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Nearly settled on a house design Quite different from our first build With bolted ceilings on the sun room and main bedroom With just two of us I had hoped to scale things down My wife has changed bed 6 to a reading room Still a bedroom to me Weve bought a three acre field at the back to try and protect us from further development I haven’t decided what to do with the other plot But we will build this one while deciding We have a budget of 250k which should be plenty With 25K contingency Should anything unexpected pop up Im going to move the garage to the bottom of the garden With an office above

Goodness how useful are these little beasts! Not the cheapest tool in the box, but I bought a Hti-Xintai HT-201 and really happy with it. Obviously will be useful for checking insulation detailing (although, best used on a cold night in winter), but my immediate use case was to figure out the source of an intermittent low level plastic melting smell coming from my AV cupbaord. Source turns out to be the 48V PSU for some spot lights -- internal temp getting to 110ºC but the majority of the case remained cool to touch. Pointing the camera in the cabinet and turning everything on, it lit up bright - instant diagnosis. For anyone doing a DIY home automation / tech / electronics install it seems a great idea to check for weak connections or other hotspots. Also highlights which of the little plug in wall warts run hot etc, can highlight any cables getting warm due to being near over current, trace out heating pipes, UFH loops etc. Nice little tool.

Patience..... 40% drop in timber prices in the US in June -> https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/30/lumber-prices-dive-more-than-40percent-in-june-biggest-monthly-drop-on-record.html Not sure where you are in the planning stages but I'd guess that next year prices will be back where they were. So get the quote when you're ready not before. Look at what happened to plaster and plasterboard - you couldn't get it for love nor money last year (the factory is in the next village to us and was off-line for 3 months or so). Production has restarted, scaled up and caught up on the backlog. Simon

I dropped in to our local firewood merchant the other day. He has transformed the way he works and sells wood. All the wood is stacked so that it dries better - by coincidence in the way it has been in Germany for many years. He's done it not quite as a Holzhaus (wood house), but very much neater, split into Toblerone shaped chunks, and stacked so that the air gets to his stock better. Yes, he'll still sell you a 1 tonne bag of random chunks of wet wood, but it's a start. In Germany, there's a kind of pride in doing it more neatly than your neighbour. And in the Black Forest, (outside towns) it is still more common to see wood stoves than any other heating Couldn't find an image on German sites, but this is the idea.....

I keep seeing threads where people talk about deflection in a steel lintel potentially causing problems for bifold doors because the bend in the lintel squeezes the bifold frame and stops the doors working properly. But doesn't the deflection of the lintel happen when you load the lintel by adding roof or joists or brickwork above? So then as long as you then size the bi-fold height taking account of this deflection, you're all good.

In terms of upfront cash required it will be highly dependent on the specific plot as it will dictate any survey requirements. The answer is almost 'how long is a bit of string'. If you polled everyone on here you'd get people who spent sub £5k at this stage and others who spent tens of thousands. That probably seems an unhelpful answer, so perhaps a way to think about it is to list out the very basic requirements (planning app fee, building warrant costs, fees for an architectural technician for your drawings). Get these costs off the LA website and ask an AT for a quote or look at some on here. That gives you something to work with assuming you find a 'normal' or straightforward plot. Then if you find a plot that looks like it might have additional requirements such as ecology survey, flood risk or something else you'll know you need more. You'll want a solicitor for the land purchase to check the title and for any searches. I'd have thought the lenders would require one to ensure their money is purchasing a legit piece of land.

What part of the world are you in?, that'll make a big difference regards budget but as per Nod 150k for all in is very very tight and unless you plan on something very small and on doing all or alot of the work yourself is probably unachievable

I bet many people measure the height at the sides and forget to measure in the middle.

Good, im glad its not just me then. I cant bring myself to like it that big. I'd rather the extra work. Been enough work getting this far. Dont want to F it up now? I might just go ahead with this idea then. I cant see it Impeading anything else.

Psst, want some roller plans? ?

You and the rest of us ?, yes 500mm facia will look gross in my opinion, extend the wall and smaller facia will look much better. Good plan ?

