Lou's Studio - Construction Phase

[Lou]

Wait untill tomorrow! front of studio dig done and dusted I don't know how they've done it, but they have - crap ground 'n all, mains Gas, Electric, foul sewer, you name it. One wrong move here and I'm screwed. !

Pics to follow, but meanwhile, proper jpegs that are slightly larger for those of you that are kind enough to be interested.

Regards as always Guys,

Lou. ( ,8, )

[Lou]

Good Morning fellow builders, I’ve just realised that my last post looks a bit over excited and I seem to have almost uploaded the same jpegs twice! To be honest, I was excited at the achievements of yesterday, and to quote someone whose wisdom and humour I really miss up here, “It was tired and I was late”

Anyway, check this out, all chill out area brickwork complete, and the colour match is awesome! (Main house 32 years old - Chill-out area 32 minutes old.)



As you’d expect from Phil, everything plumb and level.



Membrane already bedded in ready for the ‘over site’



56 cuts on the two piers – just for the block work.



6.00pm and Span and Pete arrive as promised for the high pressure challenge. Bear in mind they’ve already been working on a 400 home housing estate since 7.30am.



Then Mother Nature looks like she’s got a different idea. Luckily, she changed her mind.



Definitely a two handed job – the communication between these Guys is fascinating to watch, but I couldn’t, too much at stake. “Stick to your Music Geez!” (English expression for clear off and leave us to get on with it.)





With the combined expertise of these chaps the foul feed is revealed, then the mains gas.



Then, the mains electric.



How they did this without any damage, under this sort of time constraint, and after a full days’ work already is frankly beyond me. To all the Guys involved in this, you’re adding a new dimension to the expression: “Yeah, well that’s what Mates are for.”

All chill-out area brick and block work done in 4 days!

8m x 0.5m x 1.6m front footing dug in 2 hours - amazing,

Thank you soooooooooooo much!

You know my height, so you’ll no this footing is deep enough, and although these two have known each other for 34 years, (scary) it’s the first time ever, that Span has looked taller than me in a photo!



It’s now 1.00pm Fri and I’m now going outside to ‘bottom out’ the rest of the hole before the building inspector re-visits, I need him to be happy or…………… Concrete already ordered for 10.30am drop tomorrow!

Wish me luck,

Warm regards,

Lou.

[Lou]

Building Inspector just been -

Totally cool with the dig, and very impressed with the preperation/organisation.

We are clear to go in the morning with the next lot of concrete.

Stay tuned.

Regards,

Lou.

[rod gervais]

Now onto something that’s been causing a real headache – where to place the ducting. As I see it, I’ll have three separate ducting systems carrying three types of cable to all parts of the floor area, Audio, Midi, and A.C. Mains. The following diagram shows my plan for the mains only. Blue is ‘Domestic’ mains fed back from the house consumer unit to the studio consumer unit (red box), red is ‘Technical’ mains which has its own ‘Technical’ earth (Green).

Lou,

sorry I haven't been following this closely (did love the pics) - but will try to play catch-up......

As regards the above - your best bet is to feed all AC mains above grade and low voltage below grade.

The only exception to this being the power you feed directly to the board and the gear placed at the board - which I would run down a wall and bring in at a right angle to the low voltage wiring - and would keep it at least 2' away from any LV when doing that.

Another item would be the seperate grounds- very bad idea-

you will have feeds to power from the same transformer - the same power - the same neutral (earth ground from the power company) - and at the main - an earth ground for the entire service -

Although you're trying to avoid it - you're setting yourself up for ground loop problems........

better to do it like I show in the book - run seperate lines for isolated ground - but take those back to a small ground buss and then tie directly to your service ground.

Rather than trying to bring the ducting out of the screed within the rooms, I’m intending for all ducting runs to finally come out of the floor between the cavities or voids in the rooms – (between the leaves if you like). This way, I’m sure I’ve got a much better chance of not screwing things up both in terms of flexible location, and audible sound transference between the rooms via the ducting. Sorry if I’m not making sense, but try to visualise a sort of ‘sub floor’ rat run leaving 3 or 4” diameter holes dotted around the perimeter of the floor 4” away from the existing walls to still allow enough space at the edges for my outer leaf ‘beef-up’

I don't see a big problem here - 1st off - the only place you need cables coming up from the floor is in the contro room - in the remaining roms all connections shouldbe in the walls.

