Couldn’t resist the title, of vague amusement to any planning wonk. (I must get out more!)
Zollikon has developed a strategy and process for ensuring compliance with the new privacy and data protection rules (General Data Protection Regulation) coming into force this month. If old / existing clients would like a copy, please do send an email.
I don’t believe most of the data Zollikon holds would be particularly sensitive and some of it becomes public record freely available on government websites anyway.
The basics are that Zollikon keeps digital data under lock and key, accompanied and/or passworded, with added online protection via updated virus-checking software. Paper records are cross-cut shredded once no longer needed. New clients will be asked to sign an agreement as to the collection, use, storage and disposal of private data from now on.
(If you would like information on GPDR – General Permitted Development Rights – again, please do make contact.)
Yes, it’s that time of year and once again Zollikon is proud to support (providing showground CAD plans and then helping set out the showground fields for the dozens of stalls / exhibitors and many thousands of visitors) the Surrey Young Farmers as they put on their superb annual Cowpie Show.
This year the main attractions include “Big Pete and the Grim Reaper Monster Trucks” in the main arena, and BMX wizards the “Anti-Gravity Bike Show”, where you get to have a go if you’re brave enough! There’ll be lots of old favourites too – the hilarious Sheep Show, the terrifying Wall of Death, military vehicles, farm vehicles, etc, etc and of course farm animals, dogs, birds of prey, countless trade, food and drink stands, Medieval village, fun-fair rides…
I’ll be there, along with many thousands of others. It’s for a great cause and is a brilliant family day out. Maybe see you there?
The Cowpie Show is on Sunday 13th May 2018 this year, organised by the Surrey Young Farmers club. See http://www.cowpie.co.uk for more info and cheap advance tickets.
Twenty per cent. That’s a fair bit, particularly when some planning departments who claim to be tremendously overworked seem to spend an awful lot of time and money fighting doomed appeals following wrong refusals. It’s the latest in a long line of rising taxes around planning and property, e.g. many planning departments have already increased their income in recent years by bringing in hefty charges for pre-application advice (in my experience the money is normally more wisely spent on an expert planning consultant who is freer to give a more balanced and creative opinion).
The increase has just been announced for 17th January, so you have a full FIVE DAYS to get your application in!
Although some will see this as payment for a service, I see it as yet another tax-hike because developers are enhancing a vital community asset for this and future generations – the built environment – at their own private cost. If the collective community wants to police this in ever-finer detail with more and more red tape, then it should collectively pay for this.
It could be argued that this size of increase is unlikely to deter any homeowner from attempting to improve their greatest asset, nor any land-owner from trying to add some zeros to the value of their land. Governments have always sought to increase tax revenues. There’s a lot of money in obtaining planning permission and this move is part of a trend of tapping into what is seen as an easy target, in order to finance an ever-growing army of those in public pay.
Zollikon has been around for a few years and worked on a large number of projects. The following examples are listed to give an idea of our experience:
Design, planning permission and building regulations for renovation, extension and conversion of derelict bungalow to house, sympathetic to Grade II listed neighbour – Zollikon success after client’s previous failure.
Extension and conversion of existing building to 7 flats – building regulations/plans for stalled project, including subterranean, to enable sale.
Several rear extensions using new Neighbour Consultation Scheme to double normal permitted development rights (PDR) limits.
Double and triple planning application strategies to benefit from both permitted and consented planning on the same building.
Conversion of historic stables to habitable – design, construction/building regulations detailing, build management including full under-pinning, tanking, restoration of lime mortar, structural reinforcement.
Multi-disciplinary case management (planning, barristers, design, structural, Party Wall) for multi-million town centre flats project involving defective title deeds, legacy planning and multi-party negotiations
School playground/outdoor classroom design, plans and 3D visuals to assist students with special needs (pro bono)
Architectural plans, legal searches, joint venture business plan and multi-party negotiations to treble value of town centre plot to create up to 25 flats.
Large kitchen/living/dining parapet extension, en suite, porch and extensive landscaping for substantial house – design, planning application, construction detailing.
19 new build one and two bedroom flats – feasibility study.
Successful negotiation with council Building Control Department to allow 5m x 4m rear extension as ‘porch’ to enable building regulations exemption.
Extensions to two flats – design and planning application.
Double dormer loft conversion within Permitted Development Rights, with fire curtain protected route option through open plan ground floor.
New-build 2 bedroom detached bungalow – planning inspectorate appeal and land acquisition consultancy.
Manse loft conversion with L shaped dormer to create 3 new bedrooms, bathroom and study. Also orangery, conservatory and open plan remodelling. Planning permissions, design and building regulations.
Achieving Building Control completion certificates on extensive structural, thermal, electrical and other works to six dwellings within 2 months (following several years of unsuccessful attempts before Zollikon’s involvement).
