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Exactly. One of the things that makes me angry about the green loby is they address us like we are naughty school children and we are still burning fossil fuel because we want to and are ignorant. If they would just give a little credit for the improvements already made, and say well done, keep it up, we are getting there, I am sure people would be more motivated.

Put this weekend aside to make a start on insulating and making the house wind/airtight. Started by cutting back some of the ceiling to access the joist ends to seal around them (in lime) and discovered the ceiling was wet. Bath in the bathroom directly above has a leak Luckily the bath just needed resealing but that was a task I wasn't expecting to do today. It's probably quite a good (?) advert for lime plaster. The lathe was sopping wet but you couldn't tell at all from looking up at the ceiling, I suspect it would have probably dried out quite well on its own. Whereas I suspect gypsum would have stained within a couple of days of the leak.

If you use PIR with aluminium layer, the membrane keeps the cement in the screed from a chemical reaction with the aluminium, which forms hydrogen and leaves bubbles in the screed.

On the positive side. Problem seen and sorted rather than built in. A good day.

Adrian Walker, thanks for that link. Fascinating. Can anyone explain how London is using 2.2% hydro? Also, and excuse me if it is all explained and I haven't read it, is the 'imported' figure a total, thus including French nuclear?

https://www.dan-wood.co.uk/en/projects/point-158a-e See this link. Simple barn style. Replacing void with additional bedroom. And this is turnkey. As a comparison to not being a turnkey which is obviously cheaper. Forget the layout, it’s the building size that’s relevant. Speak to a local building company they’ll give you a better estimate.

https://scotframe.co.uk/house-style/pheasant/ ive taken your advice on board and been looking at feasable alternatives and posted this earlier but was told it would most likely be outwith my budget? what are your thoughts bozza thanks

Yes. the screed is generally quite sloppy and finds gaps between insulation and floats it. I have been at the floating of a whole area and it wasn't fun. Our plumber had insisted on doing the concrete, but it turned out hadn't done it before. Me to the rescue with the brilliant instruction to stop pouring. Then concrete blocks to keep it down. In theory all your taped joints might be sound, and not stick to someone's boot. In practice it isn't worth the risk,

I found this 2020 PDF: https://www.gyproc.ie/sites/default/files/The White Book Oct 2020.pdf For the 2022 version it looks like you have to download it in chunks rather than as a single PDF, starting from https://www.british-gypsum.com/specification/white-book-specification-selector/white-book-overview

Ah that's okay then no carbon up here So it's okay to plug your EV in here to charge it. Oh except that will mean a little less green energy sent over the border and a little more FF burned down south.

ohh this is so good to hear. It also gives me some peace of mind too. I'm not against open plan but I don't think it is for me. I agree, it can look very good and the image included above by the poster previously looks fab too but I'm not wanting it for my home. I'd be worried about keeping the place warm too if it was open plan, if I'm sat in the living room and it was open with my kitchen, I'd have to heat up both areas even if I'm sat at one end. To me, they doesn't seem logical. I'd have to heat up the entire space, which is double the area and obviously takes longer to heat up and are there heat loss issues, I'm not sure. But thank you for this...I know open space is a trend, but trends don't last and I need to do something I can live with...whether it be 8 doors or not (tho I'm trying to get it down to 6! 😀)

There is also https://www.carbonintensity.org.uk/ to look at

I agree with the comment about not opening up the whole of the ground floor. We did it once in an old Victorian house we renovated and I hated it from the get go. I felt that if I was at one end of the space I should be at the other end and could never feel comfortable. We renovated two more houses and didn't make either of those open plan. Never regretted it. With this new build everyone assumed we would have the whole kitchen/diner/lounge affair but we have stuck with the kitchen, which is large enough for a table and chairs, together with a more formal dining room and a large lounge. Having lived in it, now, for nine months we are happy with that layout. We still have visitors who say "Ooh - you could knock through from the dining room to the kitchen or the lounge to dining room". Why? When I am relaxing I don't want reminding of food prep/cooking or of a table waiting to be fully cleared etc. Builders, of course, love the open plan layout because it covers a smaller footprint.