BUT - I don't like the ideaa of using in between your walls as a sort of junction box where you bring up a set of conduits and then feed another set - you will have to install access panels because you can't bury junction points - nor should you.

I wuld make it a point to locate my desk and then set them inboard of the back of the desk by 8" or so - you should not be that far off from correct if you are beginning with your seating in the 38% range.

Rod

[Lou]

Hi Rod – many thanks for the post, really great to hear from you, and something of a relief to know that you’re in the background I can assure you.

I picked up your message late Fri night and decided to wait until I had the time to reply properly. I’ve re-read pages 99 – 105 several times and have to admit that I’m still a little confused, and, to be fair to you, my mains schematic looks misleading, the red ‘T’ s do imply junction boxes which is not my intention. When I get the chance, (hopefully later today), I’ll draw a more complete diagram to better explain my intentions. In any event, I’ve taken the somewhat corporate decision to get the ‘shell’ finished, take the build stage as far as the ‘oversight’ (up to insulation level), and then stop to take stock of the situation and iron out any problems before proceeding to the concrete and screed stages.

For now then Gentlemen, here’s the update.

8.00 am yesterday and the final preparations are underway for the front footing concrete.



The horizontal blue rods indicate the final levels all around the hole.



9.30, and the second concrete delivery arrives.



This is clearly going to be so much more relaxed than last week.



9.40, and the pour can begin – not a wheelbarrow in sight!





The gas main is nearly buried forever.





Then the main electricity supply to the house, (Both of these are of course to be replaced).



Then, the accuracy of the Guys’ preparation is shown off by the final level!



“Hang on we’ve got some left over.”



“Let’s chuck it in the garage hole.”



A good bit of reversing!



And the Gold Medal for this years “World Over-Engineered Manhole Championships” goes to…………………………..the Studio 4 Construction Team.



10.10 am, all done.



I made the silly mistake of telling Span that I felt a bit redundant, he said, “no worries Lou, shift those blocks round the corner” (from here).



To here – took me ages!



Then, on to the footings for the dwarf retaining wall.



Done – including the ‘step-ups’



Sarah knocks up a quick home made chicken tika salad wrap – lovely.



I tidy up.



And finally get an idea of the total space I’ll end up with.



That’s it for the moment Guys, this afternoon we’ve got to dig the soak-away for the chill-out area as the machines are getting picked up in the morning!

More later, – stay tuned,

Regards,

Lou,

[sharward]

Hi Lou,

I (finally) read through this entire thread a couple of days ago on my itty bitty Treo 650 screen -- which, by the way, often cannot display more than a handful of pictures, and that was the case on this thread. I made a point of coming back to it on a real computer so that I can take in all the photos and put the commentary into context.

Wow!! This project is nothing less than amazing.

I'm really impressed with the quality and speed of the work being done.

I excerpted your council application story on the "Permits, Codes, Licenses -- and WHY YOU SHOULD CARE! thread, since it does provide a fair warning to your fellow UK dwellers that there can sometimes be complications lurking in the background that can get in the way. Congratulations on your success in navigating through those obstacles.

Keep up the great work, and keep up the great posts and great photos!

--Keith

[johnp]

Hi Lou

This thread is amazing, thanks so much for posting. the first thing i do when log on is go straight to this thread!

Now i'm wondering if I am in trouble...let me explain:-

I live in North Oxfordshire and in January filled in Cherwell District Council online form that they have for planning. Its essentially a questionaire that they can process quickly which, based on what you tell them, allows them to determine if you should apply for planning.

So i answered no to all the usual questions, ie my standalone single story structure would be less that 30sqM, less that 4M with pitched roof, at least 1M from boundaries, less than 50% of ground used and built with non combustible material

They responded in writing that in their opinion it did not require planning but that it may need building regs. So i sent a letter to building regs and they wrote back and basically said, as long as you are 1M from boundaries and more than 5M from main house, we dont care how you build it.

So armed with these two letters, i proceeded to clear garden and did trenches for footings...which is why i'm so jealous of your build cus' i dug trenches right before monsoon season , now i've drained them for about the 4th time... so wish i did wat you did andpoured concrete right after dig

Anyway, dont know if you feel like giving me any advice on planning/building regs above (be gentle!) but anyway, keep the pics coming, they have given me such a morale boost over the past week

cheers
John

[Lou]

Hi Guys – hope you’re all ok!