Successful Listed Building Consent for loft conversion, stairs and windows on Grade II cottage.
House extension and conversion to 4 flats/25 rooms – design, successful planning appeal, build management.
1800m2 industrial units – business development consultancy and plans to maximise return.
Bungalow extension, interior alterations and crack investigation – design, building plans, structural engineer liaison.
Front extension to lounge and porch (builder’s own home) – design and planning application.
Two storey side extension into loft (different builder’s own home), including new log burner and en suite – reworking existing loft plans, construction/building regulations detailing.
100 seat restaurant dining area and kitchen layout, licence application.
Joint venture, finance, plans, building regulations, build management consultancy for new property developers.
Plans, planning permission, building regulations, build checking for rear extension covering entire back garden in conservation area (subsequently recommended for and achieved planning for two storey extension in same conservation area, subsequently recommended for third extension in same conservation area…)
Design, planning and building regs for eighth customer in the same road completed! – all word of mouth recommendations.
Extensive project to combine two flats into one house, convert loft and add double side dormers and lower ground floor extension, remodelling to include: extra bedroom, extra en suite, extra toilet, extra utility room, 2 new offices, reworked bedroom, new bathroom, new open plan kitchen-diner-family room, 3 new staircases. All achieved within permitted development rights.
Extensive remodelling and extension to house forming one wing end of Grade II listed 18th century stately home in AONB, following Zollikon success on the other wing’s sister house.
Plot-finding, site acquisition, topographical survey, plans and planning application for 5 new flats on vacant urban brownfield site.
Perhaps your project contains elements similar to one or more of the above examples? Perhaps you have a new challenge for us – we love overcoming challenges! Zollikon has a lot of experience, skills and hunger to succeed for our clients. We look forward to helping you.
Zollikon Architecture’s eighth customer in the same road has just finished their extensive works across 4 floors – moving back into a transformed and much larger home just before Christmas.
By the way, all 8 customers came from word of mouth recommendations, not from advertising.
There are several great advantages to converting a loft compared with a ground floor extension:
no costly new foundations needed (subject to checking)
no new roof needed
no wasted garden space
upstairs bedroom/s
loft bathrooms/en suites can make good use of eaves
upgrading roof insulation benefits the whole house
generous planning PDRs can reduce planning costs and risks
So, lots of good reasons to consider a loft. These pluses need weighing against issues such as the need to consider fire safety, structural reinforcement and noise transmission, but so long as the basic height needed is there, a loft is a definite possibility.
One issue that does need consideration at an early stage is access – stairs.
Issues include:
Stairs and access to them, will cost space on the first floor
Placing loft stairs over existing stairs can be an efficient use of space
Stairs typically need to arrive in a high point of the roof to provide enough headroom
Building regulations stipulate a maximum stair pitch of 42 degrees
Each tread must have a minimum of 2 metres clear height above, except loft stairs, which may have a centre-line height of 1.9m with a lower edge of 1.8m to allow for a sloped roof above
Loft staircase headroom can be helped by Velux/roof lites and dormers
There are also minimums for stair landings and rules governing door openings near stairs
If the stairs create accommodation on a third floor, enhanced fire safety requirements and protected route escape rules can be met using a whole range of tools (e.g. linked smoke alarms, heat detectors, fire doors, intumescent products, fire boards, fire curtains and sprinkler systems)
Carpeted loft stairs will be quieter for nearby bedrooms
Winds and low ceilings will impact on moving larger furniture
For minor breaches, building inspectors (local authority building control officers or approved independent inspectors) have some discretion to decide what they consider to be a safe staircase
There is no rule governing the minimum width of private staircases
Risers and treads must be consistent – adding or removing height to the bottom step to make up for an error is not OK!
Spiral staircases and space saver (alternating treads) stairs can be an option.
If buying a second hand staircase, please consider/remember (or Google!) the 100mm sphere safety rule.
And so on.
Of course, you do not need to learn all of the above; Zollikon is here to take the technical load off your shoulders and assist as you specify your priority and design preferences.
Zollikon uses 3D CAD software which is a huge benefit when dealing with tight spaces, minimum heights, rising steps and sloped ceilings. We can add thickness to loft floors and ceilings to show the impact of reinforcing and insulating work needed in loft conversions. From your point of view, you will get to see your staircase, floor, walls, ceilings in 3D from any angle you like. We can even populate the model with people of your height to help understand the dimensions.
The sort of experience, expertise and software that Zollikon offers will go a long way to making a complex subject user-friendly for you. Loft stairs – tick.
Welcome to another year! 2018 holds much promise as Zollikon Architecture relaunches following a build sabbatical – an immensely tough and rewarding challenge.
