AliG

The layout itself is broadly fine, you have more building issues. You might well have fire risk issues with the kitchen open to the stairs. As drawn the balcony would be a problem to build, it would require a lot of steel. The corner of the balcony outside bedroom 2 is above the kitchen then the whole outside wall upstairs would be above the living room and dining room. You would need very large steel beams to support the outside walls upstairs. Similarly how do you support the joists for the upstairs rooms. Once you get spans much over 6m you start to have issues and the joists start to get thicker. In the area were the stairs are the joists would have no obvious support in either direction so again you would need beams in the ceiling. I am not sure that the layouts of the utility room and bathrooms work well as drawn, you may find that in more detail you have some quite narrow spaces. I would want a door on the utility room so as to reduce the noise of the washing machine. I also do not think you could get that much cabinetry in that size of room and still have room to work. Similarly the mud room is so small it would be better as a cupboard. You may also need to find space for a boiler/MVHR/hot water tank etc depending on the services you expect to have.

The Aldi multi tool seems to be available now. 40V https://www.aldi.co.uk/multi-tool%2C-40v-battery-%26-charger/p/000000283316400 20V https://www.aldi.co.uk/multi-tool%2C-20v-battery-%26-charger/p/000000283753400 I have some plywood pelmets that I need to cut. We installed them too tight to the wall for the curtains to be easily hung and I reckon the easiest way to fix this is to leave them on the wall, cut them shorter and then put a new one on top. So a multi tool seems the way to go, I had been thinking of getting one but didn't have a reason to. I doubt it will get used much, so would you people recommend these Aldi ones or spending a bit more on something else? This Einhell unit looks like a slightly pricier alternative https://www.ffx.co.uk/tools/product/Einhell-Eintemg18Li-4006825626100-Varrito-Cordless-Power-X-Change-Multi-Tool-18V-1-X-2.0Ah-Li-Ion

I had a professional valuation done on a plot and it was a total waste of time and money as he seemed to put way too much of his own personal opinion into it. It is pretty straightforward really. 1. What will the finished house be worth. Normally you can get a very good idea of local per square foot prices. There may be a premium for a new place in London. So if the house is 1000 square feet and the prevailing price is £800 a square foot then it will be worth £800,000, assuming 1000 square feet. 2. What will it cost to build the house? There are many sources that suggest build prices. Most of these will suggest £120ish a square foot I think. Many people on here are finding that the cost is much more, but a lot depends on the spec. Would you be building it to live in forever, you might spend £170 a square foot, building it to sell you might spend £120. So build cost around £150,000. Don't forget to include any extra services, permissions, architects etc that you might need, this might take you up towards £200,000. You may be able to get an estimate from a builder, but this will almost certainly be wrong/too low. 3. This is where it gets interesting. If you were a property developer you would want to make a 15-20% profit. So a professional valuer would probably value the land at around £500,000. Plus £150,000 build cost plus profit = £800,000. Using my example prices. I think that people find most plots are actually valued closer to end value - build cost. This is due to there being a lot more self builders than available plots, especially in urban areas. I would base it on, what would you pay for a house there less what you think it would cost to build. You can then bid below this if you think you can get away with it and don't mind missingf out on the plot if you think the price is too high.

Although structural EPS can take a dead load I would be concerned that it would scrub away over time at the threshold, maybe you could put a hard cap on it, or use a narrower strip of PIR inside the door to create a break. Even an insulated garage door is pretty appalling versus a proper window or door. There will be so many cold bridges that I wouldn't worry about the threshold. Directly above this will be a thick rubber seal that provides virtually no insulation. I am not sure about a channel, wouldn't it just fill up with water. The key things to stop water being blown in are to have a flat surface for the door seal to press against. In my last house it was bumpy and water would come in at the low points and to have a run off on the threshold at the outside so that water running down the garage door runs away from the garage. My current house is constructed like this and we have no issues with water ingress.

Fair point, I should really have done an IRR calculation. If I do this, the IRR on panels with 25 year life, assumed £1000 inverter replacement half way through, 0.5% a year degradation, generating electricity worth 5% of the initial cost per year and 2% electricity inflation is 3.4%. You would need to earn around 4.3% before tax in a savings account to match this (ignoring the £1000 interest tax exemption) but clearly you always have access to your money. Even if you die the panels are still there generating electricity and have a value, just like your house does. But admittedly it isn't easy to realise this.

