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I had to comment on here because the start of this gave us some inspiration for building our pallet woodstore.... for anyone who remembers the motorway barrier fence they will know we have a log store outside our bungalow back door but due to the huge amount of wood we had and 50 odd pallets from the block paving we built one at the rear of our garage as we have cut a lot of trees recently so have about 15 ton of wood all split. Lots of screws, brackets and bought the sheeting for the roof. Absolutely solid.... The 'container' next to it was our temp garge but now the garage is built it's not needed but it is stuck there so painted it and using it as additional storage. One day may replace with a greenhouse .... Progress of it is here https://www.instagram.com/reel/C-inkP7iC6L/?igsh=YmNwOXRwaDM0Z3k=

For the planning part I used two different people, not one Architectural technician for the drawings and a planning consultant to get it through planning. if my planning consultant fees had been 10 times more than they were they would still have been worth it.

Hello! Thanks for letting me join the group. I am currently renovating a 1960s bungalow with a dormer which was added in the 80s! I have renovated 2 properties previously but this one is going to be home. I was working in hospitality until 2020 then lockdown gave me a break to reassess what I wanted to do in the future. As it was impossible to find tradespeople at the time I ended up learning to do most work myself with ongoing help of family and friends who are in different trades. I definitely surprised myself as I love it!

When I lived down there I loved Instow, when the tides out the beach is huge.

If the vendors already have plans, make sure that sticking to them is not one of the conditions of sale. It probably won't be, but have come across similar in the past.

From your description of the changes you want to make, i.e. if you don’t want to change the footprint or roof dimensions, you may be able to just use ‘minor amendment’ applications on the original permission. You can just mark your changes reasonably accurately on the drawings you do have and get any random drawing service to redraw for cheap. You may even be able to submit your hand drawn amendments if they convey reasonably exactly what you want to do. Materials changes may be just a text application with images and specs of the new materials.

We’re still waiting on planning, but intend to do something very much like I suggested above. A bit more complicated once we add in routes for services, a bin store, and drainage connections - but very do-able. SE says, yeah, replace with concrete pipe for load bearing. There’s also as old asbestos (and therefore fragile) water main running between the road and the ditch and parallel to both to add a bit of jeopardy.

For anybody doing this in the future, the better method is to cut the plenum tube flush with the plasterboard, then the plasterer will fill the gap when he skims the ceiling.

We bought with planning. In the end it was someone elses design and no matter how we tweaked it was never going to work - not to mention we really didn’t get on the original architect. start with a blank piece of paper, and assume you’ve just got some land. It is difficult as you’ve probably paid ££ to buy it with the permission. But in the end you’ll need to do all your own reports etc , and whether it’s 1,2,3 years you’ll live the house you designed not something you compromise on.

How much does the thermal bridge of the fixing bother you? For my timber frame hose with 100mm wood fibre cladding, I drilled a 1" hole through the wood fibre, stopping when it reached the timber behind it. nserted a 120mm aluminium tube as a spacer, well sealed as it was inserted with Sikaflex. Then a very long coach bolt through what I was fixing (balcony) through the spacer and into the wood. In my case it was not really a cantilevered load, the balcony stood on legs, it was just to fix it to the house. The 120mm spacers meant there was a gap between the balcony frame and the finished wall so it was not compressing the wood fibre. The small amount of thermal bridging using metal fittings never concerned me.

Plus 1, Go back to planning with a new design TF While more expensive than a solid build Is perfect for the novice Absolutely no need for a project manager Just someone to coordinate and make on the spot decisions

>>> apply for a planning variation Unless your new design is a minor variation of the old one with the same footprint, you’ll need to go with a full application. You might want an architectural technologist or similar if you have a good idea what you want already. You can, of course, get an architect to do the concept design and drawings for planning and then someone else for the detail design later.

Hi @Benpointer if you are considering a TF have you looked at the likes of Fleming Homes? Although based in the Scottish Borders, they do cater for the whole of the UK. The reason I mention them is becasue they do offer an in house Plan drawing service and that will get you through the planning stages as well as BC - My experience with them has been a positive one and they will adapt to your designs, it's not just from a catalogue so to speak.

me. its normal build, nothing special.

MVHR is just ventilation, leave it to get on with ventilation, no heating or cooling coils, they work a bit, but not really worth the faff and huge cost. Solar PV, again pretty much leave it as stand alone, ASHP and MVHR will naturally use any electric before it gets exported. Install a diverter to immersion if you don't get paid for export. ASHP leave it to do either DHW or heat and cool via a 3 port diverter. That gives 3 stand alone projects, nothing is lost in translation, all should be pretty basic installs. And everything @Dave Jones said.

