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Hi, As a small step towards repaying the valuable advice I have received on this forum I thought I'd share the attached document, which I hope will be useful and/or interesting to forum users. I am a planner by trade, working in local authority. My SB is on a relatively small, highly inaccessible plot neighboured by mature trees, and tightly bordered by existing houses. The plot was a 'detached' back garden of sorts that came as part of the deal (and something of an afterthought) when we bought our current house. Nobody had ever even considered the prospect that it could be a building plot, and for many years I discounted the idea myself due to the restrictions listed above. Five years ago, having outgrown our house and exhausted other options, I decided to at least try to self build on the plot. I obtained permission at the first time of asking (albeit not quickly and not without having to make a tweak or two). Everyone, without exception, from family to neighbours to building tradesmen to delivery drivers to other planners, have commented on how 'well' I've done to get permission. Some of them probably thought I'd made a mistake, or that the Council did, or that there was some old pals act involved because I am a planner myself (even though I don't work in the borough where I am building, and it really, really doesn't work that way anyway). They are all wrong. I obtained permission because I did the thing that planners spend their working lives telling others to do - I read the relevant planning policies, designed a development that was in line with them, then demonstrated as much in the application. That is what the attached statement does, it goes from global to national to regional to local policy, then explains the thought process behind my design, in that context. I cannot tell you how many architects, developers and would-be planning consultants fail to design development proposals specifically to meet planning policies, and then spend ages moaning, appealing, resubmitting, and generally wasting time. I can't promise that if you follow the thought process in my document you'll certainly get planning permission, but I hope you find it a useful insight into how a planner approached self-build, and specifically the matter of seeking planning permission on a plot that the rest of the world had discounted. Cheers 647910914_DesignandAccessStatementRedacted.pdf

Please could the Mods consider pinning this post / thread Ian I ask because the Design Access Statement is a model of Brevity Focused argument Well-structured content Good use of images Evidence-based discussion Clearly produced maps and an excellent written style

I’ve made something following YouTube videos. This sentence puts the fear of god into my wife. I’ve made (using off cuts and leftover UFH pipes) a rudimentary solar water heater for the paddling pool (yes, spoilt kids!). it’s about 95cm diameter circle. The paddling pool Is 950L when full. Water pumped from the pool with a fountain pump and then returned to the pool at the opposite end. know that I can (potentially!) make it more efficient by spraying black and enclosing in some form of frame with glass/acrylic front but not going to bother if it’s a waste of time. will either have any impact at all?!?

Considered and done this could help the whole damned nation.

4 pipe is if you want the same FCU to do heating and cooling - in commercial environments you have a separate boiler and chiller, so you run two sets of pipework around the building. Particularly important if some rooms want heat and some want cooling at the same time. (eg server rooms always want cooling, even in winter) You'd need to check the valve and control arrangement. If you're running a single loop from an ASHP that switches from heat to cool depending on the weather you only need to plumb one set of pipes, but you need to ensure whatever valve is on there is set up correctly. I suppose you could plumb both loops into the same source (in series, in parallel?) if you wanted. Typically FCUs have a 4 port valve, basically that means you have a position where the water flows through the FCU loop and another position where the water bypasses the FCU. You then loop the water from the chiller through every 4 port valve around the building. I imagine a 4 pipe unit will have two 4 port valves. I'm assuming you'd need to wire your own thermostat for the 4-port valve and the fan (there are plenty of standalone and wifi FCU thermostats on Aliexpress, I bought one... it's nothing fancy but looks ok) I don't see anything particularly wrong with a second hand FCU, I'd just look for signs of corrosion and look at giving the motors some TLC when you receive it. I'm not sure what the situation is with replacement parts if any are needed.

What new services are you burying? I doubt even water would go more than 750mm deep, so if a trench that deep bothers foundations of a 2 storey building, it is built on inadequate foundations.

You can easily buy an ASHP for about £5K and it just needs a plumber and an electrician capable of reading an instruction manual to install it. Or you can pay a "specialist" company a lot more to install it.