Agree with size v comfort sizes dilemma. I was just curious. I did have a go at various version and best I managed to achieve was about 160sqm for 3 decent size upstairs bedroom, bathroom and en-suite. Then bedroom, bathroom, utillity and everything else downstairs. Ultimately, build your own to get exactly what your heart desires 😀

I have 3 bedrooms in out 150 square metre house. That is comfortable with decent sized rooms. 4 bedrooms in 130 square metres is probably not what most self builders really want.

So even on a low demand period, 9% is being generated by gas. Have we EVER yet reached 0% gas or coal? At the moment no fossil fuel is the aim, but we are not there yet, and the closer you get the harder it gets. This is why I say if you buy an EV and plug it in, then you WILL increase the amount of gas being burned. That is FACT. One day we might get there, but it will take a lot of energy storage to make that possible, and then I bet there will still need to be some fossil fuel backup. The first milestone we have to reach, is 100% non fossil generation some of the time. I don't think we are there yet.

That arch looks well integrated into the design. The pic you posted just looked like two arches added for the sake of it

Square boxes with two rooms and toilet downstairs and four small bedrooms upstairs is easy to ‘design’ and fit on small plots. We’ve designed ours so that we could live downstairs should we end up incapable of climbing the stairs.

I put the drivers down to a mixture of: + housing economics (i.e a deliberate land shortage) which causes the big developers to make ticky tacky boxes, built to low standard, with the smallest possible rooms and on the smallest possible plots. Yes, they can sell all they make. + largely uncontrollable LPAs who are there to protect the status quo and support the big developers in their aim above - the big developments are the easiest way for the LPAs to meet their targets. + lowest common denominator regs partly for 'affordable housing' which usually means 'low quality' housing. + fairly dumb consumers who until very recently haven't given a fig for energy efficiency and/or how their house is constructed. I probably wouldn't bother to build if I could buy the kind of thing I want.

Comfopost does so something, don't get me wrong. But it's important to understand (calculate) your heating/cooling demand and the power output you will achieve from comfopost otherwise you are likely to spend money, be dissapaointed and it potentially be too late to employ a different strategy. We did have the calcuations done, but I think there was some incorrect assumptions made in the calculations unfortunately. My advice: - Do not assume the figures in the datasheet are what you'll get as they make assumptions about MVHR output (comfopost input) air temperature which are unlikely to be true in real life. - Consider that that the kW output from Comfopost is not directly comparable with kW output from any other emitters because the input air temperature is lower than room temperature (this is important given if you need to run boost which will increase MVHR losses). - Do not assume that a larger Comfopost unit will always heat/cool more, it won't! The main limitation is air volume, not the exchanger. - Consider that you'll need to run at less efficient flow temperatures to get any noticeable heating output. - Consider that you'll need to run MVHR at boost (or preferably even higher than boost) to get any any noticeable heating output and that this may require specifiying a large MVHR than you would use otherwise). - Don't plan to use Comfopost for cooling unless you have have fully controllable solar gain (e.g. automated external blinds), have calculated your cooling load as very low, and don't expect to be able to actively cool the house, but rather just stop temperature rising. - If using Comfopost for 1st floor only, consider that boosting MVHR will cool/heat the ground floor slightly (not an issue if you have UFH on GF, but it represent increased MVHR looses) - Know that you need to insulate ducting. Anyone quoting for Comfopost should really be doing the calcuations so you know what ouputs to expect from it given MVHR design. Do Paul not provide anything in this regard? What is there justification for quoting for oversized CW12 with Q350 MVHR?

Yup, much better. I'd replace the EPS 400 for something a little more rigid, or laminate EPS 400 by bonding on a layer of 20mm of Compacfoam eg so the CF is the material immediately below the threshold. You're not showing the DPC under the threshold and forming an upstand so needs detailing. Tres bien.

They don't build for current needs. They build what the legislation and lack of checks and balances permit them to, knowing they can sell everything they build due to the restricted supply.

