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I don’t think it is off topic, see I prefer “cottage” not “contemporary “ but it would be boring if we were all the same. I would argue mine is not a boring “box” (although nearly square). It was brilliant to live in, ticked all my boxes and cost very little to run, what’s not to like (shame the judge took it from me 🤯) any way this was my “boring box”…..

I think we're actually in agreement. It's both the design (shape, features) and build method that contribute to cost. Your point about doors is a good example. Another one would be ceiling height, or anything else where going beyond standard dimensions could lead to a lot of waste.

I'm not quite sure how I did it either. I'm sure there's a repayment lined up somewhere! My oldest son loves the mountains, so we're off to the wilderness of northern Sweden for a while, then mainly to Austria to explore there for the climbing, but as we're meandering, we'll be visiting France, Switzerland and Germany, possible nip over the Norway from Sweden too. Desparately need to finish packing, meanwhile I've got some backboxes and 1st fix cabling to do to that the bloody electricians 'forgot' so the plasterer can come in to finish boarding up and plaster a few rooms while I'm away - hard work this malarky

Hi all. I’m Alex, a career change into property for me after finally taking the plunge from the world of IT. I’ve been struggling to find suitable properties that are ripe for renovation. My main issue seems to be that people are willing to pay a premium for properties as they are looking to fix up and move in, as opposed to trying to make some kind of profit. This has been the case with auction houses as well as normal sales. I wanted to join these forums for when I manage to secure something, as the advice and knowledge people are willing to share here is great and will no doubt help along the way.

Absolutely this. If we get planning permission on our plot, it is in the grounds of a country estate with a couple of Grade II listed properties and a handful of cottages and converted barns nearby. We'll almost certainly end up with a more traditional exterior look but it will have a very modern interior and will be a timber frame Passivhaus.

Hi all, After 2 1/2 years 'discussing' with planning, in the final stages of detailing a replacement dwelling in oxfordshire before hopefully breaking ground in next few months. Have a number of questions regarding MVHR, HYbrid heat systems, single/ 3 phase etc. Ill try to return the favour here by answering any questions on tools, my mastermind topic!

Unless it is the genuine article, not the stuff that is in a blanket, it is never worth considering. Pretend it does not exist.

What do you mean by the dry type will take a lot longer. wet self leveling stuff they will be done in 2-3 hours, dry traditional they will be done in one day. hardly much longer. drying time will be longer, with traditional you will need to stay off it for a couple of days if it had an inhibitor in it when laid.

Under Planning and if you have PD rights, it would need to meet the rules for (Class A) extensions… https://www.planningportal.co.uk/permission/common-projects/extensions/planning-permission Under Building Regulations and to be exempt, the internal floor area should not exceed 30sq.m.

No wonder your build is not finished 🤷‍♂️

Don’t…..just don’t.

Only on the North side, “age” appropriate for the other sides.

France is interconnected directly to it's geographic neighbours (including the UK). The way I see it is that the problem lies with the European grid (tends to be point to point) which makes it hard to move electrons around (bulk transport). The Europe Supergrid will alleviate much of this problem, but it is still being built. I am not sure how the UK fits into the plans now, I suspect we will be a major part of it as we have a very robust electrical grid and we can take, or deliver vast amounts quickly, cheaply and efficiently. But the UK needs to spend close to £200bn on the National Grid infrastructure rapidly (short distant to distribution points) if we are to decarbonise. Or just build (expletive deleted) off big wind and solar farms next to existing power plants. It seems strange to me that to built/replaced existing industrial power generation infrastructure with renewable energy systems needs to go through planning. Imagine if you had to pay, to ask for permission, from the local council to change your old polluting car to a new EV, knowing that the default position would be refusal. How the (expletive deleted) did the UK get into this position, what kind of (expletive deleted) are we that we allow elected local councils to dictate, by refusal, national and economic infrastructure projects.

Thanks all. we also did a pre plasterboard (bare shell) 0.9, then a pre second fix test 0.42 We followed the advice re sealing the external MVHR ducts, it worked well enough, final result 0.47 ACPH. Electrician had to re feed wires through a duct during second fix due to a fault so looks like we didn’t seal it as well as we’d previously.

Reminds me of an incident when we still had a buy to let property. There was a leak in the roof, so I had a quickstage tower up to the roof and my roof ladder hooked over the roof for the repair. I left the house for the evening, taking with me the ladder that gave access to the scaffold. When I returned the next day, the roof ladder was not on the roof, but leaning against the scaffold. How did it get there. Then I noticed the white paint on it. It did not take much detective work to see the house a few doors down being painted. They thought it was okay to borrow it and then not even put it back on the roof and not bother to keep it clean. There are some cheeky b******s about.