Well, sorta. Things have been somewhat complicated by my "customer" not being able to tolerate even tiny amounts of noise, especially when sleeping. That rules out a lot of commercial units, especially those Alibaba specials who are a bit sketchy about noise levels. I suggested a ducted unit in the loft, but that was not acceptable. However, on my travels I came across this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004090666621.html which is the wet guts of a 460x200mm fan coil unit, minus the fan. It was about $90 delivered, so I thought it worth a punt. Took about 10 days from China, which was quite impressive. And here it is: (yes it's leaking, that's because my garden hose is useless, don't judge) That's with two Bitfenix Spectre Pro 230mm computer fans on it. It's almost inaudible when connected to a car battery at about 12.6v (at least in comparison to outdoor ambient sound) It's a 3 row coil: at the intake (at the bottom here) the 3/4" fitting splits into three rows of copper coils, which go around in serpentine fashion before emerging in the 3/4" fitting at the top. When fed with mains water on test (not sure what temp it comes out of the pipes in the summer, something like 12-13C?) there's a pleasant cooling breeze come out of the other side if you put your hand within a couple of inches, but it's not very strong. I'd rather like the fans to be a bit stronger, but I can't seem to find quiet but more powerful fans in this kind of size - it's overkill for PC cooling. These ones are each 160cfm at 900rpm and 1.81 mmH2O static pressure - I'd really like something about 3-4x that CFM. Or possibly another fan downstream to 'throw' the air into the room so that it mixes properly. I could I suppose try a battery of smaller fans - that's something else to test. To be continued...

You will have to re-type @Binky so he gets a message. Not seen him on here for a while.

Need to get my own little lathe up and running. I did make some headway this week and uncovered it at least. Slight problem is it's stored vertical.

If the water is cooler than the ambient air temp then don't insulate the pipe, better to have free air flow and gather some of the heat from the air. Don't glaze it as that will reduce the amount of light falling on it. Cover the pool. Evaporative heat loss is killer.

Not sure about Velux but we have have Fakro and their insulation detailing on the quad units us great look at their website.might give you.some ideas. Air tightness involves sealing the window frame to the air tight layer - is that your plasterboard or have you got a plastic membrane in there somewhere?

Fantastic! Thank you very much for sharing your DaAS. I'm sure that many people on here will read and re-read it before making a planning application.

Brilliant, well done, that is a very useful resource, thank you. Have you done your costings yet? I would have loved a GSHP, but the figures just wouldn't stack up.

Is that the Passive house measure at 50% of minimum requirement - that's attention to detail.

Our groundworks contractor's digger man got excited cos he saw his man arriving with diesel and he was running short. Forgot to lower the arm and snapped the neighbours overhead BT line. Openreach have a 24 hour service for things like this and the line was duly re-instated within the time. Cost - a fridge pack of Thatchers Gold and a bit of a lul in income on the kind of sites retired single men frequent. So basically get on with it and Openreach will fix any issue in 24 hours. Simon

The surface area of the pipe exposed to the sun is less than that of the pool as a whole. You might be better off putting thick black plastic in the bottom of the pool, and maybe some bubble wrap on top of the water when it isn't in use. The heat is directly transferred to the water, so fewer losses and no need for a pump. Plus more surface area, so more energy. It might be more effective if you mount the pool on the PIR.

DIY blower fan. We tested 0.31ach after only a scratch coat of sand cement plaster. Most of the gaps I found were the backs of wall chases and around windows.

You need the relevant BS for the definition of well and slightly ventilated. Try BS 5250 and/or BS EN 6946. In a cold flat roof the airspace should be well ventilated - this affects both the U-value calculation and the condensation analysis.

I used 100/110mm blue twinwall for the water, and 50mm black for electric and comms (2 separate ducts). I bought it as a coil, but what you have linked to will work as well. Your groundworker, if you are using one, should be able to advise 🙂 TIP: If you buy it with draw string in, make sure not to pull it out. I used the tin stuff that was in ours to pull through some stronger blue pull chords. Tie them off securely and label well and clearly until it is time to feed things through

That was a survey done by a specialist firm. There are details on the PDF. They marked the ground as well. But the contractor will do the trial digs anyway.

So assuming the retired surveyor is not the neighbour who does not live there and the BT line is furthest away from the retired surveyors buildings then go for the BT line route. Its marked as 300mm deep so easy to find as it will be even shallower and just reveal it and lay to one side and then finish the trench to the depth you want. Lay in the new services, partly cover and then put the BT back in but to one side.

I don't, they work just the same as a fridge. A fridge in reverse would produce electricity from a temperature difference.

As the longtime dispute echos on finally the day arrives for the internet fibre to be installed. As neighbors will not allow then guys to walk across their garden simply to take a cable from the pole - they dig the street up 😂 3 days of work - at god knows what cost

Checked if it is cheaper to buy another boiler for cash rather than at full list (less £450) from Vaillant? I should think a new HX would deem it a write off. The fact or took a while to finally "blow" suggests old age death of fuse rather than overheat IMO.

