AliG

I had to do the same as @joe90 The regs massively increase the cost of using gas. Simple solution is an induction hob ?

The pool makes no difference to the SAP calculation. It is just considered extra space. You need to know the U-Value of the pool basin for the SAP calculation and that seems to be it. When I ran the calculations I just considered it to be an extra room constantly heated to 29C as that is the water temperature. The heating cost aligns well with that calculation. SAP does not take into account the use of energy for the pool pump and dehumidifier which I reckon is larger than the heating cost.

The Steelshieid is designed to allow you to use metal utensils I believe, but is considerably more expensive. I’m quite happy using silicone cooking utensils so don’t see the point.

We have gone through many Tefal, John Lewis and M&S non stick pans and consistently the coating has started to flake off after a while despite not using metal utensils. The non stick effect also deteriorates. Almost exactly two years ago we got Circulon pans from their Ultimum range which has a slightly better non stick coating. https://circulon.uk.com/collections/cookware-pan-sets/products/ultimum-stainless-steel-3-piece-saucepan-set I used a frequently available 10% off voucher to get them for £117 and have since added a small frying pan and sauté pan. I found that individual pans can be bought quite a bit cheaper on eBay. I find them vastly better than previous sets of pans. In particular they have a solid steel base as opposed to a lot of cheaper induction pans which stick a steel circle to the bottom of the pan. They get hotter and heat up faster and do not have issues with the base warping of the cheaper pans. As they were a bit more expensive and also as the non stick works very well I always wash them by hand. Stuff basically comes off with hot water and a wipe. I do feel that even if non stick pans are dishwasher safe, as these are, the dishwasher damages the coating. They are still clearly non stick and have not a single chip in the coating, by the same point Tefal pans usually have the coating all chipped around the top edge. I have found sometimes that if you fry stuff and let it totally dry hard onto the pan it is more difficult to clean. Basically when my wife cooks and not me. It definitely works best if you clean them without letting stuff dry hard onto them. They get very heavily used, since the pandemic started we have cooked almost all meals from scratch and often everyone in the house eats different food so the pans can be used multiple times a day. We also have a Circulon wok which we got first and is still like new. It is from the cheaper Momentum range. The only issue I find is that the small base to pan size on the wok means it takes a while to heat up on the induction hob. Edit: Checking the receipt I got a 4 piece set with the frying pan for £130 less 10%. This seems to be no longer available. Like many things prices have gone up materially.

I think it depends on the area and the meter provider having availability, some places seem to have a big wait. They might try and just install a non smart meter, call them up and see what they say.

I don't understand this. Is this a planning condition or building control? The approved plans presumably show heights, they are usually datum heights versus sea level, not ground level. The elevation pictures seem to show a house at ground level, I don't see how you can then just jack it up 1.7m in the air. If it is planning I assume that they expect the ground level to be increased as this is how it is shown on the elevations. A 1.7m increase in wall height would be a massive change versus the approved drawings. I am fine with forgetting the chimney as suggested by others. Very little risk.

You can get a flue collar that goes around the flue without removing it, something like this. I would fill the hole with rockwool for insulation and tape around the collar with heat resistant aluminium tape for air tightness. According to Google you can also just fill the hole with fire rated expanding foam, but this feels like a bit of a bodge. https://www.glowing-embers.co.uk/ChimneyAndFlues/TwinWallInsulatedFlueSystems/ShieldmasterTwinWallFluePipe/8200mmShieldmasterTwinWallFluePipe/8200mm30-45degFinishingPlate-ForTwinWallFluePipe

Move the stairs towards the front of the house so that they begin level with the balcony wall above. Then you have room for a double door into the kitchen at the top of the stairs opposite the spiral staircase. You might even have enough space to make a hall. They would still be plenty far enough from the front door. Or they would be far enough down that you could put the kitchen area back to the rear and the door would be close to the middle of the room which is probably the best place for it.

You can only try. They are very busy, but sometimes once you get a dialogue going they can be more helpful.

OK, now we're getting somewhere. Change the windows to a normal size. You'll regret living in a house with no natural light. This will help to fix the "austere and characterless elevations" For the chimney you have a strong argument that the government wants to ban stoves/fires etc and so houses shouldn't have chimneys. They also harm airtightness. I have two which are totally fake! Unless catslides are a feature of the area he doesn't have much of an argument. Why not change to the one you are suggesting, I think he maybe just wants it to have character not a specific design. Then maybe look to varying the outer finish in a modern way such as a mix of render and wood, something that you like that provides some variation. I suspect the windows and the creation of the large expanses of wall are the main problem. The planner will also like if you show willing.

