Crofter

So far, I'm enjoying doing some rough sketches to figure out what we want from this house. I'm not an architect or engineer but I think I have a pretty good idea of what I want. Last time round, we went down the 'portable building' route which meant we were exempt from building regs. This time round we want to build slightly larger, with an upstairs, so we can't go down the same route. And anyway this house is for us to live in and we need the VAT reclaim. I understand that this means I have extra hoops to jump through. I'm happy enough doing my own drawings through the planning permission phase. In principle I'm pretty sure I have the knowledge to actually design the structure and to comply with the space requirements of building regs. But I'm not sure if my SketchUp files and hand drawn diagrams of the detailing would pass muster with the council? I'm also not really sure about meeting the energy efficiency part of the regs. I understand the principles and intend to, just like last time, build a very high efficiency house. But I gather that this isn't quite the same thing as meeting (arbitrary?) rules, and then there's the matter of actually proving it. I would like to tackle at much of this myself as I can, but maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to get some professional input. Should I be talking to an Architectural Technician? Like I say, I'm not looking for somebody to design me a house, but I might feel more confident if a professional had gone over my plans and checked that everything will be compliant.

You want to design your layers in such a way that you eliminate condensation risk. So on the inside you have a vapour barrier, then your insulation layers need to, ideally, become progressively more vapour permeable as you progress towards the outside (e.g. PIR first, then mineral wool). Then you have a breather membrane which should keep most moisture out of the structure, but which will allow any moisture that does accumulate to escape. And finally your cladding which acts as a bulk rain shield. What you must avoid doing is creating a completely sealed volume from which moisture cannot ever escape. So you have one VCL, and either side of that a pathway for moisture to get out.

Manners please chaps. 'Sweating' is the product of poor design, poor understanding of condensation risk, and poor application of a vapour control barrier.

The little house we built has a lot of west facing glazing, and it's insulated to near PH levels, so on a sunny afternoon the temperature inside can fairly soar. However we're on an exposed hillside and on such days there's always a sea breeze blowing hard. Opening doors or windows on either side of the building drops the inside temperature to ambient in a few minutes.

I can't get it to run on my ancient Lenovo X220. Which is a shame, because the old version used to run just fine on this exact laptop.

Last time round I made extensive use of Google SketchUp, which at that time was completely free and worked just fine. I got it handy with it and could knock up 3D models in a few minutes. It really was invaluable in figuring out not just the basic layout but also many of the fine details of the build. Unfortunately things seem to have moved on, and my laptop no longer seems to run it- it also appears to be an online only program these days. Is there anything else out there that I should consider? I just need to build simple models, I don't need loads of textures or the ability to export to a 3D printer or anything like that. And the closer the UI is to SketchUp, the better, as I don't want to have to start from scratch...

We'll still own two properties with WBS so getting rid of wood won't be difficult. I'm not completely against fitting one, but it's a very obvious way to save some money on the next build.

As others have said, the extra cost depends on design and labour factors. On my very simple build it really didn't add any cost at all, other than the MVHR itself, was was about £700 plus ducting. I had a simple box with a warm roof, so minimal jobs in the membrane. You need a VCL membrane in a TF build anyway, I just made this my airtight barrier too. I spent a few quid on tape for the windows.

Wonderful tune from a fantastic musician.

We're at the very earliest stages of thinking about this, but at the moment we're considering copying some of the features of our previous project, and making some changes. Such as: - corrugated steel roofing. Definitely a win, for aesthetics, cost, and speed/ease of installation. - larch board on board cladding, same reasons as above - large windows without glazing bars. Thermally better, cheaper, just better on every way tbh. But this time round we'll have some non openers. - as before, high insulation and airtightness, and MVHR - open plan and vaulted ceilings where possible - bamboo flooring, painted MDF skirts/arcs. A premium look at low cost, also durable and repairable. Where we would diverge from the previous project: - uPVC instead of aluminium clad timber windows. Shock horror I know. But having had both types, it's just hard to beat plastic. We've had a few problems with our very expensive alu clad windows, whereas the uPVC was bombproof, and about a third of the price. - no opening glazing in the weather-facing elevation. It's just asking for trouble. - no woodburner. In a properly insulated house it's unnecessary, it's extra cost, mess, air leakage, etc. We'll fit a mini split for heating, and maybe V2L for power cuts, which really aren't that common with us. - PV and battery storage - we'll probably build on an insulated raft rather than a suspended floor

Last time around, people were building houses for under £500/m², and fancy stuff was maybe £1200. I think my own build worked out about £800/m², which was inflated by the small size and relatively high spec. What are the ball park figures these days?

