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When “meets the Building Regs” should be translated as “not quite bad enough that the state would ultimately be willing to use violence to prevent”.

The problem government (any government, not just this one) faces with housing regulation is that the big developers are exceptionally good at lobbying against any proposed legislation that might increase their costs. They've been successful in watering-down proposed changes to the building regulations, that could have made our regulations as good, from an energy efficient view, as those in Ireland. They've succeeded in having legislation like the Code for Sustainable Homes withdrawn, via pressure applied to the technical standards review. They get away with building houses that fail to comply with the regulations because they apply a great deal of pressure to prevent any tightening of inspection regimes. To be fair, this doesn't just apply to housebuilding, and I doubt that the big building companies are any worse than any other major employer when it comes to lobbying government to get what they want. The key problem seems to be that the general public have an illusion that they control who gets elected, and hence what policies become regulation or law, when in reality democracy doesn't exist as far as law and regulations are concerned. This shocked me when I took up my first major procurement role. I arrived in my new office and was told I couldn't do anything until the letter from my minister arrived, giving me his delegated authority. By mid-morning the blue envelope arrived, instructing me that I had delegated authority to spend £1.55bn to deliver a new fleet of helicopters, and that I was charged with ensuring best value for the taxpayer when doing this. That week I set up a team to manage the fine tuning of a request for quotations, detailing the operational requirements that must be met, with the intention of getting several helicopter manufacturers in Europe to bid competitively to provide a solution that met the operational requirements. A week or two later, long before we had finished drafting those operational requirements, my minister had a private meeting with the MD of a British helicopter manufacturer, and a few hours later (without telling me) he announced to the press that the contract was not going to competition, but was being awarded to the said British (bit arguable that, given they were Italian owned) company. I only found this out when I heard the news that evening; he didn't even have the common decency to tell me. Needless to say I got bloody angry and when I met him in London a day or so later we had a "frank exchange of views". There was no way I could get best value for the taxpayer, as the contract had been effectively awarded before we'd even written the specification or defined the requirement. I later found out that the reason for awarding the contract in this improper way was because the company threatened to lay off a couple of thousand people, and the minister thought that it was better to pay them off. It made my job damned near impossible, as the MD was quick to remind me, whenever he was pushed, that he could be at Westminster within a couple of hours (using the company helo) and that he had the power to get my minister to bring me into line.

This is the way it works, and agree the planning officer will likely go with the councils ecologist recommendations. I would also say that some derogatory comments on here about "council wasting your time and money" are pretty unfair. I think that people need to remember that you are wanting to develop something, the onus is on you to prove what the impact is and how / if it can be mitigated, and the future use of the site. It is not the planners or their in-house consultees job to do that for you. Yes, councils can be sticklers for detail (mainly to manage risk) and having a time or cost implication that you haven't planned for or didn't realise you need is not nice and can be very annoying (see my on rant about pre-app timescales). However it comes down to the fact that you are asking permission to develop something, and you need to satisfy them its going to be o.k. I write this as a type of "ologist" that submits supplementary information for planning applications, and have had quite a few experiences of people (usually that don't submit that many apps) have been caught by surprise needing my services, and not liking the associated unplanned costs.

Do you use this to store large hairy men? A bestseller in nearby Brighton no doubt.

You may do better to send your design to some ICF companies for pricing and they should know enough to highlight what may be tricky / expensive. Also, things like cill and lintel heights can make a difference to how easy to build with some systems.

I wonder if it is possible to negotiate any of that away by arguing (or stating in the report, agreed with your ologists in advance) NO CHANGE. One hint ... be aware of all the reports you need, and that it may be possibly for your ecologist to do a bat evaluation at the same time, and perhaps a Tree Evaluation. You could try a very brief report, written personally: ”No life was detected except an alligator in the canal, which unfortunately ate the Ecologist”. F

Tell them HMRC is going to contact them if they don’t issue the VAT invoice and this is the final time of asking before you ask HMRC to proceed. Put that in writing and send by letter. And I think you can complain to HMRC actually.

Another point raised by the OP is sourcing of locally produce/manufactured goods. I'd be interested to put some figures behind this, but IMHO it's a bit of a red herring. Global transport is really quite efficient- you can ship a whole container from China to the UK for a few thousand pounds, which puts an upper bound on how much energy it must take. So sourcing more energy efficient windows that have to be transported some distance is, IMHO, very likely to work out as beneficial over the lifespan of the building.

The worry about using GGBS is that the strength is unknown due to its composition so whilst it may be ok for garage footings or non structural elements, I would want a BS known mix for anything such as a ground bearing slab or structural work.

without wishing to repeat myself 1x hammer, 1 x nail if necessary ? save a fortune, job would have been done by now.