Thanks for the input. maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I do not think my ideal revolves around the gym area...I just need an area for machinery that will not be affected by kitchen cooking smells and greases or what not. Yes, it's 2023 but to me, the number of doors was never an issue...we are opening it up, hence the drawings, I'm moving things and opening some areas up but I'm just not keen on opening the entire ground floor up and not having any privacy...it's like being at work and people having meetings at their desk and, whether talking loudly or nornally...you can hear every word...I don't particularly like attending these meetings when I am not even part of that meeting, even if it is hearing a one sided conversation at that, lol. Another alternative would be to put the exercise stuff in the left bottom hand corner and have the kitchen diner area on the right (middle right and bottom right), but then it would be darker in the middle right area for the kitchen and dining area, no? and I rather have natural light for the kitchen/dining area versus for the exercise area I think.

That’s better. Do you actually need the additional eps outer skin, can you not use a block with thicker outer in the first place. Not sure what your external finish is but anything heavy and I would be worried about the load carrying capacity of the extra eps just fixed to the standard block.

You need to fit a mass flow sensor on the pipework. This is generally the bit that is missing. Temperature sensing is cheap and easy, £200 of DS18B20s strategically placed all over the place will give you loads of useful data. You can add extra 1wire GPIOs to a Raspberry Pi Zero W to save overloading one pin and build in redundancy that way, modify the /boot/config.txt file. dtoverlay=w1-gpio,gpiopin=x Where x is the extra GPIO pins. You can do similar with i2c.

You're sounding like my millennial Son. Funny how us old fogies are more into the hi-tech scene 😁 I jest. It'a a valid view - unnecessary complexity is not a good thing. Anything critical to the smooth running of a household has to be self-contained in my opinion. As soon as you reach beyond your walls for services you're at the mercy of others so I'm quite envious of off-griders. The best I can afford to do is build my own smart services for lighting, heating, security etc. and not buy into the commercial offerings for these things. it's also the reason I prefer, if practical, to code a microcontroller in preference to using a SBC like the Pi for simple tasks as even maintaining a Pi has complexities whereas the code running on a microcontroller is ridiculously bulletproof. I think this is one small miracle that's often overlooked - I've still got PIC chips that are running code that I flashed into them in the early 90's reliably performing the same functions for over 30 years now. Even stupid mechanical things will fall over on these timescales.

Pool ASHP's are not a good choice for UFH. I think few have inverter drive (they are built to heat what is in affect a very big buffer tank) and many won't work at Scottish winter temperatures.

^ agree with @JohnMo on this one. But if you really wanted to there's- https://www.ventilationland.co.uk/product/38437/vent-axia-sentinel-kinetic-advance-wi-fi-receiver-module.html

For me a unit that doesn't connect to a remote anything is best. It then becomes a pain to make adjustments, so you don't f**k about with it or its settings - as it should be install, commission, run, replace filters, run. Once installed and setup, except replacing filter and a general clean, there should be no need to touch it. Mine even just dumb switches for boost, press once, job done, boost is on for 20 mins.

Ha! It happened again just now. All my raspberry pi's were unreachable other than by ping and had stopped logging out to a remote database just like the last time - Saturday 6th Novemeber. Rebooted the router and about half an hour later it was all working fine again. Obviously doesn't like Saturday's.

as above, airflow at each terminal and overall fan speed need controlling for both supply and extract. Plus any overhead you fancy to guarantee positive or negative pressure overall...

