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Demolition, site clearance, reduce dig and installation of pre-insulated pipes for ASHP and potential future garden room. The pre-insulated pipe we used in the end was "REHAU RAUTHERMEX 25mm+25mm/111mm DUO PIPE". The ground was luckily fantastic, apart from one area with some roots and a couple of soft spots left over from the demolition. So we managed to avoid the extra 800mm reduced dig that had been specified based on 2 trial holes in the old front garden. At over 200m2, that would have been a lot of muck-away and hardcore..

As if I didn't have enough part started and not even started stuff to do, I've been asked to work out what a garden room would cost. I said £10k, I wasn't believed so I've made up an estimate for something I don't know how to do and taken my best stab at it. It would be a trapezium (?) shaped building due to the shape of the bottom of the garden, surrounded by trees and about 5m from a stream. It would be 1m from the boundary one each side. It would be approximately 27m2, constructed like a glorified shed and must not be taller than 2.5m. What I am looking for is feedback if there is anything wrong or just missing from my costings. What would different base/foundations cost? I've just proposed this as it is the simplest easiest method to DIY, about 1800mm max between posts. A 100mm concrete slab + ring beam would require a lot of digging and 3-4m3 of concrete and this spot is 30m from the road through my reasonably clean driveway, patio and garden, not a building site. I don't know the details of the joinery and how this will go together without right angled corners but added some extra timber to the estimate. Cladding? I have no idea about but would like a modern contemporary vertical straight wooden look. I know proper Larch or Cedar is expensive but there must be something that works out at £25m2 fitted including consumables and accessories. I have quoted on using EPS insulation throughout as it doesn't need to be great but I wanted to avoid fibre insulation in the floor and lower walls so close to the stream. Cold roof could use fibre insulation instead but walls and floor feel I should use EPS. The roof, I have no idea how to make work for a 6m front to back span. I'm aware that I might need a steel goalpost arrangement halfway back to split the spans. If so, I'll add another £1k to the estimate. I've added £50 in 3 sections to cover fasteners, not sure how close this is. Glazing wise, it doesn't have to be a bi-fold door. An approx. 2m wide french door arrangement with glazed panels either side would be acceptable. I've picked £2k as a round guess. I haven't included any must have tooling for this: I have a cheap mitre saw and circular saw so any necessary tooling (Nail gun?) will need to be bought/hired. About the only thing missing off this is a stove. I would probably only go for something like a tent stove as it wouldn't need to be big and not get used much. As such, I'll put it as £1k job in the back of my mind for looking at when this plan actually starts moving. shed budget.xlsx £8.1k is the estimate if my spreadsheet makes your eyes bleed.

an airship would that get round planning ? variable views If you winch it up and down LOL

You’ll need Planning as it’ll exceed 3sq.m. As mentioned, it will not require Building Regulations if you’re retaining the original front door. Assuming the existing house is cavity, then it’s best practice to connect the new cavity to the existing along with physically lapping the new and existing external DPC’s.

Thanks a lot, really appreciate you sharing your experience ?

Are you replacing the porch on a like for like basis, including its size? If so, how big is it as it looks to exceed 3sq.m in external footprint so Planning may actually come into to? If you’re retaining the original front door, you’d be exempt from BR’s so can build and insulate it how you like. If you are going for a 75mm cavity (although 100mm is current regs for comparable purposes), you’d end up fully filling it. A partial fill cavity normally requires a 50mm clear cavity so would only have 25mm of rigid insulation. Partial filling is also a bit of a backward way of building a cavity wall and is something the majority of old school builders do not like.

Not that it makes any difference, but there would appear to be a few PD rules you’d fail to meet anyway so there is in your case no PD fall back position should the LPA raise concerns via a formal application.

Design error.

Solidor composite with Ultion plus 3G And Secured by design is change of £2k inc VAT.

The only time they would is if ‘at least’ one of the first floor Bedrooms could not provide an escape window. This is quite common for Bedrooms with side facing windows that are restricted with an overlooking/privacy Planning condition.