I don't like planners being so specific about design generally, especially looking at the other houses in the street. But, I don't understand what you are thinking with the redesign and planners do have some responsibility to try and achieve good design. Are you really proposing those tiny little windows, it would be awful and dark inside. BC may also have an issue with the lack of light and ventilation and it would impact the SAP score.

My assumption was the conservatory had a solid wall on the boundary. If it was glass they wouldn't apply the 45 degree rule, but I think that glass is unlikely against the boundary.

It is a bit chicken and egg. I can probably save around 20% off my electricity costs per year by having a smart meter and Octopus Go, so I am going to need to bite the bullet and get it done. That is going to be around £500 a year at current prices. The export payment for unused PV will probably be a miserable £30 a year, TBH I think I use most of it, but again interesting to see. It would also be helpful to see exactly how much electricity I use at different times of the day as to what the best tariff to be on would be. As well as charging the car we have MVHR and pool dehumidifier that runs 24/7 and lots of dusk to dawn lights. My guess is that around 40% of electricity usage is during the night, however, the offsetting PV production maybe brings this down to 30%. I also would rather not have to bother reading the meters manually. Hopefully the worst that happens is they come out and can't get it working so reinstate the old meter. In my flat when I worked in London a guy came to put in a smart meter in the basement meter room. Despite there being many other smart meters there he said he couldn't get a signal and just put the original meter back. Install is due on October 7th. We go on holiday on the 9th, so hopefully they don't mess up.

Sadly too late to realistically do anything about it. To hopefully hep you feel better - Is there already a 6ft/2m fence between the houses. If so it is unlikely that the side wall of he conservatory will be much taller and cause much more overshadowing? Indeed this may have been taken into consideration by the planners. Also what direction does the garden face? Overshadowing impacts change depending on the direction of the sun. Also if you can't beat them, join them. Would you benefit from an extension out as far as they are building as they cannot complain about it overshadowing them now.

I think I'll just have to see when they get here

I have been waiting forever to get a 3-phase SMETS2 smart meter which might allow me to take advantage of overnight rates for charging the car. Got an email from Outfox The Market, my current supplier, offering an install by SMS. Called SMS and they confirmed they can now do 3-phase. I assume it will be an Aclara meter. Gave them all the relevant info. One thing I am a bit concerned about is that the electricity meter is inside and the gas meter outside with lots of blockwork and PIR in between. I am not convinced that they will be able to get the required signal between the two meters. As well as overnight charging I may also be able to get paid for small amounts of exported electricity. I am not on a FIT tariff so have not been paid for this so far. UnfirtunatelyI have a cracking deal on gas and electricity at the moment and my price will rise massively when I renew. Current price is 14.29p/kwh for electricity and only 2.14p/kwh for gas. Cheapest gas prices at the moment are over 3p/kwh so an almost 50% increase!

Are the joists resting on a steel beam at the other end? If so is this not set at the wrong height and can it be easily changed? If the steel is at the correct height, I struggle to see how this happened if everything is built correctly square.

Hi @Dutch I saved this as a PDF to try and get the right scale for room sizes. 1. The garage is roughly 5.66m long. A lot of cars nowadays are 5ish metres long. If you want to get something from the other side of the car you will find yourself squeezing past it. I would lose maybe 300mm from the utility and add it to the garage. I might also be tempted to move the door to the LHS so that most of the space is on the house side. It is almost the width of a double. Then I would make the utility deeper at the RHS so that you have room for the door behind the stairs into it. 2. Looking at the downstairs, the rear bedrooms are a little narrow at 3m or less and the hall/stairs is also a little narrow. Meanwhile the master bedroom and garage are 4.8m wide. I would lose 400mm from the garage/master bedroom width and add this to the man house width. This allows the rear bedrooms to be 3.2m and the hall 2.4m. You could make the stair 1m wide and still have a wider hall next to it too. 3. Add fitted wardrobes to the larger downstairs bedrooms. 4. Consider having a dressing room behind the bed in the master bedroom and moving the bed towards the window. 5. The upper floor has quite a few issues for me. I really would not like to have a WC directly off the kitchen and the master bedroom directly off the lounge. Where would you spend most time, the kitchen or the lounge? The kitchen will be pretty dark as positioned at the back. We have loads of windows and a balcony off the bedroom. The balcony is never used and all the glass makes it hard to sleep in summer. I would consider swapping the kitchen and master bedroom, the kitchen could then be dual aspect. If you make the main part of the house wider and the garage part narrower this will make this easier. There is still the issue of where to squeeze in the WC and if it can be separated from other rooms. 6. I am not a fan of the spiral staircase in the lounge, but I can see that a lot of symmetry has been achieved in the current design and there would be head height issues if the stair was elsewhere.

