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it's been a long journey (although about a 1/3 of the time it took @Pocster) but we finally have our final certificate sign-off from BCO. we are over the moon to have passed that hurdle. There's still a long way to go but we are living in the house now and it is performing beyond our expectations and is a wonderful place to live. thank you to everyone on the forum for your help along the way. this place has been invaluable for us.

I recommend you 'phone your local Western Power (now part of National Grid) office - you may be surprised by how helpful they may be! We had very similar situation, demolishing a 1950s bungalow with the original power cable from the bungalow wall hanging over the driveway to a pole near the edge of our land (thence across an A road to a transformer on another set of poles). We planned to install an external meter cabinet near the pole, initially to supply our temporary caravan, and when we're ready to supply the new house. The National Grid planner turned up for a survey, took one look at the old pole and announced they would replace the old pole and put in new cable from the transformer across the road to the new pole and down to our external cabinet... for FREE. All I had to do was build a wall and install the cabinets (one for their stuff, the other for us) and hockey stick. (And that was my first post!)

Everyone interested in timber frame construction should read this. https://www.merronbrook.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/timberframepocketguide-aug2016.pdf

Greetings All, I’ve been on this forum before, but it’s been quite a while. During COVID, we moved to a farm in the East Midlands that needed some work. Since then, we’ve undertaken quite a few projects, but we haven’t made much progress on the biggest one yet—converting one of the barns, for which we already have planning permission. To be fair, we faced delays early on due to contaminated land issues. We ended up needing two or three phases of soil surveys. Initially, the planning department wasn’t happy with the proposed solution, even though it followed recommendations from the earlier surveys they had agreed to. Strangely, 24 hours after rejecting the plan, they reversed their decision and approved the remediation and validation statement. Now, a couple of years later, we’re ready to continue, though we have a limited initial budget. We aim to do as much of the work ourselves as possible. I have a digger and some handy skills, but I plan to bring in professionals when necessary. I look forward to sharing my knowledge along the way, seeking advice when needed, and posting progress pictures if the forum allows it. Thanks, Rob

I would put the MVHR further away from the bedroom. They are quiet but you'll hear it in that bedroom if it's there. A few tricks to make a house feel more spacious. Put windows on 2 walls on a room if possible. South and west walls for example in the ground floor SW bedroom. It also helps with cross ventilation. Have a window at the end of a corridor or room or stairs makes it more inviting. "Light at the end of a tunnel effect". Before you commit to ICF, consider visiting the local builders merchants and find out what they have on the shelf. Being able to grab a few blocks or Hep2O junctions or timbers at 5 mins notice can mean the house gets finished months earlier over waiting for a specialised bit of material from far far away. That gable window is going to be a mare. It'll cook the kitchen or freeze you in winter. The best windows are still 5 times worse than the worst wall in a new house, in terms of heat loss. Perhaps a couple of pairs of french doors with side lights and a few fixed rectangular units up high. It might save you £25k.

O V E R H E A T I N G Too low in my opinion. 2.5m minimum. Great. Top class. Our plumbers didn't charge less though, just went home earlier. It's one aspect I would deffo DIY if doing it again. Why not? Don't bother with certification but a proper passive class house isn't that dear if done right and is very nice to live in. Timber is dear! Plasterboard is cheap and better for sound fire/resistance etc. Cool but unlikely to be cheaper if done to a good standard. Plastic pipes and MVHR ducting might be a matter of taste. I did this and it didn't actually save any money. Consider cross ventilation. Ours all open despite MVHR. You can clean them from inside and sometimes it's nice to just let a summer breeze blow through the house. You can comfortably walk to 1500mm as our heads tend to be central on our bodies! Down to 1200mm I would consider useable space. A 40deg roof I found the best compromise for room in the roof. Even at 160m² footprint it's still very large for the total area IMO. Have a go at paring everything to the minimum and see where you get to. Then selectively increase the rooms you want to feel more luxurious.

Get in touch with Planning and Building Control and let them investigate.

Have just received details of Coldwells new concept of turnkey Passivhaus designs. Pick your design and they'll do it all for you or build to weather proof and you finish off. https://www.coldwellsbuild.com/ Initial thoughts are that they look like a good idea. But cannot see a plant room in the plans. Are they calling it a utility room? I like the Argyle. 🤔😁

More or less done these two rooms now, which after finishing the bathroom were basically just flooring and decorating, making a bit of furniture and then moving some other furniture I already had which was always destined for the dining room. I’ve got planned some bench seating for the wall side of the dining table to make it more space efficient, but not any time soon. I think this will be the first time, certainly in the last 10 years, where I have no outstanding ‘filler that just needs sanding down and painting’ kind of jobs, everywhere has skirting board which is painted… the little things in life. Everytime I walk in the bungalow and see the French dresser, it just melts my heart, knowing that my late wife would have loved to see it where it is now, we did buy it while she was still alive as they were stopping making it and was perfect for the look we were going for, managed to bag the dining table off eBay from the same range for around £200 I think brand new, and the chairs were ones we had from ikea which I upholstered and painted white to match. I know the plug sockets need covering, managed to locate them just slightly too high! The bookcase is to be backlit with an LED strip light (awaiting Black Friday being the right bugger I am!) and then will be filled with all my books, photo to follow at some point. The hallway has also been redecorated and the floor sanded and reoiled - out of anywhere this small passageway has suffered the most during the works bringing everything in and out, so was nice to get it back to 100% again

You need full plans to get a building warrant in Scotland as well.

It's not unusual to see some deflection in old roof timbers, particularly where the original slates or clay tiles have been replaced with heavier concrete tiles. Assuming there's no need to replace the roof, then maybe all it needs is some additional internal bracing to stop any more deflection.

While this panel may be FR any supporting structure / frame to the FR element must offer equivalent FR. So I say most likely no acceptable

I am not sure we can assess the problem from those photos, the report should IMO give more info on the problem. Old timbers can distort a fair bit without causing real problems.

Just in case your not sure - B,C&D are combustible. A2 rating is a product of limited combustible and A2 is non combustible second and third digits are of no interest in this scenario. External dwelling walls within 1m of a boundary usually require 30 minutes fire resistance from froth sides. Your BCO may accept 30 mins FR in lieu of non combustible.

I've been thinking about this and its puzzling me. Howcome electric wires are ok running around or through joists and trusses, including big boy trimmers or triple girder trusses holding up massive loads. But if you have wires running around a non combustible rsj its deemed a risk?! Is it something to do with roof or floor allowed to collapse into the building but rsj and walls failing could cause building to collapse outwards?!

you don't have a choice, as the spigot will be at a fixed point on the stove. There should be instructions on the fed pipe required to outside. Whatever it says, bear in mind that air is a fluid and so the feed pipe should be as short as possible with slow bends, then outsde it should be unobstructed. From my experience of just one such direct feed stove, it is very efficient indeed.

Still hard to see without a drawing. Some observations. The proposed door won't work. The area at bottom of the stairs isn't wide enough for an opening. So I think you'd have to rely on your existing space. I assume gor floor you're thinking something like 100mm PIR and floating chipboard on top, then something lino as a finished floor? As you're keeping it as storage space and not adding heating, I dont think building regs apply. Maybe somebody else could comment. Otherwise looks straightforward job.

I think it is very much dependant on the specific stove, so have you chosen it yet? If so look at the install manual

Hi folks! Disclaimer: it's not actually my farmhouse, it's my big brother's. But I help with some of the work and I'm the geek in the family, so I tend to be the one who goes fishing for information online, so I'll tend to say things like "my house" for simplicity. The house is on a few acres of land in south Cornwall. It's about 200-300 years old depending on which bit of it you poke, and it's been in the family for about 50 years. Earlier generations kept up the structure (roofing, damp-proofing etc.) but didn't do a whole lot about creature comforts. Apart from general renovations and a lick of paint, our current priority is to get it a bit warmer and more comfortable by running a basic hot-water and radiator system from the wood stove, which we mostly feed with wood from the property. That's nearly done and we're starting to look at our own solar or wind power, and running a water supply from the well on the property rather than the mains. Pleased to meet ya all and looking forward to the discussions!

This is of course the marmite subject on the forum. On a cold day, and particularly on a cold, wet dreary day, we like to indulge and fire up the stove, it heats the whole house hotter than we normally have the main heating set for, and we like to indulge in a bit of free extra heat. And then it is some time before the heating comes on again as the house cools down so a saving on electricity.

I have pretty much every switch in my house running through Sonoff minis. So as well as potentially burning the house down im also sending everything I do to China. However they haven't let me down, work perfectly, and my bank balance remains at £0 so I haven't been robbed yet.

Congratulations @Thorfun. A massive achievement. You have not only completed a self build, but also contributed greatly to the buildhub community, I have so many of your topics and posts bookmarked.

Well done! It's a great feeling isn't it!

I’ve got all sorts of different Shelly stuff dotted around the house and I’ve never had any real problem with any of it which is a minor miracle as that sort of stuff is way out of my comfort zone.

Just to update this, in case by some miracle someone else comes across the thread with the same question, I couldn't update the setting as the inverter needed a firmware update. It's not something I can do myself but I got good responses from LuxPower and they updated over night.

MCS comment is for on-roof systems, presumably. The manufacturer instructions trump other guidelines anyway. I ran ours right from the ridge down to the flat roof valley. At ridge I ran the GSE trays up and under the ridge flashing, and at the bottom I had an aluminium upstand made to go under the flat roof covering and under the GSE tray. I'd avoid the flexible GSE flashing for your gutter, use rigid instead. Remember you can lay you panels in landscape. I don't quite follow your pattern. You don't need anything other than what comes with the GSE kit. Just extra 100mm battens for the fixing points, as per instructions.

Just from my sketching the additional 5deg doesn't really gain much head room for the extra ridge height and the planners near me are very keen on making houses as low as possible. However from an ease of carpentry and materials use point of view it absolutely makes sense. What other benefits have you got in mind? @westbound a ridge beam carrying the roof as mentioned above is a really good way to build in airtighess etc. Much easier than trusses and wouldn't need a crane. With this in mind you'll need some central support column to carry the load of the roof to the foundation. You could also do it like this by having a lintel carrying the load to two walls. Just make sure that the walls line up upstairs and downstairs.

This is Scotland, 45 degree is normal, and there are very many constructional reasons why 45 degrees is so much easier than anything else. Agree 2300 ceiling height is too low. "normal" 2400 at least.

They probably would not need planning or even a lawful development certificate for a "caravan" and that would be legal if the occupants at least used some of the services in the house. To legally qualify as a "caravan" it needs to be within certain size limits which does allow a building of about 100 square metres. And it needs to me moveable as a unit. It does NOT have to be on wheels. Lifting by crane onto a low loader would qualify. So the test would be is it build on a strong frame or would it collapse like a pack of cards if you tried lifting it. The "caravan" is exempt from building control but BC would be needed for any connection to a drainage system.

When we demolished our bungalow before the new build , we moved the meter into a temporary fiberglass cabinet on the perimeter of the site ,with a small distribution board and four external plugs in it. The builder also ran a cable from this to his cabin. Sp Networks ( The Grid) did a survey and provided ducting to bring power from the pole underground to the cabinet. We dug it in except last meter (? ) to the pole , they then moved meter and supply to cabinet. When the build was watertight supply was the moved into the plant room via underground ducts, we had put in, back to near cabinet . I was surprised SPNetworks then just made an underground connection there , rather than thread a new cable all the way back to the pole. We had the advantage that the pole was on our land. We were charge by SPNetworks for surveys and the work they did, but it was not excessive. As a result we had a power supply throughout the build.

Have you considered normal lumber. It's straight off the shelf in most cases and much cheaper than pozis. Add a run of resilient bars underneath and you have a nice service cavity for wires. Obviously waste pipes and MVHR ducting won't fit but design dependent you might be able to work around this.

Thought folks may be interested in our recent stay in a Passivhaus B&B near Malvern. I wanted to experience the environment of passivhaus with MVHR and see if i could convince the OH that retrofitting and adding MVHR could be something that we should do; particularly if/once we move into our new place in 2025. It was a fab place and I would certainly recommend it for anyone who doubts the improvements from building Passiv. I loved the peacefulness, warmth, even when next to large windows, and the low bills they say they have.😁 I hoped it would give me a better sleep but I'd need a few more nights to see; particulally as they had turned on the en-suite towel rail for a while in the evening and it was too warm for me. i ended up opening the large patio doors during the night. The owners could not have done more to make us welcome and we had an educational talk in the Plant Room from Andrew. I found them on the Passivhaus Trusts website event which holds Open Days, usually late in the year. https://www.passivhaustrust.org.uk/ It is called Woodlands and is at the end of a long lane, with super walks right from the doorstep. And the Oak frame was amazing.

We also stayed in a PH B&B for a few days, back in 2009, as we wanted to experience a PH before we finally decided to build one. It is cetainly a good idea.

A Shelly relay may be right up your street, sale on now.

Hello All, We are moving slowly through a part refurb and part energy retrofit of a pretty bog standard 50s detached house. We have benefitted enormously from the wisdom on this forum for many of the design choices we've made and am truly thankful. Our main aims were to improve the look and energy performance of the house while improving the way it flows in everyday use. To that end what looked like a trivial switcheroo of the main door from the side of the house to the front began an interesting education in the art of unintended consequences. Along the lines of...While the place is in a complete state with walls down and steels going up, should we also...rewire?...replumb?...dig up the concrete floors and lay UFH?...refenestrate?...reroof? To which the answer to all was - "yes, of course, dear." External wall insulation will be the final item to wrap up the works and I hope this will be done in the spring. ("What year?" As my lovely patient wife would ask) So the end is perhaps not too far away, and we have learned a lot about building, refurbing, each others breaking points and the beauty of demolition and a rebuild from scratch! In the meantime, I would appreciate some advice on solar panel placement of the GSE in-roof system - should I go to the gutter to squeeze more panels in, or stick to the MCS "400mm margin"? I'll head over to the PV forum and elaborate there. Thank you all so much for what has become gripping reading over the years.

My advice is that you talk to your air con installer at an early stage. You will need to use an f-gas bod. There are restrictions on the max pipework length to each indoor unit. The insulated pipes (a pair to every indoor unit) are quite bulky, easily kinked, the insulation is easily torn (and then at risk of condensation forming) and should be a continuous length from external unit to the internal units.

Too right. I usually put a single drop of 3-in-1 oil on the threads, it means more of the torque you apply gets transformed into axial force on the nut/olive/pipe interface which is the bit that matters.

The only real issue with rising penetrations through a slab is if it’s a block and beam. In this situation you need to avoid a beam. Structural engineers will have some “say” if you have all ducts together and it requires steel reinforcements being re-jigged, but a little bit of pragmatic pre-planning and dialogue will resolve this in a day. Tell your builder that this will progress at your pace, and will arrive at the end result that you want, and he will have to slow down accordingly.

I’ve just moved clients into their new build home, and at the outset of the entire project when we had to redirect overhead 3ph supplies that spanned the plot we found a chap who was ‘no win no fee’ that handled the DNO application on the clients behalf. His “promise” was to get the price discounted and he’d bag 20% of the sum saved. This resulted in an £11k quote being reduced to a net cost to the client of £6k. Well done that man! If you can think of it, someone is making money creating a solution around it! 🤷‍♂️

Cut roof does not mean steels. Ours used Kerto beams for the ridge, less bulky that Glulam for a given strength. That also shows the "gable end" type of dormer we used.

Resale values especially remote islands will be hard to justify. House prices are a lot lower. Our build was on a tight budget, and we have achieved a great performing house. If we had used contractors I'm sure the build costs would have exceeded market value. I understand the double height ceiling concept but with this brings the issues as @ProDave mentions and also complexity with steel, wind bracing etc. these complexities will cost considerably more due to location. We built all on the ground floor so made the house bigger (longer ) than necessary,this was due to future planning, no stairs etc for our older age, I'm only leaving this house in a box, or because I cant remember my name. Structurally the engineers were much happier using trusses. If we would have wanted cut roof and steels I'm convinced there would have been even more reinforcement on the walls( we used around 1.8kM of rebar), also we would have had to use cast in anchors for the wall plates these were ridiculous cost. Our build was 13m long, 2 bed simple design. We could have shrunk that if we went for rooms in the roof. I blogged my build on here look for #thewindyroost. Good luck

On going house renovation 5 years and still going

Hi, glad to be here.