I can only speak for AFT, who provide a fully insured foundation (by Lloyds of London) and have all the European Technical certificates required to satisfy NHBC etc.

QS is on the case! Just wanted to start to write up a tender to send out to prospective builders. Thought that a template would be helpful to make sure I don’t miss anything!

We had similar, unless we went with the same architect we couldn’t use the plans, in the end we changed the whole design and went with a different architect. you may want to investigate some of the reports eg site survey, ecologist etc as they are likely to be in either the sellers or architects name and won’t be something you can rely on unless you can get the properly transferred by the original company.

Good to know, and nothing ever is. It seems too much water also overexpands the foam leading to a weak mess with large bubbles. I've tried this with the next bit and it's worked better with more foam than my first go. Problem was I was overthinking, as a small bead of foam gives less insulation at the edges than 5cm of PIR so was trying to minimise that amount that was just a dab of expanding foam. But getting it done and airtight ftw. I'll ask my local medium to communicate that to the builder 😁

It will come down to the bearing capacity of your ground at the dig depth, ie. 600mm - 700mm below finished floor level (likely 450mm - 550mm below ground level). There's no reason why your ground wouldn't achieve the required bearing capacity of, typically, 70 - 100 kPa/m². There are also pile supported insulated rafts for ground that doesn't achieve those values, but cost goes up just as it would for a traditional foundation. If you price up what goes into an insulated raft foundation v. a tradition foundation, and you are comparing like-for-like, ie. a 0.1 U Value with a potential 0.04 W/mK Psi value and include the insulation, UFH and Screed that a traditional foundation requires in order to be equivalent, then materials, labour and Engineering costs of an insulated raft are lower than a traditional foundation. However, an insulated raft foundation remains a niche product in the UK and the lack of experienced ground workers that will install them and the lack of Structural Engineers that will Engineer one correctly (optimised) pushes the self-builder to a packaged insulated raft where margins may be higher and travelling ground-works teams incur higher costs etc. It's a product that needs a lot of researching to get to a good value. If you are willing to take the Installation on yourself, with a couple of ground workers then it can be very good value. I'm happy to recommend Advanced Foundation Technology Ltd. My experience with them was excellent. Their advantage is that the business owner Olof, has been designing and installing insulated rafts in Sweden for +30 years, where they are not a niche product as 70% of houses use them. https://www.advancedfoundationtechnologylimited.co.uk/our-products/

you basically have the same setup we have. panasonic aquera Zehnder Q350 UFH loop fancoils ran off UFH loop. towel rads with electic element and smart breaker to control them all at same time. you could lose nearly all the kit under your stairs i would think. Pozi joists 305mm no smaller or you wont get the mvhr duct in, and dont do what I did and fit the pozi's thinking i could get the ducting in after, you cant! poke in the lengths of tube as you go and cut them to fit later. Also look at tile vents if you have accessible roof space for the mvhr intake/exhaust to save punching unsightly holes in the walls.

I agree with that. There appears to be no downside to telling CIL that you are starting, even if it’s long before you are starting in any real sense. We consulted our local CIL team to ask and they were wonderfully helpful. They sent us this extract but they also pointed out that it’s ok to tell immediately us we are starting just to make sure we’ve done it before actually starting. “…commencement of the development is one of the following: (a)any work of construction in the course of the erection of a building; (aa)any work of demolition of a building; (b)the digging of a trench which is to contain the foundations, or part of the foundations, of a building; (c)the laying of any underground main or pipe to the foundations, or part of the foundations, of a building or to any such trench as is mentioned in paragraph (b); (d)any operation in the course of laying out or constructing a road or part of a road; (e)any change in the use of any land which constitutes material development. Some gardening and clearance works will not necessarily constitute commencement, but you can submit your commencement notice in relation to those works for the purposes of CIL.”

For that level of extreme air tightness, do what you can with expanding foam then go over it again with silicone and fill the holes that way!

As promised - system layout and control. My DHW is a bit more convoluted than normal as the cylinder is remote from everything else and needed an additional pump, so hydraulically separated via a CCT Heating Layout and Control.pdf

In addition to the loft insulation question, what’s the floor make up is it concrete or suspended timber?

I'd do some investigative work first. Are all the cavities filled with insulation? If so, what kind? Is the insulation dry or wet? On a windy day, or build yourself a DIY blower (from a car battery and fan), go around room by room and check for any draughts. Our house used to leak like a sieve and it was our biggest contributor to always feeling cold.

submit form 7 part 1, wait and receive the nil liability notice. submit form 6 commencement notice. when complete submit form 7 part2 done. our CIL was not interested in any of the low level minutia, its pureley a paperwork excersie. I'd do step2 before a single contractor stepped on site.

