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Right. Addressing the 'small houses' issue. I live in a small house, 4m by 8m. It has a corridor for a living room, where the stairs are. The parking area is at the back, steps up to the front door. Upstairs the bathroom is wedged between the two bedrooms, one an OK size, the other tiny. Now someone 'designed' this. Technically it is well insulated, airtightness seems reasonable and it costs next to nothing to run (why I bought it as I was a student at the time and it is close to the college). So imaging that you park your car, come in the back door, where is the light switch, oh, other side of the room (kitchen). I have an ordinary sofa, nothing special, but it is too long to put across the living room, it almost hits the stairs, put it along the living room wall and you then have an even narrower corridor. You can put the TV under the stairs, it was 'designed this way' as the TV aerial point is there, but as it was 'designed' before flat screen where in existence, it would have 'stuck out a bit', right by the kitchen door. Now when I live on my own, I can cope with this, but when I had a lodger, the layout just don't work, it really does not. There is no way to get from the bathroom/bedrooms without passing though the corridor/living room. Could it have been improved, yes, if it had been made a bit wider, then the stairs could have been turned 90°. This would have acted as a separator between the front and the back rooms, making rooms truely individual rather than just a corridor. There was enough room on the plot (of 6 houses) to do this. And that is before we get onto the 'social' side of housing. Most individuals need some individual space, the larger the family, the more space they need. Men have sheds, women have kitchens, boys have bedrooms, girls bathrooms. Well it seems that way to me from looking at adverts. My old neighbours where a family of 4, two teenage boys, mother and father. They were crammed into 52.5m2 total internal floor area. This is just not right, but probably not unusual. It cannot be good for mental health to be crammed into such a tiny space. This may account for my current neighbours being a family of 3 (7 year old child), single, single, single, single, family of 3 (baby). Now an 'engineer' or economist, may well say that there is wasted space as there is at least 4 unused bedrooms. But this does mean that we can have friends to stay without putting them up on the sofa in the corridor. Having studied Economics (as well as other things), there is a bit of a myth about Supply and Demand. There are two ways to look at this. One, the normal methods quoted by 'industry experts', says that if there is a shortage of house, the price will be higher. The alternative is that if money is cheap, and it is very cheap at the moment, then the price of housing will be higher. So what have we done in the last 40 years. We have built more housing (there is no shortage of housing, just the distribution is not always right). We have allowed women to have there own mortgages since the late 1970's Hard to believe that they needed a second (male) signatory on the paperwork just 39 years ago. Then, a decade later we removed double tax relieve, pushing up property values and speculation that took nearly 10 years to recover from. Then, though financial manipulation the formula to work out affordability was changed from a simple multiply of of mean wage to median household income (this has, in effect, made more money available as not many people earn zero, but a few earn millions). Coupled to that is the way that banks have changed the method for lending money, they now work on a multiple of total household income, rather than multiple of major income plus minor income. Again this has increased the money supply to the housing sector. So take a simple 'old' method of a man earning £10k and the wife earning £5k, with a multiplier of 3. They could borrow £35k Now they can borrow £45k. This extra £10k (28% increase) is just sucked up by increased property prices, nothing to do with the supply and demand of the housing stock (we still have about half the number of houses as people). There has been no added value anywhere. So what can be done about it. First off, everyone that wants to buy a house should work out what they can realistically afford to pay back, (3 times income is pretty good), then, every Saturday morning, spend an hour going to estate agents and point out that their houses are probably at least twice as expensive as needs be, and probably 4 to 5 times as expensive, and would they tell the sellers that. You will probably get asked to leave the office, but if enough people do it, then the message will get driven home. This is especially true for first time buyers (and for every first time buyer there is a last time seller). The other things we can do is to stop thinking that the country has lack of room for housing. There is plenty of room. Urbanisation has only used up about 9% of the land area, housing is probably less than half of that, including infrastructure. So when a farmer wants to sell an acre of crap land for building, let them, it really won't affect your life. This has to be better than cramming in more and more people into existing towns and cities. This fixation with 'brown field' must stop. Turn a few of them green. I used to live in Buckinghamshire, where my Mother still lives. It is a nice leafy green place, popular with locals, London commuters and media celebrities. It has a population density of 404people/km2. Milton Keynes is a good place to live and work (I lived there and worked there once, better than Aylesbury or High Wycombe I found). Now I live in Cornwall, it has a population density of 150people/km2. So under half the density. Most new developments are opposed here because of pointless, uneducated arguments about overcrowding. We have plenty of space, so much space that we can accommodate 5 million visitors a year, ten times the resident population. Our infrastructure copes, no one gets hurts, all very pleasant in the summer. Last week there was a major accident on the A30, closed both ways as the helicopter had to land. It took me an hour to get the ten miles to work. It usually takes me 15 minutes. What it reminded me off was my old commute to Kingston Upon Thames from Aylesbury. The last ten miles could take an hour. It was just part of life. A time to sit back, relax and plan my day. I cured that problem by leaving earlier and getting to work by 7AM, leaving earlier when I could, only too just over an hour then. It worked well. The point of that is that there is no need to fear extra housing, or building larger houses, it does not affect the price, that is affected by income potential and interest rates. Small housing, at the lower end of the scale, is not good for society as it forces overcrowding and ghettoisation, under out current planning system. Commuting can be good if done right (we are starting to move to an era of lower emission vehicles). So if we start to build slightly larger housing, get rid of housing that is single bedroom because of the inherent restrictions, expand our towns and cities less, move people to the countryside, we can probably reduce overall air pollution, and almost certainly remove very high concentrations of it. This would reduce the need to 'filter out particulates' as much as we need to now, could help rejuvenate rural communities, disperse income and make for a better society. Not much of that has anything to do with the study of MVHR in Passive Houses. That is simple to solve, put in a larger unit with larger vents and ductwork. We really must stop working to minimums.

