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Can see tap access if it fails will be a dog . So did a mock-up . Cut out the unit to the right for access - washer goes here so no issue .

If you can afford it, it's a good idea to get someone to do the modelling before you build. This allows you to adjust window sizes, overhangs and shading to get things to a place where you are happy with sizes and overheating risks. If you don't do this then yes, i) your windows might be smaller than they needed to be, or you might need to retrofit shading after the fact which is less than ideal etc. This same modelling will give you an idea of what your heating costs will be given your chosen level of insulation as well as if active cooling may be required/desirable. For this exercise to be worth doing and for you to be confident in the results, then it needs to be done properly, ideally by someone who has experience and done it before. Then, once you are ready to build it is a separate decision you need to take in terms of certification. At this point, you've already got the value out of the modelling and the reasons to certify would be i) the certification itself (minimal value unless it's important to you) ii) the fact it enforces more rigour and quality control and so, the final build should be closer to what was modelled. That said if you are very hands-on and have the knowledge/experience you could achieve the same level of quality without certifying. The certification isn't the only way to achieve quality, but it's a good way if you are new to the game. For example, as part of the initial modelling thermal bridges weren't analyzed, but because we were planning to certify more effort went into ensuring thermal bridges were correct (between PH designer and MBC) than would have happened otherwise.

My current one is a portable thing I'm experimenting with, which can be installed in all sorts of ways. One of these: https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/airflex15/electriq-airflex15

2. Someone like: Dr. Rod Williams of Williams Energy Design https://passivehouse-international.org/memberSearchDetails.php?member_id=2349 No overlap with your Architect, Rod would do the thermal modelling and suggest/recommend improvements to you/your Architect. If you have some inherent design issues, say cold bridging at door thresholds, you'll need to decide who re-designs this area, who has the expertise in your chosen build method. 3. Full detail is required unfortunately. There's not a short cut. 4. Then you paying for it twice, and hoping you meet targets with a guestimate.

EDF put a smart meter in for me, and I have E7. I do wish companies would not use the terms Engineer and Electrician interchangeably. The person who comes around to play with the meter is probably has a technicians certificate.

Yes. The indoor and outdoor fans stop until the cycle competes.

Is it possible to vacuum extract chopped fibreglass from a 50mm cavity and then have it replaced with blown beads? Recent renovation work has uncovered areas of the cavity that are poorly filled, and as this is our forever home, I’m keen to have the insulation replaced with something that’s going to last long term. Not concerned about moisture as it’s rendered blockwork.

I did a thread starting in summer 2022 about this, with some background (including a rude joke about Boris Johnson.) I will add a few more recent notes on this thread. TL:DR - at under £400 it's imo a bit of a steal, even if you just use it as a portable dehumidifier / heater / cooler. Remember that there is a Wi-Fi controllable version. If you install it with a direct external outlet, you are looking at a 200mm hole in your wall - which is BIG. Here:

@Nic Has sent me a PM and I've replied. I'd encourage you to post publicly as people can check my workings and hit me over the head with a metaphorical mallet I'm spouting nonsense.

I too had a neighbour that reported me fir starting without planning, in fact i was doing other work on site not covered by planning, I got to know the enforcement officer quite well (he knew about the neighbours beef) so before I did anything I would ring him and tell him what I was doing that day so when the neighbour rang him he would back me up .

ahh...it's Windows only. if I can manage to find the time to get a Windows VM running on my Mac I'll download it and give it a go.

@Ferdinand, I was wondering about one of those. Presumably you have to get the optional hose kit and either dangle it out of a window or drill a hole of the requisite size? Any 'learning from experience' gratefully received. Thanks.

you are indeed "I am absolute b*llocks."

