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It's not just the VAT. I've undertaken several deep renovations myself, as well as having managed & priced them commercially, and they always turns out to be more expensive than rebuilding would have been - unless you're doing much of the work & discounting the cost of your labour. In addition to strip-out costs, many things just take more time and/or cost more. For example, building a doorway into a new internal wall is more-or-less 'free' - the extra costs are roughly balanced out by saving 1.5m² of blockwork. On the other hand, knocking a hole through an existing wall, well that's a couple of days work + additional materials. Then there are things you find that you didn't expect that need fixing - walls, floors & ceilings out of level; botched DIY; sagging rafters; dry-rot; lead water mains; cracked sewers, whatever - which also takes more time to fix than fitting from new. And making an old house properly airtight - which is highly recommended - is almost always more complex because it wasn't considered as part of the original design. There are good reasons for not demolishing. Maybe you just want to tart it up & flip it. Maybe you need to live in it because you have nowhere else and a caravan is out. Maybe the building has a particular heritage value (whether listed or not). Or, as with my current project, maybe it's an apartment - which kind of rules out demolition! But if you do decide to renovate then do make sure that includes a thermal upgrade to at least Building Regs standards. Better than that if you're concerned about future energy costs and / the future additional value that it's likely to provide.

I thought I should follow up with this as so many posts are left with no resolution! Long story short I owed them a few quid for a raised bed/sleepers they did for me. Agreed to not pay that and I sorted the slabs myself (yes, a big risk on my part but I just wanted them gone!). I used (actually got through x2!) crimped wire cup angle grinder attachments (check your angle grinder RPM), and a load of very strong brick acid. Ensure you use appropriate PPE (I didn’t, I know a should have). Body totally covered, eye protection and quality mask. Got all of the cement off with a few hours of relative heavy work (bent over with a grinder and loads of brick acid). Expected it to badly rust. It did. Give it a good long cooling off period - preferably 2 weeks of mixed weather. That makes all of that rusting appear. Next step was 2 large bottles of LTP rust remover in a few steps. 1. Paint or spray on rust remover. Leave to settle and do its thing. 2. Before it dries, spray off with pressure washer, then wash slabs with a paving cleaner (NOT acid based). 3. Leave another week and same again. Most rust deposits should be gone within 2 treatments. Clean again as above. FYI the trust remover bloody stinks like rotten garlic. But it works. After that let it fully dry out - the slabs are likely to look a bit tired from all the acid. Assuming your slabs are good few months old (I’d suggest open to elements for at least 4 months), give them a good clean then a seal. I used Lithofin stain stop plus. Google paving expert sealant trials for a great test. I found that to be the best balance between mild colour enhance, sealant properties and price. 1 large tub and I have some left overs for a top up coat next summer. Yes it was a lot of work, but I was in the (somewhat) fortunate position of the slab laying being OK, and the cement staining being the main problem. If there were major issues with the slab laying I wouldn’t have bothered and gone for the nuclear option. Pics attached. No doubt if we have a serious few freezes this winter or next, the pointing will need redoing. But overall I’m happy with the result I achieved and it might give those with a particular interest in DIY and elbow grease and option for fixing theirs:

Hilti have al limited offer on the above New version battery driver with 55 minutes run time per battery and collated Attachment £385 Net We normally pay £845 Net 2 year guarantee Even Accidental damage Board your house and sell on for what you paid Limited offer

They can be a bit confusing because of the terminology. There are 'circuit breakers' that are just modern fuses i.e. they disconnect when the current goes to high for the circuit. Then there are RCDs, residual current devices, theses are for safety and disconnect the supply, very quickly, if they sense an imbalance between the current going into a load, and the current coming out. Then there are RCBOs, residual current circuit breakers, which combine the two above. Now we also have AFCIs, arc fault circuit interrupters, these sense any sparking in a circuit i.e. a live wire that has been nibbled by a mouse, touch a neutral wire that has also been nibbled. To makes it more confusing, the above can have different disconnect speeds, usually in milliseconds. This it to allow for high inrush loads (usually an inductive load like a highly loaded motor starting up). Old fashioned wire fuses are a bit more sophisticated than just a thin bit of wire. They are designed, chemically, to allow a bit of over current for a short period of time. But even if the load is below the designed capacity i.e. 5 amps, they will still blow given enough time. The reason I am still on the original fuses is because my loads are very small. Take my lighting circuit, this has gone from a total of 5 amps down to 0.1 amps, if I put all my lights on at once. The most likely fuses to go are my cooker/oven and DHW circuit. The DHW amperage has not changed i.e a nominal 3 kW. I do limit the time it runs though, so rather than possibly on for 7 hours, it is on for 1.5 hours a day. So it is not really a case that mechanical fuses are more robust/forgiving, really a case that if designed correctly and used sensibly, they can last decades.

Given that the very nature of this forum is that of one for self builders of varying levels of experience, it might be best to describe why something is a "ludicrous idea". Not everyone understands all the steps and risks involved in what turns out to be a complex project.

