Hi all,

We are considering removing an exterior door and blocking up the opening a
bit further out.

A diagram may help make things clearer:

http://www.andyjeffries.co.uk/temp/house.png

So, the Kitchen currently has an exterior door leading to the back garden
and two interior doors leading to the utility room and the living/dining
room.

The utility has an exterior door which leads to outside the front of the
house, but there is a bit of "outside" past this door that then has a wall
(part of my house) then the rest of outside. This piece of space is
raised a foot off the floor, and you then step down off the property.

We would like to remove this door and brick up at the end of that wall to
the house. The wall would be within our property boundaries.

I've also uploaded a photo at:

http://www.andyjeffries.co.uk/temp/house.jpg

The red translucent block shows where the new wall would be.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,


Andy


--
Andy Jeffries | gPHPEdit Lead Developer
http://www.gphpedit.org | PHP editor for Gnome 2
http://www.andyjeffries.co.uk | Personal site and photos

Andy.
Sorry I can't be any help to you on this.
But I do hope you come into some money soon and can buy some furniture.
And those yellow carpets! Please!!!!

Arthur

On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 04:07:16 -0800, Davao wrote:
Sorry I can't be any help to you on this. But I do hope you come into some
money soon and can buy some furniture. And those yellow carpets!
Please!!!!

Sniff, sniff, all I can afford are some new bricks and mortar... :-(

(Inkscape default colours, forgot to change ;-) )

Cheers,


Andy


--
Andy Jeffries | gPHPEdit Lead Developer
http://www.gphpedit.org | PHP editor for Gnome 2
http://www.andyjeffries.co.uk | Personal site and photos

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Andy Jeffries wrote:

Hi all,

We are considering removing an exterior door and blocking up the
opening a bit further out.

A diagram may help make things clearer:

http://www.andyjeffries.co.uk/temp/house.png

So, the Kitchen currently has an exterior door leading to the back
garden and two interior doors leading to the utility room and the
living/dining room.

The utility has an exterior door which leads to outside the front of
the house, but there is a bit of "outside" past this door that then
has a wall (part of my house) then the rest of outside. This piece
of space is raised a foot off the floor, and you then step down off
the property.

We would like to remove this door and brick up at the end of that
wall to the house. The wall would be within our property boundaries.

I've also uploaded a photo at:

http://www.andyjeffries.co.uk/temp/house.jpg

The red translucent block shows where the new wall would be.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,


Andy

I can't quite make your drawing and photo stack up. The drawing shows "Wall"
extending level with the RHS of the property, but in the photo it only
appears to extend for the door width. Is the idea that the white rectangle,
bounded at bottom and right by Wall and Proposed Wall will be an extension
to the Utility Room, with no access to Outside?

It appears to be at the front of the house - in which case you will almost
certainly need planning permission. You will also need building regs
approval, even if only for energy efficiency - which could present a bit of
a challenge! As far as I can see, Wall is only one brick thick - with gaping
holes through it - so you're going to need something better than that to
meet current insulation standards!

The best advice in all such cases is to wander down to your local authority
offices - arned with photos of the existing setup and rough diagrams of what
you want to do, and have informal chats with a planning officer and a
building inspector. They will advise you what is likely to be acceptable
from a planning point of view, and what you need to do to comply with
building regs.
--
Cheers,
Set Square
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On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 13:59:09 +0000, Set Square wrote:
I can't quite make your drawing and photo stack up. The drawing shows
"Wall" extending level with the RHS of the property, but in the photo it
only appears to extend for the door width.

(A large "doh!" and forehead slapping sound reasonates around uk.d-i-y)

You're absolutely right. When I did the drawing I had it in mind it went
to the RHS of property (from that viewpoint). It doesn't, it only goes to
the door.

Is the idea that the white
rectangle, bounded at bottom and right by Wall and Proposed Wall will be
an extension to the Utility Room, with no access to Outside?

Correct.

