the_r_sole

You don't have a major application, I'd say 20% is a very low bar too I've got a 90% record of success on planning appeals - actually make that 85% forgot about one where they retained a condition

I'm not really talking about the type of houses that people on here are building as most use the regs uvalues as the backstop, most housing providers use them as a target - a 5% increase on the cost of construction will more than double by the time it gets to buyers... rigid insulation prices have been increasing a lot over the last couple of years, the last note I had from a supplier here was there was a 17% increase between december and january, so requiring more insulation compounds price increases. Doors going from 1.4 to 1.0 in the short term is going to knock a lot of suppliers out as will the windows to 0.8 - I recently had an english window supplier tell me they were unable to produce whole window uvalue calcs!! Most of the houses we do already have heat pump heating and UFH but it's certainly not the norm on the developer led housing - if you've ever done a development appraisal for anywhere outside of the south of england you can appreciate the economics that even adding small costs can make projects unfundable... All these things have incremental costs associated with them, but it adds up very quickly over the entire construction. There should be a set target for new dwellings, even with something as blunt as SAP, which would allow the whole design, siting and construction to be accounted for rather than specifying individual elements for improvement. And just to be clear - I'm very much a fan of low energy/fabric first approaches!

The cost of insulation isn't coming down any time soon and there isn't really an alternative way to insulate a building or redesign a building to use less insulation as they are specifying individual building elements - the way it should be approached is to require a better analysis of the whole building for it's whole life - but that's no where near as easy as saying "bang more insulation in there"

The biggest problem I can see with it is the cost of construction will massively increase to achieve those uvalues so they'll reduce the number of houses being delivered and drive up the price of new houses... in turn you'll get further away from targets because old stock will be preferred and they have given zero incentive for improving the performance of them. They haven't had the push back from their chums in the house building industry yet either so it might not make it into any formal legislation

Ceiling height = not important Ridge height = important In all seriousness this type of thing is why you want to use someone who understands the planning system to submit your planning application if you don't - what you are in danger of doing is getting your cheap designer to spend way more time than is necessary to get the planning submitted and validated and running up the same fees as if you'd used someone with local expertise!

rooflights are treated very differently to dormer windows in planning terms, whether or not you agree with it

if you are creating new overlooking onto a private garden then it's definitely something which will require a planning application, that's a very material consideration

To get your completion you need an as built epc, not an "as designed" one, so that will require an air test result plugged in, the correct uvalues for the windows and doors etc. It's very worrying that yout Architect didn't know you'd need a sap calc done! That's more than an oversight now you are having to add some micro generation to get your completion!

yes they would it's a simple thing to pick up - you would also have to lie to your assessor as they usually have a sign off form which requires you to sign off that the house is built in line with the details you have supplied for the calculation. I know it's not a major thing but I've seen assessors and building control officers taking exception to deliberately incorrect information being supplied. Have you had inspections throughout the build?

The inner leaf on either construction is your structural leaf so it's not much different up to sole plate level, I'd imagine that the timber frame company have a set of standard details which they use in the kit, it's a simple change

If you go to sell a house and the EPC says there are solar panels, you can guarantee someone will ask about the invisible solar panels... But there's nothing to stop you doing anything after you get your completion certificate, you could take out all your windows and doors and burn rope in your woodburner all day if you so wish, the completion certificate is only confirmation of the build being completed at the time of issue.

But you'd have the cost of commissioning and decommissioning a solar install and then sell them on for less than you bought them for, doesn't really seem like money well spent there - they would have to be included in your completion cert and as built epc

I was on the Beta programme to try that sketchup advancement - it was absolutely awful imo, pretty much determined that no where in the uk would have overheating issues but maybe they improved it when bringing it into use

I know the principle - it just doesn't sit right with me for some reason! I think it's a combination of once living in a house which was oil heated and spending a lot of my days trying to get houses through building warrant in rural locations

the thing that always gets me with a system like this is that you heat cold water up with the oil boiler and then mix it with cold water to circulate around the UFH, just seems wrong! The heatpumps are generally low temperature systems so they only heat the water to the point it needs to circulate in the heating system...

what is the warrant here for, is it classed as a conversion? You just need to be careful on the U-Values depending on how it's going to go through the warrant process. Do you intend to have a SAP calc done or are you relying on the backstop U-Values and heating system guidance in the technical handbooks? in terms of beam and block vs solid, normally it depends on what height you have for a solum and how you are going to support the floor - the other thing you've got to think about inside existing structures is how practical either route is? infilling a large footprint inside existing walls might take a huge amount of labour as it'd probably be barrowed in etc

you're in a bit of a sticky situation there! the things like waste water heat recovery are very useful to get a bump on the SAP but not when you're at completion so you're fairly limited to bolt on solutions. PV is probably the most straight forward solution as it doesn't need much else - the other thing that may bump you up a little is to look at having a woodburner for secondary heating (if it suits your house/local plan etc) Other than those two I can't see much opportunity for a reduction. (on one project we did end up swapping out some double glazed units for higher performing centre glass to get it over the line after the builder changed the spec of glass for a "cost saving" and didn't ask if it was ok to do!!)

I used to be a fan of Scotframe and I think the product itself is very good if you go for one of the Valu-therm products (there are a couple of small technical issues which are not very good details but overall it's pretty good) - however in the last while their pre-sales service has been far from acceptable, especially their engineer "service" which 1 year on we still have unresolved queries holding up the building warrant. If you do go down that route, I suggest using your own engineer to design and certify the whole structure and don't pay for that as part of the scotframe package. The other thing that seems to have gone downhill recently is the accuracy of their delivery times to site

7 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms? At 20?! Amazing, good luck

You can usually request them if you have an "interest" in the property and you have to request access from the copyright holder (usually the architect) There's far too much intellectual property in that level of detailed drawing to publish them publicly

Unfortunately you have a delay, I don't think there's anyway around it unless you have an approval in place and this was a condition on the approval. If they are awaiting the bat survey before determining the application then they are unlikely to let any work commence on the site.

ground conditions determine the design of foundations so it varies from project to project

They use local architects, not provided in house - so you still have an architect doing the design and specifications...

That's annoying then, as they probably don't have any formal complaints process or code of conduct etc, hopefully if you raise the issue with them they will be reasonable but after that you might find it's difficult - not sure if anything in a chartered planning consultant remit would help you out here, but guess they would have a complaints procedure?

They will indeed but I've not met very many of them that can knock out a compensatory u-value calc for a loft conversion, or even understand the principles of it... sometimes it's not possible to build the cheapest way, or the way you've done things before with a loft conversion which is generally what contractors would rely on - I've seen a lot of loft conversions done which aren't built to the warrant specs and had trouble at completion stage.