You are letting him off too easy in my opinion, he is the supposed professional and should have done the job properly for you

Possibly, but I asked him to do it and went through the design with him, so the pier cock up is my fault. In an ideal world he’d have queried it, but I don’t think he’s the world’s best brickie and just my bad luck that he didn’t pick up on it. I can’t blame him for doing what I asked him to, even if it was completely wrong! As for the slowness, well yes, but in this case it’s been a mixed blessing as less work to knock down and blocks / brick to clean up (I’ll be doing that all WE).

If you want to have the roof design looked at, post the drawing on here, I had just presumed you would be trussing that roof

I’m OK with it, the Engineer has 12 pages of calculations and BC have approved the complete design, so it’ll be OK as long as it’s built right – the main issue is as a 1st time self build I’m having a few issues with interpreting the plans. Still, it’s all a good learning experience, you never forget things you learn from mistakes!

Basic design:

Screen shot 2012-10-18 at 23.02.25 by brf, on Flickr

12 pages of calculations for a shed? At least now I know what not to do if I get one built. 😛

I feel for you though footflaps, hope it all gets sorted happily.

Edit! Pitched roof!

One last wee story before I go to catch up on my beauty sleep

I’ve all too often seen so called tradesmen do work that they know to be wrong at the request of a client, they get paid to do the initial work, I come along and tell them it’s wrong and ask them to undo it, they say to the client that building control are being awkward and that it has to come down and be rebuilt. It’s a good way of getting paid twice to do a job. Of course the building control surveyor is named as the bad guy in this. I’ve seen this scenario far too many times and it really makes me mad how people can get away with it.

Find a good honest builder and you’ll have that wee job done for half the price, to a better standard and a lot less stress to yourself.

I’m in the process of building my own bike shed by the way, it has cavity walls and is bone dry inside even before plastering, my previous shed was single skin plastered and really damp internally in humid weather.

Possibly, but I asked him to do it and went through the design with him, so the pier cock up is my fault. In an ideal world he’d have queried it, but I don’t think he’s the world’s best brickie and just my bad luck that he didn’t pick up on it. I can’t blame him for doing what I asked him to, even if it was completely wrong

I’ve been asked to do things that are obviously wrong and refused due to pride in my work. The customer is not always right even though they think they are. 😉

Time for the joiners!

I feel for you though footflaps, hope it all gets sorted happily.

Cheers! It’s just a bit of a hickup. The whole self build thing is a bit of an adventure anyway, so it’s not that much of a surprise that it doesn’t go perfectly.

Sorry I can’t wait! Who’s roof design is that? Is it being done traditional?

Find a good honest builder and you’ll have that wee job done for half the price, to a better standard and a lot less stress to yourself.

I did go down that route originally and was getting quotes back north of £30k, which was obviously insane, hence I thought f*** it I’ll just DIY, took the next week off and dug the footings on an impulse…..

So without doing a calc, the roof beam is a 178 x 102? Simple enough structure that, remember if your engineer has over specified building control won’t tell you that, we just look at minimum standards.

You could use timber for your ridge beam, cheaper and a lot easier to work with, I can’t work out the sizes in my head at this time of night but I’d think a 225 x 75 timber beam wouldn’t be far away……….

Time for bed

Sorry I can’t wait! Who’s roof design is that? Is it being done traditional?

Externally it will be tiled, so look traditional. The lack of A frames gives more space for a mezzanine floor and also all the light comes from skylights, so it will look nicer. As for whose design, the Structural Engineer suggested it.

So without doing a calc, the roof beam is a 178 x 102? Simple enough structure that, remember if your engineer has over specified building control won’t tell you that, we just look at minimum standards.

You could use timber for your ridge beam, cheaper and a lot easier to work with, I can’t work out the sizes in my head at this time of night but I’d think a 225 x 75 timber beam wouldn’t be far away……….

They’ve all been ordered already…

and meanwhile, in a paralell universe, there is some brickie on singlebrickworld asking other brickies what they thik of his new bike build. they are all laughing; telling him his fork is on backwards, the brake levers are too high, the stem is inverted and that the reflectors need to come off. oh, and it’s an Orange Five…..

seems like a lot of faff for a blingy bike shed.

i still think it would have been a lot less hassle to build a decent wooden shed.

footflaps, listen to the guys above (wrightson, lyrikal, rusty, etc) that build stuff with bricks for a living.

i’d consider 150 a day tight (but then maybe rates are lower for brickies than for chippies), but i’d be expecting more progress than that for my money and i’d expect that the guy doing the job had a better idea of how to do it than your guy does.

Great thread and some good advice being offered – hopefully it should end up with a better finished product.
Is it just me or is this like having our own private Grand Designs project??
Chin up footflaps, it’ll all be good.

Scratch that glitch.

Glitch in my crotch.

and meanwhile, in a paralell universe, there is some brickie on singlebrickworld asking other brickies what they thik of his new bike build. they are all laughing; telling him his fork is on backwards, the brake levers are too high, the stem is inverted and that the reflectors need to come off. oh, and it’s an Orange Five…..

That is quite funny!

and meanwhile, in a paralell universe, there is some brickie on singlebrickworld…

Slow day on a Friday Jamie? 🙂

top marks Jamie. Have a dog.

[img]http://www.gifmania.co.uk/dogs/alsatian/germ-shp.gif[/img][img]http://www.gifmania.co.uk/dogs/alsatian/germ-shp.gif[/img]
[img]http://bricksculpture.com/images/bricks.gif[/img]

🙂

What helmet for condemned piers?

lol funny stuff 🙂

“Rate my Bike Mechanic” superb.

Looking forward to today’s installment.

OP don’t rely on building control getting it right. They are probably the same shower that allowed my sisters neighbour to cause major structural damage to her house (and their own). My sister is currently living in a house that could fall down in a sudden cold snap or very heavy rain.
I repeat Cambs building control are a shower.

Edit Nice bondage Stoner!

A Scottish bond. Or Sean Connery for short…

I was looking for a flemish one 🙂

I was looking for a flemish one

Strangely, that was in the first draft.

This is one of the most entertaining threads for a long time.

No nothing about building and I hope it works out for Footflaps.

Is the engineer here yet? It’s nearly 9

I’ve cancelled the Brickie and will take it all down at the WE regardless. Engineer will be here shortly…

So what’s the best way to clean mortar off bricks? I’ll probably bin all the blocks as they’re relatively cheap.

This is what you need….

DrP

(got the second one for my lad for christmas!!)

I’ve cancelled the Brickie and will take it all down at the WE

How did he take it? I hope you didn’t pay him? Have you linked him to this thread?

I reckon you’ll have that lot, down, cleaned, and in neat piles in half the time it’s taken him to put them up 🙂

Well as you’re starting again, is it worth having a re-think about using the handmade imperials below DPC level when a metric engineering brick might make it all a bit easier/better?

Scutching hammer

Best of luck Op I’m sure it’ll turn out well in the end.

^ good idea.

Class Bs dont cost much at all.

The mortar on the blocks won’t be fully set so it should knock off quite easily with a trowel, you could probably get away with knocking bits of it down to get the piers bonded in again.

If I were you I’d be building cavity, you won’t loose that much internally and it will also give good support to the facing brick facade. Give me a shout if you want me to sketch up a detail for you. Cavity wall will still be fine to support your steelwork

So The STW crowd-sourced spec list goes something like:
1) DPM
2) Engineering bricks to DPC
3) 110mm cavity wall
4) 100mm mineral wool insulation batts
5) Wine cellar
6) TV aerial