Dreadnaught

Thank you all for your advice. I am grateful. Two things: 1) Who to ask? Before I play @Ferdinand's spot-the-ball on costs, who to turn to for a ball-park indication of price for groundworks? Would it be: a piling contractor? A specialist piling consultant? A structural engineer such as @StructuralEngineer? (I appreciate that only the broadest guesses are possible at this stage dependent as they are on the ground and house weight). 2) How much does a house weigh? Might a non-piled insulated concrete raft be an alternative? To @MikeSharp01's point, I foresee building a @JSHarris-style home of two bedrooms, 120 m2 and timber-framed and so of a weight of perhaps 70 tonnes, or less. And perhaps closer to @TerryE estimated mass of his passive house, which I recall he calculated as in the order of 41 tonnes excluding roof covering. Given this, and having read some comments in @recoveringacademic's blog of how the industry defaults to conservative solutions, might an alternative be an insulated-concrete raft, with its advantage of distributing the load and in combination with a light-weight house? Who to turn to for such innovative ideas? Some extra background on the plot: access to the site is limited. It is down a tight 40m road, the width of a car-and-a-half and flanked by buildings of the three-year PP development window, less than a year now remains trees adjacent to the site necessitate a no-dig foundations solution. The trees are without TPOs but are on neighbouring land the reason I am persevering with the plot is that its in a truly fine location

I am now looking at my second plot but the soil survey (from by the vendor) is rather intimidating and scary. I could do with some calming down and some advice. plot is near rectangular 13m by 19m soil: sand and gravel 0.15m to 1.35m depth underlying Gault clay groundwater below 2 - 2.5 metres depth the site has two major trees. "Live roots were recorded within the boreholes to depths between 0.90m and 2.80m 

" Foundations


 recommendation Sleeved piles Driven piles not possible because of proximity of neighbouring buildings "Single 300mm diameter bored piles, installed to 10m and 16m depth at the locations [… ], would have estimated working loads in the order of 170kN and 310kN (FoS=2.5). Different pile lengths, or diameters, from those detailed above would give different available working loads, which could be tailored to suit the working loads required. A piling specialist should undertake final design of piles." Floor slab "The floor slab for the proposed structure will need to be suspended on the piled foundations, in order to avoid differential settlement between them. As the floor slab will lie within the range of influence of mature trees, and desiccated clays are present, the ground floor should also be separated from the underlying soils by a sub-floor gap, as indicated in Table 7 of the above cited NHBC Standards." This all sounds firghteningly expensive and as I read it I thought of the phrase "you're not out of the ground until you're out of the ground". What should I make of this? I have not made an offer on the plot as yet but I suspect that this should impact the price. I would be happy to ping the full report to anyone who'd be willing to give me some advice.

@Charles Ebden Do you welcome responses from those whom are just searching for a plot and have not built anything yet?

That's very interesting contextual information. The sins of the building industry meets the political imperative to build at all costs and genuine self-builders suffer in the crossfire.

Very informative, thank you. And thank you for blogging. I find the blogs to be invaluable for learning.

May I clarify. Does "all standard" mean they found asbestos but it would not prove problematic, or they found none. Just of general interest to me.

Welcome. I shall be following your posts with much interest.

Tado has a control dongle the plugs into your router via ethernet. The remote radiator valves (if any) and the thermostat talk to it via Zigbee not WiFi. It was an easy setup in our case as I recall.

I suspect you are right but I did not set up our system so I am not sure it needs motorised valves. We have them. They are not fully silent — you hear a distant whirr — but its impressive at fine tuning room temperatures. The biggest advantage by far is the ability to remotely monitor and change the heat state. Even changes to the on/off timer programmes can be made remotely, which might suit you well.

We use this: https://www.tado.com/gb/. AFAIK it doesn't have advanced programming options to mimic your pattern. But using a smartphone you can activate the heating remotely to your heart's content. Not cheap when combined with motorised radiator valves but quite impressed by how it works. Edit to add: it can also be set up to turn on the heating when your smartphone comes within range and the range can be set to a number of tolerances.

For those with Apple AirPods, try ear defenders over AirPods. Tip: put the AirPods in upside down and in the opposite ear so they fit well under the defenders.

On this theme, I’m looking forward to reading Steven Pinker’s latest opus. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0241004314/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_ueMNAbGKDW05H

@Ralph I just went a read your "Hello" thread. Really interesting! Interested in starting a blog I wonder? I could learn a lot from following your journey.

Thanks. Blimey! I am contemplating my own build. Why do cost exceed £2000 per sq.m? Like Ben, I was assuming an estimate of £2k per sq.m would be generous and assuming it would come out at less!

Has anyone else listened to House Planning Help podcast HPH207 where Ben Adam Smith opens his tender returns? Punchline: Ben's tender returns all come back at least 50% over budget. I found it quite petrifying. What does everyone think? (For those wondering what I am referring to look here: https://www.houseplanninghelp.com/hph207-opening-our-tender-returns-with-ben-and-kay-adam-smith/) p.s. not a TV show but a podcast.

Sorry to ressurect an old thread. This thread has been an interesting read for a beginner like me. One note to add. When I met Janet Cotterell (she of the Passive House Handbook) she mentioned that external fly screens can also be useful in providing a degree ofwindow shading in the summer. She usually recommends them for this reason and for the reason already mentioned, that it more easily allows the opening of windows in the summer at night to allow hot-air purging. As we all know, summer overheating is perhaps the greatest risk with a passive house. I think she implied that the extent of shading is not enormous but better than nothing. I think she also mentioned that she had developed a way to model it in PHPP.

"Cochrane is a non-profit, non-governmental organization formed to organize medical research findings so as to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions faced by health professionals, patients, and policy makers." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochrane_(organisation) Its HQ is in London and was founded in 1993. It is largely staffed by volunteers. "Cochrane has approximately 30,000 volunteer experts from around the world."

An interesting and age-old idea. Bravo to you!

Just imagine what Drax needs therefore. The mad distortion of incentives! Sorry, off topic.

Did what?

Perhaps the last heating oil you will have cause to buy? Congratulations! With my limited knowledge, those results look impressive.

I would like them, if available.

Thanks @Onoff I love the contrast between authors. Your splendidly succinct answer compared to the equation-laden paragraphs I expected from @JSHarris Wonderful!

Interesting. Does PV silicon perform better when cold? Is there some sort of temperature induced drop in its performance? (Just general interest.) (Sorry to be off topic). Edit: look here for more info if you're interested: https://www.thegreenage.co.uk/article/the-impact-of-temperature-on-solar-panels/

Well said. I'm amidst that now! Welcome @Jamie998 (a reference to a Porsche in that user name?)