Temperature is not energy, or power. Imagine that you had an equivalent surface area of radiators as an UFH system. Now while that is often not practical, once you account for floor area that is covered in furniture and rugs, which reduce the power the UFH can deliver, you may find that the areas are not so different. We should really be calling radiators, UFH and fan assisted, heat or thermal emitters, they all do the same job.

I can't see why not. I think it's been suggested already.

If you think a critter has gnawed a cable, then you'll need a tester to be able to check insulation --> time for an electrician. If you suspect a switch, check connection tightness of cables on the switches and/or swap each switch in turn with a known good switch (tip: mark up the good switch so you know which is which after you get distracted 😉) While you're at it, check cable tightness on all the light housings as well. As above, by swapping out with known good units.

Probably wants the pre charge set at around 2.0 then with a pressure reducing valve set to 3.5. The water has to stretch the bladder and compress the pre charge gas / air, needs a bit of headroom to do so. https://pumpexpress.co.uk/explaining-cold-water-accumulators/#:~:text=The air pressure inside an,bar below the mains pressure. Scroll through that for a bit more info

I'll reiterate my point buried in my earlier post. The worse thing that any self builder can do is value their time at zero. You need to put a £ figure on every hour you spend on site. Say £20. Re taking down the leaf of a cavity wall. @Gus Potter and @saveasteading might be along to discuss why this is a bad idea. As far as I understand the two leafs when ties together act more like a wide solid wall, like a "H" rugby goals. When you take away half almost all of the lateral strength disappears.

Having recently moved from Octopus to E.On for exactly the same reasons I only have good things to say so far. My smart meter had stopped communicating with the DCC just before transferring across. E.On booked an engineer to come in a week later who switched it out for a new one. A couple of days later the new readings were coming through onto their website. They agreed to back date the Next Drive tariff from the date I transferred over to them which was a nice surprise too, as I was expecting to pay at their variable tariff rate as per their T&C’s. If you haven’t already started the process, and would like a referral code for £50 off your bill (I would also receive £50) my link is https://share.eonnext.com/topaz-crane-1929

It's a bore hole pump. Think it's about 3-4bar, will check .

It is fragile if abused, otherwise will withstand normal conditions and the holes are tiny so nothing gets through. I think it is best cut with strong scissors that don't have to go back in the kitchen drawer. The cut edge had best be folded back under or it may fray.

If the OP had a condition requiring adherance to specific drawings illustrating the design to be built, they may need a s73 application to vary that condition. For example we had approval for a house and detached garage which had a condition listing the relevant drawings which showed a pitched roof on the garage. We then submitted a s73 to vary that condition to substitute a drawing reference that showed a flat roof. The application consisted of the original "as approved" drawings and the revised "as proposed" drawings. Mind you it them just as long to approve that as it did the original scheme!

Hopefully no one is disputing this. Except possibly @nodwhose earlier comment displayed a lack of understanding.

Emitters in your case is radiators. DeltaT is difference between two temperatures. This could be room to radiator difference or difference between flow and return temps from boiler.

I think mine has the outer leaf rebuilt, but it was a bungalow having an extra storey added and was done by the previous owners who lived in a caravan for several years. They also did a side extension and a fat-at-the-back extension. We bought it finished except for a conservatory and the electric gates. The caravan is still on the Council database 15 years later. The weakness I see with redoing the outer leaf is that it will never be high performance with only a 75mm cavity and 50mm EWI. That feels like more cost than benefit. I only have 80mm PIR (it needed double) in the cavity and is better than OK, but only an EPC of low-80s iirc without the large solar array. Your costs need a careful check. I have had various EWI quotes for different houses over the years, typically for 125-200mm to be worth the pfaff, and they have never come out at less than £100 per sqm even going back a decade and with agreements for me to get various prep work done. I'd say consider option 6 if you can, and a design-and-build from a timber frame company (or design-and-shell and you do fit-out-and-decorate), and bank the several extra years of spare time you get for you or your family to enjoy. Ferdinand

Provided you use semi-flexible insulation batts you cut them a little oversize and compress them a little, so that they push gently against each other from floor to ceiling and wall to wall, holding each other in place when supported by the studwork... Just found a pair of images to illustrate the above. This is hemp insulation on a wall about 1m wide x 2.6m high, self-supporting (left) before I put the studs in place (right). The batts here are 100mm thick, but the lowest (out of shot) was sawn through to about half that as the wall behind was out of plumb.

@allthatpebbledash, I hope I wasn't poking too much fun with my above post. Sorry if I was. Practically what you are proposing is possible but very uneconomical. It's been alluded in the above posts that with lots of DIY that it could be cheaper. I made the mistake in our old build of not valuing my time enough. I embarked on circuitous routes because of it and it pretty much burnt me out. If you really want to avoid a knock and rebuild then I would step back from the bleeding edge of performance a little. Dig out the ground floor and replace with 300mm EPS. Pour a slab with UFH or float an OSB floor on top. Suck out the mineral wool in the walls, replace with EPS beads. Parge internal walls and apply good airtighess to all joists and wall penetrations. Apply a battened internal service cavity with mineral wool insulation. Plasterboard and skim Install good quality 3g PVC windows and doors. Apply an airtight membrane to the ceiling of the existing roof. Pump 3-400mm of cellulose in there. Install dMEV or ideally dMVHR if possible. You'll get to about 30kWh/m²/annum like this I reckon and it can be done piecemeal. Otherwise knock and rebuild.

