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To make sure the roof leaks in future I imagine. 😮‍💨

WHAT temperature does she need to be comfortable? In a well insulated house, forget the concept of fast heat. A properly well insulated house will keep it's heat for a very long time, so forget the old concept of turn the heating on in the morning (when you might well want it to heat quickly) and turn it off at bed time and let the house cool down overnight. A well insulated house simply does not work like that. It heats up and stays warm. So just choose what temperature she wants and set it. It does not matter if on first heat up it takes a while to get there. It barely cools down any overnight so takes little time in the morning to heat up again. Or just leave the ASHP running 24/7 just controlled by a thermostat.

We have built what is called a butlers pantry its a separate room beside the kitchen, it has the biggest sink I could find, it will fit the full width tray from the oven for a soak, it also has the dishwasher in it. so prep and cook in the kitchen and chuck the pans into the pantry to hide because we have an open plan kitchen diner and don’t want to stare at pots and pans while we eat dinner. its a foreign idea normally used in America and Australia.

See Also I guess Granny is not going out much so will need heat 24/7 so I think most ASHP and UFH works on the principle of constant temps not neat up and cool down. Therefore a well designed ASHP system will work with additional Granny’s instant heating.

No in your case it's to the underside of the felt.

Hey everyone, Hope you’re all well! After 20+ years of dreaming, 3 years of searching and a couple of false starts , we’ve finally had our offer accepted on a 1.6 acre plot in North Devon. We’ve engaged a planning consultants to help, us with the change from 2, 2 storey houses on the plot to a single, 1 storey house. It’ll (hopefully) be about 6m by 56m with an attached greenhouse section and garage. Similar in style to the Ramon Esteve house in Spain. The plan is for us to do 90% of the work ourselves. ICF walls, sips roof, etc,etc. As with most people our budget is tight, and we expect to partially complete the house before moving in, then continue the internalls over the following couple of years (whilst being back at work). Looking forward to running some ideas past you, and hopefully incorporating the advise into our build to make things simpler and less expensive. Cheers

So I don't derail @Omnibuswoman's thread any further I've posted the plans and TMI in a new thread:

I'm a retiree who 8 years ago rebuilt the family home bought by my grandfather in 1929, an unheatable 4 bed flint and brick mid Victorian pile with just an aga and a fire in the lounge. Now its fully insulated, underfloor heating up and down and warm as toast. Never touched a building before that!

It won’t make any difference.

Well done! It's a critical and often overlooked detail.

I heard about a plastering contractor who wasn't getting paid for large housing estate. After much negotiation it was apparent the developer was going to leave him high and dry so his crew did one last days work. Shortly after the first house was sold the developer received a complaint that the house was making an intolerable beeping between 4-4:30am. Mystified, they eventually spent a night in the house and after much distruction they found a very annoying battery alarm clock inserted in a stud wall. Thinking he had won the petty battle the developer rang the plasterers to gloat. The plasterer apologized for forgetting the alarm and asked for his bill to be paid. The developer laughed at him. Soon the clients of the second house rang, and then the third. It turned out the plaster had "forgotten" several alarm clocks per house in the entire estate, all set for different days and times. When the second house was almost demolished to try to find the offending alarms the developer remorsefully called the plasterer. Paid him in full for his work and included a bonus in return for detailed map of the lost clocks.

You could just build a lightweight timber frame to support render carrier boards, like Bluclad. You could screw into the underside of the arch for support. You can then mesh / render the whole thing.

I did approach the SE, whose reply was “you need to seek the manufacturer’s specification for joist penetrations. Fortunately, Steico provide detailed tables for this, so I’ve been able to work out the suitability of the route for each run of pipe. I would have preferred the SE to have done this, but hey ho!

Not excessively hot and well within the capabilities of all heat pumps. Just a case of designing it correctly and making sure there are not too many losses though the fabric of the building.

I did our bedroom to passivhaus flow rates, the other bedrooms that are not normally occupied, so treated as single bedroom rates. 40 for ours and 20 for the others. Your wardrobe is likely to flow through the bedroom, so take away what ever goes in there away from your bedroom figure, so the total becomes 40. Increase your lounge figure, to 40 to 45. Is your dining part of the kitchen or a separate room? If part of the kitchen are you getting flow through that area via a doorway etc. Look at where the air goes in and the likely exit point, see if air will pass through areas so it provides the ventilation for free

I can't see a way to get a lintel where it needs to be without destabilising the arch in the process. Needle beams and props I think.

Well I did it on mine and on every cylinder I have wired. NOBODY should be using a 3 port mid position valve, the work of the devil. 2 or more 2 port valves for me always. I wired the hi limit stat in mine because that is what you are supposed to do, and one less thing for BC to find to fail it if they are looking hard enough. Just because a lot of people don't bother is not reason to copy them.