I wonder why? If you took an ordinary fridge and peeled it apart so you could shove the internal cooling panels outside your wall and kept the bit at the back (that gets hot) inside your hose - then set it to try and cool the contents of the fridge (now the entire world outside) you'd be almost there. Add a fan to the outside bit to keep more air passing over it for efficiency and you've got the majority of the components of an ASHP. (Oh and swap the fridge thermostat for a central heating type)

Got to agree with @saveasteading I would say it’s fairly typical for the era and a bit of TLC will sort the gable out. I would definitely do something with the door header though, no idea what’s going on there

There a rip off because the government will chuck £5k towards installers. The installers hike up the price and say 'but we are now giving you £5k off because of the grant. Technically not any different from an A2A heat pump, slightly different heat exchanger and no fan coil unit inside the house. So actually simpler, but generally cost more. You can get them at a reasonable price, you need to shop around and DIY install as mentioned above, rather than going for a grant. You really don't want to over size them.

I have built dormers just involving the BCO, no architect or SE. I know BCO,s are harder to get to visit nowadays but worth a try I guess. I get the point of gaps between new joists and ceilings (I have donethat) but the floor below will not have that and if the joists are structurally ok should not cause cracks in the ceiling!. Rather than replacing the ridge board (very intrusive) we have installed a ridge glulam or steel under the existing ridge board to carry the roof weight. Just make sure you insulate as much as possible to reduce house energy consumption.

When I was a BT installer decades ago I have pulled two new cables across land using the existing one, just requires two guys instead of one. (Locked compound we could not find the owner).

Another pedigree thread for the archives….

What sort of cable? How many houses does it serve? If its a big fat cable serving many houses best not get involved. Leave everything to the contractor and their insurance. If its just a cable to your house it wouldn't be £thousands to repair. There might also be options to put another BT cable in the trench if it gets damaged. Depends where it goes. If it goes to a BT pole near the end of the road you are digging up you could run a new cable to the bottom of the pole and pay BT to connect it up. Leave enough wire coiled up to reach the top with several meters spare. You might also consider putting a duct in the road with your new BT cables and a draw rope to make installing fibre easier. The main thing would be to fix it before you back fill the trench as digging it up again would be the main cost. For info.. Underground phone cable is around £1 a meter. Duct about £1.50 to £3 a meter. So a whole new duct and cable over a 100m run might be £500 plus a £ few hundred to get BT to connect up each end. A simple repair to a broken cable would be cheaper.

Discuss with the contractor how near to their buildings they feel is safe. Eg agree a limit as to how close they can dig. Then tell the neighbours you plan to dig down the middle but that may change to avoid damaging services. Tell them you ave agreed with the contractors they won't dig closer than x meters.

I had this with electric supplu when they wanted to upgrade the transformer on neighbours land. They started off with "we have the legal right, he can't stop us" etc, which then went to, "you'll have to route from another one 200m away crossing fields and a stream". to finally, aw f@*%k the transformer will probably be fine.

When I said I speak to her sometimes that means I tell her to get (expletive deleted)ed

Not much of a fan for the ventilation you are producing, you will end with the worst of all worlds. 2x power required, for extract and supply, but no heat recovery to offset the ventilation losses and electric use. I would ditch the PIV. Then three options, vent fans with heat recovery, such as these (link below) you will need one at least in each room, wet and dry rooms - dMVHR. https://www.ventilationland.co.uk/product/40954/decentralised-mvhr-unit-o100-mm-with-switch.html?utm_source=googleshoppingUK&utm_campaign=googleshopping-FeedUK&gclid=Cj0KCQjwzqSWBhDPARIsAK38LY9sv8y5tPeyEPH6lJdO42VQvR7AagTCv5jhXEym6Mpwy0W1M5whOLAaAv7EEALw_wcB Full MVHR. dMEV, but condition based ventilation, so passively controlled vents inwards that response to humidity and the same for fan extract side . This way ventilation will be limited to what is needed. This will limit ventilation losses, and only require power to vent fans in wet rooms. You need to get good cross flow for this to be effective.

Wait until they go on holiday, and then order 40t of hardcore to be ‘gifted’ upon their driveway. A gift once recounted by a few B&B owners who decided to club together and buy one old hag a ‘present’ for slagging all the other B&B’s in her street off anonymously on ratings sites, and then telling someone who then decided to share her secret. Bingo Bango. 👊.