We also used Thermohouse for our pitched & flat roofs. They also designed and installed the steels for the roof.

We used thermo house. All good.

Hello, I am in search for a solution to do flat roof as well. Our's has a outside deck as well. I know two systems but so far but I am sure others will have more products to suggest : https://thermohouse.co.uk/thermoroof/ https://www.cdi-icm.co.uk/system/op-deck/ I

Added a floorplan with labels. Most commonly used entrance would be on north side - dog walking with a mudroom Second entrance (south side) would be the "formal entrance" - not going through a store room with dog cleaning being the main mission Top floor is based on lowest part of ceiling being at 1800mm, and vacancies being used for storage (travel bags, detritus from having a young family) Top floor only extends half-way on east-west axis to give a ridiculous full-height living space - concept/dream that we'll likely have to compromise on Stairs are down a corridor, yes...the (maybe misguided) logic being separating out private areas and public areas, with staircase also being centrally positioned to reduce need for an upstairs hallways Fully aware it's not the most efficient use of space - we're still trying to work out the architect/designer/surveyor gambit - slow responses so far, so have been sketching in mean time

Here's our big window with the joined frames as your image. Sorry abot the scaffold in the way, this is the best picture I have, but you can see the join and the fuill height opener, just about. The window is so big that you don't notice the join. One final comment on the windows, and not specific to internorm. Our fitters measured our windows with 10 mm clearance either side of the opening. They proceeded to fit the windows tight to the right hand reveal. Zero gap on the right and 20mm gap between window and left reveal. I think all the windows are the same. None are centered. I did not, in my wildest dreams, expect the windows to all be fitted off centre. It is extremely annoying because we now need to build out the LHS reveal for plastering. WTF would the fitters off-centre all the window? In the kitchen we have carefuly positioned the window so that full-height kitchen units will be installed tight to the reveal with worktop underneath. We can't build out that reveal so the off centre window here may need to be refitted in the centre. Do not leave window fitters unsupervised. One final, final point. If I was doing it again I probably wouldn't have full height windows. We have a poorly-poured kore slab and the thresholds are a nightmare. Much easier to install and functionally superior to have a few courses of block to lift the window off the floor.

I use companies house to check out directors how often they start up new businesses and then close them down again within a few years. Companies house will mark up when a strike off on the gazette is updated this is the first stage to a business not filing accounts or a creditor pushing for liquidation etc. I look at the accounts and see how many they employ, gives you an idea of permanent employees or subcontractors used. The capital retained rather than fully drawn out as dividends, but that might depend on size of business, personally I always take dividends after closing accounts. Check the total debtors and creditors balances. Investing in the company in assets. If you’re not sure of how to read accounts get a credit check on them, try https://www.companysearchesmadesimple.com you can pay per company search or a subscription for a month then cancel.

Firstly, glad you found my link to BGS useful. Welcome to the exciting and detailed world of engineering geology. On the above, it’s is geologically impossible for sandstone to form above a Holocene clay. Therefore your ‘thin layer of sandstone’ is 99.9% a cobble. Ignore it for design, but factor it for digging. That SPT (incorrectly labelled CPT) is refusing on the cobble E.g. 50 blows for 15mm. So other than the SPT of 7 shallow you don’t have any insitu data. The U100 results would be useful, but unlikely to be attached to the log. I haven’t digested every detail of this thread, but I suggest (as others have done) you find a SE and get their advice. I design piles regularly (for bridges and large structures, not houses) but even with nearly 20 years of experience, I couldn’t teach you foundation design on t’internet. the SE will know how to navigate Building Regs, which I’d suggest is more relevant than your perceptions of ‘sufficient bearing’. My 2c for a ‘feel’ before spending money : dig a slit trench to 2m (your proposed trenchfill limit) then: 1. See how long it takes for water to fill it 2. if it stays (relatively) dry get a sample from the base and try to stick your finger in it. If you can, probably too weak at 2m depth if it floods quickly, that makes trench fill less appealing (H&S warning: dig with excavator if possible and don’t get in the pit. If you have to hand dig, make it wide and step the sides out)