From water uk Design and Construction Guidance for foul and surface water sewers offered for adoption

The photos aren't very hi-res, but it looks like this was necessary; water reaching the timber is never good and could have lead to more serious and costly repairs later. On the other hand it's not good stripping so many tiles without asking first, if that's what happened. For an old roof like that, you'd ideally want to use old salvaged clay tiles, and maybe mix in the old with the new, though that would mean taking more off and cost more. As @saveasteading says, they'll tone down with age. Looks odd, but the photos are too small to be clear what's going on there. It wasn't. Yes, would have been useful. Decide how badly you want it to match the rest, and if you have the budget to pay for someone else to redo it. Or do like many of the rest of us do, and (re)do it yourself.

Just looked at my costings for the winter season, £486 for hot water and heating since September. 1936 built detached I’ve insulated, house sits at 21c. Over the moon with it.

Trying to sort out fact from opinion is difficult. You need facts to be informed. Something to read, my heat pump performance table for flow temp and outside temp, CoP and power needs. What you see at flow temps below 35 CoP is good at almost any outside temp. Another document that shows UFH output at different pipe centres and heat outputs at different mean flow temps. ASHP heat flow with delta T of 5 to 6, so the mean temperature is flow temp -2.5 to 3, when using table. W/m2 is highest heat demand, divided by the area of the floor.

@CalvinHobbes What room temperature are you trying to reach? This is what determines your heat source. You can if you want do a combination heating systems i.e. wet ASHP and an A2AHP. I was at my Mother's Care home yesterday, noticed that there is a number of ASHPs on the building. Had a little route about and it seems the place is heated with them, why the radiators do not seem hot, but they are near enough on all the time.

We removed the worktop and cabinets on the back wall to get the space back but this was where the sink was going. Our Island is quite big at 3.3m by 1.3m with 9 long drawers that swallow a lot of stuff. Plus full height wall cabinets. The downside was the need to put the sink on the island. Yet to be determined how it will all work. It did also save £5000 in cabinet’s and stone worktop. We have a big utility room in the room next door so big stuff to be washed will go in here rather than in the main kitchen sink. This is what we’ve always done in previous houses so it’s something we’re used to.

People gather around an island and the sink can be a messy place, plus all that extra plumbing. It's a no from me and many other

We have gone a bit off piste and fitted two sinks. a small nice looking thing for veg chopping and prep, then a dirty big one for washing up.

Personal preference, but if the hob is on the island then it could get very cluttered there and look very cluttered as well. The idea fleetingly crossed our minds in the planning stages because it seemed to be the new ‘in thing’. On closer contemplation it would have been a big mistake so I’m glad we went all conventional and had the hob on the island and the sink on the wall behind it.

Old house sink on the island. New house, sink on the wall and hob on the island. Far better for many reasons. Less mess, more sociable when cooking, looks neater etc.

Question, why would a sink be more messy in an island? (And don’t be sorry for asking questions).

There is no requirement for planning permission for any heating method other than ASHP (and even then only if you already have a wind turbine or a second ASHP fitted). Unless there is a planning condition specifically requiring the use of an ASHP what you decide to do is completely up to you. I have driven a rental Renault Zoe and I can quite see how it could leave a bad taste. I've driven many EVs since and they are all much better. Many of them significantly better than any ICE vehicle. Don't let a crappy implementation put you off a good concept. As for whether an ASHP is going to lead to high bills or a cold house there are too many variables for us to comment properly. There is some real world data available here: https://heatpumpmonitor.org 1. Radiators (oversized?) or hydronic (wet) underfloor heating? 2. What is the overall U-rating of the building fabric including transparent elements? 3. What is the air-tightness of the building? Do you have an MVHR fitted? What is the controlled ACH (air changes / hr) you are aiming for? 4. How thick is your screed? Is it insulated underneath? 5. What size ASHP did you go for? How many m3 is it having to deal with? 6. Where is your electricity coming from? Solar? Wind? Grid? Can you get on a TOU (time of use) tariff and set your heating controller accordingly? 7. What is your control strategy? (e.g. get it up to 21 degrees and let it sit there, juice it with cheap TOU or renewable energy when you can. Most of these considerations would apply regardless of if your source of heating was oil, gas or a heat pump using electricity to extract heat from the air. You will be fine with a well designed and fitted ASHP. There are also safety issues with other fuel sources that don't apply to ASHPs. If you are worried about being instantly able to change the heating you should take a look at infrared heaters. They respond almost instantly.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a flat or pitched roof. The new eaves cannot exceed the existing.

Hi and welcome. If the budget it tight, I would have thought the obvious answer was split the plot, that has PP for 2 houses, sell one half and build your house on 0.8 acres? Anything else and you are effectively paying for another building plot, just to get a bigger garden. a 56metre by 6 metre house is an odd form factor, not the most energy efficient, there must be a reason for that?

Only thing to watch is long lengths can have quite a pressure drop. Look on the internet for duct data sheets, most the good brands will have install guidance on max length and flow and how ducts you need. Makes it really simple. Coanda supply nozzles can allow you use much short lengths of duct, but depends on house layout if they are appropriate or not. The most difficult bit is the apportioning of flow in each room to get the correct balance between flow and extract. I found this useful

Yes. The only difference with PA is the increased depth from 3m to 6m or 4m to 8m.