I don't understand how that's relevant. 708 section 5 is about output tax when a VAT registered entity sells a building either as freehold or on a long lease. So if your SPV is going to own the building and sell it to you, it could be VAT registered, reclaim the input tax (5% for labour / supply & fit, 20% for materials), then charge 0% VAT when it sells to you. But up-thread you said there's no stamp duty implications and it sounds like your SPV is just going to design & build with you as owner/client. If so then your SPV will not be selling you a freehold/lease so that section of the VAT Notice is irrelevant? Instead your SPV will be a "normal" service provider so will have to charge 5% VAT on all services to you in line with the earlier section of the VAT notice which as @Temp says you may then be able to claim back from the self-build scheme. But in the latter case your SPV would have to be charging you enough of a markup to show that the entity/VAT registration was for the purposes of "trade". And therefore you will have to pay corporation tax on that profit inside the company, and presumably dividend/income tax to get the profit back out of the company. Bear in mind that for the self-build reclaim (unlike business VAT returns) HMRC see & check every VAT receipt and I would think are likely to be extremely curious about a claim for a single end-of-project invoice, especially if they then identify that the supplier is a close company/controlled by you. Which seems like a very convoluted & risky way to go just for the sake of speeding up the cashflow of input tax recovery.

Agree in part, but I've run plasterers and decorators on my private ( high-end ) jobs and accept that a plastered finish will be 99% 'there' and will need some help to get it 100%. This is even more acceptable on sites where the lighting is not already in place, and the plaster is relying on mobile lights. When I say sand / fill I'm not on about mixing 6 kilo's of the stuff, and most times just a quick pole sand and some minimal spot-filling is all it takes to get it over the finish line.

When a bouncer doesn’t let you in Bob because your wearing trainers and you need to wear shoes, what you don’t do is go home and change to another pair of trainers hoping you’ll still get in.

Can I suggest something? There is a danger of losing our interest when we make suggestions but you don't appear to be listening or agreeing. Not agreeing is ok, but do say. How about you do as we have collectively suggested? Take a week to look at nearby buildings, new and old,that can be your guidelines. Then you can choose elements that suit what you want to do, and the planners will have your references when assessing it.. Also look online at recent applications. The drawings and discussions will be a huge help to what they are accepting and what you like yourself. I predict less stone and slate than they are suggesting. Have you looked at the P and K Planning portal ? Then send us some pics and a summary of what you have found out.

No, these are 2 separate issues. Drains are encased in gravel normally, but the gravel is replaced by concrete under loads such as roads. This is a small amount of concrete to spread any loading away from from the pipe and prevent it from squashing. I would suggest that you mix up some concrete and use it to bed the pipe to level with control. Then the surround and cover can be poured from above, though still with care. You can use a semi-dry mix so it is almost like gravel, and will stay in place. For total control, you can then mix and hand place all the concrete. Slower work but you don't need much concrete. For economy place a plank parallel to the pipe and concrete against it. A contractor will want ready mix to pour in the trench, at your expense of course. The bco and se are making the standard assumption that loads spread down at 45 degrees from the edge of the load. so if your drain is well below the footing then that would apply. Except that you say you are founded on chalk, so the loads are not going to spread through the fill at all, but into the chalk. You might point that out, and save the concrete bed and surround. This drain concrete surround would not prevent differential movement, hence i still think you are to allow movement through the wall. It is low risk in your situation, so just check what they want and do whatever. But try first to return to gravel.

Incase anyone else gets the same symptoms on a greenstar 4000 After back and forth with plumber vs Bosch 2nd Bosch visit heat exchanger was replaced and this looks to have sorted the issue!

I'm using 50mm APR (acoustic partition roll) in all studs after seeing on here not to touch each side. Soundbloc on all important walls between bathrooms and bedrooms. On all ceilings from lower floors I'm using Soundbloc 15mm then normal 12.5mm pb minimum 100mm insulation. On my main lounge which has the master bedroom above I'm using two sheets as above plus mounting the pb on resilient bars plus 100mm APR. As said I'd rather use more on a specific room and be happy I've done as much (within the bounds of normal) as possible. Forgot to add I got 100 sheets of 2.7m high soundbloc for 4 quid a sheets. That's why I'm using so much.

Hope your ready for sweating in summer, there will be quite a bit of solar gain and heat loss in the winter Try - Roof Maker.