In a bungalow you have a disproportionate amount of heat loss through the roof. What's your loft insulation situation?

You need to do all your "customer side" works first (to their required standard) before they will come out and connect up. Id budget ~£2k

My new connections was in January this year and I had to have at least a the standpipe as Nod's picture with pipe going to the edge of the road for them to fit a meter to before they would fit the meter. They sent someone out to check it was all to their spec a few days/weeks before they came to make the connection. If you contact whichever compnay supplies your water they will give you a quote and a list of their requirements, what you have to pay them for and what you can get other contractors to do. I dug the trench, fitted the stand pipe with a pipe going to a point they specified My cost was about £3k with about half of that being the cost to close the road.

Not very simple but here you are: The IET CoP was fairly new when I installed the battery system in 2022 and this requirement was in the first edition. It was also there in the 2nd. Neither of them had in the "typical configurations" a suitable diagram for the Victron inverters which have separate AC in and AC Out (which since they had a rep on the editorial panel I don't understand). I do not know about the 3rd edition. With the more common battery inverters (GivEnergy, Solax etc) with a single point of connection you would have a separate garage unit for it teed into the main meter tails. There is another requirement here, any RCD or RCBO needs to be the new bi-directional type, earlier models only work with the power flow in the "correct" direction i.e. from line terminals to load terminals. Did it include a battery in 2012? This CoP applies only to EESS, it does not cover PV-only installations. The AC-coupled PV on our W roof was installed in 2011; I fitted an extra mini-CU for it and a dedicated socket for the freezer before the installers came. I don't know how they would have wired it if I hadn't. Originally they were not protected by any RCD. Still aren't if the Victron battery inverter is bypassed when not in service. Depending on the internal physical layout you could maybe fit an RCBO connected directly to the incoming meter tails. Ideally you would move the main RCD and fit the new RCBO on the other side of it so it is obvious it is not supplied through it. We have done similar with the RCD for the garage supply (Crabtree Loadstar unit, physically mounted on the DIN rail in the Starbreaker CU housing but not plugged into the load side busbar). Certainly looks a lot neater than the usual nest of Henley blocks. Recently had a long discussion re all this with the installers on how to wire in the heat pump. Their original plan would have meant it could not run off the inverter at all so could not use the batteries for time shifting. End result was a modification of what is shown in the diagram.

It's taken me a year to get there!

bit like saying a combi is better as you dont need to bother insulating. ASHP for cooling is new, the MCS 'professionals' are not done ripping people off for heating let alone not being able to rip them off for 2 ASHP one for heating and one for cooling!

Technically, you have to be careful about condensation Administratively, an ASHP installed as a retrofit does not usually require Planning Permission if only used for heating, but it does need Planning Permission if it is also used for cooling. Those are my guesses.

+1 to both of these. And also check that you have at least the legal minimum. In the Alps you need a minimum resistance 4.4 m².K/W (u-Value 0.227) https://rt-re-batiment.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/fiche-ravalement-refection-toiture-amenagement-travaux-isolation.pdf

You may not need the extra space But as always with me From a cost perspective Taking the single story room up to full height will cost you Pennie’s in the grand scheme of things We all have moans about what we should have done once complete But I can’t remember anyone complaining over building something to big Look good and uncomplicated to build

Ideally you want a dynamic condensation risk assessment such as WUFI. This will tell you whether the added insulation will make the plank/membrane 'interface' cold enough for condensation to occur in worst-case circs. A 'rule of thumb' (which seems sensible but I cannot prove or disprove) is that if you do mix insulation between and above the rafters then two-thirds of the R value should be above the rafters and a max of one-third below. If my quick maths when I saw your post last night was correct that's a max of 100 -110mm of, for example, flexi wood-fibre with a lambda value of 0.039W/mK. Your glass wool may have a lambda value of 0.044, so a bit more thickness may be OK. But definitely using WUFI to 'prove' it is the better path.

👍 You can have a rest half way up

+1 for a cupboard (mine was off the cloakroom) and as a Luddite less is more IMO (and less to go wrong in the future) this is my idea of tech

Proper solid is a pallet shed, this is clad in scrap from the bandsaw log mill:

You are correct, I forgot to make any more updates. It was only the interior, and that is now looking like a shed, full of "stuff" It's standing up very well and no leaks. Far more sturdy than the shop bought shed I wired for a customer recently, made of something not much stronger than cardboard.