Something really weird happens on the first page of this thread. @JSHarris has a post starting “It's worth looking in a bit of detail at just how great the emissions are from some of the building materials used”. Two posts below @Big Jimbo quotes this (I assume, maybe he's quoting from somewhere else) but the text is significantly different. @JSHarris did you edit that post? If so, why is it not marked as edited? Was it because you edited it with your moderator superpowers or something? Whatever, even the revised version seems low to me. “so taking our concrete slab as an example, that uses around 25 tonnes of concrete, plus around another 120 tonnes in our retaining wall (!), plus another 10 tonnes for the garage slab, so a total of around 155 tonnes of concrete” … “and for all the concrete in our build (which is a lot more than average, because of the big retaining wall) it looks like the CO2 figure is around 11 tonnes”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concrete says: “The carbon dioxide CO2 produced for the manufacture of structural concrete (using ~14% cement) is estimated at 410 kg/m³ (~180 kg/tonne @ density of 2.3 g/cm³) (reduced to 290 kg/m³ with 30% fly ash replacement of cement)” so that would be 155 tonnes x 180 kg/tonne = 29.14 tonnes (so about 2½ times as much). The 120 tonne retaining wall is a bit atypical, though. Counting just the 35 tonnes in the house and garage slabs it would come out to 6.3 tonnes of CO₂. That's for a house which is otherwise regarded as a pretty much pure timber frame. Of course, the timber frame will be sequestering some carbon at the same time. Still, I think we could do better. For example, my house is built on concrete pads which came in one mixer load, 6.75 m³ IIRC (could find the slip in my invoices box but I'm reasonably sure it was close to that) so that's 2.7 tonnes of CO₂. I mentioned this thought before on here but it didn't get any attention: could the typical passive slab be built in the normal way with blinding, DPC, EPS but then, instead of concrete, use CLT (big kids plywood) to sequester carbon instead of emit it?

That's the 300mm. Mine's 150mm: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hudson-Reed-ARM15-Ceiling-Mounted/dp/B00DCQOCBC

Going back to the original question... The OP mentioned the embodied energy of solar panels. I can't find it right now but we had quite an enlightening discussion on that point recently on BuildHub. I think it was @Ed Davies who pointed out that you can do a very simple bit of arithmetic involving the cost of energy in China vs the wholesale cost of solar panels, which proves that they are very much energy positive over their lifespan. I.e. if they used more energy to make, they would have to be sold at a much higher cost. On a different note, one subject that I think does not get enough attention is that standards like PassivHaus, or EPC ratings, etc, are always about energy cost per unit area or volume. Not about usage per person, or per dwelling. So we are incentivised to build bigger houses which use less energy per square metre- not to reduce our actual total energy usage. We don't sell cars like this, do we? "The new Range Rover uses less energy per tonne than a Fiat 500, making it the eco friendly choice!" No, we look at absolute energy consumption, because that's what actually matters.

'Fraid so. I was using it for standing the concrete mixer on. I then used some old ply, but that's had it now. Found a newer bit which has a bit of life left in it, so hopefully it will see out the concrete mixer until I sell it. I got rid of the last four concrete lintels the other day on Freegle. I put them on last year but no one was interested, two people wanted them this time.

My shed roof is 45 degrees and faces straight into the weather as it comes of the ocean, in wild weather the water blows up the tin profiles and of over the ridge......

I bet she pronounces February Feb-u-ary!!!

For some reason @JSHarris is reminding me of Sir Richard Mottram: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/mar/03/labour.byers To wit: “The permanent secretary at the DTLR (Department of Treachery, Lies and Resignation - lack of one, in the case of Stephen Byers) has booked himself an entry in dictionaries of modern political quotations. Displaying the dry understatement, smooth urbanity and coolness in a crisis for which our alpha civil servants are so renowned, Sir Richard Mottram, Knight Commander of the British Empire, turned to a fellow mandarin and howled: 'We're all fucked. I'm fucked. You're fucked. The whole department's fucked. It's been the biggest cock-up ever and we're all completely fucked.'” F

Is that just a ditch or is it a drainage culvert ..?? If it’s a culvert then filling it in maybe a problem. You will need to put in some sort of pipe to allow water to flow along.

So plant some trees and wait ?. Or get a car that comes with a brolly pocket in each front door, complete with brollies ?. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9eplEBb4m5E

The normal thing if doing tarmac as we are, is just lay the sub base and the coarse base layer of tar now, and finish off the top layer once complete. If you are crossing a ditch you will need to culvert that.

RIGHT! Here is his logic which backed mine up! When it rains the walls down below do get damp - I haven't installed the dimpled membrane and drainage channel around the perimeter yet. So water is effectively in there. Evaporates and hits the ceiling but also the plastic sheet over the walk on sky lights ( plastic sheet is wet on the inside! ). Drips back to floor or tracks along any deviations in the concrete ceiling. As water is never actually removed (until drain, MVHR etc. are in) the cycle just repeats I've got the actual roofer guy coming to look tomorrow so I hope his logic backs this up!