Early this year we plan on giving the website a makeover and producing some printed marketing materials designed to bring useful information and benefits to interested clients. We are also looking at moving into a new office that enjoys a view over a golf course just 20 feet away through it’s panoramic glass wall. OK, OK so it’s a converted double garage but the location and aspect are truly inspirational!
Despite some incredibly long hours last year, somehow we also managed to find time to obtain and apply for planning for some more new flats on a brownfield site of our own. It’s always exciting to win planning applications, but when it is your own things are more personal and intense. Several clients have commented on how they appreciate the extra mile that Zollikon goes – which is largely thanks to having personal experience of the journey that clients go through. We should know more soon and whatever happens it will make a great case study before too long…
In the past year of ‘busman’s sabbatical’, Zollikon has only worked for two clients – the first project was for some friends with a growing family who needed a lower ground floor rear extension, two side-dormer extensions and complete remodelling to include: two new offices, new kitchen/diner, new bathroom, extra bedroom, extra en-suite, 2 new WCs, new utility room, three new staircases linking 4 storeys… all in a house at one time gutted by fire and all achieved under permitted development rights.
The other project is one wing-end of an 18th century grade 2 listed stately home set in glorious AONB woodland and overlooking a gently sloping garden, with ha-ha, paddock and fishing lake beyond. The clients have grand designs to extend and refurbish to very high standards and although busy, persuaded Zollikon to take on the project on the basis that we had previously succeeded with the other wing of the same house in what some hold to be a tricky planning district.
And so to 2018. We look forward to exciting new projects and challenges, to happy clients and a job well done. Carpe diem!
The lowest angle a standard opening rooflight can used at is 15 degrees – lower and it could leak. Below this angle the window can be placed on a sloped upstand. Or there are plastic bubbles and domes. And now glass curves. Pop-ups. Or architectural glass. Or a lantern. Sliding glass. And possibly more besides…
A series of rooflights is more expensive and less efficient than one big one, but the visual impact of several can be very striking – think of rows of downlights.
Take a look at Google/Bing images and supplier catalogues for some inspiration. There is often no need to reinvent the wheel.
Roofs that meet structural and thermal building regulations can be very thick, especially preferred ‘warm’ roofs where the insulation is above the rafters or deck joists. By the time floors have also been upgraded, loft conversions can be short on headroom – a potential show-stopper when trying to meet building regulations regarding headroom above loft stairs. Happily, rooflight glass is above the outer skin of the roof, potentially giving 8, 10, 12 inches of extra internal height – very useful for ‘pinch points’ and sometimes enough to make the impossible, possible.
Generous use of rooflights can lead to failure to meet overglazing regulations. Zollikon has been able to avoid this potential show-stopper using off-setting or whole-build calculations.
A flat roof (technically 10 degrees or less) still needs a slope, to gently migrate water away and avoid puddles. Internal ceilings (that aren’t sloped skeilings) are normally horizontal. Slope outside + flat inside = diminishing reveal. Unless… a compensating upstand or multi-pitch roof and internal gutter/valley could avoid the issue.
Privacy can be an issue with rooflights. 3D software can be helpful in analysing any potential problems and solutions.
Or a sun tunnel? Or a clerestory? Glass blocks?
Long poles are available for opening and closing high rooflights. As are remote control electric rooflights and blinds, with rain sensors…
And finally, rooflight or roof light? Or anyone for skylight?!
It can be a tricky thing, money. I like what it can buy and enable but it can be an awkward thing to have enough of, to ask for, to keep, to share, not to waste, etc, etc. Life would be a lot simpler without having to think about it. Unfortunately, for most of us adults, we do have to think about it, quite a lot.
When managing the build of some flats last year, sometimes a higher price than I thought reasonable led to decisions as to whether the expense could really be justified or what effect a cheaper alternative might have on future revenue. In property, the costs do tend to be big (as anyone with a mortgage probably knows) but thankfully so are the rewards. Property and building figures are like normal life – just with more zeros.
It made me appreciate what good architecture is really worth, in monetary terms. Achieving planning on a plot of land can increase its value by 10 or 20 times before a brick is laid. I have happily helped quite a few clients make life-changing profits using careful design and legal knowledge, sometimes where other, much more expensive, architectural agencies had already tried and failed. It is perhaps unsurprising that Zollikon Architecture has not advertised in years, has frequently worked for multiple clients in one road (the most is now 8 clients in one road – all word of mouth recommendations) and has had to turn away quite a lot of work over the years.
I have seen web sites offering architectural and planning services for a few hundred pounds, while a planning consultant on one job told me the architect’s fees on a modest domestic extension she was involved with had just ticked over into 6 figures. So, should you spend £500 or over £100,000? That’s an incredible spread and whilst the size of investment and returns are often linked, I wouldn’t advise opting for either extreme unless your budget is a broken pushbike or a Bugatti Chiron.