Ahhh I see ! I fitted the osb to the unit then fitted the tap - so that I know the hole and access is all good 👍

Welcome welcome. I do like small houses. You could post a few of your plans here (deidentified) and I could have a gander. I did my own PHPP and it isn't too tricky really for simple house. Jeremy's Harris's spreadsheet is probably just as useful in reality. Passivhaus isn't a perfect standard however and it favours larger buildings. Small single story houses can be tricky to meet the standards as they have lots of surface area Vs their volume. Have a look at these examples. https://passivehouse-database.org/index.php?lang=en#d_6778 https://passivehouse-database.org/index.php?lang=en#d_5132 https://passivehouse-database.org/index.php?lang=en#d_2096 https://passivehouse-database.org/index.php?lang=en#d_4466 You'll note that they often need extremely low U-Values for certification. Far below 0.1W/m2K in many cases. No problem in that itself ( I'm all for insulation) but it may not be needed for passivhaus performance. The problem is better explored here. The small passive house problem - a solution? - passivehouseplus.ie The passivhaus 10W/m2/annum was designed around forgoing a central heating system so is rather arbitrary, much like the 20deg living temperature and the assumed occupation rates. It's an excellent standard and I'm a total advocate of the methodology but don't tie yourself to certification without being informed of it's drawbacks.

Why not put a lintel across the porch and build up in solid rendered rendered blockwork?

We had a granite worktop installed by Stone Source in Inverness. They gave me a few minutes to fit the tap into the worktop before they then bonded the undermount sink to it.

@Pocster Good thinking. have you tried to install the tap with the OSB in place? I found with most worktop fitters (assume your having some solid worksurface) wont allow you to mess around installing the tap, they just fit the top and leave you to it after they have left.

Agreed. It is ancillary to the house. They'll tell you if they don't agree.

Not minerals or car parks?

I'd stick to residential (dwelling houses) and enlargement, improvement or alterations as an LDC should be half the normal flat rate fee (so £103 now I think) . If you go off into "other" it'll be complicated as the fees are worked out differently. Ultimately the Council will check the fee and query/refund if it's wrong.

Yeah, we found it 'interesting' positioning a 1.5 sink, and tap infront of the window with a flying mullion. It's all good fun.

You can achieve near Passivhaus like levels in a build without going through the whole process. For walls, windows, foundation, roof and airtightness you can spec passivhaus levels of materials. The successful implementation of all this is what is key. Neither your architect or PHPP consultant will really be much help there. If you have gone for passivhaus levels of insulation, the other area that might need some attention is overheating in the summer from solar gain. This is why most passivhaus designs have overhangs for the south and west facing windows. As @IanR says, there are no short cuts to actual Passivhaus certification.

I've done quite a bit of research this weekend and £7999 doesn't sound bad. I expect that is providing all radiators are good enough and there is no extra insulation required. Thanks for your help Ferdinand

Is this what you mean? I think the plumber only used 32mm waste forbadin and shower, is that OK? I chucked a few jugs of water down both and the flow out seemed OK.

it'll be absolutely fine. 18mm WBP ply, will last a LONG time as I know from our shuttering, we ended up reusing it many times for other things after.

Take those two clips off the joist. Manoeuvre the pipe to where you want it to be, replace the clips. Looks like you have enough play in the plastic pipe

1. Talk on site and discuss 2. follow up with an e mail 3. Follow on with drawings, specification, contact numbers for local council, copies of any consent you have to connect to sewer. Whitin the first minutes of driving away from a meeting I would probably get another call from another client follow up everything, I’m afraid your just another punter in the long list of punters. The squeaky wheel gets the oil.

Unless you specifically mentioned connection to sewer or treatment plant etc. then it wouldn’t have been included as this would be an unknown.

No, they were just an optional extra unless you had a hybrid system, in which case they became mandatory. But you got paid a bit extra from the RHI scheme if you had a heat meter fitted.