I’ve got to tell you that I have a confession to make, basically, I woke up this morning (cue the ‘Blues’ track) feeling a bit despondent. Yesterday was a really frustrating day with lots of hold ups that were out of our control. In short, I was pissed off. During coffee this morning I started thinking about Oz’s ‘red-tape’ aggro, Andy’s rotten basement, the lousy drywall fix, and all the other nightmares I’ve read about on the construction forum.

It occurred to me that in reality, we are doing bloody well given the amount of time we’ve been at it, and that although we haven’t even scratched the surface of this project yet, there’s been so many tenacious efforts shared on the forum that I simply had to stop feeling down, sort out the crap and just get on with it.

To that end, I went on line, and straight to the forum to look at Cathy’s barn conversion again or Aaron’s awesome wiring when I noticed that I’d had a couple of replies to my thread.

Guys, you’ve know idea how much better I immediately felt.

Keith what can I say Mate, to be thought of as an esteemed forum member by someone as highly esteemed as your good self, is nothing short of an honour. Very many thanks for the compliments and the excerpt, which I might add, I was intending to reply to since I’ve gained some more knowledge in the planning area. (More on this in a moment).

John – hi my friend, what a really thoughtful post. Very many thanks for the kind words, glad you’re enjoying the thread.

I’ll get to the update in a minute, but for now John I’ll help and advise all I can Mate, that’s what this forum’s all about. Hell – you wouldn’t believe the help I’ve had here.

So here goes (I don’t know how to get your comments to appear in the different colour) first off I’m no expert, believe me, but Ill willingly try and point you in the right direction. Local Authority practices naturally vary up and down the country, but one thing’s for certain; they’re all working under the same Government Legislation. Housing demand in this country has increased dramatically over the last decade, to that end; all Local Authorities are required to build more housing. Great – but where? Well, where there’s room of course, and this is why more and more ‘green belt’ land is being used up, and there’s loads of that in the Shire Counties as you know.

We have a local shopping precinct with a chemist, dentist, baker, newsagent takeaway etc, and they’ve built 12 flats in the corner of it! 24 flats have just been finished on an industrial estate right next to a main line railway! You name there’s property going up in all sorts of places to meet this massive demand.

Now, if the above is coming across as political waffle, bear with me. This massive demand puts a massive strain on resources. Local Authorities are so undermanned, that they simply don’t really have the time for the likes of you and me. We’re not building build 400 home housing estates or 20 unit apartment blocks, and we certainly aren’t ‘backhanding’ council officials to get applications through.

What this means for you at present, is that in my very humble opinion, you cannot, and indeed should not, take anything Cherwell District Council says for granted. John – in certain situations you would need a planning application for a garden shed!

Your ‘standalone single storey structure’ sounds a bit like you’re trying to build a detached double garage (more info would be helpful here). If this is the case, then my advice would be to go to the council, make an appointment and ask for someone from the planning office to visit your site, they probably say that isn’t necessary, which you can interpret from now on to mean they don’t have the time.

I really would suggest that you make a Formal Planning Application, if you don’t, and you go ahead and build, without planning permission you could be ordered to take the structure down. It only wants one neighbour to complain and then you’ll be amazed at how much time Cherwell District Council has on its hands. Once you have permission granted, you cannot ever be put in this position. I wouldn’t tell them that you’re trying to build a recording studio for obvious reasons, but it’s essential that you let them know you are building a permanent structure which is to be used as a habitable space – store and play area/workshop is usually fine for this.

Now onto the most worrying part of your post.

“We don’t care how you build it” John – I’m sure that’s what they wrote, but believe me, I’m equally sure that’s nothing short of total bullshit! Excuse the French!

You need to be totally clear that some time ago the whole planning process changed, (and is due to change yet again in October), so that now there are two completely separate areas:

1. Planning Permission.
2. Building Control.

Here’s where it gets real fun, (NOT), they have absolutely no control over each other at all. In fact, if you build with permission, and your structure doesn’t comply with Building Regulations, your work will be classed as unauthorised, which means it will not be insured, and thus dramatically affect the value of your property. Let’s face it John, you’re almost certainly building a permanent structure, and you definitely want it to be habitable, which is why you're duty bound to yourself and anyone you sell to in the future to build it properly. Building control can't order you to take the structure down because you've obtained permission for it to be there, however it will show up at the Land Registry when you sell in the future because they'll have no knowledge of the structures' existence since it wasn't built to Building Regs!