You really don’t need much fall at all Tapers typically come in lengths of 4.8 meters and run at 45 mil -0

Also keep in mind you're not making the decision for just now, but for the next 10 years. The government needs to improve It's role out, and has to hit some form of co2 target in future. Once they've finished with the carrot (incentives), theyll pull out the stick.... Taxes, and they'll load up fossil fuels to incentives insulation and electric powered life styles(incl ashp)

Just a couple more points. Nobody from the local authority will be out measuring your building after completion. It will take a complaint by a neighbour / passerby thwt either really doesn't like the building, or knows the policies and can tell it's more than 2.5m from ground level. Finally, if it's few mm higher than the limit, nobody is going to make you rectify it. A metre, yes, 10mm, no.

As hardly anyone appears to install a drainage field as required, I wouldn't assume it is even there. How would we know where one was, as it is all buried unless there are drawings? I first typed 'a dirty video' then realised the water should be clean by there.

Get a camera survey done.

I had Part O calcs done for £200. I will DM you details.

All plumbing done. You can just about see our tundish behind the new OSO UVC. The small extension to the consumer unit contains the 240VAC power relays to switch the Immersions and the slab Willis and pump. Everything neat and tidy. Jan is a happy lady. We've also had a couple of deep baths to celebrate. Still got to tidy the last power lead. The shelf above is my "network rack" 🤣

Yes there should be a duty BC officer available to take queries but his answer will be to the book, only your normal attending officer can "interpret" the rules in a more flexible way.

Looking good I can see that you have made significant penetrations in your I-joists. Holes may be cut in I -beams but only in accordance with manufacturer's guidelines/rules - see typical guidelines at https://elliotts.uk/ideas-and-advice/i-joist-faqs Have these penetrations been checked by your SE for each specific location to see if acceptable ?

Might not be criminal damage if your contract says all materials supplied remain your property until invoice is paid for? Perhaps add something about right of access to collect them?

I've not studied part O but perhaps overhangs and or external shutters can be used to help meet the regs?

Absolutely. But when a client says" I'm not paying, what are you going to do about it?" this perhaps is very tempting. He is never going to get paid. I've met a few small builders who have had this. One went back and demolished the porch he had not been paid for, but only after discussion failed. The rich go to court. The poor, and becoming poorer, get the sledge out.

I like elements of your design and you sound very committed to renovation but the VAT saving on knock down and rebuild for a project this size would be substantial and, as others have said, simplify any build. It would probably be easier to get builders to quote for and those quotes might be more reliable too. Are you sure you've explored that option fully?

Massing is too over-bearing with too much roof. Not a fan of the elevations - they’re too fussy with too many different material used. There doesn’t seem to be much left of the existing house. Looks like a new build to me. Not a fan of having the kitchen open to the staircase - dangerous. Have you consulted BC about a protected staircase? The garden room is a bit twee.

For me it was roughly 3 weeks from application to receiving the grant approval and I made a claim once the ASHP etc. were installed which was 7 months after the grant approval. Funds paid out within a week of putting in the claim. Timing is key as you don't want to apply too early and have the clock run out and then have to reapply.

But an ASHP will do DHW as well with a COP of 3 - 4.

'ello! I've done something almost the same as you describe, in Groundwater Source Protection Zone 1. So the short answer is: yes. The Environment Agency don't like the use of infiltration tunnels, as they allow treated effluent to infiltrate over a smaller area in plan view, even if the surface area in three dimensions is the same. As you've probably discovered the infiltration isn't part of BS6297, although I believe Graf are working with the BSI to have it added as an acceptable option in future. The EA will allow their use if it can be demonstrated that a standard infiltration field or mound isn't practical, and that there is no possibility of discharging to surface water (ie a ditch, stream, or surface water sewer). In my case we couldn't fit an infiltration field in the space available unless it was to be outside the planning redline, uphill, and involving pipe runs going back under the house after having been through the treatment plant. The space that we had was limited owing to root protection areas, the required margins around habitable buildings, and the fact that a right of access was granted by title, over which a farmer needed to drive 50t machinery. Our infiltration tests came out favourably (vp 19.8). I haven't looked up the One2Clean PTP, but we specified a Solido Smart and tertiary treatment via Tricel Puraflo modules. Once we had an assigned officer for our permit application at the EA, they suggested that they'd grant the permit without the tertiary system being necessary because whatever levels the Solido Smart emitted were clean enough. Of course, they encouraged use to use the tertiary system and were trying to give us flexibility, and we intend to install the tertiary system even if it is overkill. The folks at Graf were very helpful in providing documentation and detailed sizing calculations that the EA appreciated receiving. Graf know that their customers face a bit of hurdle using the product, and have experience in helping people negotiate permit application. Given that we're in Groundwater Source Protection Zone 1, there is no higher level of treatment required unless you're within 50m of drinking water borehole. So if you're anywhere other than that, it is indeed possible to get a permit to discharge to ground. If you can demonstrate that infiltration tunnels are the only viable option, it is realistic to be granted a permit to use some. FWIW I phoned about five different drainage consultancies, and every single one of them said "Groundwater source protection zone 1? No chance, mate!" They were all wrong.