Things I wish I had done when building?

sheff the ref

Very little extra cost attached to a gulley at the early building stage. In fact it may be an excellent idea for an upstairs ensuite too.

randombar

One thing about the gulley lads, not sure how you'd make it look nice in the kitchen?? You'd need to have it accessible as you'd need to bleach it every so often etc??

1865

I wish I'd thought of the Gully idea.

WHY DIDN'T YOU POST THIS 6 MONTHS AGO!!!!

Villain

1865 wrote: »

I wish I'd thought of the Gully idea.

WHY DIDN'T YOU POST THIS 6 MONTHS AGO!!!!

The gully idea has pro's and con's, e.g. it can allow smells to backup and it needs to be sealed 100% to prevent mice etc using as an entry point.

sheff the ref

Given that its a thought of my own, I have never actually seen one. Lets say there was a leak, would a kitchen sink diameter wastepipe be enough for a gulley. I presume you could possibly get non return valve to prevent rodents and smells from coming in. The best location would probably be under the Dishwasher in the kitchen with the floor sloped in that direction

GaryCocs wrote: »

One thing about the gulley lads, not sure how you'd make it look nice in the kitchen?? You'd need to have it accessible as you'd need to bleach it every so often etc??

randombar

Just be careful with the non return valve, I've a shower in my place that has been used twice in a year. (non return type valve) Every so often I have to rinse the drain out as the water in it starts to smell.

sheff the ref

Isnt there some kind of gulley for tiled wetroom showers that seals out the smells???

Poor Uncle Tom

All of those traps have water seals, over any lengthy period of non use those dry out and the drain gasses will vent into the house.

sheff the ref

Can they be replaced easily??

sheff the ref

sheff the ref wrote: »

Can they be replaced easily??

Just pour a glass of water in them from time to time!

Poor Uncle Tom

Deleted User wrote: »

Just pour a glass of water in them from time to time!

Perfect solution, I use it for the shower trays in my office, it when you forget to do it there's fun in the place........:D

dos29

I've picked up some brilliant nuggets of info from this thread. Wish someone had suggested the following to me, but hopefully it might help someone.
Just about to start insulating between joists and in stud walls, and looking at the fun I'm going to have fitting it around pipes and electrical wire.
Should have talked to plumber and spark before hand and asked for it to be kept as close to timber as possible. As it stands, there's stuff zig zagging at all sorts of angles.

dos29

dos29 wrote: »

I've picked up some brilliant nuggets of info from this thread. Wish someone had suggested the following to me, but hopefully it might help someone.
Just about to start insulating between joists and in stud walls, and looking at the fun I'm going to have fitting it around pipes and electrical wire.
Should have talked to plumber and spark before hand and asked for it to be kept as close to timber as possible. As it stands, there's stuff zig zagging at all sorts of angles.

I did my own first fix and avoided a lot of those problems, but not all!

just do it

dolanbaker wrote: »

I did my own first fix and avoided a lot of those problems, but not all!

Fair deuce to you! Had you any previous experience?

sheff the ref

Have been talking to a cousin with a 3200 square foot house. 2 storey. Block Walls. V roof.

Her top tips were

1.Oven at eye level rather than on the ground underneath the worktop. Bending down with a bad back in the future to get the Xmas turkey out of the oven would otherwise be a problem.

2.Concrete rather than Tarmac out the back. A nice neat well finished job that can be powerwashed and kept clean easily unlike Tarmac which seems to have a shelf life of <5 years in the wet Irish climate.

3.A decent sized Island in the Kitchen. I was never really an Island fan to be honest but the storage space can be handy particularly for items that are not regularly used. Basically she said that space in the middle of a kitchen is wasted space and best utilised with an Island.

4.Insulation. Insulation. Insulation. Insulation aint the most expensive thing in the world. Insulated the cavity and also had the insulated plasterboards inside the external walls. Reckons that lighting a match would heat the house.

Interestingly enough for a house of that size she has oil and radiators as her heating system. Rads are handy for drying clothes etc which isn't something you would think of when putting in underfloor and geothermal. She said that for the winter of 2010, the really frosty year that she heated the house for €600 in oil from August 2010 to March 2011. Last year it cost roughly €400 in oil from August 2011 to March 2012 but that was a mild winter by comparison.

hexosan

These ideas come from a friend.