If plastic then no problem moving them, the plastic will not rupture or split unless you fold it, if you need to bend or re bend the copper then it takes a bit more humpf and practice

The Structural surveys completed for planning or paid for by the applicant, who of course is paying for a survey that states the building is capable for conversion. If there's any doubt, I'd suggest you getting your own survey so that you can rely on it. My own LPA is very prescriptive about how much of the original building must remain within the new conversion, and have been known to put a stop notice on a conversion if challenges are met during the build that may change what was stated at the planning stage. What conditions are there on the OP? Brown field sites would normally require a contamination survey prior to commencement. It may get no further than a Stage 1, where there is a desktop search completed and a site walk-over. Has this already been done as part of the planning? If not, it maybe worth getting Stage 1 completed so you know if it highlights any risks that will need to be investigated further. The Stage 2 surveys can cost in the £5K - £10K range, so it's good to know if it needs to be budgeted for, and remedial actions could need a big chuck of budget. Next for me would be assessing the difficulties in getting utilities to the site. Difficult to get costs prior to you owning the site, but if you know your going to have to bring power and fibre 500m across fields, then you need a figure for it in your budget. Have you investigated the option for re-applying for planning to swap to a knock-down and rebuild? The LPA may consider it, unless the building has historic value. Converting agricultural buildings is typically a compromise that will either cost more to complete or perform poorer than an equivalent new build.

Heat meters are a thing - see @ReedRichards description. Smart meters that automatically send the data to your energy supplier are a thing. There just needs to be the framework (and cash) to set up the scheme. Heat meters were already required to be fitted for the now defunct RHI scheme. But that scheme didn't tiw in with consumption, you were just paid a fixed price for the amount of heat you generated. So the innovation is just around how you calculate the bill. I did a quick fag packet estimate a while ago. I think the subsidy over 5 years for a typical UK house achieving a SCOP of 2.5 is around £2,500 (very round numbers). This is about the recent uplift of the BUS grant from £5k to £7.5k. So from a cost point of view this scheme could have been added to the original £5k install grant for no more(ish) than the cost of making the grant £7.5k plus you could recoup extra from a tax on gas bills.

I would ask the planners what you need to do for them to agree you have started. The law just refers to "development" but in many cases they want. 1 ) All planning conditions that say "before work starts" or similar to get formally discharged. Otherwise your start isn't legal. 2 ) BCO to have given approval to start (not necessarily plans spproval). 3) Foundations dug, inspected by the BCO and poured. If you want to do something else that might be considered development to avoid the 3 year limit expiring it is possible to apply for a Certificate of lawfulness on the grounds that work has started. For example I've seen a wind farm do this with just an entrance and the first 50m or so of road. Such a Certificate is really the only 100% guarantee you've started.

Some of those old analogue meters have a magnet on the disk, you can read the revolutions with a simple Raspberry Pi circuit. As for clip on ones, I used the old CurrentCost, but like all the clip ons, they only sense current, so no adjustment for voltage or power factor.

I had a bloke tell me that once but I proved he had been doing it WRONG for 20 years, never saw him again 😉

My cheap as chips r290 mini split really struggles when it’s below 5 outside. Put it on last night and it was defrosting within 20 mins…

Hi @Ferdinand - I had A2A installed earlier this year. 4 indoor Mitsubishi LN models and 2 outdoor. In my limited experience, the operating temperature range was ridiculously hard to find for various manufacturers / models. Here's a doc link that covers my units : https://les.mitsubishielectric.gr/uploads/document/full-product-2022_air-conditioner_5045.pdf. Hidden in those 143 pages is the Guaranteed Operating Range range of -15 to + 24 for heating of my units. I recall looking into Daikin as well as a few other bigger names and only discarded them in favor of better COP /SCOP of the Mitsubishi models so I think most of the big players were in the similar operating range. Temperatures where I am in the last week have barely topped 10C and last few days we're not going above 2C daytime and dropping to -4C overnight. The units are heating the place nicely - noticed a few more defrost cycles last night but that's not had any adverse impact. Would be nice to find the time to rig up some energy monitoring to see how the drop in temperatures is impacting energy use but that's low down on a long todo list.