This post is summary of the Principal Designer thread. The purpose of this summary is to assist members and guests decide for themselves how CDM2015 impacts their build project. The summary is offered as is and should not be interpreted as authoritative advice. As is normal in asynchronous online discussion, the thread sometimes changes its focus a little. Where those changes occur, the content has not been summarised. Discussion of this issue is particularly relevant to us because we are a self-build forum, whose members are assumed not to be professional builders, or -in relation to building- have any technical understanding or capability beyond simple DIY . To be clear, the following assumptions are made; · A client is a Domestic Client. The distinction is central to all that follows · The Domestic Client can choose to apply for VAT relief in due course, whereas a Client cannot · The Domestic Client is not engaged, or about to be engaged, in a business related to the build (because they will then be a Client, not a Domestic Client) The thread started with a question about the role of Principal Designer. The examination of that question inevitably lead to discussion about how the role related to other key aspects of the legislation. There was some reference to the history of Health and Safety legislation, but it was pointed out that over time, the general emphasis had not changed. If you qualify for Domestic Client status, then a contractor working for you carries the main responsibility for Health and Safety. It was in the detailed examination of the term ‘responsibility’ that a good deal of discussion arose. Several members agreed that the legislation was poorly drafted for our sector of the market. And in the context of a self-build forum, where many of us will be doing things for the build on our own (DIY) as well as employing contractors, it is easy to see a rich source of confusion. For example, self-builders might be tempted to become involved in the build in a way which implies technical competence and so enhanced H+S responsibility. A strong warning was given to self-builders to avoid becoming involved in technical aspects of the build to the extent that they might be considered ‘ a responsible person’. And that includes the self-builder being trained in a relevant build subject to the extent that he or she might be assumed by the courts to have more responsibility than a Domestic Client would be expected to have. Perhaps the simplest articulation of how CDM responsibilities can be operationalised was in this post (@jamiehamy) ‘… We have only used contractors for the steel frame, lifting in floor beams, ground works/drainage and electrics - and each time I've made it clear that the contractor is responsible for operating safely and I do not dictate how they complete the activities. I don't supervise on site and most certainly do not manage their work or how they work - they have a deliverable and it is their responsibility to complete that. Where required, I offer safety equipment, ask what they need me to provide to work safely and healthily, I find out if they are dependent on me for anything and let them get on with it. Maybe I should do more in writing but I choose reputable contractors and all work is fully invoiced…’ In terms of prosecution for H+S breaches, providing the Domestic Client has fulfilled their duties (not covered in detail in this summary) prosecution is highly unlikely. Domestic Clients should make sure the site is safe and secure, tidy and clear of obvious hazards. There was some discussion based on the meaning of a series of CDM-specific terms; Project Manager, PD, PC, Client, Domestic Client, Business or Business Activity, Contractor, design, designer as well as others. Please refer to the full discussion for a more detailed discussion. But it was convincingly argued (with supporting evidence, and some unevidenced dissention) that a Domestic Client cannot be either a Principal Contractor or Principal Designer. Additionally, there was some discussion of official legal documents related to CDM2015. In summary: be sure to understand the meaning of the term Domestic Client, and to maintain that status throughout the build. Any competent person with whom you have a contract to complete work on your site should be capable of working safely. Offer support to fulfill H+S requirements, but never offer advice or direct work or manage the process. If, after reading this summary you feel you need to, take care to seek advice from more than one reliable, authoritative source. Paying for advice does not guarantee its accuracy or authority. Source url forum.buildhub.org.uk/ipb/topic/2376-principal-designer-role/ Bibliography. HSE (2015), Managing health and safety in construction. Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, HSE Books downloaded 04/05/2017 http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/priced/l153.pdf See especially Appendix 6. HSE (2015), How CDM 2015 applies to Domestic Clients Appendix 6, Figure 1, in Managing health and safety in construction. Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015. Download the flow chart (from our server) here HandSforDomesticClients.pdf HSE Construction Discussion Forum (accessed 04/05/2017)

Yes it is very solid. the pallet planks that make up the cladding are about 3/4" thick. The frame is quite sturdy and has diagonal bracing on all sides so it won't start leaning when the wind blows. It's staked down to the ground so it won't blow away. It's all been painted with the modern version of creosote. the lighter brown on the rear was the first to be done and the front, looking darker was the most recent. I suspect it will all lighten up fairly quickly. I like creosote for stuff like this, so easy to apply (and re apply) and effective at repelling water and preventing rot. I forgot to say, the roof timbers are 6 X2 and 4 X 2 timbers that have previously been used as shuttering for a concrete slab, so again, re using previously used timber.

Your turn to clear the pump might concentrate the mind. I lived briefly in a tenement where we took turns to clean the stair. If you didn't, big Aggie from downstairs knocked on the door! Then you did it.

WOO HOO! I got it right. I think I’m starting to get there! If it wasn’t so late I’d crack open a cream soda to celebrate!