There's no reason to install polythene (air and vapour barrier) unless you're needing to stop vapour getting into an assembly that absolutely isn't able to dry itself. Use a breathable air barrier as your airtightness layer. Plasterboard is pretty worthless thanks to all the holes through it. Easier to stick up a breathable "tent" that's airtight and line that with plasterboard for structural integrity so to speak. We had a local plasterer come to quote for dry lining and either taping or skimming our seasonal cabin build over here. "Are you going to heat the building all year round?" was the first question he asked on the phone; followed by "So you will want to use moisture rated plasterboard everywhere?" as a confirmation type question and was horrified at "No" as an answer. When he arrived on site and saw OSB as the (vapour open) air barrier instead of the usual polythene it was a case of "Oh thank christ for that" or words to that effect. "You're not trapping the moisture." [between the (vapour retarding) paint and the (vapour closed) polythene in a building where there isn't always a strong drying force (from reducing winter humidity by heating it all year round) to suck that moisture back through the paint] If there weren't howling gales through most buildings I think we'd start to see fun as people air conditioned UK builds and moisture backed up against the polythene on the structural side or tiles / wallpapers / vinyl type paints on the interior side of the plasterboard...

That's some pretty thin insulation especially at the blue line. Plasterboard skimmed will give you reasonable airtightness, but only if no sockets or lights, these will leak like a seize. It is not moisture tight, so water vapour will pass straight through. If it was my house 1. VCL the whole roof fully tape all joints. If the walls are timber, same applies. 2. Install service Battons (counter directions to roof joists), 45 x 50mm, once services are installed insulate with 50mm mineral wool. This will help reduce the repeat thermal bridges, caused by the rafters. 3. Normal plasterboard in dry areas, wet areas with moisture resistant. 4. The wall that is blue, double the insulation thickness. Consider more insulation everywhere, you only insulate once, heating costs all the time.

I think that ASHP's should always be paired with Solar (or wind/water). I cannot understand the Government pushing ASHP's without subsidising solar panels alongside them.

@Ferdinand The phase change freezer was essentially the answer to "How do I eat steak followed by ice cream in the middle of the Atlantic, while transiting in a 34" wooden yacht?". My father on law was a very clever chap who had the knack of seeing the very simple and obvious solution to a problem that everyone else had missed. When I tell you how it worked, it will be so simple and obvious that it won't seem impressive. It would be fair to say a sizable number of his ideas have been incorporated into my house design. It's a real shame he never got to see the house other than in drawings. The problem with sailing is getting power for use in "hotel services" as the RN call it. It was even worse in the early 90s when solar panels were expensive and pretty awful things. So you're limited to power sources like running an engine, towing an altenator etc to charge batteries (again, in the early 90s these weren't anything like we have now), so efficiency is key for long range sailing. He built a massively insulated top opening box with the best volume to surface area he could fit in the space, and pieced together a reverse carnot cycle freezer using parts such as an airconditioning compressor - because taking mechanical power from the engine was more efficient than driving an inverter. To minimise engine run time, he used a pair of aluminium plates with a "bag" filled with strong brine. The freezer oviously froze this in the cooling cycle, taking the box temperature to -20c or so, and it acted as a cold store for many days at a time provided the box wasn't opened much (and there's plenty of spare PCM sloshing around should the bag leak...). Thus engine runtime was minimised and used relatively efficiently (5 to 10 minutes every 3 days), there was no battery load imposed and he and the crew (a younger SWMBO) ate well. Simple solutions tend to work well.

Generally if we're going to render we build with fibolite blocks (lightweight aggregate), but we would also put 3 courses of bricks below dpc on the external skin (not always engineering, depends what the architect asks for). This is just for looks though as render will generally stop at the dpc height and there will be 2 courses showing before ground level. We also avoid aerated blocks (celcon) as they have a bad reputation for cracks but they may have improved since they got that reputation Hth

Then what? Wait for bin day?

Your invention and time make @Onoff ‘s efforts look tame . You are the new God .

You simply have too much time on your hands to coil the pipe up like that.

He could be waiting for 2 other really expensive quotes so he can give his mate a nod, and that price wins and he gets a kick back…. but that never hapoens

Perfect 🤩

Tell her how brilliant fast your Broad Band is, and how it will be so much easier to run your business from home. Point out that there is enough parking and turning space for even quite large trucks. My neighbours still think I am a vivisectionists for the government and I do taxidermy for a hobby. Well one side does. The other thinks I am gynaecologist, all I said was 'acute angina', but her English is not too great.