It appears to be at the front of the house - in which case you will
almost certainly need planning permission. You will also need building
regs approval, even if only for energy efficiency - which could present
a bit of a challenge! As far as I can see, Wall is only one brick thick
- with gaping holes through it - so you're going to need something
better than that to meet current insulation standards!

We're planning on have whoever does the bricking up Proposed Wall to fill
in the gaps. What sort of insulation would be required? Would it have to
be two layers of brick or would one brick layer and say two layers of
plasterboard be enough?

The best advice in all such cases is to wander down to your local
authority offices - arned with photos of the existing setup and rough
diagrams of what you want to do, and have informal chats with a planning
officer and a building inspector. They will advise you what is likely to
be acceptable from a planning point of view, and what you need to do to
comply with building regs.

OK, thanks for that tip, I'll give them a ring in a bit.

Cheers,


Andy

--
Andy Jeffries | gPHPEdit Lead Developer
http://www.gphpedit.org | PHP editor for Gnome 2
http://www.andyjeffries.co.uk | Personal site and photos

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Andy Jeffries wrote:


We're planning on have whoever does the bricking up Proposed Wall to
fill in the gaps. What sort of insulation would be required? Would
it have to be two layers of brick or would one brick layer and say
two layers of plasterboard be enough?

New build would require a thick cavity wall with the cavity full of
rockwool - but this little bit isn't going to have a dramatic effect on the
heat losses from the whole building. It's best to discuss it with a BCO and
find out what he would consider to be acceptable.

The best advice in all such cases is to wander down to your local
authority offices - arned with photos of the existing setup and rough
diagrams of what you want to do, and have informal chats with a
planning officer and a building inspector. They will advise you what
is likely to be acceptable from a planning point of view, and what
you need to do to comply with building regs.

OK, thanks for that tip, I'll give them a ring in a bit.

By all means ring to find out when they're open etc. - but you won't get
very far on the phone - it's far better to *go* and talk to them face to
face. The planners and BCOs at my local council seem to work on some sort of
rota system - so that there's always someone in the office who can talk to
members of the public when they drop in.
--
Cheers,
Set Square
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On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 17:25:44 +0000, Set Square wrote:
We're planning on have whoever does the bricking up Proposed Wall to
fill in the gaps. What sort of insulation would be required? Would it
have to be two layers of brick or would one brick layer and say two
layers of plasterboard be enough?

New build would require a thick cavity wall with the cavity full of
rockwool - but this little bit isn't going to have a dramatic effect on
the heat losses from the whole building. It's best to discuss it with a
BCO and find out what he would consider to be acceptable.

OK, ta. I thought there might be some hard and fast rules on this sort of
thing, rather than down to "who you get on the day".

The best advice in all such cases is to wander down to your local
authority offices - arned with photos of the existing setup and rough
diagrams of what you want to do, and have informal chats with a
planning officer and a building inspector. They will advise you what is
likely to be acceptable from a planning point of view, and what you
need to do to comply with building regs.

OK, thanks for that tip, I'll give them a ring in a bit.

By all means ring to find out when they're open etc.

That's all I meant. Emailed instead.

The planners and BCOs at my local council seem to work on some sort
of rota system - so that there's always someone in the office who can talk
to members of the public when they drop in.

Cool.

Cheers,


AJ


--
Andy Jeffries | gPHPEdit Lead Developer
http://www.gphpedit.org | PHP editor for Gnome 2
http://www.andyjeffries.co.uk | Personal site and photos

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Andy Jeffries wrote:


OK, ta. I thought there might be some hard and fast rules on this
sort of thing, rather than down to "who you get on the day".

Well, there probably is - but all the BCOs I have come across have been
pretty reasonable and have taken a pragmatic approach to these things.

If you build a very small extension onto a large thermally inefficent house,
it makes damn all difference to the overall heat losses even if the new bit
has 'perfect' insulation. They know this, and if you establish a good
working relationship with them, they're less likely to apply the letter of
the law, jobsworth fashion.
--
Cheers,
Set Square
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