The sister-in-law always brings her dogs 🙂

Yes same here. There are specialist brokers that will insure you which I did just yesterday. Our current insurer is NFUM and they wouldn’t insure us for buildings or contents until the house is fully complete. Fortunately they are allowing us to keep our various animals and farm vehicles insured with them.

We bought our plot with outline permission in ‘91. It had gone through and the planners fought us on detailed every step. Most unpleasant. We clearly suffered because we tried hard to plan a build that looked dead right for the road/village, meaning we had little to concede to let the planners feel they had won. A few years later we bought some field behind us for extra garden. The planners were just as difficult. A few years after that we decided to extend. Put in our plans with much gritted teeth and trepidation, despite again working hard to design for looking right and not disadvantaging anyone else. We were in for a shock. The planners were lovely, could not have been more helpful. They seemed to recognise that we were trying to do the right thing and they responded accordingly. They even made suggestions that improved our design. A few years after that we had cause to apply in the Lake District for conversion of part of a garden to parking space. In a conservation area and the National park. Again they were lovely and helpful. Our experience this year was also good. In fairness we tried hard to design a house which would look right for the area so maybe many would view our plans as lacking ambition, rather staid perhaps, but the planner put the time into feeding back on our pre app, we followed the suggestions made so I can’t but view their service to us as professional and helpful.

Had my insurance a good year before sign off. Just told them everything we had to do and the building works was ongoing. They weren't bothered. Never had self build insurance either.

It's possible. I was insured through Towergate for 2 years and now through Howden Insurance.

Oooooo Off my basic test these seem surprisingly good . I like that the centre screw ( the one taking the load ) can be of your choice and even placed in at an angle if need be . So some play . Enough work for today - tomorrow I will attempt mounting on the wall ….

we also had a balcony that was causing issues with height and finished floor level. the architect's solution was a hybrid roof in that area. we had an interstitial condensation analysis done and it was ok. it was the only way to get a decent level of insulation. initially they'd specified vacuum sealed insulation panels but they're stupidly expensive and very hard to work with. so the hybrid solution was cheaper and gave similar levels of insulation.

ahh...ok so yeah i understand not wanting to raise it further! ours was a floor level window so raising it 300mm or so wasn't a big deal. our roofer recommended the Alwitra solution and he raved about it. for me, i got a 25yr insurance backed guarantee so that was good enough for me! happy to let someone else make that decision for me as i had plenty others to focus on

Welcome! If you can't find what you're after by searching, ask in the relevant sub-forum and help will be along soon.

Why bother extracting, can you not just recirculate, via a grease and carbon filter? Then the air comes out at you kick board.

Given complete free range I’d have had a basement, but we didn’t actually need the space; I’d probably hardly ever use that beloved full sized snooker table, or the drop down scalextric track above it; it would probably badly bust our budget; and we’re building on very sandy soil v close to neighbours 100+ year old foundation free crumbling, timber frame houses. I can dream.

I do not lend anything or borrow anything.

😂 We would have loved to have done that. Our plot would have been a great site for such a design. Our initial rough drawing was a small longhouse as a top storey so the bit you see and the next two floors beneath it buried in the hill with the bottom floor extending forward into the site. Inspired by the Grand Design couple that spent £100k digging the hole in the side of the hill. We ruled it out because the cost/risk profile was too high for us, I couldn’t find a groundswork company that had done anything like it up here and we were advised it would be hard to get through planning. Two long rectangles it was then 😂

Building underground simplifies things …. 🙄😆🤣

Not necessarily the standard, but it's acceptable. I initially went for OSB on my garden room build but I wasn't happy with the variances in thickness from board to board considering I would be putting a nice flat EPDM membrane over them. Switched to exterior grade plywood.

Nothing wrong with simple forms 😉 Extra points for simple forms and Passivhaus 🤣

@Dave Jones With respect Dave, can you ease up on tearing holes in our design. I hate our Architect with a passion, but we're generally very happy with the overall design. I could do without anything else to feel negative about right now.

I agree, mine was 10m x 12m, longest side facing South with bifolds and conservatory, North side smaller windows, not quite passive but close, needed very little heat input and easy to build.

Discussed here as well. 4.02kΩ ±1%.

