OK then, I'll ask.......

[BUSHWHACKER]

Where's TonyN????

Bricked himself into a cavity or something? Buried under a patio?
I thought he was building an extension not a village.

[RodLeach]

i was wondering the same thing!

he logged on a little while back but hes not posted...

[Dixie.t]

from what they were talking about i think there living in the camper at the moment while the roof is being done and i dont think that he has a network cable that is that long.

[BioHazard]

He is about (on a social networking site ) and is living in a caravan. At the moment he is trying to get the roof on his house, fighting the elements and suffering from cold hands

[Sancho]

I was wondering that myself, but I thought maybe everyone else knew and I didn't want to look stupid....

Their plans for an 'extension' did look a little more like a 'house' to me so i suppose it's keeping him busy.

[Apache]

He was saying that the extension area was bigger than the original house.

As someone who's lived through a comparatively small (around 35 sq/m I think) extension I dont envy him one bit! It's a bl00dy nightmare, particularly in this weather!

[Sancho]

He was saying that the extension area was bigger than the original house.

Assuming you can read plans (some people can't for some reason)....

Before:

http://www2.basingstoke.gov.uk/test/...1/00204153.PDF

After:

http://www2.basingstoke.gov.uk/test/...1/00204151.PDF

That's going to keep him busy for a little while.....

[Apache]

Some slightly suspect maths going on there...

Part of the roof to our extension is butted up to the original house walls, and the roof timbers support a span of around 3m. 10"x2" timber spaced at 12" I think. A spotty oik from regs came to inspect it and demanded we double up on those, bolting another of the same dimension to each timber, giving 10"x4" to support a 3m span roof on welsh slate tile...

I was rather annoyed (to say the least) and enquired why it needed to be so strong as the original house roof timbers which have been there since the mid 1850s are just 6"x2" at 18" spacing, span around 10m and have shown little strain in over 150 years. Guess what the answer was?





Snow loading.



Yes, really. This little idiot (of around 20 years old) reckoned the roof needed that much strength incase some snow settled on it. I argued the toss, but he wasn't up for discussing it just because he'd put the decimal point a couple of places the wrong way in his calculations, so it cost me a load more money! I now have a roof you could park a Surf on anyway...


During the same period, we wanted to remove a studding wall, but a similar 'engineer' (I use the word grudgingly) told us we'd have to fit a steel lintel across the width of the house to support the floor above. Why? I asked because I knew the floor joists ran ACROSS the house, so would not be supported by the beam anyway, and, even HE inspected the wall (as I already had) and found it was light timber with lath and plaster. However, his mind was made up. We'd have to build pads in the wall, or preferably another course of bricks into the wall giving sort of columns either side, to support the 14ft long steel, as it was supporting... well... nothing but its own weight.

I didn't bother in the end. It would have cost me an engineers report, the cost of the steel, and a good week out of the schedule to replace a ferkin wooden frame wall!

A lot of these people dont have a clue, but have serious power if you are working on YOUR OWN house.


I wont even mention the problems we had with the local water authority which delayed us two weeks because THEIR maps were wrong!

[Sancho]

No idea what maths you mean, but I am rubbish at maths anyway so can't have any kind of meaningful discussion there.

Snow loading is a massive issue. I build a lot of blocks of flats with low (about 15 degree) pitch roofs so you can imagine the sort of snow loads that we deal with. Unfortunately, pragmatism has been driven out of structural engineering by huge margins of error so we end up with roofs that can deal with two metre drifts sat on top of them. I once had woman call me up to check that he roof terrace would be able to withstand some large plant pots sat on it and I had to explain that it could, in fact, withstand a 2 metre deep swimming pool if she wanted one.

That thing with unnecessary beams seems to be a running theme. My mum got forced to put a catnic over her french windows, even though they are full height and the only thing above them is............a (wider) lintel. In the end, we rested it on the window frames.

[Diezel Weazel]

Hope he's got more than a T shirt n short on then .....

There's always a Payback .... Just don't expect any warning !!!!