1. Add a demister to the mirrors in the bathrooms. Nice to have a clean mirror when you step out of the shower

2. Run a cable to your gates for CCTV/intercom/ automatic gates

3. Take a picture of all items you buy, including their serial numbers and receipts Handy if you ever need to make an insurance claim. Take pictures of yourself wearing your valuables including jewellery as its the only way to prove you owned them if stolen. Save these images to a friend or family members computer or upload to Flickr in case the house burns down.

4. Consider future proofing the house at design stage think how room functions can change as kid grow up and you get older.

5. Then the usuals like, tons of insulation, sockets & storage

Lady Tottington

A gas fire is no substitute for a real fire.

If your kitchen window has an opening, consider how the frame will affect your view. Our kitchen window frame obstructs our view of the garden and pushes the eye away…to the neighbours huge shed. It would have been so easy to order a window where the frame obstructed the view of the shed!

Laminate looks like laminate. Don’t believe it when your builder says it won’t.

Consider where you place your boiler – waking up half an hour early because you can hear the boiler coming on is no fun.

If you buy cobblelock from a Man With A Van, keep a copy of the brochure so you can point out that the brick he is laying is not the colour you asked for, even if it has the correct name slapped on it.

It’s been said a million times but it’s true – check the batch no. on the box of tiles you buy. Otherwise you end up with 20 tiles that are a tiny shade off - once you notice it, you’ll never not notice it.

Dust from joinery is unbelievably fine. Covering things in sheets won’t do it – move everything out.

Get building work certified when it’s finished. Having to get the certs done years later when you are trying to sell quickly is nerve-wracking!

BoardsMember

Lady Tottington wrote: »

A gas fire is no substitute for a real fire.

If your kitchen window has an opening, consider how the frame will affect your view. Our kitchen window frame obstructs our view of the garden and pushes the eye away…to the neighbours huge shed. It would have been so easy to order a window where the frame obstructed the view of the shed!

Laminate looks like laminate. Don’t believe it when your builder says it won’t.

Consider where you place your boiler – waking up half an hour early because you can hear the boiler coming on is no fun.

If you buy cobblelock from a Man With A Van, keep a copy of the brochure so you can point out that the brick he is laying is not the colour you asked for, even if it has the correct name slapped on it.

It’s been said a million times but it’s true – check the batch no. on the box of tiles you buy. Otherwise you end up with 20 tiles that are a tiny shade off - once you notice it, you’ll never not notice it.

Dust from joinery is unbelievably fine. Covering things in sheets won’t do it – move everything out.

Get building work certified when it’s finished. Having to get the certs done years later when you are trying to sell quickly is nerve-wracking!

Sounds like these could also be filed in the "things I did and wish I had not done when building". Thanks for sharing!

Lady Tottington

BoardsMember wrote: »

Sounds like these could also be filed in the "things I did and wish I had not done when building". Thanks for sharing!

Yup. On to my second house now. Judging from the thread, I should get it right on the third house

muffler

Lady Tottington wrote: »

I should get it right on the third house

I wouldn't bet on it

I recall a guy from years ago who had built a house in England where he was living and working at the time and he came back to Ireland and decided to build here. We sat down and got a lot of things thrashed out and got plans drawn up for him and he built but both he and his wife weren't just completely happy when they were living in it for a while.

So after about 10 years living there he took advantage of the old celtic tiger and decided to sell and build his third house. He went into a lot of fine detail and we got what he thought was a plan of the perfect house...well a perfect house for him and his missus.

He got planning through and built and while I lost contact with him for a couple of years I met him not so long ago and asked how he and his wife liked the house and he said he would have to do it again to get it right

heavydawson

muffler wrote: »

I wouldn't bet on it

I recall a guy from years ago who had built a house in England where he was living and working at the time and he came back to Ireland and decided to build here. We sat down and got a lot of things thrashed out and got plans drawn up for him and he built but both he and his wife weren't just completely happy when they were living in it for a while.

