Bungalow Ridge Height

fitzie79

i have been told in my planning application that i will only be allowed build a single story house (had hoped for a 1.5 story building).

We want to try to get some liveable space upstairs to both reduce the cost of the build (have been told that the roof can cost up over 30% of the build?) and increase the energy efficiency. However, based on limited discussions with the planning officer it looks like the ridge height limitation will also be an issue. In order to do overcome this one option i was thinking of would be to have the ground floor a couple of feet below ground level. This could buy us a couple of (crucial) extra feet in the attic space. Is this

a) feasible?
b) is the ridge height the internal or external (i.e. measured from the outside ground level) height of the building?

Jimbo

You house has to be wheelchair accessible.
If you build it a couple of feet below ground level you will need a ramp to the front door. The ramp has to be max. 1in12 which would require a length of 7.2m.
And you can imagine that drainage could be a problem.
Also since the ground level outide the walls will be higher than the floor level, you would need to 'tank' or waterproof the walls to stop the ingress of water.
Im sure there could be other issues also such as getting required gradients on you drainage pipes, etc.
Overall, its not really feasable.


The ridge height is usually taken from ground floor level, but in your case consideration would be taken of ground to ridge height

sydthebeat

dont go below ground level, your asking for trouble.

design a dwelling with say 2.75 floor to ceiling on ground floor, and show a 300 floor thickness, show storage in attic space with a ceiling height of 2.1 m.

the planners probably have a maximum ridge height specified... say 7.0 m or somethign similar... so you need to design to suit this....

Builderfromhell

I have had this issue several times with different Local Authorities. e proposed lowering house (digging down about a metre) but planning said they would take ridge ht. measurement from existing Ground level, so dropping GL wasn't a feasible option. We were allowed keep ridge ht. but raise wallplate, so our roof pitch went from about 40 degrees to 30 degrees. Looked much worse but planning wewre happy. That was 5 years ago. New houses built adjacent this house have higher ridges- it really pisses me off. :mad:

bakerbhoy

fitzie79 wrote: »

i have been told in my planning application that i will only be allowed build a single story house (had hoped for a 1.5 story building).

We want to try to get some liveable space upstairs to both reduce the cost of the build (have been told that the roof can cost up over 30% of the build?) and increase the energy efficiency. However, based on limited discussions with the planning officer it looks like the ridge height limitation will also be an issue. In order to do overcome this one option i was thinking of would be to have the ground floor a couple of feet below ground level. This could buy us a couple of (crucial) extra feet in the attic space. Is this

a) feasible?
b) is the ridge height the internal or external (i.e. measured from the outside ground level) height of the building?

Consider increasing the depth of the building front to back.
It will decrease the roof angle at the same ridge height but give you extra space to incorporate an upstairs.
The cost of the roof is no where near 30% of build cost.
Example my own house a bungalow 2166 sq feet and garage 232sq feet.
Total roofing costs for labour , all materials including two sun tubes, two velux in sunroom,chimney plastering , lead work , slates ,facia and soffits etc €35,700

archtech

bakerbhoy wrote: »

Consider increasing the depth of the building front to back.
It will decrease the roof angle at the same ridge height but give you extra space to incorporate an upstairs.

You won't necessarily achieve additional usable space doing that. Certainly not space that is classified as habitable. The requirement for rooms to be classified as habitable in this case is :Rooms immediately below the roof having a ceiling height of not less than 2.4metres over an area equal to not less than one half of the area of the room measured on a plane 1.5 metres above the finished floor level. The shallower the pitch the less the proportion of habitable space relative to the overally width, unless of course you start the wallplate level at 1.5m above floor level, which does not appear to an option in the op case.

Jimbo

The other option is to have a seperate roof at the rear of the bungalow running perpendicular to the main body, i.e. forming a 'T' shape. It wouldn't be visible from the front of the house.

muffler

It appears to me that the problem is a mixture of design/height with both inter-linked. If I am reading the OP's query correctly then the planners want the ridge tied to a max. height of say 6.5m above ground level. If thats the case its going to be difficult to get habitable rooms in the attic area and still comply with the bldg. regs.

Maybe something like syd suggested but with a wee variation. 2500mm ceiling height, 300mm floors/ceiling, external walls/wallplate built up about 500 above floor/ceiling joists and then show a 2000 or 2200 attic storage area. Down to the agent really to determine all these matters and get them sorted with the planners.

fitzie79

thanks for all the feedback - will have to do some creative thinking to get some habitable upstairs space as suggested.....

NickTellis

Just got planning permission to increase my ridge height from 5.6 to 7.2 metres. Now my question is what exactly determines the ridge height? Is it from GL or finished floor level to top of roof or top of rafters or what?

sydthebeat

NickTellis wrote: »

Just got planning permission to increase my ridge height from 5.6 to 7.2 metres. Now my question is what exactly determines the ridge height? Is it from GL or finished floor level to top of roof or top of rafters or what?

generally from outside path level to top of ridge finish...

muffler

sydthebeat wrote: »

generally from outside path level to top of ridge finish...

In our neck of the woods the PA will normally refer to the finished floor level as the point to measure the ridge height from with a condition then dictating the FFL relative to a particular datum.

Nick you should really be able to answer your own question as your elevations and/or section would have indicated the height you referred to and where it was measured from.

Just be sure to read the conditions on your PP also.

RKQ

I would agree that ridge height would be based on finished floor level to ridge (internal ground floor level)

We can assume that the Elevations & Cross-section submitted in your Application, gave "a ridge height" as shown on the drawings. So I'd assume the Planning condition refers to the drawings submitted, so inspect them.

IMO planning permission to increase your ridge height from 5.6 to 7.2 metres, is based on the drawing submitted and the datum shown therein. It will be either finished external ground or finished floor slab level - (a 150mm to 225mm difference between G.L and F.F.L, would be normal):rolleyes: