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Anyway, good news. The council are going to remove the offensive comments.

This is a bug bear of mine on this forum - I have two. The first is how some go on about how 'perfect' and 'precise' their slab, frame whatever is. This caused me a.lot of stress early on when things weren't quite perfect. I now know enough to know that building ain't perfect - it doesn't matter as long as the end result is correct. I.e. insulation, air tightness and look. The second is costs. I think people like to delude themselves/be able ro brag how little their build costs and kit all sorts of things such as plot etc. How can that not be included- its a build cost. Yes it will vary depending in region (which is the excuse most use for ommitting) but then so do labour costs, do they omit those? Nope. People on here love to massage the numbers. Not many will give you a true 'total' cost. My dislike for this stems from the fact that the unwary will.read this and factor it into their costings and come a cropper. For myself, every single spend I have that would not have arisen if I wasn't self building is a 'build cost'. Simple. 'Sat quietly now waiting for the I built my house for less than £1000/m2 people to pipe up?'

amazon.de is not the cheapest, but they claim to deliver within 5-6 days and usually amazon's logistics is second to none. I only ordered one item, so I will be below the £135 gullibility threshold set by Boris. Above that threshold, I'm not sure if amazon.de include the import tax for you but I suspect not. It really beggars belief how so many people still think Brexit was a good idea.

Just a bit we found with solar gain, we have large overhangs, which should protect us in the summer, in September and October, with the sun very low, we got loads of gain in late afternoon.

Would be helpful to see orientation etc to comment fully but looks very interesting so apologies if my comments appear a wee bit harsh. May just be my ignorance of the site/misunderstanding of the drawings but I can't see why you need to go into the ground (with all its expense) at all - who'll ever use the stairs off the street, or the courtyard off the study? Even in its current form you could just stick the cinema room in that gap but for me I'm not sure from the current plan that you'd get any sense of something extraordinary which you should be expecting on that budget - lots of nice features but looks like you'll be arriving to a depot with a big garage and a side door. And there's then the practicalities of how far you'll need to travel to get from car to living space - particularly bedrooms. I dare say you'd soon get fed up if you're like me or my kids and routinely forget hats, gloves, bags etc. and need to nip back in to a bedroom a fair distance away. There's also lots of dead space which is fine if you can afford it but I just think you could do so much more with the site and budget.

Hi all, many thanks for your responses. They have helped me massively. I have learned I also need to be more transparent about how I feel and when talking / responding that I need to not talk about any emotions, but the detail. My position is this - I have concerns about the plan. I also cannot allow this plan to pass by not being properly scrutinised by those with expertise and authority - therefore I have to voice my concerns. If the plan was submitted in a way the council approved it, then I would respect the decisions. I am also going to be honest with the neighbour and the architect about this position I am taking and hope they understand i'm not trying to be a constant thawn in there side but I could work with them in the future on revised plans. However the pressure on me to be the sole decider to a decision that can have a lasting impact isn't something I can do, so I had to voice my concerns honestly.

Wouldn't bother with UFH in bedrooms, bathrooms yes, but may be better with electric UFH and electric towel rads, for summer towel drying. Quote sounds very expensive. Double row rads with fins, are also available, to reduce size of rads. Firstly have they sized everything in line with your heat loss calcs? What are your u-values and room sizes?

Wet UFH upstairs can be done easily. If he is quoting £10K for upstairs UFH how does that compare to the downstairs cost? Many of us find in in a well insulated modern house you don't actually need any heating upstairs, or in any event a lot less heating than you need downstairs, so radiators might be fine even if not over sized if you don;t need much heat.

On a more serious note... Built a small, soda can water heater of my own design out of scrap. Achieved 50degC above ambient. Sort of a poor man's solar thermal. Then, given my attention span issues I got bored... Keep meaning to make a bfo 8'x4' one.

I am in a similar situation, I have mine commissioned - According to the Website you need 1) Bank account details] 2) an EPC certificate [number], and 3) the MCS Certificate. I am assured you do not need a completion certificate from BC. But will let you know when I apply, shortly.

You have to have some wiring as they need power to work. You can't have them 100% battery like 20 years ago. They need to be mains powered with battery backup. If going mains powered you may as well have them interlinked and not use wireless. If it's a refurbishment and just taking a power spur from the nearest light then fair enough but if it's a new build I'd consider it madness to not just have them interlinked with a proper fire cable. Fire alarms are supposed to be replaced every 10 years. I know this doesn't happen currently but in the future I think you may have to prove these types of things to get house insurance or rent our a room (airBnB or childminder) for example. Things like Grenfell are having a huge impact on new regulations and standards and more will come. Even if you push this to 15 years having them wire interlinked gives you far more options in the future. I'd expect by then houses will have alarms more like commercial premises where you've a battery in the fire alarm control panel and then it's a lot cheaper to replace the smoke heads as they don't have built in batteries. It's a bit like running data cables now to various locations trying to future proof the house. Can't see why, when you're life might depend on these, that you also wouldn't future proof.

That is quite an interesting topic, thanks again ? I made one of those to dry logs - works well. The heat output is fed into a box with the logs in. 1 year later - we have dry logs. A nice little experiment

I believe you won't be able to get the RHI unless the whole dwelling has had a completion certificate from building control and has an EPC. It's not just about getting the heating/dhw/ASHP commissioned. There should be a new system replacing the RHI (£5000 per install) which you may be eligible for but it is all uncertain at the moment and even the ASHP installers/suppliers don't know how it will pan out yet.

Respect. Very clever. Sniper, not a machine gunner. To those you visited, the agenda was not merely planning: it was about your 'fit' with their values. Once you'd passed the values test, it will have been all downwind sailing. Bet you dressed carefully for the event, turned up bang on time.... . Wish I'd had the guts to the same. Still, look at it this way, I had the joy of peesing them all off and getting permission.

I would tip the lead up, undo the fixings, lift off the roof panel, add thin ply sheet on firing pieces to give a 1:40 fall away from the house , then replace panel. Likely have to trim the upstand

what does it look like? elevations/3ds? Be good to see how it sits on the site before commenting!

As you say, you will use around £2 or maybe more on a 0-5C day, but presumably you aren't sleeping in the room or using it every day of the year. So I would guess that the real world heating requirement is maximum 2000kWh and probably less. Say £300-400 a year. A small fast acting fan type heater is probably best for this. The single room ASHP would save around 2/3 of the cost so would pay for itself in around 4 years after installation. It also gives you the option of AC. It would be running at nowhere near full power but it would be good if you could find the noise level at different power levels. The max electricity usage on that unit is 1.12kW, so only 5 amps on 240V. It shouldn't need an upgrade to your wiring. It may need a higher start up current. That unit has no outside unit so all of the noise would be annoying you! This is a quieter and cheaper split unit, but I would guess installation is more expensive. https://www.cooleasy.co.uk/3-5kw-12000btu-inverter-srk35zmp-w.html

it is very easy to spend other peoples money! and I'm not normally one for commenting on designs as they're such personal things. but...... ? if you're digging into the hill to create the cinema could you not take a little more out and build a gym? or another room that could be used for another purpose? obviously budgets are an issue but it seems a shame to not make the most of the space in the hill now when it won't cost too much more than try and cobble something else together at a later date? we were originally planning a basement only under half our main structure. in the end we decided that it wasn't much more to just make the basement the whole of the main structure. it definitely wasn't the same cost again as plant was already on site, formwork was already being made etc. now we have rooms that can be purposed as required. anyway, just a thought.

Couple of this. Lots of glass, great on a plan and looks good, but huge heat loss byin winter and huge heat gain in summer. Not sure how you will meet min building regs in Scotland. Not sure where north and south is on the plan? This will have big impact on solar gain. Same comments on utility and cinema room, as previously mentioned. You That's a huge island in the kitchen, looks about 4m long. Middle bedroom, has big sliding doors and with bed in current location a view of a wall, consider a reorientation of room to same as the other two bedrooms. You have a huge amount of corridors, which appears to be dead space. Have you considered a plant room? I would be inclined to move the whole garage wing to the left, to reduce the length of corridor at the rear of the building. Wall between garage and utility will need to s thermal insulated wall, shown the same dims as internal stud.

I think the master bedroom could do with a little bit more floor area to make it less rectangular. I would as much as you can spare off the adjacent bedroom and also move the door up the corridor to the end of the rooflight. This lobby area then becomes dedicated storage/display cabinets for the bedroom. Agree with doing plenty of research on cinema area - maybe check with an AV supplier and talk it over in their demo room. Good luck with this very cool project!

It's a contract for 7 years, it's closing to new applicants at end of March.

nice looking project! I'm no expert but we like a large utility room where you don't have to shuffle past someone/something to get to the other end. could you not increase the size of the utility room and reduce the garage size? a 4 car garage seems a bit excessive in a 3 bed house! The cinema/media room seems a little pokey and also looks a little square. have you done the research on ideal dimensions for home cinemas? might be worth doing that first and then building the room to fit those requirements rather than trying to fit a cinema in to a square room of arbitrary size. just a couple of thoughts but I look forward to you, hopefully, updating these forums with your progress. looks like a very interesting project for sure.

With only 50mm to play with it will be hard to find something that efficiently provides thermal break. Bonding screed layer with the slab would be imho beneficial, as you get more thermal capacity (unless you are sold on quicker reaction times). With the cold bridges due to the specifics of the construction method I think you need to adjust the UFH circuit layout: pipes running along the areas where concrete forms bearing points would mean heat is transferred this path anyway (not contributing to space heating), so by avoiding laying near the perimeters you don't loose too much on house heating, yet reduce losses.

interesting. Have you costed it yet ?

second vote for IR panel, can plaster them in or put in loft.

It appears that they have, there doesn't appear to be much I can do about it either. Annoying.

Got a South facing wall? http://www.reuk.co.uk/wordpress/solar/make-a-simple-solar-air-heater/

I just got an installation date for a 3 phase smart meter from Octopus. Supply line went in 10 days ago and I have an installation in mid January. Might be worth a try?

A lot of the older guys still call fibre tape Scrim Worth using paper tape around the angles Less cracks

Because they can . Logic and reason don’t come into it

We built in a small village/conservation area. Before we submitted our planing application I called up both neighbours and the chair of the parish council. I asked if I could drop in one evening to introduce myself and show them our plans. I arranged to visit each individually at their house as I didn't want to be out numbered. In the end everyone was welcoming and we spent more time talking about our families and the local school and village life in general. Even then one neighbour objected. The plot already had PP for a house and our proposal moved it further away so i've no idea why they objected.

if the rubber seal in that fitting sits in a recess, it may not seal to your dodgy looking waste.

That will go into the top part of a telescopic P trap. But sink and a half usually have a more versatile single trap with a tee connection to take both wastes into one trap and both halves are usually telescopic. So buy a 1 1/2 inch telescopic P trap and swap the parts over, use that one with the fixed nut for your belfast sink, and the one that comes off the telescopic trap should go in the kitchen sink to replace the one you have borrowed. Sometimes it can be handy to have a box full of assorted drain fittings to do a bit of mixing and matching.

Hi, We've just today put the final fixing in for our wood fibre sheathing board on roof and wall. 60mm on the walls too. As you suggested, we've used the Ejotherm fixings to hold the sheathing board back to the timber frame. Typically a couple per board. We're now in the process of fixing back the vertical battens with Heco fixings (https://www.heco-schrauben.com/screws-accessories/screws/heco-topix/). 180mm perpendicular (straight in) and 200mm at 60 degrees (for suction and sheer). We ordered the insulation through Ecological Building Systems who organised a fixing plan from Heco. I think you can go direct though. The plan basically says where fixing centres are closer together (i.e. corners of the building). Whereas the middle of the long walls the spacings are much further apart saving on screws. Couldn't quite believe the cost of the them though..... Pic for good measure.... (every other batten done for now as I'm working through limited stock!) Cheers

I have a large number of suitable components available. Pre emptied to save you the time. Bargain at £1 a can. Edit: I see you're also in Kent so I'll do free delivery within a half mile radius. ?

I saw something similar - the kid picked up mum's bottle of wine and took it away. Fair play to the mother - she smiled, paid and left.

Get your own back by flaunting your youth and vitality. Go for a daily jog around the village in your best gym bunny outfit then stop outside the houses of the evil ones, plonk your ghetto blaster down and do a 10 minute step routine to Eye of the Tiger at full volume.