newhome

From the ‘renovation / conversion’ claim form: Eligible building materials that a business both supplies and installs follow the same VAT liability as the service. This means that if the service is reduced-rated then the building materials will be too. The Scheme will only refund the correct amount of VAT (that is the VAT that was properly chargeable). If you have been charged VAT at the wrong rate (for example, because VAT was shown as standard-rated, rather than reduced-rated) your claim will be rejected. If the builder or contractor has charged the wrong rate of VAT on their services and materials that they installed, they should correct the liability. You will need to ask them to provide you with an invoice showing the VAT that has been correctly charged. But do not leave it too late. They have a limited amount of time to correct their VAT account with us, and are likely to refuse to make a correction if it is out of time. If you re-present the claim with an invoice showing the correct rate of VAT, we will make a refund to the extent that other aspects of the claim are satisfactory.

Yes both labour and materials should be 5%. You can claim the 5% back if your conversion qualifies for a reclaim under the DIY Housebuilders scheme.

+1

I used Scotframe in 2009 and used their closed panel system. It was called Supawall back then but was essentially the same as the type they offer now I imagine. This was it back then https://sites.google.com/site/sapserviceuk/informationadvice/Building-Fabric/News/supawall Impressions were that the company was good to deal with. They provided the building control drawings, SE for the frame, and quite a lot of the internals, so internal doors, skirting etc down to every nail and screw for the materials they supplied. The panels were easy to install. The joiners we selected hadn’t worked with this system before and they were really surprised how (relatively) easy it was. They just fitted together. The fact that they are large factory built panels means that air tightness is excellent as you only need to worry about the few joins and there is no chance of the insulation being installed shoddily. Labour on site is reduced too. 50mm of insulation was added to the external walls before the blockwork was done. We only had the walls built in this way (I think they only offered the walls at that time). I think it added circa 10k to the cost of the frame but I think we would have had to buy insulation and have it installed so it was probably a bit less than that once that insulation had been added to the basic cost, plus the insulation cost.

I had Karndean in my previous house throughout the whole downstairs. We went for the Da Vinci range as it has a thicker wear layer and as we had dogs we wanted it to be robust. It still looked great 10 years later when we moved out. Really hard wearing and easy to clean. The OH didn't want it here but I would have been perfectly happy with it again. The fitting is all important though as someone I worked with had it done in her house and the fitters made a bit of a bodge of it and you could see the marks as ripples underneath where the glue had been spread. The company agreed it was substandard and replaced the whole lot.

He's probably gone for a lie down!

Made me laugh too! ? I was worried we were going to see a @pocsteresque photo of you on the bog! ? ??

Would the air tightness test report not state where there could be areas to improve or do you have to be on site and ask questions?

I think for us the TF supplier offered 2 choices for the walls; ‘standard’ or the one that was 0.11 and we went with the latter so it wasn’t that we were trying to do better but we did think it was worth the additional cost. I think @Stones used this method too for one of his many builds. Passive Houses weren’t talked about that much back then (2009) and we didn’t have any thoughts about building one although we had heard of them. I suspect that if we were doing it now we would be more likely to as more info is available. Ultimately however I’ve got what I’ve got and if I get round to trying to fix the draft that I can recently feel at the back door I suspect that will do me better than lamenting about what I might have built ?.

Ha ha, my house is far from passive sadly. I wish we had thought more about the floor TBH. I love hearing how low some people’s heating requirements are. Mine are sadly a lot more because (I think) the floor isn’t good enough. As you say a cost benefit analysis is required if you are mainly wedded to the view that the construction costs vs payback is the main concern. It’s all a bit finger in the air with these things however and for many they concentrate what they can afford in the here and now so will look for the most cost effective option. Those of us approaching retirement probably think more about how we will afford heating costs when on a pension (back to @Onoff‘s point) so may be more likely to take a longer term view. It’s not quite that black and white but I think life stage does have some bearing on what you build. The extra cost of the walls was 10k (compared to the standard TF cost) so wasn’t insignificant at the time. https://sites.google.com/site/sapserviceuk/informationadvice/Building-Fabric/News/supawall

That could be better perhaps? Mine is 0.11 from nearly 10 years ago.

Looks fab! Yorkshire Terrier on the astroturf?

This is the video I mention (video 2). https://portreepassivhaus.uk/video-reports/ Discussion about the heating requirements isn’t included here but the quote I mention “none installed” was from Facebook and the blurb at the bottom of the page says that the previous house has no installed heating. “designed and constructed to Passivhaus standard, with no installed heating system” , with no installed heating system The details of the proposed house start at around 17.35. Most of the earlier stuff is about Skye itself, and we’re all going to hell in a handcart too ?

Thanks. This was a quote from someone making a video of building a PassivHaus. Was a bit surprised to see 'none installed' when asked about heating and then a heat pump and electric rads in the bathrooms mentioned. Modest heat requirement covers it and of course that requires some form of heating to be installed.

I know you can for building regs but not sure that works for PP, especially when you know that it doesn’t have the right PP and the work was done relatively recently. Anyway, they went for a second viewing but have got cold feet due to Brexit so they are staying in their rented bliss until Brexit concludes one way or the other.

Welcome! I don’t know anything about GSHPs other than they can be spendy if they go wrong and it seems to be overkill in what sounds like a garden office, but your insulation would seem to be at a fairly minimum level. You should probably consider more insulation than you have in plan.

Ah I didn’t realise that the heat got upstairs by leaving the bedroom doors open. I always keep mine shut as I don’t heat the whole house. So I get that heat requirements can be low if insulation, airtightness etc is very good but what about someone who claims that there will be no heating installed at all, but then says that there will be a small heat pump on the MVHR intake and electric radiators in the bathrooms? Or is that as good as saying ‘we will have minimal heating’ rather than claiming that there will be none installed at all?

I think ASHPs stand out here as they are less well understood and an undersized one may struggle to provide the heat demand needed. With a standard gas boiler you can just keep running it pretty consistently to provide the heat required as the performance doesn’t vary with the weather in the same way as an ASHP. Hence there are more issues with an ASHP.

It’s just that I have seen quite a few people (not just on here) who have reported that their upstairs is too cold having planned for minimal or no heating upstairs. In all cases their main heat source has been via an ASHP alongside MVHR. I think the ‘correctly designed and built’ statement is certainly key but clearly there is a general issue if people from all over are reporting issues. Is it the basic design / specification / calcs that are wrong or how the houses have been built?

That seems like a good idea if you are going to leave the device on the bedside table when plugged in. If you want to use it when charging that’s potentially going to have the charging lead coming at you at head level rather than from lower down as would be the case from a normal plug. I use my phone when plugged in all the time and I don’t think that would work for me.

Seems like the council are removing automatic rights for permitted development in respect of a loft conversion. I still don’t get the council’s objection to a dormer bungalow in a road full of semis. And lots of houses only have 2 parking spaces. The terms of my PP were that I had to make provision for 2 parking spaces which is ridiculous for a house this size. As it happens there is space for several cars but I only had to provide 2, and there was no garage on the original PP, it was added later under PD.

Sounds like an excuse to me. If I don’t have the heating on upstairs it’s cold upstairs. I don’t see that heat escaping upstairs thus cooling the ground floor. Not the same spec house clearly but even so I don’t see how having no heat at all upstairs works tbh unless the MVHR has some way of providing warm air.

I don't really get why the road is full of semis but the council objects to a small dormer bungalow

I think I would be looking at running a path from the gate into the garden to the patio doors TBH. Or park up in the road, unload the car, then park in the alloted place.

Possibly a bit low but it depends how far the dolphins will be swimming towards it .