Ok so not just a downstairs WC, but space for a shower too. That does ring a bell. What are the rules about how close a WC can be to a kitchen? I think there's a bit of an urban myth about needing two doors in-between?

Those with very long memories might vaguely recall that a few years ago I built a small, one bedroom, holiday cottage. I had a lot of help and support on this forum and couldn't have done it otherwise. It was a fairly tough project but a very successful one. Enough time has now elapsed that we're starting to talk about doing it again. Last time, it was a tiny build falling within the same regs as a caravan so no building warrant required (and consequently, no VAT reclaim). This time, we want to build for ourselves, a slightly bigger house using similar materials and techniques, but falling within standard regulations and therefore eligible for a VAT reclaim. It will still be an entirely DIY project (last time round I did absolutely everything except the plastering, UVC install, and wiring). I started the last build back in 2015, and it was completed in 2018. I gather there's been a little bit of inflation since then (!) so my old ideas of costs won't quite work today. Anyway, to kick things off, as we start sketching out some initial ideas, can I double check that the Scottish building regs still require the following: - disabled access ramp - one downstairs bedroom (or space that can be used as such) - downstairs WC, non en-suite - minimum 900mm widths for stairs/corridors - max stairs pitch of 42⁰ I know there are rules around activity and circulation spaces too, but we're just kicking about some ideas at this stage. Feels good to be back in the game 🙂

I'm sure it can be made to work. A friend set mine up as a favour when he was passing through. I don't really want to keep pestering him to fix it as he was very kind to spend the time (and money, it's his Pi). Maybe when I'm next home in ~6 months I can get it working properly.

Update: A friend installed a Raspberry pi based system with wireless thermometers, which worked perfectly... for about a month. I've decided that I'm going to go with the very low tech approach instead: a set of sensors linked to a display, and a camera pointing at the display. It's kind of ridiculous to do it this way but I already have the camera in position and the total cost is only £25. Obviously I don't get data logging etc but at least the damn thing will actually work.

That's what I get for not reading the question properly!

I've heard very good things about blown cellulose.

I'm not aware of such a rule. The closest I can think of is hutting. This allows you to build a simple, somewhat temporary, low impact structure for occasional, non commercial habitation. I think there is a size limit, which I can't remember offhand, but the main thrust of it is that it's really supposed to be a glorified shed, and it must not be continuously occupied. The actual rules around it are pretty wooly. I haven't done it, but I did look in to it. In our part of the world short term lets can be very successful, and whilst we wouldn't be allowed to rent out a hut, I considered building one to live in over the summer whilst we rented our own house out. That would have been within the rules as far as I could understand them. The hutting concept really has its roots in woodland huts and when I made some enquiries, it became clear that I would never get permission to erect something on open moorland, which is what my croft consists of. So I took the idea no further.

The Queensferry Crossing was pretty well handled. Scottish government rather than UK one though.

Just stumbled upon this quote from Antonio Gutierrez: "Today, governments around the globe spend nine times more to make fossil fuels cheaper than they do on making clean energy more affordable for consumers." The idea that switching from fossil to renewables will saddle future generations with higher costs is just not true.

I question the whole 'only well insulated homes can use heat pumps' argument. My house is very, very far from well insulated, nor is it in any sense airtight. And it's working very well with a heat pump. I can see why flow temperature and delta T has an impact, with a wet system, but that will hurt a gas or oil system too. And it's irrelevant to an A2A system.

Yes, pretty happy. For a house that's intermittently occupied, and usually empty during the day, the instant response of the heat pump is great. I don't know how my £4200 compares to installing a complete new wet system with boiler, rads, oil tank, etc. I suspect that oil would have cost more.

I agree, but I presume that the focus on replacing gas boilers is because they are far more common than direct electric heating. Does anybody have numbers on this? FWIW, last year I installed A2A to replace my storage heaters. Didn't go looking for any sort of grant, in my experience grant schemes just tie you up in their requirements. I spent £4200 for a 10kw system ducted to five outlets. I did a good amount of the work myself, but had the supplier of the unit do the refrigerant lines. It would have been nice to not have had to pay for that myself but I didn't think I qualified for any sort of help.

See also: 'green' hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, biofuels.

Are SMRs completely site agnostic? Nuclear power stations generally need to be built near water, for cooling. If that still applies to SMR I'm not sure that they'll be as helpful as people make out