Ok so all of that is dependent on frame and the locks. Start with multipoint and ensure the mechanism can take an Ultion euro barrel. Frame needs to be reinforced which should be standard in UPVC but surprisingly isn’t in some designs. The side lights cause issues with structure to the hinge side but nothing that can’t be designed out. All glazing needs to be internally beaded, and then security taped in - I would make the top light of 6.4 laminate with the number in the middle pane made of frosted glass, then another layer of 6.4 laminate. Side lights I would break up into 3 sections - big enough to let light in, small enough that the cannot be used for access. Again, triple glazed and use the same make up as above 6.4L - 4 - 6.4L. Getting through that will make a lot of noise ..! Next - sort the lighting in the stairwell and make it clear that it has CCTV - dual cameras if necessary. That will make your average criminal think twice and walk off somewhere else.

If you question is what type pf electric resistance heater, the answer is it makes no difference, 1kW of electricity in = 1kW of heat out. If you want something cheaper to run how about one of the small split air conditioning units that work as an air to air heat pump and will do heating and cooling. They will be cheaper to run and the cooling might be handy in summer.

We used a planning consultant, best money I’ve spent in a long time. I would find one locally that knows the area and then check them out, see what they have achieved lately. As above I wouldn’t waste too much money on drawings for something you won’t get permission for, you may need all the money for the big fight you have in front of you.

If the stone has a lot of small powdery fines these can turn to slurry when wet but the larger stone should hold together well. If your underlying soil is shrinkable clay it can change a lot depending on moisture content but should be fine when your paving is down.

It really depends on the quality of information you have given him - I don't think you can expect him to come back with a fully priced bill of quantities unless you have employed a QS to prepare the bill. Usually if we are tendering a house, we would issue a set of tender drawings, which are much more detailed than building regs drawings and a schedule of works which will normally run to somewhere around 30 pages for a house - the better the information you give out, the better information you will have returned, with building reg drawings there is always a danger that the builder assumes one thing and you assume another, and you don't find out until they'll brought the brass sockets on site and started fitting them! Some people seem to have had successful builds with the minimum of paperwork and a handshake with a builder they liked. I went the other way and put in what I think was a lot of effort and some cash to make sure I'd covered as much as possible. I'll know at the end of the year if it was worth it but at the moment it feels like it was. We (well the architect) put together a tender document for builders that was 8 pages long with about 23 other documents as appendices, everything from location plans and ground/drainage reports to engineer's structural performance drawing along with detailed notes and all the usual drawings. Builders were asked to respond with indicative costs, we then shortlisted and asked a couple to provide an actual quote. The builder we went with then provided a fairly detailed tender document and a progamme of works gantt chart. That was then all worked into a minor works building contract that ran to 100 plus pages. Some builders were not prepared to go further than a single side of paper with costs broken into 6 stages with a bit to sign at the bottom.

I’ll email the company supplying ours and see what they say ?

I had a smart meter installed as part of a deal. It’s never worked properly, it doesn’t sent the supplier meter readings and it doesn’t communicate with the energy monitor they provided. This is the third smart meter I’ve had in two desperate properties and none of them have ever worked properly.

I think it’s 925 air sealing I used. Too many numbers bouncing around in my head.

It sounds like it is seriously messed up. Why am I not surprised? The 3 minutes on 2 minutes off sounds awfully like the HP thinks it should be heating the radiators, but something else (like a motorised valve on the heating circuit) is closed so all the HP is doing is heating and re heating a short run of water running round a few pipes. It should not be your problem to sort out, the developer should sort it. If the heating is off (or is above the target temperature) then the HP should not do anything until hot water is needed. Have you got an immersion heater you can use for hot water until it is fixed?

Someone I know has an alarm system that uses a 455MHz (?) wireless key fob to enable and disable it. While away on holiday the alarm went off and the neighbour call them to let them know. Their response was to ask the neighbour to hold his phone near the alarm box so they could use their key fob to turn it off ?

Is there not a "lock front door" command? I bet there will be SOON.

How you finding this, is it functioning as predicted? dont know why it keeps attaching @Jamesp post, cannot get rid of it. What chance have I got running something complicated! Just spoken the to the people supplying ours, he said all the calculations work out and it would be fine. The only advantages would be higher flow rates and quicker recovery time for the hot water. To be safe I’ve opted to upgrade to the 11kw it was an extra 900. Just told the misses to cancel the curtains ?

you can tell I,m stalled by planning .LOL