I have a wifey kettle. Its voice activated. "Eh wifey, make me a cup of tea". See, simples! Edit: OK, it does have a number of faults and can be quite erratic at times but I don't have enough time to list all these issues.

New video on Sunamp from the guys at Fully Charged:

Here it is: as accurate as I can get it. No pretense of getting it done cheaper than anyone else. Just the raw numbers and a few words to explain context if necessary (why did I buy a chain-hoist for example). Yes, you'll probably get it cheaper. That's excellent. The point is openness and telling it like it is. March 2014 Home Building and Renovation Show NEC: £100, including fuel and tickets Phone calls about £15:00 extra, and about £70:00 fuel. July 2014 Land: already owned Planner: £1050, plus £70 initial consultation fee, (in cash). LPA Outline Planning Application fee £770 Phone calls: about £15:00 extra, and about £50:00 fuel. August 2014 Ecologist: £1390.15 (works out at about £1 per Great Crested Newt – a further £2000 budgeted for. But see below June 2016) November 2014 Topographical Survey: £540 January 2015 Trips to Timber frame companies and various local suppliers : £50 fuel Subscriptions to various magazines: £70(ish) February 2015 Architect: £4000 (design plus all other matters up to and including submission for Full PP application) QS: £630 – feasibility study Legal: £360; altering title LPA fees: £385 Structural Engineer: £1782; foundations calculations Land registry Fee: £40 Contamination Desk Study and Geophysics : £1260 (plus possible indeterminate decontamination costs) Phone calls: about £20:00 extra, and very little fuel. March 2015 Discharge of Conditions Fee £97.00 Health and Safety Services are being handled for free by a colleague: I’m coding his website in exchange. Notice: no site insurance yet……. :huh: I’m just too mean. Projected cost £568.65 (May 2015) August 2015 Architects fees £2000; from award of Outline PP to Full PP (6th of August) and £40 for bottle of champagne to thank our him: his judgement in relation to what would pass was exactly right. Read paragraph 9 of the Delegated Report (here) Trip to Swindon to visit the NSBRC Fuel £36, overnight stay £85 Strimmer: Polycut head, and set of knives for strimmer £46.60. (No lawn for Salamander Cottage: at last, no mowing…… bliss) September 2015 Legal Fees; alteration to title status £232 October Purchase a four wheel trailer (new) £2500 Purchase a Mutts Nuts (Nick’s term, not mine) Bosch Laser Level £250 First Aid Course (ref. H+S policy) £80 Chainsaw Course £130 December Off mains drainage legal agreement Legal fees and £1000 for access to the land to discharge to stream (wayleave?): £1862 (£300 over budget) Cladding Preparation for processing the wood; Serious Stihl saw (660) and ancillary equipment £2000 (resale value £1000) Trips to open passivhauses £50 + Off – road parking (ground matz) £2800 (resale value £2500) January 2016 SPONS Architects and Builders’ Price Guide 2016. Can’t do without it. And there’s an App that goes with it. £150 Small shipping container (for tools) £300 (resale value £400) Base for container: 4 tons of 20 mm to dust from my mate: £35, yep £35 New wheelbarrow £97 (French made Hammerlin: two flat tyres (in 2 weeks) and a stupidly forward C of G so the damn thing tips forward ON ITS OWN... sodding thing) Local Oak trees (for the shakes and cladding) £1200 (1 square meter of oak shakes retails for £100!) T.K Knipe Allithwaite. £100s of pounds worth of free advice. 