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If we assume by the "Right to Build waiting list" you mean you are on the Self-Build and Custom Housebuilding Register of your Local Authority (or more than one Register perhaps), then I hate to be the one to break it to you, but they aren't going to provide you with a plot. At best, you'll get weekly updates from your LPA on applications that have been allowed, including those designated as self-build or for custom housing. You may to able to approach someone who has gained permission and buy a plot from them, or you may be able to find a plot of your own and apply for permission, but it isn't going to just drop into your lap because you are on the list, and it certainly isn't going to be "given to you". I wish you well and hope you find yourself in a better position soon.

So basically, we cannot encourage people to knock holes in buildings and hope everything works out.

So basically: 1 you might need a structural engineer (SE) to visit the site to advise and do calculations to specify the lintel required. 2 Tell your house insurer what you plan to do and make sure your policy covers you. 3 You need to contact Building Control to tell them what you are doing and pay the fee, on a ‘Building Notice’ and they will then ask for the SE calculations and it will set off a chain of inspections. 4 Decide if hubby is up to the task 5 Change the lintel as discussed above, supporting the house with acro props so it doesn’t collapse 6 Insert chosen window making sure it has the correct kite mark to show the Building Control Officer. 7 Anything else around that bit of the house you decide to do can be covered on the same Building Notice (I think) but you must check it complies before you do it, to prevent mistakes (NB A so called ‘Full Plans’ submission to Building Control is drawings and calculations submitted by an architect and checked in their entirety for the whole extension/building by BC in advance, and this can give you a building ‘recipe’ to follow. You are too late for this option I think.)

The DNO's need to be forced to be less hostile and more accepting of solar PV. When ours was registered with the DNO (under the old names I forget which but 3.68kW) they read the model number of the inverter "TL4000" and without reading anything else rejected it, told us to disconnect it and apply for permission and there would be a network upgrade charge as it was over 3.68kW. Forcing them to read the documents and that even though the inverter had 4000 in it's model number, it was only 3.68kW resolved it and they accepted it, but it showed they are hostile, do not really want it, and will use any excuse to try and extract money from the customer.

Labour have just given the go ahead for a 2.500 acre solar farm in East Anglia. So they've just take away prime food production land for solar production. In the 1980's we we're 81% food self sufficient. This has declined year on year and now stands at 64%. So why are we destroying good agricultural land for another vanity project. HS2 has already taken out thousands of acres of land out of production. Any one have any information on the nutritional value and a recipe for a solar panel.? Someone will start bleating on about factory farming. Is there another option for feeding a growing population.?

Hello! Someone suggested on here ages ago that it would be a great idea to have some kind of list where people could go and lend a hand and learn on the job. In reality, I don’t think it happened. Forgive me, but are you certain the council will give you land with planning permission? All the people on here mostly have reasonable means and find planning permission one of the most difficult parts. They often have a trade or are very good at DIY and teach themselves as they go along. It is a huge undertaking, but a wonderful long term ambition. Is yours an experimental scheme by one local authority or housing association? I know of someone who went to ‘building school’ before attempting his house renovation. You could learn a trade in that time and be in a good position to collaborate with other self builders like Graven Hill. Carpentry skills would be very useful generally. Many self builders rough it in a caravan during the build to save money. All the best.

Are you able to get some work in the building trade even part time at the weekends? This is where you will be able to supplement your academic learning with hands on stuff. If possible get work local to where you want to build.. much of self building is about contacts.. the folk you know, the ones who do a good job and have "flexible methods" of payment. It is possible I think. I'm a firm believer that if you work hard you generate your own luck. Also, at times, you may feel that this is a mountain too high to climb. Do it in small stages.. get to base camp first then plan and prepare for the next part of the ascent. I wish you all the best and keep BH folks updated if you can.

You could try lime wash of some description.

Hello and welcome. It will take far longer than 15 months and will cost at least £1000 per square metre, maybe several times that. If you are given a plot of land, as an interim you could put a caravan on it, then at least you are master of your own domain. Good luck!

I would either try and clean the brick again or consider clay tile cladding.

Tell your neighbour to move his soil away from your building and into his own property. I can see a situation where your neighbour extends their garden the 100mm into your property and up against your extension so that over time the extension wall becomes the boundary. Nip this on the bud now.

just install AC. We did and love it. We have external blinds which shade nicely but have big windows that we like to look through so sometimes want the blinds open when the sun shines. other areas have large windows that we can’t shade so the heat comes in. we just turn on the AC which is powered from the solar so we just use it and enjoy our house. we also leave it on overnight if required to maintain a nice temperature in our bedroom. It uses very little electricity to maintain a temperature. love it. So glad we installed it.