So this is the first proper start/run. The way the heat works and it makes zero difference what the target temperature is initially. The heat pump starts, it monitors flow and return temperature. It tries to establish a steady return temp, and then sets flow temp to approximately the target dT (difference between flow and return temperature) above the return temp. It will not add more flow temperature until dT reduces. So if have many tonnes of house to get up temperature that has spent its whole life unheated it takes a while. This doesn't mean your settings are correct or even close, but the realities are houses when just built are very damp the water contents require loads of heat to start drying.

Option 4 or 5 will surely lead to Option 6 in an uncontrolled way. If you really don't want to rebuild, then Option 3 but aim for more than 50mm EWI.

I fitted a steel angle bolted back through the nudura, then cut a notch out of the stone so it sits over the steel, you can only see the steel if standing directly under it and looking up, I’m going to cover it in a strip of upvc to match the windows.

One of these. Which one depends on the state of the pebbledash - in particular evidence of cracking or sounding hollow. However a deep retrofit will be more expensive and time-consuming that rebuiding. Unless you do lots yourself, in which case it may be cheaper but will take much longer... ...so give this very serious consideration!

You are 100% not going to do option 4 or 5 never heard such a ludicrous idea. there’s been a few silly ideas on here in the past, but I’m afraid you have just topped them all.

A thought. Stand an iPhone or iPad (or rather low rent android equivalent lol) next to your heat pump and set it to record on voice memos. Go back an hour later and you can see a graph of the noise it produces. I’ve just done a quick test using my voice (best I can do right now as we are a heat pump free zone) and this is what it looks like.

I've even shown utility companies mains services they didn't know were there. Not on any drawing. It's seldom a good deal to buy a house in order to build an extension, unless you are a builder. It's done to avoid moving usually, and the increase in value is usually less than the cost......and then there is the disruption and, in your case, the risk

We have 'partial differential equations' that have to be solved. Partial solutions to equations is easier. That is internal, or intrinsic energy, it is based on Newtonian Mechanics though.

Very poor effort. Not an architect. Let me know if you want me to take a look.

I still have them, and not blown one in the 2 decades I have been in the house. They are probably in the original 1987 bits of fuse wire.

It may be me. I managed an Oh Lordy Lordy out of him for not fitting MVHR 😂😂

How will it cost more? As for performance, that’s subjective based on initial goal of what I’m looking to achieve. I don’t want a passivhouse, enerphit maybe. But still, why demolish a building that has no real structural fault? Yeah I appreciate that. Should’ve mentioned this was material prices. Labour can be found at whatever rate someone is willing to do it for and you’re prepared to pay. But materials more or less have a trend line so can at the very minimum count on that for estimation purposes. Yeah, should’ve mentioned I’m looking at materials prices at moment. Hard for a contractor to gauge labour charge. More if stand alone job, but could be less if done as whole package. Hahahaha. My 2 year old would love option 6 for definite. But that would surely cost more? New foundations, cost of demo and clearance? New planning and extra delays? Being that I’ll be paying 5% VAT regardless for everything and 0% VAT for some of the stuff, hardly see the point in knocking it all down to save 5% more? Property has been vacant for 2 years so I get the VAT on the whole refurbishment. Oh yeah, a proud moment this lol. Tell me then, what was the now 2nd worst idea I just topped? Always wanted to be best in class. Thanks. As property is empty for 2 years, my entire refurbishment will come in at 5% VAT cost, some items are of course nil rated. Hardly makes sense to knock it down to save further 5% on the tax considering cost of JCB and new foundations. My only issue is the pebbledash, maybe I should just own it? Paint it white, dash showing and all? See my comment above to this, the VAT saving is minor, so definitely can’t be cheaper than working with it. Nah absolutely not, I enjoyed the laugh. I recall your previous comments to things I’ve asked regarding retrofitting, I find your input seriously valuable. All the things you’ve mentioned are exactly on the table right now being talked about. This is where the idea of the topic came from lol. Rather than sucking it out, refilling etc. given I want to freshen the facade, taking the outer skin off, use batts, and re skin would be easier and probably more cost effective? This was the point of the discussion. I think the cost of sucking out the mineral wool, blowing in new graphite EPS beads, hacking off the pebbledash, re point where necessary, then render again is looking to be more costly than carefully sections at a time, remove outer skin, fix batts for insulation, rebuild with fresh brick. I’ve come across this idea on another forum (PistonHeads) where someone has done exactly this to an old police station. Can post a link if anyone is interested? Their builder did a half wall at a time, the end result is fantastic. Like me, they dislike render too. Anyways, I’m seriously considering this. If anyone is interested, can I post an Instagram handle here for people to follow along?

Maybe all the videos laboured the point …

Wrong forum! We are all cynics and miserable.