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A friend of mine is one of the owners of themodernhouse.net. He says that very modern houses put off a lot of people, but the ones that aren't put off tend to absolutely love them, and are willing to pay a significant premium not to live in a dull developer-type house.

Hi all, Thought I would start a thread here although as it progresses I'm not sure if it would be better placed elsewhere. I'm a forum regular but usually car forums where I chronicle everything I've done in the process of making cars faster. When it comes to houses, I'm totally out of my depth and a little terrified. I lived in north west london and moved out to the hertfordshire borders in feb 16. I bought a 3 bed house which is livable but in need of demolishing on what is a very large plot for the area - circa 0.7 acres. We are currently living in the house which was a step down in size and quality from our old house but it had reached its full potential. We are on our second architect having tried to design something based on an idea and never being quite happy with it. We took a decision to find a house we liked and copy its appearance exactly to be safe that it would end up looking right. For extra safety we contracted the architect who built that exact house who is based in NI, but seems to be in london twice a month. He's been incredible so far, and I'd recommend him to anyone. He was also cheaper than the original which was an expected surprise. We are on our second planning application having passed the pre-app stage. We had to resubmit due to an objection from the environment agency because the flood level models were out of date. We are building within 8m of what is classified as a main water way, but the EA is ok as a result of a betterment of the current position.The "river" is imho a brook, but I can't ignore EA modelling and so have considered this in the design. The plot is classed as flood zone 2, but has not flooded in 40 years. The river is about 5 feet wide and ranges between 2 inches and 2 feet deep depending on rainfall, it's about 2 metres below my first floor level, so I'm not losing too much sleep over it. More importantly there is a main trunk sewer running parallel to the river and limiting how far I can build. I can build over it if I really want to, but for peace of mind I'm treating it as a limit stop on the width of my footprint. I can build something easily big enough despite this and have had provisional approval from the water supplier that they are ok with the proposal and the foundations expected. Now I'm waiting for planning permission. It has been called into committee as a result of a strong objection from the local parish council. Many of their objections seem to be nonsense to me but they need to rebutted, which I have sought to do. Thankfully the application has the support of the planning officer and their supervisor so I am quietly optimistic it will get consent. I'm hugely concerned about the cost to build, it's 512sqm on three floors. the top being loft space accounting for 125 of those square metres. I have been operating on a rough guide of £2000/sqm but brief chats with a QS have told me, I'll be lucky. My plan is main contractor and I have experience of one who was great on my previous extension. I'm not going to know for sure where I stand until I engage the QS which I won't do until after planning is granted as all can change. When I read this forum and see the complexity of what's involved, the finance side of things, VAT reclaims etc, I'm beginning to get cold feet. Especially when you factor in brexit effect on exchange rate, cost of labour, and long term predicted changes to interest rates, I'm getting myself into a bit of a state. One thing I have no concern on is once finished it will be worth at least what I have invested if not much more, by plan is to never sell. I'm just wondering if anyone has put together a step by step guide of the major pitfalls to consider and the time lines, so that I can avoid the horror stories. Things like how and when to apply to disconnect services. I don't even know if I want to be disconnecting electricity for example as I have garden rooms with security systems that will still need power. I like to think I'm technically minded, when it comes to electronics and plumbing I really like to understand everything and get completely involved but on the structural side of things I am a complete novice. Maybe that doesn't matter, but without question I'm looking for as much support as I can get from this site and based on previous experience, I am more than happy to give back much more than I take once I am in a position to help others. Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer. Adam

There doesn't seem to be a great deal of discussion about PHPP on these pages. I'm planning a passive house (not necessarily certified) new build and have convinced myself that it really should be done. I've read on these pages about problems with overheating but there is generally no information on whether the property in question had a PHPP and the overheating was predicted. I know of one property where there was no PHPP (it had been modelled, but not with PHPP) and, on first sight, I thought it looked like a building that would probably overheat. Sure enough, it has, and now requires remedial work to try and reduce the problem. I guess the question is 'does PHPP work?' Followed by 'how do you find a PHPP expert?' because some of the discussion indicates that there are some PHPP practitioners out there who perhaps are inept.

I was going to say make them out of mdf completely finish, and then take and have sprayed with 2 pack or epoxy. I built a dressmaking table for the wife and spayed it with epoxy primer and then 2 pack white. It has a better finish on it than furniture from a shop.

I went for the 4g router and the Vodafone sim, it works great. I just need to get it connected up to form our home network

I can certainly understand that, I'm not having pop shot at you but the valuer and the property market in general. The drive towards energy efficiency is huge in the UK. When buyers start to understand the energy cost savings by buying this type of house, I'm sure this will then become more prominent in buyers decision making. Until then, we are stuck with buyers making bad decisions (how does the kitchen look for example) rather than what does the house cost me to run.

The problem is that energy performance, in general, is way down the list of priorities to the vast majority of buyers. Talk to any estate agent, anywhere, and they will say that the two factors that dominate marketability are location and the kitchen/bathroom bling. Ours has said that the EPC rating isn't even glanced at by the majority of buyers, they simply aren't really interested in it.