The cheaper Flir one is only 80 x 60 resolution, compared with 320 x 400 for the one linked by @joth Exactly. The nearest I could find to this resolution from a "bigger name" manufacturer is the Seek CompactPro, which is 320 x 240 at £600. So getting almost double the pixels (320 x 400) for half that price seemed a bargain https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seek-Thermal-Compact-Resolution-Imaging-Black/dp/B01NBU1AVN 80 x 60 seemed totally pointless to me.

Seems so, £216 here https://www.flir.co.uk/products/flir-one-gen-3/?model=435-0005-02 . I'm sure the FLIR ones were much more expensive when I looked at potentially getting one of these a couple of months ago.

You can report that to Trading Standards. Not allowed to be sold unless it is over a fixed amount (can't remember what that is 2 tonne?). But the whole environmental thing is a lot more than just the moisture content.

I don't either. I prefer the shiny type galvanised stuff but spending £1000 on edging is crazy.

I used the knauf omni fit, you could make a coat out of it, not scratchy at all. I have a load of rockwool acoustic here and fitting it today I’m seriously considering throwing it all in the skip. Roofwise i did 200mm omnifit then 70mm pir under the rafters.

We've spent the last eight years in a drafty single glazed house in NW Scotland, heated entirely by electricity and a small woodburner. We're still alive. It's definitely not an economical long term solution of course.

No silly questions here mate The more questions you ask, the less things will have a chance to go wrong. You use a cold mains accumulator. Size of that is critical otherwise it won’t suffice. An accumulator is basically a big rubber balloon inside a cylinder which uses the force from the static cold mains to ‘charge’. The acc will typically hold 50%, or less, of its stated max volume so you need to double the size of the acc to get the required stored energy ( water held against its will at pressure ). I’ve installed loads of these with fantastic results, and there’s no pumps / mechanical / electrical parts to go wrong. The rubber ‘bladder’ does deteriorate over time but that rate varies massively dependant on how the bladder is cycled. Design of pipework / sizing of acc is everything, but relatively easy to estimate tbh. It’ll be very easy to put them in the basement, and for what you’re asking you will need 2x 500L most prob. A survey of the cold mains would be the first port of call, to see how much flow and static pressure you have available before any more discernible advice could be given. Pulps and break tanks would be for a much larger installation like a nursing home / small hotel / B&B etc IMO.

1) You can do a desk survey and look at BGS borehole data to get a feel of ground conditions. You can also get a feel for site conditions, access etc. Where will basement sit, will you invoke party wall etc. 2) Depends but your SE does not need to be near you so you could contract someone in a cheaper location. I used Tara @ build collective in Bristol - maybe they can give you an indicative cost. GI cost me a lot (£12k but I made some mistakes and so did they). You shoyld be able to do it cheaper - ask the SE what you need (holes & probes) and then shop around the national GI companies. 3) Yes, normally excludes the fit out. Some include the basement lid if that's part of the design. 4) depends £1500-2k / m2 would not be a bad start, you may pull it in cheaper once conditions are known or it may get more expensive.

Nice looking house, go for it.

Looks good and, given nobody is getting any younger, with a bedroom and en-suite downstairs for when knees won't cope with the stairs - we have done the same thing, our other concession is a straight & wide stair to make fitting a stair lift simpler. Here at millstone manor we extended to n bedrooms but have found that we rattle around in it now the kids are gone so the reading room is a sound idea. For the purposes of planning and ratable value might be worth adjusting the plans to show the reading room is NOT a bedroom!

I've found it lasts longer if you tack roofing felt or a strip of dpc to the side of the timber against the soil/grass.

Nice looking house Nod, I like it and hard to beat owning a bit of ground around your house to avoid any future developments becoming a nuisance. I'm currently trying to do a deal for 5 acres that would give me a good buffer zone on all sides although being fairly rural I don't think development would ever be an issue anyway

I lived in Latvia and for a few years we were in a cottage with a brick type skin, was probably log cabin underneath. 1 log burner in the living room and the other rooms we put in wall mounted french oil filled radiators with thermostats. Gets down to about -30 but was far more comfortable than the house we are in now. The radiators were great. If you have a supply of logs, you owe it to yourself to build a masonry stove, they are about 3000 years in advance of what most people use in the UK Was very cost effective, way way cheaper than the Calor gas system we have where we are or the mains gas system we had before we went there.

