Articles published in 2003

Some selfbuilders regard the planners in a negative light, as busybodies who are likely to squash proposals for anything out of the ordinary. That attitude may or may not be justified, but a by-product of the planning system is that it contains a wealth of information which is freely available to all, and every selfbuilder should make full use of it.

The greatest challenge for any hands-on selfbuilder comes at the start of the build – putting down the firm foundations that every home needs. Try to make life easier for yourself by starting your build when the weather is likely to be benign, and not in midwinter.

If your site is fairly level and the ground conditions satisfactory, the cheapest way of constructing the ground floor is to lay concrete slabs which are supported by the ground itself. Otherwise, suspended floors are supported by the foundation walls.

Home is where everybody should feel safe, but too often we read reports of the tragic deaths of family members as their homes go up in flames. There are 70,000 domestic fires in the UK a year, and over half of the recorded casualties are children. The Building Regulations have requirements that result in a basic standard of fire safety for new buildings, but as a selfbuilder, you may wish to build your home to a higher level of safety, particularly if your household will include those especially vulnerable: the young, the old and the infirm.

Central vacuum systems could be found in Britain in Edwardian times, installed in some large houses and hotels. But the systems were cumbersome and costly. We owe it to the North Americans for developing neat and affordable systems for installation in any modern home.

Laws to control the construction of buildings have an ancient history. Four thousand years ago, in ancient Mesopotamia, the famous Code of Hammurabi decreed that the builder of a building which collapsed and killed its owner should himself be put to death. Closer to home, some basic building regulations were introduced for London more than 700 years ago, and after the great fire of London in 1666 a comprehensive building act was passed for that city.

Last month we looked at the conventional foundations used in normal ground conditions – strip foundations or trenchfill. The average groundworker is well able to put in either of these. But more treacherous ground necessitates other methods – generally, piles or a raft. These foundations are more costly and best put in by specialists.

The number one organisation in the UK for people interested in green building is the AECB (Association for Environment Conscious Building), and the number one event is their annual conference. This year the get-together was billed as an ecobuilding summit and took place during the first weekend of July. I was there to report back to S&D readers.

In the last issue we looked at how you can build your home to be fire resistant. But you can do better than that – you can build in a sprinkler system that will extinguish a fire as soon as it starts. Last year, there was a lot of publicity about the fire which destroyed the newly built Yarlswood Detention Centre – the Home Office had tried to cut costs by omitting the sprinkler system originally intended. They won’t make that mistake again!