I strongly urge you to adopt the attitude that you must make a Building Regulations Application. All this means for the scale of your project at least, is that they’ll want to inspect the construction at various stages of development, footings, drainage, oversite, roof etc.

I phoned my local building control office 5 times and kept getting told that all I had to do was call them again when I was ready to pour the concrete – too busy again. This simply didn’t sound right to me so I contacted my Architect and he said “Oh yeah you’ll definitely need regs drawings”

The process isn’t cheap. £188.00 to register the drawings, £118.00 to cover the Building Inspectors first visit, and £350.00 for the Architect to do the drawings. To date, my Planning and Architect costs stand at £850.00 but at least its all legit!

I wish you well John, hope this helps.

OK now for the update.

Mon 8.00am and Phil cracks on with the studio front brickwork.





The far wall is a natural extension to the existing structure, so all the brickwork here has to be ‘toothed in’



Studio front door entrance.



Lintels installed to leave room for gas and electric to come back in.



And studio kitchen waste out!



A good start from the chaps, and a better idea of how much space we’re gaining.





Span now has the awkward job of locating the gas and electric again, but this time, it’s the other side of Phil’s new brickwork! First the electric.



Then the gas.



Tuesday morning, and Dave gets on with the ‘lean-fill’, a dry mix of ballast and cement which sets very slowly over time as moisture in the ground penetrates the foundation blockwork.



Back on to the retaining wall.



Then I have to get rid of this, cue grab no 5!



Then hopefully use this space to create a wall of materials to stop the 10 tonnes of rejects that I’ve ordered from spilling all over next doors driveway.



As you might have noticed in the previous shot, John is waiting to drop the rejects before he can grab the next load. The materials finally show up.



And we can build our 'material' wall.





My horror and disbelief as John drops 10 tonnes of completely unusable crap on my drive!



He grabs as much as he can – in guess what? The pouring rain!



Sarah ‘cops’ an arty shot of me preparing to tidy up in guess what? Yeah I know a digger, and the bloody pouring rain.



Well that’s where we are at the moment Chaps, Phil and Dave are away for a fortnight from Monday, so the next stages may look a little boring but I’ll post them anyway. Next thing on the agenda is to concentrate on the ‘chill-out’ area oversite, get the gas and electric re located and connected, backfill the studio brickwork, and then the studio oversite! Oh yeah, and getting rid of, and a refund for, the crap I can't use whilst ordering and paying for the stuff I can - and quickly.

Stay tuned,

Regards,

Lou.

[sharward]

It occurred to me that in reality, we are doing bloody well given the amount of time we’ve been at it, and that although we haven’t even scratched the surface of this project yet, there’s been so many tenacious efforts shared on the forum that I simply had to stop feeling down, sort out the crap and just get on with it.

Welcome to the club, Lou!

This forum is indeed so much more than a source of information.

It is a source of inspiration.

It is a source of support when we are in despair about the realities of our situations.

It is a source of enlightenment when we discover that, usually, there is a way -- often with compromises, but compromises we can and typically do willingly accept.

It is a source of comraderie when we share experiences.

It is a source of friendship.

It is a source of understanding in a world where oftentimes those who are closest to us don't share the passions of our dreams and simply don't get what all the fuss is about.

And, for some, it is a source of mentorship where we can grow and feel good about helping others in need.

Lou, if you hadn't run into any complications, that would be a sign that you were doing something wrong!

Sometimes there are construction projects going on in this forum that I wish I could see with my own eyes. This is surely one of them.

--Keith

[Lou]

Keith - you're a bloody star, and thank you my friend, another really kind post.

Bonus pic, just for you, in case you missed it first time around.

Much better day so far today.

Warm regards,

Lou.

PS - my ride's in the background - Volvo V70R. one of only 600 ever made for the Volvo '97 touring car season. It took me nearly 2 1/2 years to find it! Guess who drove me 250 miles to pick it up..........Spot on - Span.