Try 'The Green Guide to Specification' available as a download from the BRE, though I think there is a cost involved. It's used as a reference document in BREEAM & Home Quality Mark (new alternative to the CfSH).

If it is like a sea wall can you put a overhang along the back of your upstand? Something like a wooden batten, or some sort of L profile or gutter mounted upside down, on the back? If it is too big there are shed gutters. Perhaps you need to experiment?

The real solution is to grow a shelter belt or barrier round the other end. The short term way may be an upstanding is or some sort of thing on the roof, to stop the water or diffuse the wind. I guess you could so something that looked like a Breeze (!) Soleil that would help, or some invisible thing on the roof, which would really be a bit of a bridge. F

I can offer our SE - we found them through an ICF contractor but decided to go with a shuttered pour method instead for the basement, however she has experience with ICF also. Did a great job for us. ruth.haynes@rexonday.com

Well ! The guy who is doing the flashing said condensation 90% certain !!!!! He viewed it today

Isn't this what the Code For Sustainable Homes was supposed to do, even counting how far and how the workers travelled to work each day, but it was intensely paperwork heavy and unpopular. If you don't like concrete, then don't use it. What is wrong with timber frame and timber cladding? And for the record I hate the term "eco" and don't use it for my house. I prefer the term "low energy house" which describes it more accurately with no hint of a tree hugger in sight. There is a house at the top of our road that was originally marketed as an "Eco house". As far as I can tell the only "eco" thing about it was triple glazed windows (not particularly good ones) and solar thermal panels. It only got an EPC rating of D, the 2 owners I have known that have lived in it complain about the high heating costs, and it is alway the first house in the road that the snow melts from the roof.

Possibly, it depends on what suitable dyes are available. I've used fluorescein and OBAs (the latter is more sensitive) and the advantage of either of these is that a very tiny amount goes a long way, as they are both detectable when very highly diluted by rain. The idea is to let the rain wash the dye down into the dry part, rather than saturate the roof with enough diluted dye so as to get it to penetrate. Fluorescein has the advantage of being reasonably easy to see, although it's far better to use a UV lamp to trace it. OBAs can only be detected with UV, they aren't visible to the naked eye, but they are detectable at very low concentrations.

It *could' be moisture being drawn out through some sort of capillary action - i.e retained moisture from the slab. Don't lose heart - you will get to the bottom of this, even if it takes time and a process of elimination. I think it you had a serious water ingress issue, it would be appearing much worse than this.

I think a very careful dye test, doing one small area outside at a time, is perhaps the easiest way to find out where the water is getting in. This needs to be done very carefully because you don't get a second chance, once dye has found its way to the area around the window opening you won't be able to prove any other leak points.

Why don't you get an angle grinder and put a score ACROSS the crack line (i.e at 90degrees) - say 5mm deep and 100mm long. See if that stops the moisture tracking? And see which side it's coming from that way? Just a thought? ANy tracking moisture should stop and drip down to the floor rather than permeat across the concrete and the line of the crack?

We have just finished our icf, we went with nudura very happy with the outcome, nudura rep. Steve burgess 07703565594. Structural engineer. Anthony Bartlam 01527835000 having looked through a lot of companies portfolios I can’t see any reason you can’t build what you want with icf.

Look at other similar planning application that required an ecological assessment, see what others provided.

I've never touched the cedar cladding on my place when it's wet, but it's turned various shades of grey depending on how much rain hits it. If you haven't painted anything onto the surface then I'm sure it's fine.

According to the instructions, the AAVs I've used can be used below maximum water level height, although I have placed them just above.

Surely, the point is that not everyone has the time, inclination or knowledge to do the install themselves, and if you're going to get someone else to install it then the extra cost for that to be done by an MCS approved installer is, in most cases, more than covered by the RHI payment. In your case Jeremy, that may not have been so, but we don't all have room for 6.25Kw of solar panels and the impact that has on the EPC score and hence the RHI payments.

Part numbers: Rail/handset: http://www.britishbathroomcompany.co.uk/slimline-slide-rail-kit-a3041 This mixer: http://www.britishbathroomcompany.co.uk/reign-triple-shower-valve Rainfall head: It wasn't this HR one but v.similar and at the time a real steal. Nearest I can find (cheap): https://www.bellabathrooms.co.uk/hudson-reed-round-fixed-shower-head-300mm-diameter.html? Then the ceiling drop arm. HR again. Will try and find the part numbers for the arm and rainfall shower head. Edit: Hudson Reed AR15 is my ceiling drop arm.