Some agencies have a set menu of charges, others charge per square foot or as a percentage of the build budget. A friend currently working on the design of a FTSE 100 head office in Pall Mall works for a fancied London agency and sometimes charges 20% of project costs, though that does include extensive specifying, build management and… the rent and rates of a rather nice Thames-side office.
Zollikon prefers to provide detailed quotations that list and explain items of work and costs in the interests of clarity – and no hidden charges! (unlike our poor client whose previous agency had failed to obtain planning permission and then asked for another £5000 for a simple written appeal).
Zollikon Architecture works hard to ensure we offer good value for money. I frequently save and enable customers 5, 6 and even 7 figure sums that far outweigh our fees, sometimes with just one crucial thought, comment or snippet of knowledge, though more often after a great deal of hard work. Whether you are building/obtaining planning to enable an improved lifestyle or bank balance, it pays to get the right help, even if that is not the very cheapest that can be found. Zollikon has succeeded many times for clients who have brought us in to help after others have failed.
Conversely, others have lost out by going their own way to save costs:
One homeowner saved £1000 by using a young structural engineer on his house improvements only to spend £10,000 more on so many steel beams that the building control inspector asked if the client was building a car park or a shopping centre!
Cost of ‘saving’: £9000.
A young developer saved £5000 by changing my careful cut roof design on a new build on the advice of his backer’s architect without telling me, only to lose essential natural light (necessitating some remedial clerestory windows as a poor rescue plan) and make impossible the easy loft conversion (adding two bedrooms, a bathroom and a further 80k profit) I had carefully designed in.
Cost of ‘saving’: £75,000.
Another made planning permission for a new-build house vastly more difficult, perhaps impossible, because he ignored my advice that in planning, timing and sequence can be everything.
Cost of ‘saving’: £150,000.
I have lost count of the number of times research has led me to over-rule solicitor advice and I have later been proved right. I once gave a multi-branch solicitor’s ‘Head of Property’ partner some planning permission tax advice that he said would save a client of his 6 figures – during a meeting for some work he charged me £1000 for and then failed to succeed in!
Cost of poor advice: £countless.
Much of Zollikon’s work is mentally intense and it sometimes reminds me of the fatigue after a finals or post-grad exam – except they only lasted three hours! But the fruits more than justify our effort and your expense. Clients with transformed lifestyles and net worth show the end results make all the hard work, long hours and money spent extremely worth while.
Zollikon is not the cheapest nor the most expensive, but we believe our service represents great value and a wise investment. We work hard on all our projects to understand and meet customer needs, save costs, maximise assets and enable client benefits worth far more than our fees.
Zollikon has worked on several projects where customers have wanted a Ground Floor rear extension to their kitchen, to include an open plan dining room and sofa/TV area – a ‘Swiss Army knife’ multi-purpose family area. To complete the new lifestyle, a log burner is then sometimes specified – warmth, atmosphere, lovely.
But the placement of a log burner in a room containing a kitchen brings an interesting conundrum with regards to building regulations.
Kitchens must have a mechanical extractor fan. Rooms with log burners cannot have a mechanical extractor fan. What gives?!
When asked about this, one experienced Building Control officer told me that he could sign off the kitchen and a registered HETAS installer could then sign off the log burner installation. I love helpful Building Control inspectors who are happy to exercise their common sense in allowing builds to proceed sensibly. But with solid fuel burners we could be looking at noxious gases, like the deadly carbon monoxide, being sucked into a family room. I always think of my clients’ projects as though it were my family living and sleeping in the house when it comes to safety.
The solution seems to be an air vent to outside placed near the log burner to ensure that any negative air pressure from the cooker extractor fan brings fresh air through the log burner’s air vent, not gases from the log burner. If this arrangement is agreed by your building control officer / HETAS installer, it is literally vital that you make sure the air vent is always kept clear – check for leaves, dirt, plant, etc outside and carpet, rugs, cushions, furniture, boxes, toys, etc inside. Of course, by law, you must also have a working carbon monoxide alarm, correctly positioned, as a further safeguard.
While I’m in a health safety mode… especially if you have young/visiting children, please remember that log burners can get extremely hot. A guard and discouragement of running around near it when hotter than an iron would be wise precautions.
Please also only use well-seasoned (dry) wood. This reduces unhealthy and polluting smoke particulates, protects your chimney from dangerous soot deposits, produces more heat and is a lot easier to burn. Your wallet, your neighbours and the planet will thank you. If unsure about your wood supply, you can buy a moisture detector for just a few pounds.
Having said all this, log burners are fantastic features that can kick out enormous amounts of heat far more efficiently than an open fire and they are popular for good reason.