Have a chat to velux commercial. I've only ever used them once but you may get closer to your dream than you think for not much different money to an off the shelf solution. Worth a try 🤔

This is pretty much how I ended up with mine. The pink block being replaced with 2x thermolite blocks, I also did the upstand in 70mm PIR. So the sidewards u value across the threshold, ends up in the region of 0.2.

Only for supply and fit - there has to be an element of labour included for zero rating.

Just wanted to tell about my long and hard fought planning battle to finally get approval for anyone else in a similar situation who's losing hope. I bought a plot of land in a development area of a town with FPP for a traditional detached house back in 2020. I then worked with an architect to create a new highly contemporary design that better suited my needs and preferences and submitted it to the LPA, optimistically expecting a decision in 8 weeks time. There were no objections from the local town council nor any technical objections. The plot isn't in a conservation area, AONB or in any other special zone which might cause planning issues. Myself and my planning consultant expected this to be a quick and simple application. My planning consultant had an initial call with the case officer who said they didn't see any issues. All seemed good so far. Then a month later, after chasing the CO again, they came back and said that they had decided that there was no way they could give us approval for the house as it was too out of character for the area and that there was nothing we could do, revise or prove to change their mind. We argued that it wasn't out of character for the area, and that the same case officer had actually themselves approved several applications for contemporary houses nearby and written in their reports that there was no overriding architectural style in the area. They told us to argue it at appeal. At this point, I contacted the head of the LPA who seemed confused why the CO was refusing to allow us to even submit any additional evidence to show that it wasn't out of character. The CO reluctantly relented and said we now could submit additional evidence. I went all out on this - I had drone surveys mapping the whole area showing the house would be completely screened from the road, additional consultants came in to conduct character reviews of the local area, numerous additional architectural drawings etc. Upon informing the CO that all additional evidence would be submitted the following week, they replied and said they'd changed their mind about allowing additional evidence and were going to just reject the app. I contacted the head of the LPA about this to complain a few days later, who replied saying that the CO had actually just quit their job, we would be assigned a new CO and they'd be happy to review any additional evidence. A friendly local councillor passed on information about why we were having so much difficulty with this app - a local married councillor duo, who had a reputation for 'shouting the loudest' to get their own way, were doing everything they could to get the LPA to reject my app. At the town planning committee when my app was discussed, they had said they wanted to prevent all contemporary houses from being built and were apparently outraged that the committee sided with me and voted to raise no objection. This was their revenge. The new CO was far more amenable - he wanted to work with us to tweak the design to something he felt he could then approve. We spent two months going back and forth with designs and changes until he finally said that he was satisfied and would write a report giving us approval. This was about 7 months after the application was originally verified. I was obviously very pleased with this outcome and patiently awaited their report. A month passed before we followed up with them to see how they were getting on. Imagine our surprise when we were informed that this CO had also quit two days ago and we'd now get a third CO. The third CO looked at the original plans and the redesigns and said he much preferred the original plans to the redesigned version and would be happy to approve it with some minor tweaks, which we happily obliged. He then began writing his report recommending approval, and we waited and hoped this one wouldn't quit too. A month passed and we received confirmation his report was ready and just needed to be signed off by their line manager. A few weeks later and we find out there's a problem - the line manager refuses to sign off on it and tells him to re-write it as a refusal, stating 'overlooking' as the reason. This particular line manager is known to be friendly with married councillor duo. We obviously push back very hard on this as we have 3d drone surveys showing that overlooking is not possible, and that there is substantial distance between neighbouring properties which are well above guidelines for new builds anyway. I once again get the head of LPA involved and the line manager agrees to at least to do a site visit with the CO. At the site, the line manager begrudgingly admits defeat and allows the recommendation for approval. It's a little over a year since the app was verified. The journey's not over yet though, as it turned out that a ward councillor had called in the app to committee when it was first submitted but had gone unnoticed due to the multiple CO changes. I felt reasonably confident going into the committee though - we had an officers recommendation for approval, there was no 5 year housing supply in the area so development was favoured, and I wrote a very strong speech putting forward my case. At the committee I gave my speech and then listened the councillors debate. To my horror, this was when I found out that councillors don't actually bother to review planning documents for applications they're voting on - multiple councillors said they couldn't support it because they didn't know what materials would be used (despite all materials been listed numerous times in the docs) and one even saying they couldn't support it based on architectural drawings as they wanted illustrations (but there were multiple CGIs submitted in the docs). In the end, 4 councillors voted to refuse the app (2 were the married couple duo who said nothing during the debate and the other said they 'didn't like it' as their reason) but that was enough to overturn the CO recommendation as so many others abstained. Not willing to give up after how much work had already gone into this, I had my planning consultant start work on the appeal. We submitted a 50 page rebuttal of the committees one reason for refusal (contemporary design would be out of character). The LPA barely even tried to justify the committee decision, they submitted a 3 paragraph argument, seemingly acknowledging that they were fighting a lost cause. 6 months later and just in time for Christmas, we received the Inspectors report that the appeal was allowed. Almost exactly two years to the date after the app was first verified. The two year battle cost me ~£30k and building costs have gone up ~£300k during that time (the GDV has gone up by more than this but it is still painful). It was worth it in the end though to finally be able to build the house I want to build. Just wanted to tell my story for anyone else who's in a similar struggle at the moment and advise you to just keep pushing forward.

