Crofter

I vaguely remember some shenanigans around the time that the first SNP government tried to introduce LIT, and that a big chunk of money was going to be lost out of Barnett if it went ahead. Maybe somebody can remember the details. At the time I recall the Lib Dems also supported the concept, and I was personally a big fan of it. Shifting taxation towards income seems inherently quite appealing as it avoids the problem of e.g. the little old lady in a big house who has no income... and on a practical note, those with income *can* pay, whether they *should* pay is a matter for personal opinion!

I think that statement could be a bit misleading. The OP has already said that he would be adding internal insulation as well. Also, do you mean 'too small to pass building regs' or too small to meet some other standard? And of course it depends on what type of insulation is inside that frame. (Not having a go, but just wanted to point out that there are a lot of variables to consider).

I wonder if people from different ends of the political spectrum could get behind 'build to let'? Replace the sold off council houses with new builds, capital comes not from the LAs (who don't have any money) but from the private sector (where there are cash-rich people getting 0.1% interest on their savings). This is fundamentally a more sound approach than 'buy to let' as it enables creation of new housing.

Welcome to the forum. The insistence on separate little panes is going to be a pain (sorry...) as it will cost more and leak significantly more heat. I'm no expert of different species of wood, but the list you give is a very wide range in terms of cost. Pine, redwood, and douglas fir will all be comparatively cheap but less durable than, say oak, which will be much more expensive, in my experience. As an aside, I wonder what your planners wood make of a modified wood like Kebony or Thermowood?

I did ask my mate for a loan of his planer thickenesser, but when I told him how much I needed to do he went all sucky-teethy-shaky-heady and muttered a lot. So I got the impression that it wasn't feasible. Then again, I've never used one. There's about 35m to do.

I had been hoping to obtain some planed larch for my fascia boards, but unfortunately this is proving tricky (BM will not get me the small quantity that I need). The rest of the house is to be clad in rough sawn larch, which I think will look a little too rustic for the fascias. The windows are alu-clad and the roof is to be steel. What are my options? PVCu is probably out of the question as it will look wrong, IMHO. I understand that aluminium is an option, but I have not obtained prices for this yet, and I have the feeling that it is designed to overclad a timber board. I did look for steel, as I thought it would work well if I could get it to match the finish on the roof sheets, but have not found any yet. What about dressed pine? I guess it would need a very good treatment system to give it any sort of useful lifespan. WBP ply? I have a vision of it going all wobbly between each rafter, but maybe it would be OK?

Assuming it is 22mm chipboard, it should be OK up to 600 centres. But, as others have said, that amount of water is NOT OK.

Like any problem, costing is easier if you divide it into chunks. Site specific services etc- absolutely no point using someone else's figure here, you need to get quotes from the elec, water, gas etc as applicable. For sewerage, I think you mentioned that you would be off mains, so you need to dig some holes and do some percolation testing to get an idea of what options are feasible (my system ended up about double the budget that I had hoped for, entirely down to my ground conditions). Also, access/driveway- will you need to buy in material, how long will the drive be, etc. Will you need special founds like a raft or piles, or will normal strip founds do. This is the hardest bit to cost out. Basic shell- this is easier to cost out, and you can read up for general ballpark figures. Depends largely on construction type, and how simple the design is. Fit out- this is where the spend is entirely up to you. Some people spend £50k on a kitchen, some spend a couple of grand. But the costs are pretty much under your control.

Welcome aboard- you're in the right place! Quite a few of our members here bypassed architects altogether, some went for architectural technicians instead, others not even that. Stick to your guns with what you want, especially on the technical side. Good luck and keep us posted

I did a back-of-envelope costing for a 4.8x6m garage, built in 2x4 framing, galv roof, larch cladding same as my house. Came to about a grand for the materials, plus whatever base it would need, plus door. You could use a cheaper roof, and cheaper osb in place of the larch.

Interesting topic. My wee house will have no boiler or central heating etc, so instant electric is the way to go, I think. Question is just whether to fit a single Stiebel Eltron and tee everything off that, or to fit an elextric shower and separate units for the basin and kitchen sink. Veering towards the first option as it will be cheaper and probably simpler, but will it constrain me to a max water temp of 38deg, which is a bit low for the kitchen sink?