You will get clay from other digs for nothing Top soil will cost Do all the foundations and drains Preferably all the build Then start building levels up

Not sure about the economics in the UK, but it happens elsewhere - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics France has recently published updated legislation on the topic - https://apasec.net/articles/18/04/2024/Agrivoltaisme-le-decret-est-enfin-publie-au-Journal-officiel-91204/ (summary in French). The key rules, to be reviewed after a year, are it must be possible to return the land to its previous state, no more than 40% of the land surface can be covered by panels, and the land must loose no more than 10% of it's production capacity each year (compared to a suitable reference plot). France has made progress on that too. The 2019 ELAN law now (in 2024) requires all new or re-roofed commercial buildings >500m², to have at least 30% of the roof (50% from 2027) covered with solar PV, or a green roof, or something else of similar environmental value. It will be extended to cover most non-domestic buildings from 2028. There are exemptions where it's not technically / financially realistic to do so. Similar rules apply to new and existing car parks >500m², whether covered or open air, which must have at least 50% PV coverage. Existing car parks must be retrofitted by either 2026 or 2028 depending on size.

I think class A farmland gives a better cash return than a solar farm, so only an idiot would swap farming for PV. (Caveat, most farmers lease the land to solar developers, they don't pay for the PV themselves). Hard to grow crops under a PV panel so any grazing is of low stock density, which is an uneconomic method if farming. As much as I like the idea of making it compulsory for new builds to have PV, many buildings will not be suitable (wrong angles and shading). There is the grid reinforcement costs to upgrade a lot of old buildings, which may also suffer the same problems as above. There is plenty to suitable land for farming, PV, Wind farms, housing and industry in the UK, just as there is plenty of land for golf courses and motor racing circuits, small air parks, military based and bus depots. We just need to allow people to develop sites and get grid connections in faster and cheaper (so don't force it to planning appeals all the time). How about open public voting, so we know who is for or against. If against the power companies can reduce your fuse size, say down to 30A, then 20A if you still vote against a development. It does seem odd that you can vote against a national infrastructure project which affects other people and not have any personally responsibility for the outcome.

External blinds here, works very well but we have three east facing windows that we didn’t fix external blinds to and that was a mistake. If I were to do this again I’d have external blinds on all East, South and West facing glazing. So far any overheating risk has been easily managed with a very active regime of window opening and closing, the closing is the important bit. If we get another ‘summer of 76’ it may well be more difficult to control.

I would use a 300mm concrete gravel board. You don't need his soil against your wall.

Simply make the legs of the solar support structure taller and graze livestock below. Even more controversial, make it a planning requirement to install solar on all new building. Maybe even improve the build quality of homes, so we use less energy!!!!

These do exist: https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-news/2022/our-two-new-hybrid-parks-have-launched-today Food self-sufficiency is a bit of a red herring here; national strategy is focused on security of supply, and isn't particularly bothered about small-scale land swaps in and out of agriculture. The UK has 17 million hectares of agricultural land; taking 1K hectares away reduces food production capacity by 0.006%. Or to put it another way, we could do 200 of these before the impact was worth walking about.

Yes.

I was interested in the ComfoClime, but found I did not have enough space for the unit. I had a short discussion with Paul Heat Recovery and they felt the ComfoPost unit was better for cooling anyway. My MVHR is not commissioned, so not sure if the ComfoPost was worth the effort. Most discussion on here point to fan coils being a better cooling solution. The overheating issue, was a topic many Buildhub members discussed when I first joined the forum back in 2019. If you can, you need to design out as much overheating as possible with shading and smart window choices. We fitted the 70/30 suncool glass, which we are very happy with, there was no discernible degradation in the interior light quality. We also lent on the cooling capabilities of ASHP. We were already having a poured concrete 1st floor, so it made sense to fit UFH upstairs for cooling purposes. There are a few recent threads on this approach. Unfortunately this year, the weather has been so poor, it has been difficult to ascertain how effect the ASHP cooling will be. We nearly put in a roof window in the flat roof at the top of our house, where the ridge has been made flat to accommodate a planning height requirement, but ultimately I could not face the extra stress and complexity of getting it fitted. The objective with this would be to utilise the heat column/stack effect for some additional cooling. One small issue which @Jeremy Harris had, was his hot water solution leaking too much heat into the house. He went with a Sunamp in the end to address this issue. Oso do a very well insulated unvented cylinder. I guess the point I trying to make is that you can easily overlook the heat loss from the hot water system and it’s contribution to overheating a house.

