Bitpipe

Passive or not, also think carefully about excessive solar gain and how to minimise it at the design stage. Even a house built to the regs will suffer overheating.

External window blinds are excellent at reducing solar gain, I regret not using them more but have them on all the east facing windows and veluxs on roof. Without the FIT, Solar PV is very dependent on the cost of panels - MCS installation no longer being required. If you have a flat roof then you have the option of getting a good orientation to maximise generation. Generated electricity can be used to run services during the day (washing machine, dishwasher etc) and to top up your DHW via a diverter to immersions. All you need to do to future proof yourself for this option is to run a decently rated cable from roof to your distribution board and you can take advantage of it when budget suits.

Only habitable rooms so unless you expect to be relegated to the linen cupboard...

We got our doors from FSN doors in Maidenhead - they’re made in Spain. We also have two fire rated glazed FD30 doors in the hall. Expensive but not impossible.

Yup - my joiner was only able to hang 2-3 doors a day on a £180 day rate - they were FD30 so heavy and finished in a lacquered veneered oak finish so ridiculously easy to mark. That's on top of the time it took him to fit the softwood linings and the architrave afterwards and the cost to have them painted. I did save about 20% on the ironmongery (Karcher) vs via the door firm but bit of a false economy in the end.

You doing door sets, kits or just doors? We left a 900 structural width for all our doors which allowed for timber linings to go in ahead of plaster - getting the metric ones was a bit of a PITA, more so because nearly every door if FD30 so needed groove for intumescent strip. Lots of scavenging round lots of Howdens. On reflection, fully hung sets would have been more material cost but much less labour and time to install (@Herbj went this route with the same supplier that I used for doors only). You can always ditch the supplied architrave to match your own choice of skirting or vice versa.

When it comes to MVHR, you need a fixed area gap beneath the door (7600mm2 I think?) so wider door = smaller gap. We went for 2040 doors and mostly stuck to 826 widths, there are one or two that are wider (hall) or narrower (utility).

Very similar situation to us. I agonised over room heights and got very upset when the ground floor needed extra battening to even out the ceiling line from a rogue steel. However, we have 2370mm downstairs from FFL to ceiling and 2275mm on first floor. Room in roof is 2500 to apex and 1600 to the top of the velux windows. All works fine and does not feel at all low. Basement is 2700mm and that almost feels too high by comparison. We have some narrow floor to ceiling windows downstairs and went with metric doors (2040mm) which all work to make the ceiling look higher (did not plan this effect, pleasant surprise). We also dropped the GF level by 100mm to steal some extra height once we had the detailed drawings with floor and roof buildups - main concern was the street level sewer invert and how this played back to the ground floor wastes, getting the necessary falls etc. French drains at the perimeter allayed any worries of surface water running back to the house.

Surely weather vane in these enlightened woke times Unless it literally is what she's requesting which would be a sight to behold - bit chilly up there though, so may not be that impressive.

Indeed. This was probably all in the detailed turf laying handbook that the supplier meant to give me but obviously forgot. By amazing forethought (or sheer luck) the width of a sod is the same as the pavers (600mm). So didn't need to trim the sides. Some debate between landscaper and turf supplier as to whether the topsoil should come flush to the paving or an inch below - I went with a 10mm compromise. Also remembered to lay it brick bond (every alternative starter piece was 1/2 length and when coming to the end of a row, lay a full strip from the outside in and patch the gap in the middle vs have a small piece at the edge which is more likely to die. Now to water the cr@p out of it and keep children, visitors and animals off it. This grass is for looking at, not standing on. Plenty more round the back if you want to sit on something green.

Cheers - one of my NI mates asked why the front looks like a fancy version of an army sangar - obviously subconscious influence there!

I know but I paid a premium for instant gratification

Well we had another breakthrough this weekend when son (14) learned how to use the big petrol self propelled mower (not quite a ride on) and did the back which is about 20m x 20m. £5 a time, bargain

Probably - I only paid £160 inc. delivery (got the VAT back ) so not bad for 55m2 of turf. Was quite weedy soil so the turf should smother that too. Plan to seed a large strip to the other side but not for a few months yet.

Wow, that takes me back. How the kids never ended up falling in that hole is a mystery...!

Yes basement underneath, as shown by Herbs pic!

Easily the most immediately satisfying job I’ve done so far - instant results. Prep was a bit of a pain - my fault for letting it get weed infested last summer. Another job down, another dozen to go...

I'm sure I made some smaller orders from Megabad (€200) back in 2016 but maybe their Ts & Cs have changed. Have you looked at Reuter.de? Their prices are comparable to Megabad and may have more favourable shipping terms.

And there is the solution to your problem. Build your next house when the kids leave home

So you've ruled out a bungalow then Jack

In 2015 it was about £35/m3 for the muck away - some gave a volume calc as it was in the ground and some used the out of ground value (x2)

Yup, or better/worse - depends what it is. For our basement (11m x 13m x 4m) we had clay, gravel and chalk. That required around 75 x 20t truck visits to remove over 3 days. I needed to have the spoil WAC classified (i.e tested) to confirm it was inert - this happened as part of a planning condition for contamination and was included in the ground investigation works.

Been wanting to give my drains a full flush out and the rods only go 10M. Found this on fleabay. Looks better than the official Karcher one as a) its longer (25m vs 15m) b) it has a forward facing jet as well as the 3 rear facing ones c) much cheaper (£32 vs £70 odd) Question is whether it's any good! I have a K4 pressure washer, so not huge but does the job.

A picture would be helpful! Sounds like you're planning to trim back the edge of the tape to the board level, in which case a sharp craft knife or art scalpel would do the trick. It will scrape through to the wood but that should be covered by the 2-3mm of skim. As for removing the adhesive, I found the impregnated wipes quite good at removing most things, you can also buy them as a spray. What's the finish on the wood? You'll obv risk removing some of that too - can you get a touch up kit?

Pretty sure our scaff boards had a semi circular clip to hold the inner board to the inner horizontal pole and a kicker clipped to the outer board. I remember well the first night we spent in the caravan, Easter 2015. Was quite windy and the van was rocking back and forth - I woke up with a paranoid fear that it could somehow flip over and did not get back to sleep that night....