plywood to cover treated timber in cavity. This is how ive just done this one.

I know it not realistic. As do you and anyone with half a brain. So why say it? However, if you are a gas company, and the PM is spouting this nonsense, would you not revise your plans, investment and maintenance accordingly? Its going to be quite a difficult business to exit without going bust in the process. Where do you even start with winding down an infrastructure system the size and complexity of the gas network.

Plus another one. For my temporary accommodation in self build site I converted a farm shed with uneven concrete slab. Dpm, sand strategically placed to stop the 100mm butted insulation boards from rocking, then a raft of 2 layers criscrossed of 12mm construction ply screwed together, floating on the insulation boards. Solid.

Yes would be fine as the compressive strength of the insulation and the jointing of the floor would spread the load across a wide area. 2 layers of 18mm bonded and screwed together is going nowhere fast !

Using EPS will be more forgiving to bumps than PIR. Cheaper too if you have the height to accomodation the extra depth for the same U Value. You could mix some cement into the sand like a biscuit mix to prevent it moving when the boards go down. Alternatively. DPM, Insulation boards in 2 layers. Slip membrane Pumped screed, this can be as little as 35mm AFAIK and will remove any small undulations of the floor .

It’s a pity really that your experience has tarnished your view of architects. Were they registered or just posing as architects? My own opinion is that - yes there are some very bad architects out there but equally there are some bad architectural designers who not only cannot draw a straight line with a ruler but often dupe their clients into believing that they are architects when they are not. There also some very good architects and architectural designers out there who will deliver a project to their client’s requirements and within a budget. You just need to do your research and due diligence. I’m fed up to the back teeth with the stereotypical view of architects as Del Boy and Arfur Daley types who turn up to meet their clients in a sheep-skin coat smoking a cigar in a second hand Jag. Give us a break. As an architect - yes - a real one - I frequently meet people who tell me that their “architect” can do a brilliant job for next to nothing. Turns out the drawing is on the back of a fag packet and couldn’t be built in a month of Sundays - but - and here’s the but - “it only cost me £300”. Money talks and your average Joe Blogs would rather spend a couple of grand on a new TV than pay for a proper professional service. By his own admission the SE above brings in an architect for “the flair”. I really despair when design is seen as something that is bolted on. It should be part of the process. And to say that an architect and an architectural technologist are “equally good” is just ludicrous - a good architect will save you money by designing a project that not only has “the flair” built in but is an asset not to mention the years of training an architect does compared to a couple of years for a technologist. And if only an architect’s PI Insurance was to protect an architect from a building being “too ugly” or letting water in the profession wouldn’t need to carry an PII at all. I think many posters on this forum need to educate themselves on what an architect is and what an architectural technologist is and what jobs they do and what roles they play in the construction process.