Exactly, the return that FIT payments generated was ridiculously high a few years ago. People are just looking for free money when they want them to continue. Solar panels make financial sense on their own merits now. You get a pretty much guaranteed 5-6% inflation proof return. I don't see many(any) other investments offering that. Thus why not do away with the costs and bureaucracy of the FIT system. People just have to adjust heir minds to a reasonable return.

The calculations seem high for the amount of electricity generated. It sounds like they are expectng a 6kW system to generate 6000kWh a year. I would expect more like 4500 and that would be facing due south. My old 4kW system generated 3000kWh a year at the almost perfect angle, although it was in Edinburgh, so you may generate more further south. I also thought there was some kind of official calculation that had to be used. Further you cannot save £2000 in electricity if you don't use that much. I guess you might if you have an ASHP and use electricity for heating. But then most demand will be in winter when PV panels generate virtually no electricity. This is also when most demand for lighting etc exists. As has been said you might be able to use around half your generation for electricity offset and the rest to heat water. When I run the numbers I expect someone to get around a 5-6% ROI, acceptable when you look at current interest rates, which could be improved if you can get the system installed cheaper.

I was trying to decide the best way to use our PV. I was going to get an iBoost type of device. However, we have 3 MVHRs and a pool pump that all run constantly. We also have quite a lot of networking equipment, Sky boxes etc. Thus I reckon we have a pretty solid base demand for electricity that probably uses most of our PV. Actually I need to check what this level is when everything else is off. On top of that I have reduced the maximum charge rate on the car to 3kW. Thus the car charges slowly over a number of hours and should take up any spare capacity. If you can use the PV to offset real electricity demand it is better than using it to heat hot water which is cheaper to heat either via gas or an ASHP. Because of this constant electricity demand I decided that even charging at night I couldn't move enough of our demand to off peak to justify using economy 7.

At the moment though if I need a reading I have to ask someone to get it for me and they often forget. It has often delayed me changing supplier as I can't give them the reading.

This has reminded me to order my smart meter in London. I live in an apartment building where the meters are in a cupboard that I don't have access to, so it will mean I don't have to ask someone for a meter reading. Laziness seems to be a big benefit that isn't mentioned.

The recommendation from both Kingspan and Celotex is that in this scenario the insulation above the rafters should be equal or greater than the insulation below the rafters or there may be condensation issues. The easiest is usually to use 100mm above the rafters and 100mm between. This is also usually the cheapest board to buy. You would just push the 100mm right up and leave a space underneath. 200mm of PIR like this will give you a u-value of 0.11, I am not sure that the extra 25mm underneath would make a big difference relative to the cost. Also you should really do this as it would make the insulation below the rafters thicker again.

We have the sarking installed in strips with small gaps in between for breathing. If you installed it without this then the 50mm may be necessary. This piece from Sandtoft refers to BS5250 https://wienerberger.co.uk/downloads/20160505112912/sandtoft-technical-notes-roof-space-ventilation.pdf If you have a warm roof, which they define as having insulation between or above the rafters and a "well sealed ceiling" both of which @Vijay appears to have and a air and moisture permeable membrane then ventilation is not required. If you think about it, if the ceiling is "well sealed" where would moisture be coming from that would have to evaporate through the roof.

As you have a VCL and breathable membrane and tiles on battens I do not believe that the 50mm ventilation gap is necessary, but I would ask whoever wrote the spec.

That is useful info @Russell griffiths So Klober perm sec metal is 8.5mm thick and has a mesh that allows water to run down through it. This it slightly raises the metal above the sarking, similar to what a batten does with a tile and allows an unventilated metal pitched roof. See page 2 http://klober.co.uk/media/uploads/56c711838b31b.pdf The only thing not clear is, does the bottom edge of the metal have to be left open somehow allowing moisture to exit and presumably drip into the guttering? I guess you could still wrap the zinc around the edge of the roof as long as you left a small gap behind it.

