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Why do you need a specialist Fire Engineer? Is there something unusual about your design? It seems you have a 'fire boundary condition' but most are covered by building regulation guidance and your SE or Architect should be able to handle it. the same applies to a big room. Maybe it's an unconsidered wording.. I know I do it. But implying that Fire Engineers are useless isn't constructive: it is very specialist. They have no obligation to accept any commission so tact on approach is prudent.

A good view is a big asset, but so is space - so how many hours per day will you be sitting down to eat in the dining room (during daylight), vs how many hours will be spent in the kitchen? And if you turn the worktop extension I proposed into a breakfast bar, you would see the view through the kitchen window too. Tip: make the bottom of the kitchen window flush with the worktop, and site the cooker & sink to one side, so that there's minimal interruption to the view. Also bearing in mind that anyone in the dining room on the wrong side of the table doesn't get to see the view, and in summer you might be eating outside, rather than inside Of course if 'dining room' actually means 'office', then keeping the view on the dining room side is easily justified!

A few sketch designs I completed a few years ago.

Sure….happy to take a look…..will get back to you next week….

No you would not, because there is also a bill to come from the umbrella company who need to do all the work of calculating the heat losses, setting the spec, providing the design, commissioning and signing off the system. In our case that was a big chunk. (Which we agreed before we signed up.)

Bit of a me too thing going on here! Our PO went on long term sick a week after we were allocated to her. No one told us anything and it was very hard to get any info at all when we started trying to find out after the decision date came and went. Our case wasn't allocated to anyone else for another 6 months until I got the Councillors responsible for planning involved. It seems many Planning Depts are under staffed and over worked so the pressure is on and many go sick as a result making it worse. Given the stated objective of building many more houses, I'm surprised no one (Govt/Chief Planners/someone with actual management ability) hasn't tackled this. Simply hoping an ongoing recruitment drive will fix it is head in the sand stuff and has proven not to work over many years now. The whole structure needs to change, bureaucracy hugely reduce, repetitive report requirements axed. Its obviously a toughie....but seems so simple to make better and more efficient from the outside having been through the process.

Sprinklers is one of 2 options for what the actual requirement is for “automatic fire suppression system”, eg you can sometimes use a mist system instead.

@sansserif PM sent.

We have had timber frame fire spread engineering a while ago. Stuart Milne - no longer trading - did the frame and Fire-Q did the fire stuff. It cost about £1000 10 years ago, for a 4 storey terraced housing project about 1200m2. The fire spread risk is mainly during construction. Once it is plasterboarded and finished externally it is far safer. You can mitigate open plan layouts with sprinklers.6293 Fire-Q FSRA Falcon Wharf Rev 02 FINAL 20062016.pdf

👏👏 proper self-builder.

Yes I have said there is something very wrong with the system. We all know you can buy all the parts for £3500 and from experience I recon 2 days plumber and electrician to install in a new build. So say £50 per hour and 32 hours labour that's £1600. So that's total cost of £5100. There is some design and paperwork time so lets say another £1000 for that. So imho it should be possible for the £7500 grant to cover supply AND install in most situations. I have yet to hear of anyone getting a free to them install under the BUS scheme, and you hear of some very high charges in some cases. And nobody running any of these schemes has ever come along to justify WHY their installs cost so much.

Thanks everyone, job done with a 2mm gap. I opened up the strike plate to give me a bit of wiggle room when it comes to adjusting it after painting. Once the glue has gone off I can get the filler over the nails sanded and the edges I assume caulked, need to look into that one. Cheers folks.

You seem to get penalised from what people say installing a heat pump, so who knows?

Do you get penalised on SAP for not fitting ashp cylinder?

Everyone is anonymous on here unless they use their full legal name as their username, so makes no odds tbh.

I bet I'm not the only one that thought of Windows XP 😉🤣

I think I'm probably at the stage now where drawing it up a bit more precisely would help as the few mm of discrepancy will add up when repeated enough. Many thanks for all your help with this so far.

Yeah I thought about one of those, but you still need 900mm of space for the door to open. Maybe a pocket door would solve it. The view to the south is stunning. To the north is not that great - mostly a stone wall. I was thinking that the lean-to would be out of the insulated envelope but still fairly well insulated. I've drawn it with 200mm thick walls instead of 350mm. I think a single is ok for bed 3. I know plenty of singletons. The view to the south:

If that's the case something is very wrong with the system. My install cost just over £3500 in parts, so was eligible for £4k cash back, if I went through the grant. Don't think so.

https://www.studybed.co.uk/ Not a recommendation. I'm pretty sure I've seen better implementations but the concept probably works. One thing about the lean to is what view you get out the side. I got the impression that view was better than the one where it currently is. Another possible benefit is if you or someone you live with ever move to a work from home/invite clients to your home office type situation then the separation of this space from the main house could be good. Swings and roundabouts though all down to how you will use the space. Well if you moved the study then moving those stores into the pantry would create a bigger space for the study. Potentially making it a convertable double rather than a single. If the lean-to is not built to the same spec as the main house then obviously it's less desirable but I'm assuming it's all considered one heated/insulated space.

Thanks, some food for thought there. I do come home very muddy at times so the toilet in the lean-to was for that and also for when working outside, with the additional option for guests or if someone is watching TV after others have gone to bed too. If possible I'd like a shower in there so I can hose myself off and get out of my muddy kit before I get into the main space, but I haven't done the maths to see if it will fit yet. The plantroom could probably be smaller to help with that. I guess I was thinking of the way my son keeps completely different hours to me (and often wakes me up) when I put the bathroom further away. But that'd probably happen anyway with doors opening and closing etc. I will swap the bathroom and study back around as you are right, it does work better that way. I don't think I want the study in the lean-to. In my head it has a bunk bed above the desk somehow and I would want all that in the main building. I don't think I need a dedicated pantry - the kitchen is pretty big and there's the freezer in the mudroom and the possibility of shelves for bulk tins or dry goods etc in there too. This would be my ideal Bedroom 3/Study, but I can't figure out how to get it to fit. I think I would need around 2200mm of width (maybe more) to get it all in.

Forgot to answer the question re insulation. I don't want blown insulation as I think it will slump and not fill the edges properly. I am hoping to use hemp insulation as the factory is very close to the plot and I like the idea of limited transport miles. It's a really nice product but will probably increase the wall thickness and overall cost. Gus and I are investigating the possibility of building with a space frame atm, but it's early days.

I had assumed the toilet in the lobby was going to be the main bathroom for 'day' use. Otherwise I'm not sure I see the point of it (other than an relatively small space to change out of muddy clothes) I'd guess you can address sound insulation if that's a concern. Wouldn't let that guide the placement of the room. Other nice thing about swapping them is if the bathroom door is opposite bed 2, you create a nice short path for that occupant for their primary bathroom. If you no longer need the plant room due to using the loft space, you could consider moving the study/bed 3 to the lobby area. Use the expanded space for a bigger kitchen and maybe pantry/laundry space. You'd have to make the cloak space smaller but maybe thats worth it.

If you don't mind a flat ceiling in the corridor/study/bathroom area then you could easily create an insulated loft space there and potentially use it as a proper plant room (take back the space allocated at the end of the building). You can get horizontal HW tanks for difficult spaces but I would avoid those if possible as they don't stratify the water as well. Downside is getting things in and out of there but if you plan for that then it's a solvable problem (nice big access hatch with a strong point above to mount a hoist is belt and braces) Using that loft space as plant room would also centralise the MHVR pipework which will make things easier and cheaper.

Here's my revised drawing. Still some tweaking and 'lining up' to do but it's just a sketch at this stage.