Is it prime agricultural land? When planning went in for a solar farm near my build it had to be on non prime land. Is it vanity ? If we want to pollute less solar is one of the options, also price wise is the gain financially better than producing food when we can buy it from elsewhere?

Here is a thought. Can't a solar farm share the same land as a wind farm? Mostly built in hills so not productive farmland. Yes some panels would get some shading from the towers but it would seem to be a good dual use of land and infrastructure.

It's not good. Would be a worry if the neighbour sold on and the new one used that space. All i can think of is to effectively permanently lend the neighbour that 100mm. Level off your and their land at the lower level and surface it in tarmac or concrete or gravel grid.

that one is easy to sort go back to the way road tax used to be done along time ago was linked to power of vehicle and mi,eage travelled and thus the pollution volume what need is there for a 4.0 litre diesel bi turbo for an audi estate speed limit is 70 - a vw micro bus 1200cc with 18bhp will do that so the std 150bhp or more SUV is noot needed and should pay for it as for super cars if you can afford a 1000bhp super car then you can afford to pay for it

acro props and some strong boys to take the weight whilst swapping the lintel. swapping a window for a window wont need any inspection, it should really have a fensa certificate for the new window but most don't seem to care so i wouldn't be too stressed about that part.

Ubakus is a simple tool, very useful for calculating U values but limited in judging moisture issues. It assumes, for instance, that the PIR layer will be totally continuous with no gaps. This is unrealistic unless you foam and tape all joints. A solid understanding of the core principles of safe layered construction and good workmanship are more important than a calculator. 1. Your primary aim is to prevent any moisture laden internal air migrating to any part of the wall/roof that the temperature can fall below the dew point and condense. This is done by excellent airtighess. Take any material that is airtight, like a membrane, OSB or even plasterboard and make a perfectly continuous layer somewhere in the wall/roof. It can be internal or external but it must not have any gaps or cracks anywhere. This will stop the flow of vapour laden internal air outwards to beyond the dew point. 2. Next ensure that any small amount of moisture that does get in there (through inevitable slips in assembly or construction moisture) can dry readily. This is where your materials of low vapour permanently* and sometimes external ventilation are important. The lightly availability of "drying" at the dew point determines your required materials and ventilation. TBC *Vapour Permanbility is a much better term than "breathable." It has SI units attached and can be accurately measured. "Breathable" gets conflated with "ventilation", it gets used by salesmen to sell everything from anoraks to lime plaster with little intelligent insight. In my opinion the it belongs in the bin along with "thermal mass" and other such terms that are thrown around with little other than guesswork and superstition.

The surface of the water will be perfectly level, so you can judge the gradient of the patio it by measuring the depth of water in mm at each end. If the measurements are too small to measure easily, add more water .... 😛😉. (TBH I'd suggest that the water escape routes are perhaps blocked with all that dust'n'gunge.)

As your cooling will be indiscriminate, you will need to choose the cold flow temp well. Eg the fan coil would like much colder water than the screed / slab could tolerate, but you wont have a means of getting true ( linear ) control over that. My current project has a Stiebel Eltron ASHP and all of its ( bloody expensive but bloody good ) controls and mixing stations, so I can choose the cold temp for the slab and a much colder temp for the Brink AHU ( heater / cooler to MVHR ). Keep an eye on condensation, and super insulate all the joints / valves with pieces of self-adhesive neoprene tape and then a very thick ( 25mm wall ) Armaflex neoprene pipe insulation over every piece of pipe that will be doing cooling. A length of much larger ( 54mm or more ) Armaflex can be used to make jackets for the isolation valves, with a small slot made for the lever handle to still be accessible.

what i have been told is that you can have up to 16kw per phase so a 3 phase supply you you have 48kw I have got as far as solar yet ,but that is what a solar supplier has told me i have a 100kva 3 phase supply,wel I WLL WHEN THEY GET ROUND TO FITTING A METER

Methinks fingerless gloves, a thick wool beanie, a Sarah Lund sweater, thermal leggings and moon boots (all matching or at least coordinating, natch) for the eight days a year it’s really, really cold would be a cheaper and more environmentally friendly solution. And on the bright side, the computers will only overheat for three months of each normal year. Obviously not this year mind, so that’s next year’s problem….