Not so laughable when it's potentially £30k+ out of your pocket, I can assure you!

I linked to this site a while back. http://diywardrobes.co.uk/#cabinetdesigner Also Ikeahackers gives plenty of ideas. http://www.ikeahackers.net/

Yes, I would say that is probably true given how much I was offered on my own.

There really is some appalling decision making and media reporting going on, with decisions seemingly being based on pretty pointless "fire tests" on 250mm square samples of rain screen cladding, for example. The government should step in and start managing this, bringing in people from the BRE to make firm and authoritative statements about the way the technical investigation is going, but presumably everyone is hamstrung by the fact that there is a criminal investigation underway. Normally, I'd agree with the principle of not releasing information that may be evidence in a later trial, but I think there needs to be an exception here, as the current display of "headless chicken" behaviour is both causing unnecessary distress and costing people and the taxpayer a great deal of money.

MAke sure you take your waterproofing a significant way up the roof so you are protected when there is standing snow on it. I would suggest 3ft up the slope if you can. That was the distance we did for difficult to access valleys. Ferdinand

For a SIPS floor you will also need to take some care with sound management, since a SIP may resonate. Ferdinand

The usual system would be to fit a ring beam to the pile top plates, then the structure on top of that. SIPs panels are fussy about support, and the ring beam must be wide enough to support both the inner and outer skin of the panel, as both are equally load bearing. Unlike a conventional timber frame, where the compressive load is taken by the vertical studs, with a SIPs panel these loads are taken almost wholly by the two skins, and it's important that both skins share the load evenly.

Somewhat political para - some may wish to skip. I would not call McDonnell a moron. When he was on Ken Livingstone's team he was competent at his job. I think he knows exactly what he is doing .. which is to exploit this to promote his political ends. And if that involves making untrue claims to whip up partisan audiences and fomenting whatever he wants to foment, that would be just fine by him. McDonnell has a record for that as long as Pinocchio's Nose. Now non-political Here is the research report commissioned by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, ad published in Nov 2016, showing that the "cuts" of 10 Fire Stations did not degrade the performance of the London Fire Brigade to below acceptable standards https://www.london.gov.uk/about-us/mayor-london/our-publications/review-resourcing-london-fire-brigade and the press release https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/overall-the-service-has-coped-well-with-cuts The proof of the pudding is that Mayor Sadiq has not instantly decided to restore those Firestations, Fire Appliances and Firemen. The reason it is not necessary is because incidents have been on a downward trend for 2 decades, and there has been excellent general work around fire alarms etc. The last 5 years: To be fair to Mayor Sadiq, the report does suggest that the Phase 2 suggested by Boris Johnson should not be pursued. That however, is not what they are blaming. Personally I think that £50m of capital raised by selling 10 fire stations, and sites for a couple of hundred flats with their concomitant S106s and reuse of redundant buildings, was probably an excellent decision. I thought so at the time when I read the various reports, and I have not changed my view on that. Ferdinand

Another one to try is ABC Anchors near Calne Wiltshire http://www.abcanchors.co.uk/ They will also hire the torque motors to drive the screws in if you fancy DIY instllation.

Just wanted to say thank to everyone, used the gun today and as Terry said, I'll never now go back to a plastic nozzled can - so much easier with the gun!!!!

The company is indeed Helical Systems. Very helpful and prompt when last I contacted them.

I looked at these when researching for my build. IIRC they were used on a Grand Design where two houses were built on a tight site in London. http://www.screwfast.com/

I looked at a few companies that offered helical pile system, when we were looking to buy a plot where there was a lot of buried archaeology that needed to be protected. I think that the suppliers we looked at were these: http://www.geologicfoundations.co.uk/design_installation.html/ http://www.helicalsystems.co.uk/products/groundscrews and another company (that was very helpful) that used to have a stand at the NSBRC at Swindon, but that I can't remember the name of, and I don't seem to have kept any of the correspondence. All the systems were pretty similar, but there was a difference between the specialisations of the various companies, with some doing mainly things like road signs and gantry foundations, others doing large building foundations and a fair few doing smaller building foundations. Overall I was pretty impressed with the technique, especially as it's been around for 150 years or more, yet seems to not be used as widely as it could be. The big advantage, apart from the speed and lack of ground work disruption, seems to be that the piles can be driven in quickly and are load-bearing from the moment they are in, so the building ring beam can be bolted on, and construction can start, as soon as all the piles are in and the caps levelled.

One of the "overheard in Lidl" quotes: "My God it was awful! There was nowhere for Derek to park the Bentley!" (In a dog rough, 19 year old Ford Focus I fit right in! IT'S A CLASSIC. Just waiting for a pair of new sills actually).

Kids toys are now in a couple of large grey outdoor storage boxes so that problems solved for now. Just need to tackle their playroom now as it's rammed full of stuff - downside of grandparents who adore them is too many toys. By the time you find a home for the Xmas stuff, it's their birthday!