Unfortunately you have chosen an expensive way to build. Single storey means all the foundation and roof costs for half the house. Integral insulated garages cost almost as much to build as internal house space, but do to have anywhere near the value. I can see some cost savings, but to a lot. The obvious ones are- 1. Why are you heating the garage - Won't work, bad for the car and a waste of money. 2. As there is no door to the garage you could remove it from the insulated envelope and save a few thousand on insulation and use a cheaper door. 3. The enormous corner sliding doors. You are talking at least £10k there. Do you need them all? They will also add to the cost of building the walls. How is the roof held up in the corner? Another few thousand extra steelworks. 4. If you have gas already to the site save a few thousand by putting in a gas boiler. If you don't have gas ASHP is fair enough. 5. Is that a fire/chimney between the kitchen and lounge. We have two gas fires and in hindsightI would not have bothered. Cost a fortune in terms of pipework, flues etc and hardly ever used. That could save you 15-20k. After this, if you have a builder willing to work with you, you could get them to get actual quotes for the rood etc and see if the can fe worked down. However, if they had detailed tender documents they may have already done this. What do houses cost in your area per square foot/metre? You are only getting around 100sq metres of extra floor space for a total spend of over £500k. You might be as well selling and buying a larger, newer place.

Seems like a great deal, £40 for very nice tap. What's the catch? https://www.aldi.co.uk/spiral-kitchen-mixer-tap/p/807116481063600

We originally had Blanco Norte for our worktops but then changed it as when we saw it, it was darker than we expected. I wasn't brave enough to go non Silestone as it was just a lot easier to see Silestone in place and know what it would look like. I do think you have the issue that this would look a lot lighter under a window than in the corner. I wish our kitchen had an extra window in it as it is one of the darker areas in the house, we end up with the lights on almost all the time someone is doing something in the kitchen. You probably will too. I showed the pic to my wife and asked her thoughts. Her suggestion is waiting the walls a darker colour for some contrast. You do have a lot of similar colours there. Interestingly, looking at the pictures, the door frame doesn't look white either, it looks almost the same colour as the worktop. The trouble is a slightly darker wall I don't think would work, you would have to go a totally different colour. The other thing at the moment is there is just too much blank wall. We are quite accustomed to kitchens having wall cabinets and splash backs and this may be making you feel something is off. Do you plan to put more stuff on the walls? Shelves, pictures, splash back behind the hob etc? I think this would help immensely.

Doesn't really help you, but we went through lots of similar looking worktops until we got the colour we now have. As well as trying to find it in situ in different kitchen studios, I put the colour into a Google image search to see what I can find. Usually once you have seen a lot of pictures you get an idea what it will look like. A small sample does not give a good idea of the colour. What is the name and make of the colour? I'd be interested to see if looking it up shows it as being a creamy colour. It actually looks like a colour we almost had. I'm sure you'll get used to it, it will look quite different once you have items on the worktop etc. I suspect due to the darkness in the corner the lights will nearly always be on.

I think that an issue the planners may have is that it looks like more than one house or it will from a distance. The house looks quite a different shape to the existing to me so I am not convinced you could even use the existing foundation. Irrespective the 20% VAT saving would pay for new foundations. If the two elements to the left were combined then you would lose a gable and two of the pointy windows and it would look a lot more like the house you referenced. This would seem like a pretty modest redesign. I guess they want a hipped roof at the left, seems a bit prescriptive to me. Does the house cover more of the plot than before? If not often simply giving them the numbers for plot coverage gets around this. It’s not always obvious just by looking.

I did too Joe, I was meaning maybe there is some restriction they have been asked to comply with otherwise I wouldn't have worried about the existing footprint.

Much as I do not like planning decisions based on the personal opinion of the planner, I have to agree with the already made points. Can I just clarify that this is a complete demolition and rebuild? If so is it necessary to keep exactly to the existing footprint. It doesn't really seem to as the left hand side of the existing house seems to stick out a lot more forward than the new house. One of the great things about designing and building a new house is that it should look as if it was designed as one and that's how the house was intended. This is something often lost when houses were extended. It seems that in trying to follow the footprint of the extended existing house the architect has designed a house that looks messy and indeed will look as if it was extended from day one. In particular the number of different roof pitches is way over the top especially when considering the side view versus the front view. I have one set of pointy windows like that in our bedroom. We like them but they are a nuisance if you want to cover them and keep out light. The email from the architect does not sound that certain re refusal and therefore I suspect this can be avoided with a bit of compromise. This would also make it a lot easier and cheaper to build, something architects often ignore. I would think you could redesign the single storey rear projection to just have one roof pitch that runs the whole length of it, at the moment it appears to have three different roofs. I think this is made to create a small enclosed area. Redesigning the front will be harder. Maybe losing the triangular dormer would be enough to make it less fussy. If not you would probably have to redesign the whole front. Arguably you would have a good chance to win an appeal as they tend to go on policy, but I think the design could be a lot better.