Standard 260 b.h.p. - chipped to 330 b.h.p with uprated E.B.C. 'Superstreet' sports breaking system and 'limo' tints as far around as is legal! Told you I was a gadjet geek nerd. It flies like the wind and stops on a postage stamp.

Someone's bound to say - "surely your ride's in the foreground Dude!" Right?

[sharward]

Coooooool!

For those who don't know why I would care... Here's my ride!





Hey Lou -- maybe someday we can swap RX-8s -- it sure would be fun to have a right-hand drive over here for a while!

--Keith

[Lou]

Hi Guys –hope you’re all OK.

Keith, that was a classic last remark Mate, made me laugh like hell! It could of course be my dry humour, but there’s so many ways to interpret that one Dude. In any event it’s Sarah’s car – cool license plate btw.

So then, to the update. After the frustrations earlier in the week, we’ve ended up pretty much on the ball, and we still have a manic weekend ahead of us, to get as far into the next stage as possible, while Phil and Dave are on their respective holidays.

Loads of pics for your perusal – so here they come. Enjoy!

This is what I should have bought first time around. 40 mm down rejects.



Not this!



For those of you like me who weren’t aware, rejects are not broken old bricks! They are simply sea based aggregates that wont go through the machine when they make ballast, pea shingle, fine grit etc.

Time to load them into the tipper.



Then dump them on the chill-out area floor to start ‘making up’ the ground.



Level out and ‘wacker plate’ to pre-marked blue spray line.





A real tidy job.



The corner of the retaining wall gets underway.



Then crack on with working out the ‘step work’ for the bricks.



Believe it or not, this will eventually be the steps leading up to the garden!



Then it’s time to rake in the sand.





Then wacker plate to look like a pool table.





This is the stuff I was talking about in an earlier post – ‘Celotex’. It’s expensive but really does the job.



The new gas and electric meter boxes are cut into position and the gas box is sealed in.



Studio kitchen waste placed into position.



Retaining wall ‘step work’ complete and looking amazing – each step is 5 ½ bricks, and follows the topography of the garden perfectly.





Now it’s time for the 1000 gauge membrane – which will of course remain protected from the ‘rejects’ forever due to the sand.



Now the celotex can be cut and placed into position.



The last bit of membrane.



Ready for the ‘Upstands’.



This storm water drain right on Phil’s new brickwork has to be moved further down the drive.



It has to be ‘rodded’ through, and ‘made good’ to connect to this. However, this baby is rusted solid to its frame and even the digger couldn’t pull it up, so we’re obviously going to have a great time tomorrow!



Mate of a Mate crimps the gas supply ready for cut and re-route to new wall box. £150.00 instead of £572.74 (with a 5 week timescale!)



Then the new gas supply is connected to its new location – and yes, we have no gas at the moment.



Chill-out area upstands all cut and placed into final position.



The next lot of concrete arrives – (this time Gen 3 / slump 50 with fibre) basically an over engineered oversite mix. Oh and it’s me driving the dumper!



Concentrating like hell, sporting new haircut, and having the responsibility of driving inch perfect so as to not damage Phil’s new wall, or spilling too much muck. My heart was beating I can tell you.





Dave gives me the thumbs up as if to say “you’re doing’ alright geezer”



Then it’s just simply a case of ‘tamping out’ and getting the snooker table finish prior to screed in a couple of weeks time. Easy really - NOT!






Phil – ever the ingenious – sorts out the final look of the concrete with an interesting adaptation of tools and resources. Cool.





That’s it for the moment Guys, as I said at the top of this post, we’ve given ourselves some crazy targets this weekend: Oversite for studio prepped – ready for audio/midi ducting and steel mesh. Chill-out area soak away dug and prepped. Storm water manhole removed, rodded and relocated. Front of studio backfilled (bar electric ‘cos they can’t do their bit until the 28th Aug ) ready for Phil’s return. Garden steps and the rest of the retaining wall footings etc.

We sure gonna’ have some fun and aggro of course.

Warm regards as always,

Lou.

[gullfo]

wow!

[sharward]

Holy crap -- if I had Span and company working with me on my project, I would have been done in a few weeks' time!

This thread inspires awe!

--Keith

[jwl]

Wow, you don't mess around, do you Lou?

Impressive to be sure....