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Plumber has installed this same heating system in the slab in dozens of houses in the area without issue and won't be charging us any different, he's apologetic about this new screed requirement but apparently the company has changed their "rules" in the past few weeks.

Hi all, have searched on the forum and I think I know the answer to this but just checking! We are partway through the foundations portion of a timber frame build by a passive house company in Ireland. Our plumber has informed us that the company he uses (danfoss/thermia) won't stand over any ufh installation in the concrete slab, they insist that it must be installed in a screed layer. Our options now are to 1. Add in 60mm of screed with all the associated drying time and floor height changes 2. Find a new plumber at short notice, or 3. Give up on ufh and go for a nilan air type system. The original floor buildup is 150mm 25n concrete with mesh/fibres over 2x100mm underfloor insulation. Any advice very welcome!

Hi, I also would really appreciate a copy of the spreadsheet! A similar trawl has been fruitless so far! Thanks!

I had a browse and was able to find houses nearby that were granted permission recently, both two storey pitched roof, ridge heights 7.855m and 8.1m! I'll have a play around with the plans and see what I come up with.

Wow, thank you so much, those are extremely helpful! There aren't really constraints to the plot - it's a flat agricultural field, 1.1 acres, 65x65m approx, houses to the east, open fields to north and west, road to south, excellent view of sea from upstairs to the south. Entrance needs to be at the south-east corner for sight lines. @Kelvin - what were the elevations like for this design? Is it a pitch roof? Room-in-roof? I would love to get a room upstairs to be able to see the view, even if it's an office.

Thanks for the input - @Iceverge great to hear from someone in Ireland, I'm sure you have a lot of advice for me! Thanks for your calculations as well, appreciate it. I do know that the design is bananas, I do like it though. My preferred style of house is a modern/Nordic longhouse. However, I also like saving money so I'll have a go at rationalising the design. A single-storey L-shape house seems to be the most common new house design here which is what led me to the above design. I'm very open to new designs or ideas if anyone fancies a go! We're pretty locked in to the timber frame, hopefully passive-ish standard (certainly passive standard of insulation and airtightness), will have MVHR and likely ASHP if needed for regulations. I'm in a county that is annoyingly strict on passive houses having a full backup heating system. Interesting on the container idea - I have a 12m long garage in my current house that I was planning to use for storage but maybe a better idea to have something onsite.

We have a six month overlap where we both will have to work but then my partner will be taking time off. At the risk of overconfidence the neighbours took 6 months from breaking ground to moving in, I'm hoping a year is enough! We have outline planning so it's just the house design to go through. Planning rules here mean that the planners must give you a decision within 8 weeks.

I can see what you mean about inefficiency, the idea behind two blocks is to have a kid block and a main/adult block, with the possibility of being able to split the house in future for our older parents/an adult child and their family. We have 3 kids so initially we would be in the bigger room downstairs, the younger two would share and the older child have their own room, then when they are all older we would move into the guest room upstairs and give each child their own room.

Hi ProDave, thanks for your input! The architect's design was completely different, it involved a cantilevered monopitch roof and a multitude of acute angled walls! We essentially started from scratch after ending the contract. I'm not looking for the absolute minimum price per square metre, the basic reason behind the design is to have most of the rooms downstairs (we have 3 small children and some disabled family members) and to give every room a south facing window (with a brise soleil/overhang). The obvious solution is to plonk the bedroom block on top of the living block but I'd like to see how costings come out for a design similar to this one first before sacrificing the single storey plan.

Hi all, hoping to get some advice/input on our house plans. Bit of background - we have a site in Ireland (flat, 1.12 acres, road on south boundary, nice view visible from first floor height) and are in early stages of design. We spent over a year waiting for an architect but the estimated build cost for their design was 350k above our clearly stated budget. We eventually parted ways as they did not believe it was possible to build a house for our budget. I know I'm probably sounding like a nightmare client already, but neighbours of ours are in the final stages of a build that will come in at 100k UNDER our budget. They designed their own house, had an engineer do the plans and then used a local (1km away) timber frame company. We will be using the same engineer and TF company as them and working from the same list of recommended trades. On their encouragement and after a few meetings with the engineer and TF company owner, we've decided to do the same thing. I did some basic sketches and sent them to the engineer who sent back the drawings below. I have sent back a new sketch with some changes including adding a door between the kitchen and KDL, changing window sizes, moving veluxes upstairs etc. I plan to PM the job myself - I have no experience at all but I'm not working this year so have plenty of time. We live about a 5 min drive from the site. All opinions and input welcome!