Has the Planning Officer actually asked you to do this, or is it one of the consultees making a comment? Do nothing until your clear if this is a planning requirement. Maybe start by doing some further checking. There is guidance on what the report should contain. https://cieem.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Ecological-Report-Writing-Dec2017.pdf

I feel for you, I lot of us have been there, it doesn’t make it any less painful though :(

I’ve found that the consultants our architect ‘knows’ tend to be on the expensive side. Always worth getting an independent quote for this sort of thing.

We have had 3 different ecology type things that needed doing, all by different companies as I didn’t like the first 2, you need to find a very tame one who won’t find a thing, you then need to prep your site so that there is nothing to find.

When I had my topography survey done, the surveyor said it will take you a year to get planning, i replied, watch this space mate I will have it all sorted in 6 months 16 months and £14600 later I started the foundations.??

There hasn’t been much happening here since the joiner finished mid January, we started oiling the staircase and associated newels etc, we’ve had carpets laid in 3 of the 4 bedrooms, the 4th one still needs decorating but neither of us has the inclination to do it and I’ve built up a couple of things for the grandchildren’s rooms. We got a brickie out last week to look at getting the steps and ramp done but with the turn in the weather again we’ll have to wait before we can have the machine in again to dig foundations for these and sort out the driveway and garden, so today at a loose end I spent the afternoon counting! With all the talk of price per sq m I wanted to get it all added together, I knew how much cash we’d had but what with using credit cards for some things and using the current account for others and with both our wages going into this account it seemed there were days when I didn’t know how much I’d spent or where it came from! So much for the spreadsheet I started which went ok until things got really busy and I was getting requests left right and centre for all manner of things.It took me a good few hours to go through bank statements, cc statements, cash withdrawals etc but I eventually got it all counted up and receipts into some kind of order, I wanted to get this done so I can hit the ground running when it comes to filling out the vat forms but I also want to now make a spreadsheet of individual costs such as , foundations, block work, drainage and so on just in case we ever decide to do it again! I’m a great believer in fate and things happening for a reason and the two plots we are marketing there is a couple very interested in one of them subject to talks they’re having just now with the local council regarding style of build, this would leave a spare plot?! Would my OH go for it again? I don’t know, I very much doubt it but stranger things have happened, after all we didn’t mean to build this one! Oh and btw we just found out the builders company we were using has folded, apparently one of the two brothers left the company a fortnight before we parted company with them which goes some way to explaining why they suddenly seemed to lose interest and stop coming which at the time seemed strange to us as they had done the majority of the work apart from the finishing joinery which they kept telling us was 4 days work, the joiner we got in after that spent the whole of November, December and part of January finishing off and redoing some of their work which was substandard.

The first draft of the plans arrived today - I open them all excited and love the initial look of the building. Then I look a bit closer.......... I am SO disappointed that I'm not even going to load them up here. I mentioned to them many times that I hate being too hot. That I haven't put windows on the south side of the first floor deliberately - for two reasons. 1) I don't think that planners will accept windows on that side because of overlooking the horses next door and the planners appear to think that they will object and 2) we don't need anymore light and we will overheat. We spoke about our exrrememly tight budget - the glazing alone would take our budget. I gave them the roof light sizes from @pocster - why have rooflights when you can have full length windows into your bathroom - right by the bath? I put an overhang along the whole south side of the house - I appreciate it may be difficult to build and require "boys stuff" to hold it up. However, it will help shade the ground floor. It's gone, so the ground floor will overheat as well - no explanation as to why it's gone. If they were going to tell me it's really difficult to build, I would accept that and think hard about it but to just remove it is gutting The kitchen has so many windows that you can't put any cupboards on the walls - god knows where the oven will go The dining area of the kitchen has sliding doors PLUS a single door within 5 ft of each other. I think even when I'm eighty I might manage the twelve steps to get from one option out onto the patio to the other. There - I feel a bit better now. I will have a discussion with them tomorrow and we will get back on track to plans that we can afford and that will achieve what I want.

Yes as @JSHarris says. Assuming the most negative you would have 0.016l/s/m2 so 0.016 * 120 = 1.92l/s. Can I have some of the £1,350?

You, me (and many others) all. Slowly though, I'm finding the more issues I face - often after @Onoff levels of procrastination - the more confident I get at sorting them out. Progress is slow however. For me, it's about persistence: consistent persistence. A good few days each month find me mooning around in avoidance mode. Tired, irritable, grizzly. For me BH is a life-saver. Without it, we'd be in a complete mess, and broke. The worst thing is the lack of control. Many of us are (or recently were) professionally at the top of our games. We know (knew) our stuff. And then we decided to build a house. Knowingly threw ourselves into a whirlpool. How many people would have the balls to do that?