1 Sweet Chestnut tree (high tannin content) £140 5 local oak trees £100 (they were going to be cut up for fire wood - I kid you not) Another container (you can't have too many): £1000 (resale value £1000) February 2016 Small hand tools and boys toys £1500 May 2016 2.5 tonne Mini Digger = £14,000 (PV Dobsons, Levens) EPS Licence £1200 (I still haven't paid the bill - because of some really unprofessional behaviour.) Red Diesel £15 120 meters of Temporary Amphibian Fencing (TAF), 80 stakes (37 by 37 by 700) £267.37 Lifting gear: a 2 tonne chain block and tackle 2 shackles, and two beam clamps £181.03 (to run on the RSJs below) 2 RSJs, (6 meters long to span between the two containers) £230 +VAT Filing frame to assist sharpening my chainsaw chains £97 Site signage (ebay) £10 for several (more needed) Plastic Barrier Fencing Safety Mesh Fence Netting Net With Metal Pins £50.95 (for the edge of the car park and pedestrian walkway) Three stillage cages to store material on the site (one cage fitted inside the container) £50 Another two stillage cages today. £25 And £80 worth of 2 inch wire mesh so I can weld it to the stillage cages: slows light fingers down Two (full-on-big-boys) deck brooms £24 A grease gun for my digger and two cartridges of grease £22 Another High Security Digital padlock and hardened, sheathed, hardened chain to secure the buckets (that aren't hooked up) for my digger £55 A 2 Tonne x 1.5 meter Leverhoist £79.95 2 off 2 tonne Beam Clamps £25.98 4 off 2 Ton Alloy Bow Shackles, with Safety Pins £11.96 The above is initially for lifting trees and heavy objects safely off the trailer (on my own) Later the hoist and clamps will do the same job, but in a small purpose-built workshop. 100 meters of 16 amp electricity cable. £71.89 Building Control Fees £600 Red Diesel £18.21 June 2016 Two more stillage cages £25 A Douglas Fir tree and a Larch tree. £40 (Fir tree £10) Will produce stock worth about double that (conservative estimate) 20 8" coach screws £4. 4 sheets of reinforcing mesh £20 (16 by 8 foot for welding to the stillage cages to slow down thieves ) Structural Engineer £1774. And worth every penny (so far) First Aid Kit (10 person HSE Approved) £7.57 (tried getting one locally, couldn't get one for love nor money) Security marker pens £1.99 (a requirement of the Site Insurance: all scaffolding poles must be security marked - not the digger or the saws!) "Curiouser and curiouser" Wood for lining my container £81 HERAS panels, feet, clips, struts, pins for the struts £200 Some steel stock to practise welding £12 (making a small tool table for my SuperJaws clamp: cost on the open market £30) Four Point Lifting Chains ('shorten-able') £139. Fed up of worrying about the webbing strops - they are quite worn already Site H+S sign. £24 ( and I begrudge every penny: it's expensive wallpaper... why do I say that - read on - last but one point) 2 tins of Hammerite for the rust spots on the container. £28 The ecologist had the good grace to halve his bill given the less than prompt approach to fulfilling his contract. £900 July Builder's Merchant bill: £704 - bits and bobs, sand 25mm water pipe and stuff like that August Builder's Merchant bill: < £100 all sorts of tiny things September Builder's Merchants bill £1379.24, Ply wood for the stillage and to make some internal storage in the container, a DeWalt nailer (luxury beyond compare) It starts to get serious now........... Piling will be about £6000, Groundwork price yet to come in, site clearance - I've hired a lumberjack who's coming from Canada - muscles coming out of his ears - off mains drainage and site drainage.... Off to Harrogate next week. (4th of November)

The slab is down (apart from the garage). Now we can start on the walls. I will be on site tomorrow. I feel I should lay a few blocks myself. Then as I do when I help my wife cook, I can claim I made it myself

Going for EPS 250mm - only because 300mm with the weird PA ratio we have gives 0.01 difference on the uValue which equates to 37p a year on heating ...