Very good. Puts to shame the one I threw together in a day to house some geese (I ate them, and it now houses a lawnmower, which is relatively safe as I do not have a big enough oven for it). I was fortunate enough to find my roof out on the hill- a piece of steel roofing which had blown off someone's shed and travelled half a mile or so. It was a bit bashed about, some denzo tape sorted the leaks though. Have you painted that shed with something?

Potentially daft idea... I wonder what it would look like if the first layer of boards were black (either scorched or painted with barn paint), then the top layer treated with a clear oil. So you would see 4" of wood, then a 2" 'gap', repeated as a pattern of vertical stripes.

Afraid I have to agree with the others. I've got a Yardmaster steel shed/garage which was certainly a cheap (c.£600) way of getting a decent bit of covered storage, but it was an absolute pain to put up, very flimsy, and leaks like a seive! I could probably have built the same sized one in wood, with a galv roof, for half the cost.

Wow. Your ground floor is over ten times the size of mine.

Of course, technically the lower powered the kettle the more power it uses to boil a given quantity of water, because you have to consider the standing losses. It only works if you are trying to modify behaviour, by making kettles so slow that people stop putting in more water than they actually need.

This is a really interesting discussion with a lot of experience on both sides. Hence plenty of anecdotes to back up points either way- which is natural, given the huge number of houses that are out there. It seems to me that passive houses which are either built or specced wrongly are entirely possible, but perhaps the biggest danger is that the occupants do not understand the house and equipment like MVHR. However, it also seems likely to me that such people are unlikely to be on this forum and participating in this discussion, so what we do have is people who have thoroughly researched their projects and feel defensive of the concept as a whole.

Old pallets are a nightmare, rust twist nails do not want to come out. In the past I've resorted to using a small hole saw to drill around them and just leave them behind- it does make it look as though you have a mouse infestation though. if it's just for firewood, the best technique is to bounce the whole thing off the ground, hitting each corner in turn, until everything is so loose it just falls apart. Them fire it all through the table saw (mind those nails!) into the waiting wood basket. I can turn a pallet into an evening's firewood in about five minutes this way. The only problem with burning pallets is that I keep coming across bits of wood that are too nice to burn...

Also not UV stable, will crumble eventually.

A team of proper tradies would have done everything in a fraction of the time it has taken me. Much of my time has been spent standing with hands in pockets, trying to figure out where to go next. This is one of the reasons I have turned down offers of help because I don't want to end up in a blind-leading-the-blind situation or people to feel that they are wasting their time sitting around not donig anything. As to the penalties for a small house, it is not really a surprise and you just have to live with it. About half my total spend is going on things that are essentially fixed costs. The drainage system would have cost maybe 50% more if it had to serve a bigger house, but everything else would have stayed the same. Of course, seeing as it is a portable building, one day I might tow it away with a tractor and built a bigger house in its place...

My build is working out at just under £1000/m2 if I include everything except land costs and final decorating/furnishing. If I take out the drainage system, services, and access, the actual building itself is about £500/m2. But, and it is a big but, this is because I have literally done everything myself except for driving the digger. So what you are seeing is materials costs only (plus plant hire). The spec is reasonably high (3G alu clad windows, high levels of insulation, decent woodburner). It will have taken a year of my life full time, and a year or more part time prior to that. All for a 43m2 bungalow! The small size is what makes it feasible to go completely DIY, but it also pushes the price per m2 up a hell of a lot. If I build another one, it will be bigger, and I will get a labourer...

What are the joist spacings, board thickness, board width? I'd just be a bit worried that without being locked together tongue & groove, they might deflect and move too much.

Thanks. The releveant part appears to be:

I have no experience of this sort of project at all but it sounds interesting. So you would take up all the existing floorboards and work from above- how would you keep the PIR in place? Little 20mm battens running along the bottom edge of each joist perhaps? You will possibly lose some strength/rigidity when you space out the (T&G?) boards. Will be interesting to see what other people say.

I like it in principle- who doesn't like to play with fire- but just not sold on the end look. A less scorched effect looks brilliant, IMHO (e.g. http://www.urbanrealm.com/buildings/1144/Blakeburn.html) but presumably still needs some sort of treatment as the charring is not heavy enough to do the job.