Bifolds in place of what ..? You may need a non material amendment to your planning if the openings have changed. Also, you’ll need the SEng to check the lintel and steel sizes for the openings as bifolds have very tight tolerances. TBH if you just want light, add a couple of full length floor to ceiling windows - 1/10th of the price and much more practical. Bifolds are very overrated …

I have 222mm rafters and need to leave an approx. 50mm air gap so was planning to use 175mm of insulation between the rafters and 75mm under the rafters (all Mineral wool). Here are some example build ups: 75+100+75mm Rafter Roll 32, R=7.81 cost £35.75/m2 90+90mm FrameTherm 32 and 75mm Rockwool 38, R=5.63+1.97=7.6 cost £21.09/m2 [NB: RockWool not Formaldehyde free] 180+70mm Rockwool Flexi 35/38, R=5.14+1.84=6.98 cost £12.23/m2 [NB: RockWool not Formaldehyde free] 90+90+90mm OmniFit Slab 35, R=7.71 cost £12.15/m2 90+90mm OmniFit Slab 35 and 75mm DriTherm 32, R=5.14+2.34=7.48 cost ~£14/m2 90+90mm OmniFit Slab 35 and 60mm PavaTherm 38, R=5.14+1.58=6.72 cost ~£16.50/m2 90+90mm OmniFit Slab 35 and 50mm EcoTherm PIR 22, R=5.14+2.27=7.41 cost ~£14.60/m2 120+50mm EcoTherm PIR 22, R=7.73 cost ~£22/m2 If I were to do it again I would 100% use counter battens outside the roofing membrane and fill the rafters. Improving a U=1.3 area by 0.1 saves approximately 3p/m2/yr with an air source heat pump. [dT=13C, U=0.13, 6mo-->7.4kWh/m2, E=£0.05/kWh --> £0.37p.a./m2]

Thank you all for your responses. You do now have to pay for full planning permission if you PD rights have been removed. Apparently it is a Central Government directive and not within the remit of the Council's themselves. So sadly although I was advised in 2014 that I wouldn't need to for permission for anything that would have fallen under PD, we will now have to pay. Can anyone help me on the sort of things I need to say in my supporting statement. It is going to cost me £276 to submit the Section 73 notice. Then I have to wait 8 weeks to see if we have been successful .... or longer, apparently! It's a joke. They take the PD rights away and then I have to pay to get them reinstated!! Whichever way I go, I know it is going to cost me. It is not cheaper to apply for planning permission BTW. I just want what most other people have - the right to enjoy my home as I wish without the need of the council to own us at every turn. If anyone can give me an idea of where to start, I would be very grateful. Thank you all...

You lucky git Conor.

In case anyone out there is interested - we managed to reclaim our PD rights successfully. A real result. Much teeth-gnashing among the neighbours but hey, the rules are the rules, right? We found the council lob this remove PD rights clause almost as a default setting, which is extraordinary. There's a total pattern to it. It's like preying on the naivety of home owners. Anyway, this is the man we have to think for a formidable application > http://just-planning.co.uk/

It's just down to good practice tbh. Reducing the bore at the start of the stack would be a no-no for me. Anyhoo. A ground floor WC will have a 7" pipe centre ( from FFLevel ) where the soil leaves the pan. You'll need a fall in the pipe before it gets to the branch, thus determining the lowest point of the branch. An U/G ( underground ( terracotta coloured )) fitting with 3 sockets may JUST do it IF the socket is IN the slab NOT above it. I'll measure one later and double check.

Ok thanks for the post I am talking about pre-application costs (or my costs) before securing finance. I assume these surveys would be done pre-planning stage after plot purchase (and funded by the lender and not me). No not a typo! Where we live plots can be bought fairly cheap £10k - £40k will get a decent sized one enough for say 3 bed detached house or dormer. 150k for the land and building actually over estimated!

If Everedge is good enough for the National Trust and @Gone West... What diameter rings? Just slice up an old 50gal drum maybe? Just make damn sure it's degassed and vented or fill with water and cut top down.

Second thoughts Gary. The roof isn't flat enough. Think about it - if the photos are to be believed, you get your other half to do the roofing, so she'll appreciate a flatter roof now wouldn't she? I mean, think of the Brownie points.

Go fella, go! If anyone can make a success of it you can

Why would you spend money on so much bling and not have integrated appliances in the kitchen - gives the impression of fur coat and no ..............