1 - Agree that more rural housing is a good idea. I don't see why the population of our countryside couldn't increase by a few million. Especially in eg Scotland and other aras of low density. But we need to get beyond the idea of the countryside as a rural museum and tackle "sustainability" head on. My preference would be for the default for communities to be allowed to increase by 0.8-1% a year. The chokehold on rural development is quite recent; Derbyshire is full of villages with 1950s small council estates and 50s/60s bungalows. 2 - I think you are mistaken with not reflecting on this more: The impact of demographics is massive. Between 2001 and 2011, for example, the average household size moved from 2.4 to 2.3. Take a population of 60 million and that is a demand for an extra 1.1 million units from that trend alone. That single factor will absorb approx 65% of the houses built between 2001 and 2011 (estimated at 150k a year which is about right). Suspect that effect is understated since there has been an upsurge of rented-by-room HMOs in the last 15 years. If you factor in a population of 65 million (was 64 million in 2013), still at 2.3 household size, then the extra number of housing units needed would be approx 3 million. In fact we built under 2.5 million in the period. I'm ignoring shenanigans such as Councils A-rating individual bedrooms in HMOs and calling them a Housing Unit to get the government bonus. This is one reason why I would support angling benefits and taxes to encourage people to stay together. 3 - I think we need figures for developable land to get a better impression on that. Cornwall has more hills, whereas Buckinghamshire has more Golf Courses. Are there numbers available? Ferdinand

@Daiking In my personal opinion that is a right and that is something that lies with the government. None of this shoulder shrugging hand wringing about not interfering in the market despite all the other govt interference that freaks it up. Housebuilding is a local service not an international. they should be knocking up houses everywhere they are needed so taxpayers can lead happy productive lives not farmed in worse conditions than livestock for the benefit of landowners. I think those statements are not very meaningful. What do you *mean*? Who has a right to a house and what do they have a right to? Do I get a house if I just came in from Poland? What about if I am 21 and pregnant or single with a child? What about if my GF is 21 and pregnant and we split up? And so on. Without precise policies we can't work out the impact, and it is just a feelgood handwaving competition, And are you happy with the consequences of such a "just do it" policy? And how will you ensure decent house that people want to live in? How do you ensure they are efficiently built? What happens if the govt CPO your house and build a small block of flats on it? You won't get much chance because under your suggestion the people who build or commission it it will be the same people who give themselves Planning Permission. Still happy? That is the massive conflict of interest that exists in such circs and is why I am vigorously opposed to substantial local political control over housebuilding / management - Housing Associations are OK, ALMOs sometimes, Council Estates under direct political control: No. I'll get on to the numbers implied and the problems of gormless politicians later, maybe. (Taster: Our Housing Cabinet member here's main claim to fame is appearing in a photo next to Ed Milliband wearing a "dance on Thatcher's Grave" teeshirt.) Ferdinand

Yes, should have been clearer. The question was "is it essential?". The strict answer is "no". If the question is "should you do it?", then the answer is "yes". I would have had a more relaxed time if I'd gotten around to doing it before the slab was poured. As it happened, it was the follow-on trades that I should have worried about! Edited to add: So what do you do as, say, the third of four lined-up concrete trucks starts dumping its load into your slab and you suddenly note a drop in pressure? What could realistically you do at this point? Stop the pour? Start digging around in the stuff already poured to look for the leak? Genuine question - sounds like a very unpleasant position to be in!

Yes, one of these, but blinking!

You may wish to reconsider this statement.

That's interesting. So it would look something like this if I've understood correctly.... DHW Primary (Presurised): ASHP -> TS -> UVC Stove -> UVC (Dump rad and PRV) Secondary(Mains pressure): Cold incoming -> Coil in TS -> Coil in UVC -> DHW (Mains pressure) UFH/CH ASHP -> TS -> UFH (Presurised) PV PV -> UVC This would mean the TS pre-warms the water on it's way through to the UVC when a tap/shower is opened). TS runs at UFH temperatures so no issues with the temperature uplift (Good ASHP COP). The TS and UVC and UFH are all unvented/pressurised and can be dosed with Fernox and something to stop legionaries if deemed necessary. . The stove heats the DHW but not the UFH. The UVC would/could be 300L-500L and the TS perhaps only 100L ? Have I understood all that Nick?

This is what you need. http://newtonwaterproofing.co.uk/solutions/seal-service-pipes/ They will sell it to you direct. I used it in the basement to seal foul, water & electric services running through ducts that had been cast into the wall. It basically never goes off and remains flexible. I got a generic sausage gun from amazon, the Newton one was over £70.

Finally they are getting out of the ground and work is now proceeding pretty much to the schedule. The strip foundations and pool slab went in a few weeks ago. The foundation walls are going in now and the pool ventilation in the last week.