@nickw asked me about this as we have full fill insulation in our roof. It depends on whether you have a warm(insulation above the rafters) or cold (insulation between or below the rafters) roof. If you have a warm roof VM Zinc can be installed without any ventilation. This requires a VCL below the insulation and a breathable membrane on top. This is detailed here on the VM Zinc website. My flat roof area is of this construction. https://www.vmzinc.co.uk/our-solutions/vmzinc-roofing/vmz-standing-seam-warm-roof-on-rigid-insulation-structural-roof.html My pitched roof area is tiled. It is a cold roof with insulation between and below the rafters. It is still, however, full fill with PIR as the ventilation is below the tiles which are raised off the sarking on battens. Thus I do not have any ventilation into the roof and any unsightly vents in the eaves. Again there is a VCL below the insulation and breathable membrane on top of the sarking. The sarking also has small gaps between the boards to allow it to breath, it is strips rather than OSB boards. You should not use T&G in this application. The problem with a VM Zinc roof in a cold roof application is that it is fixed directly to the OSB, as well as wrapping tightly around the edges usually. As it cannot be vented between the OSB and the zinc it needs ventilation below the OSB. This is detailed in these methods on the VM Zinc website https://www.vmzinc.co.uk/our-solutions/vmzinc-roofing/vmz-standing-seam-ventilated-roof-on-open-gap-timber-boarding.html https://www.vmzinc.co.uk/our-solutions/vmzinc-roofing/vmz-standing-seam-cold-roof-on-vented-plywood.html Suffice to say if you want a Zinc roof it is better if it is a warm roof.

Could you use 150mm of rock wool between the rafters with 100mm of PIR below? This would give approx the same U-value. If you can use rock wool it is a much cheaper way to get the same U-value as PIR but it is thicker. It needs a lot less labour also. I am not sure if you can full fill between the rafters or will need a ventilation gap, also it would have to be supported which might eliminate any savings. Has it been designed with a ventilation gap above the PIR? We have full fill PIR and no ventilation, this requires the use of permeable membrane above the roof. Not sure about the relative cost but it does mean that we don't have any eaves ventilation which is much neater.

I travel all the time to America for work. Our toilets work much better I find as their's don't send the flush water down fast enough. We have Porcelanosa toilets with their matching Noken hidden cisterns 6/3l flush. As far as I can see they are identical to Grohe/Geberit concealed cisterns. They send the water down much faster than the toilets in our previous house so are much better at cleaning out the pan. I do not know if this is due to the in wall cisterns being higher above the WC or them being set to take the maximum amount of water before they overflow. As an aside the half flush to save water I find pointless as often it doesn't flush properly then needs flushed multiple times so ends up actually using more water.

Reliability of charging points is appalling. When we couldn't use our home charger because of building work we gave up trying to use nearby chargers and just drove to the nearest Tesla supercharger which in our experience always works. The vast majority of electrical devices very rarely break down, I am not clear why car chargers are so much less reliable. In Scotland almost all chargers are in the Charge Place Scotland network so there is not the multitude of different networks to sign up with. Still, however, I found when trying to use it that maybe a quarter of the time the chargers were broken. On top of that some people just use them as their own personal free parking spaces. Further there is a free app you can sign up to or a RFID card which costs £20 a year. Many of the chargers have poor network connections forcing you to pay for the card even if you only use the chargers a couple of times a year. I think the poor signal partly explains some of the unreliability. Some chargers have also been installed in corners of car parks where you either struggle to get in or some cars cannot connect to them depending on where the charge ports are. There are some chargers owned by the council in Edinburgh where I can only use them when parked at a 90 degree angle to the charger due to the length of the cable. Basically they can only be used on a Sunday, the rest of the time council staff block the charger. This continues to mean that the Tesla network is pretty much the only reliable option for long distance travel. Partly it is a marketing issue. Most people would rarely have to use the network, but they like to know it's there if they need it. It will be interesting to see if some of the mooted new high speed networks manage to do a better job than what has been done so far. All new public chargers now have to have CCS plugs and/or type 2 plugs for DC and AC. This is the de factor standard in Europe. The Tesla Model 3 has moved across to CCS and Tesla have started to install new cables at their chargers, even though their chargers are not covered as they are not public, but this allows the cars to also use public DC chargers. I would expect all new cars in the EU to be CCS. The Leaf is a notable standout and charging older cars that don't use the standard system could become problematic over time.