Hello, good morning, and welcome my Fluffy friend ! My comments? 1 - Thinking and reflection time really matters - making mistakes is cheaper if it's in a thought experiment. 2 - Get into a habit of being curious about things outside your current experience - known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. 3 - See Buttercup's advice. Ferdinand

Here are a few ideas to get you started. No particular order because everything relates to everything else. A simple eyeball inspection. Where is it in relation to : neighbours (access ownership) , geology (slope, water table, wind, trees, clay, sand, ) all will have an effect on build cost. Services : no foul drain disposal - no house, where's the nearest electricity, water, fiber, phone Trees: TPOs? heave? age - survey them maybe Noise: downwind of a motorway, railway line, airport, Structure: look and worry ,or look and 'feel' its in good nick How far are you from a pond (newts or worse, GCNs) . Or bats, or anything fluffy that ecologists pretend to look after? Technical :by that I mean any dicipline which attracts Professional Indemnity Insurance Structural Survey: choose a surveyor with great care - ask for a fee proposal and an exact definition of the aspects to be surveyed - from at least three reputable firms Law: usual stuff - boundary disputes? access rights Do you need an architect - or architectural technician? Ground around the barn iffy? Wet, dry .... get a reputable ground worker Which surveyour does your mortgage company use (if relevant) Ask around. Who knows what about the history of the place? Estate Agent? Network in the local pub - emphasis on work and listening Best of luck, Ian

Let me add a couple of comments. 1 - We have our own Heat Model spreadsheet written by a former member, which many have found useful. Here: 2 - I often think that the easy way to upgrade your radiator is to upgrade from single to double panels as often as needed. Less new plumbing required. OTOH redoing radiators and pipework can be quite cheap - the last house (I am an LL) I did replacing all the radiators and pipework was only slightly more than a Powerflush. 3 - I think your £499 British Gas number indicates £7999 minus the grant which goes direct to the supplier. 4 - When you get your EPC done, ,make sure you can prove all your good insulation points, and discuss beforehand with your EPC consultant. If it is not proven (eg 2G performance, possibly cavity insulation) they quite often have to make low-value assumptions, which can slug your number. F

So I received 2 council tax bills. One for 22-23 one for 23 -24. Total £9k+ The old house that I bought in April 22 was in shit state and was going to be demolished from the start. I ignored them for a while due to being flat out on my build then last week I got a final demand and threatened with court action in 14 days. After a few sleepless nights I took the bull by the horns and spent a couple of hours writing a letter and printing lots of date stamped photos and took on the next battle with my scanner and sent them a lengthy email describing why I think I shouldn't pay any council tax. I sent the hard copies by recorded snail mail then left it a couple of days before calling them. Result !! I don't have to pay anything for the first year and only have to pay for the time elapsed after one year up to demolition date. so effectively 2.5 months. long term empty rate. I will wait for confirmation of the first reductions then go back and argue the toss about the 2 and a half months which wouldn't have occurred if the council hadn't delayed me for months waiting for a section 106 to be printed out. They also said we get 3 months free after completion. This may take a while. 😜

Frame built around it - check photos

Insulate them. Not difficult, just needs to be got on with. The question you are really asking is 'who pays'. In all cases it needs to be the property owner. Stop all the grants and incentives and legislate for improvements. Let the market sort itself out, no one is forced to buy a house.

Some info on our experience. We started with 3.1kW of PV and could self consume that with ease, very little went to the grid, but we are home all the time. Next we added a further 3.6kW, ran the ASHP in cooling mode, that consumed most of it, everything else went to an immersion. But on a sunny day electric still made its way to the grid. We had loads of 80 deg water that we didn't really need. Our first array has optimisers, due to tree shadow, our second doesn't and doesn't need them. Optimisers only really worth it if you have known shadow issues. We now have a battery 17kWh usable. This is a useful tool, better than water, yesterday from 11am to midnight we used no grid electric, battery charged by PV (not fully, but enough to back fill our usage). By midnight the usable energy was depleted. However due to heavy rain all weekend no battery charging was done and very little PV energy went to the house about 1kWh each day.

I talk bollocks also