By doing all that, you could be adding inefficiencies to the design. Hence cost more to build. Using none standard doors can double the cost of doors for example. A simple cube is the most efficient from a building perspective you need way less insulation, you have less area to make airtight etc. is that what the OP wants? What I am trying to say is two very similar designs, one can cost lots to build or the other comparatively less, depending on how they are designed to be built.

cranked ceilings are a massive pain, if you remove the insulation at the corner to allow airflow you will have a cold spot and black mould. could allways fit a single room MVHR unit to take care of the humidity.

As above At the moment They are thinking of a number and doubling it Worse case scenario GW companies can easily loose money Muck away can cost a small fortune At least with a foundation design You can be pretty accurate with what needs to come out and what needs to go back in

Don't ever do that. There has to be an approved thickness of intumescent paint, usually white, and it has to be sealed with the official top coat. This can be coloured by the manufacturer.

You are asking for quotes to get a feeling for the cost, as they can't give firm quotes without a design. Thus these are guesses, some high maybe some low. There may be a bigger contractor with the experience to estimate this fairly accurately. They might spare it a couple of hours to do this, but it would still only be a guide not a firm offer. Also please note: word will get round that you are asking multiple contractors. Only one can get the job and a proper quote costs them time and money. Just go to 3 or 4. Assume somewhere in the middle for now, but get it designed.

You need to get several quotes but you also need your full SE foundation design and drainage plans. None of the groundsworks companies I contacted would quote without it. As for the cost it does look horrendously high. Our site was similar to yours also requiring a 30m retaining wall and the total cost was £67k which included a treatment plant, drainage field and rainwater attenuation.

@Gus Potter Which part of that answers or gives your opinion on the OP’s query? We all know why regulations are in place.

We have a similar setup, with a 5 cu m rainwater tank just below ground level, with a Stuart Turner jet pump and pressure-sensitive control switch, conceptually the setup works fine for a two-story house even with a longish suction line. The response to a tap being turned on is pretty instantaneous as I think the elasticity of 25+ m of 20mm underground delivery pipe provides something of a buffer. It only runs when water is being drawn off so its consumption is not a problem even when we are running off our battery after dark. The pump stopped achieving adequate pressure and after fruitlessly replacing the controller with one from Clark it took a lot of further effort to discover the reason was a hairline crack in the plastic impeller shroud which was I think causing a sufficient internal leak to negate the jet pump action. This was the second time it had failed, previously I had had to replace it because of a leaking shaft gland but at least I had enough bits left to make one working pump again. They are only warranted for 1 year and no spares are available, Stuart Turner buy them in from the Far East and regard them as non-repairable (and their customer service was rubbish) so if it fails again I will replace it with a similar jet pump from DAB as it has a 2-yr warranty and you can get spares for it. So I would think this DAB pump would suit your application pretty well, and installed above ground is more accessible than a submersible.

As mentioned in another post, i did dooks yesterday, not knowing the term. Concrete column with empty bolt holes. Stick in the hole. Screw to stick. Dook is seldom mentioned in my dictionary searches. Dook / Douk interchangeable with doul, ie dowel, perhaps.

Hi all, mainly doing ad-hoc maintenance and mods to the house. Been using this forum for number of years to read, but finally decided to sign up

Got our first fix air test today 0.2 on the Passive House scale max = 0.6). (n50) and 0.3 on the Part L scale (max = 5) very happy we are so now we move into second fix. It has been several months of work doing the air tightness taping windows, floors and sealing ducts.

I'm going to the MBC Timber Frame Open Day / Factory Tour on 13th July - I'll ask them the question 😉

We dismantled our old timber framed, timber clad bungalow ourselves. It had a breeze block extension on the back. We gave all the the timber away on Freecycle, hired a concrete crusher set to 100mm and used the 50mm and smaller stuff on site and gave the 100mm stuff to the farmer. What was left, went in the back of the car to the tip. Total cost of the demolition, around zero, after the asbestos had been removed.

Call a few and ask them. I cut hundreds of square meters of gorse out with a chainsaw. Took days and was cream crackered by the end of it. It was a good job well done but a digger would have done it in a day at most. I’d probably just buy a second hand petrol chainsaw if you’re determined to do it by hand and no power on site but it’s a hard way to take a build down.

You sometimes see discoloration & rusting on stainless steel around welds.

Hi all We are undertaking a barn conversion in Buckinghamshire. The barn is in terrible condition that we are going to remove 95% of the timber cladding and roof and rebuild it using clay hanging tiles. We are trying to make it as sustainable as possible and solar panels, heat pumps and also we plan on collecting the water from the gutters to use for flushing the toilets. Having worked in the construction industry for 25 years I am looking forward to getting on site and doing some actual construction work myself