I am talking like for like cars. I actually have a 911 C4S (991 model) and drive it a lot less since I got the Tesla. Whilst it is faster on paper it requires a lot more effort and just feels old fashioned. Clearly it handles better and drives like a go cart due to being smaller and lighter. My Model X is way better to drive than my previous similarly sized Range Rover Sport mainly due to no diesel engine. Ride/handling is similar.

Are you referring to the surprisingly high price @JSHarris? I have seen some analysis that people have done. Based on the price of the Model S/X I would have guessed around £37,000 for the SR+ I was at around £35,000 before they added forced autopilot purchase. It seems that they are charging more of a premium for the 3 than the S/X in Europe.

I'm not convinced Tesla will be around in 10 years either. So I bought the car on a PCP for the first time ever. Also a technological breakthrough could seriously devalue the car. If you look at the current product pipelines for car companies though EVs are on the cusp of mainstream. Most car companies have slashed investment in ICE and an ever increasing proportion of new models will be EVs in the next 5 years. In 5 years time an EV should have a lower cost of ownership in Europe than an ICE car. Although TBF this is due partly to lower taxes on electricity. They are much nicer to drive, at cost parity, the only reason I would choose an ICE is if I drove large numbers of miles on a daily basis or had a very unpredictable schedule so needed the range.

Fuel cell cars would definitely be lighter, but in fairness you have to add the weight of the hydrogen tank and the fuel cell not just the hydrogen.

Hydrogen is an awful fuel source for cars today. Only a small fraction of the energy actually gets to the car after accounting for losses in making the hydrogen, transporting the hydrogen and turning it back into electricity. I guess at some pointing the future if all electricity was renewable and cheap this wouldn't matter so much but by then batteries will be much better. Electric motors are very very efficient and we already have a distribution system for electricity. What we don't have is enough chargers. One of the beauties of electricity is that it is already available pretty much everywhere. The cost to build a hydrogen distribution infrastructure would be crazy. Yes it is more energy dense and you can refuel faster, but battery density will continue to improve and charging times come down. 98% of car journeys are under 50 miles, the average car in the UK does only around 8000 miles a year. In 18 months of owning a Tesla there has only been one trip I could have made where I would have had to charge it, but I took the train as I was too jet lagged to drive. All other charging should be done at home. The government needs to mandate all new homes, particularly apartment building to have charging facilities. They already have electricity so adding this is a minor extra cost.

I did read about that and worry but shouldn't be a worry nowadays. Not to say that we haven't tried to make sure everything is waterproof and sealed. Afraid I didn't look at stainless steel pools. A quick Google suggests that they are significantly more expensive than polycarbonate, maybe adding 50% to the total cost. One company that builds traditional concrete/tiled pools quoted me three times what mine cost! Household pools have way less chemicals in them due to lower usage level. My pool is only 0.55 parts per million of chlorine, the tap water limit is 5. The pool guy tells me it is actually below the local tap water level. I cannot believe how well the automated systems work to look after my pool. There are various cartons of liquid that are connected by tubes and it just tops itself up as required. In a year of use the only maintenance for me is to chuck the cleaning robot in every couple of weeks and occassionally run the brush around the edges the robot may miss. The pool guy has to come 2 or 3 times a year to replace the chemicals and check everything, but nothing has needed done.

In my house they put pipes in conduit/insulation when they run through another room from the manifold before the room they are supposed to heat, especially when there were multiple pipes all running to different rooms for example in the hall. The odd single pipe will be ok, but you might want to insulate the area where lots of pipes run together. In my house the actual manifolds themselves generate quite a bit of heat and the rooms they are in are generally warmer than other rooms. Overheating may or may not be an issue, it would be an issue if they were in a space that you don't want to heat, but all that will probably happen is the kitchen circuit won't kick in if it is a bit warmer from the flow though the kitchen. Generally they won't run the pipes through walls, they run through doorways as you have shown. Is that a utility room at the left, I would have expected it there. Where is the boiler? Did they have a kitchen plan showing the oven etc, or did they think that is the back of a cupboard? As @PeterW says you need to be able to access the manifold. Also it would stick out from the wall so the appliances might not fit in front of it, not that you would want to do that.