cill height of the ground front elevation ground floor windows to give the house some aesthetic gravitas. The current window aspect ratios look a bit late 70s when architects were part way through a roundbound from wide aspect 1960s windows but had not at the time worked out where they were heading.

Edited March 23, 2021 by epsilonGreedy

[pdf27]

18 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

I only had 2 minutes think time...

 

The SW elevation window positioning is chaotic.

 

I would lower the cill height of the ground front elevation ground floor windows to give the house some aesthetic gravitas. The current window aspect ratios look a bit late 70s when architects were part way through a roundbound from wide aspect 1960s windows but had not at the time worked out where they were heading.

Not massively worried by the SW windows since they're ~5m from a blank wall on the house next door. I'm pretty sure that all the windows except for the ground floor at the back are massively undersized though, and that the current layout of them is fugly. I've asked for the sizes to be checked before it goes to the QS, the shape and alignment can wait for the time being but we would certainly want it to be revised before submitting for planning.