So after about 10 years living there he took advantage of the old celtic tiger and decided to sell and build his third house. He went into a lot of fine detail and we got what he thought was a plan of the perfect house...well a perfect house for him and his missus.

He got planning through and built and while I lost contact with him for a couple of years I met him not so long ago and asked how he and his wife liked the house and he said he would have to do it again to get it right

Muffler, that should be at the top of every page in this section. Great story :-)

muffler

heavydawson wrote: »

Muffler, that should be at the top of every page in this section. Great story :-)

I'm tempted

muffler

muffler wrote: »

I wouldn't bet on it

I recall a guy from years ago who had built a house in England where he was living and working at the time and he came back to Ireland and decided to build here. We sat down and got a lot of things thrashed out and got plans drawn up for him and he built but both he and his wife weren't just completely happy when they were living in it for a while.

So after about 10 years living there he took advantage of the old celtic tiger and decided to sell and build his third house. He went into a lot of fine detail and we got what he thought was a plan of the perfect house...well a perfect house for him and his missus.

He got planning through and built and while I lost contact with him for a couple of years I met him not so long ago and asked how he and his wife liked the house and he said he would have to do it again to get it right

I think that the key point is, that a house is for life unless you plan to move/build frequently, what is perfect when you're in your 30s will be completely wrong when you are in your 60s.

So you meed to consider what will be needed from the house at different stages of your life and try to design as much flexibility in as possible. I don't think that anyone can ever build their "perfect" house and it still be perfect a few years later.

badgerhowlin

1. Put a mains shower in my own bathroom along with the Triton shower
2. A few more power sockets.(thought i had enough!)
3. Put my Heat Recovery systems on the least windy side of the house. Now in strong winds i can hear the wind blowing.

heavydawson

badgerhowlin wrote: »

1. Put a mains shower in my own bathroom along with the Triton shower
2. A few more power sockets.(thought i had enough!)
3. Put my Heat Recovery systems on the least windy side of the house. Now in strong winds i can hear the wind blowing.

badger, is it fair to see we should all be then locating our MHRV inlet and exhaust vents to the north and/or west of the roof?
Where are yours currently located?

heavydawson

heavydawson wrote: »

badger, is it fair to see we should all be then locating our MHRV inlet and exhaust vents to the north and/or west of the roof?
Where are yours currently located?

I would say that south/east is the least windiest, well that's the case here anyway and my MHRV vents are on the SE soffit.

just do it

badgerhowlin wrote: »

3. Put my Heat Recovery systems on the least windy side of the house. Now in strong winds i can hear the wind blowing.

Thanks for that. First time I heard that one but stands to reason.

heavydawson

Deleted User wrote: »

I would say that south/east is the least windiest, well that's the case here anyway and my MHRV vents are on the SE soffit.

DB, is the country's general prevailing wind not south/west?
I had a quick gander at Met Eireanns site and found this:
http://www.met.ie/climate/wind.asp
In almost all cases, it's clear the prevailing wind is from the south and/or west.
However, there's an interesting line in the text at the top of the page:

For example, the rather low frequency of southerly winds at Dublin Airport is due to the sheltering effect of the mountains to the south

so prevailing winds do appear to be affected by local topology in a significant way. Probably stating the obvious :-) That point is interesting to me because I've got the Galtee mountains 8km behind my house to the south. The Dublin mountains from the airport are roughly 21km as the crow flies, so I suspect the Galtees may provide a bigger shelter again. Time to get the wind-vane on site!

Villain

Southwest is the prevailing wind, it can vary from season to season i.e. during Cold Winters East and North winds are common. My wind rose for the last month

New build in sight

badgerhowlin wrote: »

1. Put a mains shower in my own bathroom along with the Triton shower
2. A few more power sockets.(thought i had enough!)
3. Put my Heat Recovery systems on the least windy side of the house. Now in strong winds i can hear the wind blowing.

Quick question about your point on mains shower along with a triton; were just in the process of picking bathrooms etc, and were advised againts electric showers at all, we will have 3 showers in the house, none of which will be electric, we want all power showers. And we have a pressureised system and solar to help in summer. What are your thoughts on this?

Tks