CADjockey

I'm sure one could knock something bespoke up with a Raspberry Pi and a couple of sensors. Dump readings to a log file and display via a webpage.

@Christine Walker, @TerryE, Yes I figured that was most likely to be the case, so I've been balancing liquid asset vs paying down the mortgage. In fact I cut off another chunk this morning and I figure, without an actual valuation, that the mortgage is now less than half the value of the land alone, notwithstanding the house we intend to demolish. The broker I finally spoke to last week said that whatever remained would be transferable and just form part of the self build mortgage. Thanks for responses.

Your treatment looks similar to how part of ours is designed to look. And we have a triangular window planned like that. My wife is now concerned about how we cover the triangle at night so we don’t wake with th birds every morning. What have you done if you don’t mind me asking?

Well I phoned up that big self build mortgages broker north of the border who tell me there’s no problem either way. The one other useful thing the nice lady said was that we shouldn’t do any of the work before securing a deal as some companies won’t lend if you’ve started. so at least I learned something today.

Congratulations, make the bastards pay!! They have also cost us a year of our lives so far, and we are mid appeal now... Tick flippin' tock!!

Yes, that's what I have been doing, and playing PushMePullYou in my head the whole time. Safe in the knowledge that cash looses about 2% of it's value every year just sitting in an account (almost no matter which account you can stick it in), I also recognise that the best saving you can make is paying off your mortgage early. We probably have enough set aside to get out of the ground and build most of the shell. I guess I really just need to talk to a professional. I was just casting about for some group experiences in the mean time.

Morning all... So we are planning to knock our house down and replace it, if we ever get the planning sorted... I'd be interested if anyone is or has been in a similar position, as I've mostly held back paying off our current mortgage in favour of stockpiling as much cash as I can to do the work. Is it actually fair to assume I'll need to pay it off anyway or could I get the remainder of the current mortgage added to a self build mortgage? Anyone got any experience or this? We probably own about 88% of our house/land under current value estimates.

Has anyone on here got any experience of PP under Special Circumstances, or what exactly constitutes ‘harm’ to the Greenbelt? We are not surprised by the negative response from planning to our replacement dwelling proposal in the Greenbelt but it seems to me that a policy is not a law and there is no definitive definition for ‘harm’ that I can find. I guess that’s why God invented appeals! Moreover we can expand into a much bigger footprint under PD pretty much without any let or hindrance, so which is more harmful? Planning, you’ve got to have a sense of humour!

I was thinking about this too, less for me, but more just to keep the neighbours informed of what's going on and about to happen especially for days of major inconvenience, foundation pouring, big deliveries, cranes etc... I've got a small server at home so will probably use that.

Ha ha, I was having the same discussion with my wife as we just replaced our old Dyson with a V10 stick.

Yup, they both most certainly are. I could certainly save £7k+ on not fitting an Aga. What do you call large? Our living room is planned to be 4800 x 6300 but will have 25%+ of the walls as glass. We currently have an Arduro16 which is 5kW and overkill for our current living room which is less wide.

Additional to original post of 'UFH vs Aga', we had a great log burner fitted in our current house before we started down this build route. We thought we'd lift and shift it to the new house. But same question applies.Is it utterly pointless to plan for a chimney and all the additional stuff to accommodate it in a modern insulated house with UFH. (We do have already supply of logs has to be said) Should I bin the idea and just plan to put it on eBay?

None of them have snapped yet, and they all went on flat, it's just happened over a short time post fit.

OK, as I'm in season for stupid questions... What happens when you get a foot of snow or more with an ASHP? GSHP is obviously insulated from the weather give or take.

Interesting to know. Thanks for that.

That's 1-2 units for a 450m2 build based on the 8-14Kw ratings I've seen. That's good from where I sit, I don't want to end up with an vast array of grey boxes even if behind the garage. On the other hand it was -14 on a few times this past winter!

So at 1Kw/10m2 for ASHP (found this on the web) I roughly calculate I'd need about 45Kw supply. I could do 35Kw if I exclude the garage. My quote for GSHP kit says 49Kwh/yr, but GSHP is probably a different calculation or it includes 10% over spec. How much should you over spec the requirement? 10%? None at all?

A friend of mine has just finished a build and covered it in mid range Spanish slate roof tiles. It is noticeable that a number of the slates are no longer laying flat on the slate below at the leading edge. That they have curled up a bit like the pages of a book as they have dried out? It may obviously be an issue under driving rain, but how common is this as I've never seen it before and I am planning a slate roof on our project?

Where I live the sound of petrol driven garden tools denotes the sound of a summer weekend. It should be highly irritating, but it's strangely therapeutic!

Not so much fear, but have just never heard an ASHP in action. My assumption is that it's no worse that a gas boiler which you wouldn't site next to a bedroom for example. How far away can you site it, far side of my garage would be 8m minimum from the house, do the fan units have to be sited close to all the internal tanks etc... A friend of mine has just installed a couple so might pop round this week to have a listen. Till now he hasn't had power connected to run them.

We plan to install underfloor heating but can’t see how that can be compatible with the possibility of also installing an Aga, especially in a modern insulated build. We have one currently and really like it in the winter, it’s a lovely thing if you can afford to run it. Ours is not for running any rads, just water and cooking. Anyone got underfloor and an Aga? How do you reconcile the additional heat and underfloor heating?

So I currently have both an oil boiler for heating and an old 1952 Aga converted to oil at some point which we cook on and delivers hot water in the winter. For the other 5-6 months we use Emerson rarely as shower is electric and we just do without & without noticing too much. So pretty much any switch to gas/GSHP/ASHP will be cheaper to run probably. Is gas really better if available? It seems too reliant on market forces tbh.

Ok, so it was probably a bit circumstantially true on the salesman's side. But it sounds like ASHP is the source of choice. I had figured that some of the big builders really only fitted them because of the lower cost. Question... How noisy are ASHP in reality?

Yes it is, and the 'Architect' latterly included a 4 car garage which I reduced to a double plus one. As in a double door for vehicles and an additional 3m wide for the ride on mower, tools etc. I felt a 4 bay was more that we need. I have to say I'm still coming to terms with even being fortunate enough to be able to consider doing this, and the house still feels massive. I think it would end up around 440m2 . I might publish the main room sizes for comment.

So we went to the build show at the NEC earlier in the year and had a chat with one of the guys on the Kensa stand. Anyway I got them to do me a kit quote for our plans at the time and it came in at £17k for GSHP & Accessories. So add local installation to that and it's a chunk of budget. I gather GSHP is supposed to be more expensive initially, and cheaper over the long term, but having read about disposal of antifreeze etc on the forum I am questioning costs. Does anyone have a magic formula or spreadsheet that you can feed in the numbers and get a cost based answer out of? The other thing the guy on the Kensa stand said, was that ASHP systems work at their best at the time of the year when you don't need them and whilst I can see a salesman coming, it's not such a stupid comment, is it? So I could go either way, but If I go ASHP I need to plan in a site for the external kit from the outset. comments?