canalsiderenovation

Looking out from the balcony it will be west facing not north, yes that view will look towards the canal bridge and be of the longest part of the garden..

Good tip, I currently stay away every week with work in different hotels, Airbnbs etc and I've come across this set up a few times with living room accessible from the kitchen (our last house of 10 years had this set up too). I think I'd rather keep the big kitchen worktop instead and it'd only round the corner... Staying in lots of hotel rooms and bedrooms does give you lots of ideas and you come away with some real bugbears!

Ah OK I'll make sure they are pdfs. Definitely going to look into making the balcony into the bedroom, reworking the internal layouts upstairs and then creating the balcony so it provides some downstairs patio space as an extension of the dining area. I think we initially said 2metres ish would be fine as a balcony and we would rather the space in the dressing room/ensuite....

Thanks JamieL The Airbnbers won't have access to the main house as there is a door we will lock so they will enter through the sliding door and just have bedroom/ensuite and outdoor space, but something to consider re extending the space. We want more than a small Juliette balcony upstairs, and we did initially have a downstairs covered bit on the first plans but decided it would make the kitchen and dining very shaded, although we still like the concept.... Perhaps look at this again, thank you as we do still really like it. Its a great idea to put the bedroom where the balcony is though as this would mean we could then have a smaller balcony and the covered bit over the dining area. It also means a bigger ensuite and dressing room so we are definitely going to look into this more. Obviously need to rejig the bedroom door etc but we like your thinking. Take the comments about door from kitchen to living room, but decided against it, I'd rather keep them separate and it would into my long worktop space which I'm desperate for baking and cooking. The idea re two doors in the bathroom is that it can be accessed from the utility or the hall. We have a large garden and are always gardening so this will be a 'mucky' kind of entrance/access to bathroom without traipsing through the nice main entrance and hall, but if we are in another room access is also possible not via the utility. It's really useful reading other peoples views. It helps us a lot, sometimes just to reinforce why we have done things or makes us think again about what to change. Much appreciated.

Thanks so much for your feedback, you echoed some of our thoughts re balcony. 1 and 2 - if we are honest, yes it's a bit too big but it mirrors the extension downstairs so it's 3525mm. If we made the bedroom/bathroom/dressing room bigger and balcony smaller it would mean having an extra lintel put in upstairs after the original existing external walls and so it would seem to divide the bedroom up (I'm really not explaining this well) so the architects advised against it. I think we may backtrack on this though as it's eating into space which we would value elsewhere and if we do this use the division as a seating area in the bedroom perhaps. Without this we could make the bedroom smaller and bathroom/dressing room bigger as realistically we only want a bed but it would only highlight the huge balcony and small bedroom. 3. I think this goes back to how we were both brought up, the kitchen and dining area is pretty much where we lived and the living room was 'best'. We should have space for a couple of comfortable chairs in the dining bit we think, but we'd rather keep it separate. I've got some measurements now so we need to see if the sizes work for us. See pic. First one is downstairs, second one upstairs.

Err, no I don't think we do. In terms of the size, the only extension to the ground floor is out 3.5 metres where the current dining/kitchen area is which will end up being an open plan kitchen and dining area. The rest of the actual plot is as currently is as the rest of the extension is upstairs. We have an half acre plot, probably not easy to see from the pics.

https://pin.it/cvadb7wokacxnn https://pin.it/heux3hd5s6eowc

That was our initial question to our architects re rebuilding and as we actually liked so much of the existing building it didnt work out financially. That said we still need it replastwred, rewired, new heating system etc..... It does seem quite big, but I work from home mainly so need some kind of office space and the Airbnb bit is some potential extra income too in the long term.

Here is our property and our inspiration we hope it will look a bit like.

So, after some views on our remodel. Yes the bungalow is odd in its design but as you can see it works well in the layout as we have views of the canal and whilst most people would like to knock it down we are trying to keep as much of it as we can as we like it's weird shape and it works well with views, sunlight etc. There are just the two of us, no kids etc. The bedroom downstairs with ensuite will be used as Airbnb hence the door to keep it separate to the main house. As we get older it could be a room for us and also parents etc. The other bedroom could also have multi use as a study too. I'm attaching our initial house and floor plan and proposed. The proposed looks yellow but will be euroclad/metal cladding and a light render and wood underneath the balcony (see example pic). What do people think?

Rk doors seem very similar to those we have seen at http://www.spitfiredoors.co.uk/s-400-timber-doors/ but they do the wood effect too. Definitely will look into these thank you. I don't think we want glass in the door itself and @Bitpipe your idea I think sounds closest to what we are visualising, would you mind posting a pic?

Here is currently what we have.... And we don't want a door letterbox on our new door either.

Thanks everyone for your advice. It's hard to visualise things, but you can see attached one of our provisional elevation plans. It will be render with a dark grey steel type cladding, Vieo/Euroclad is our hope to match the grey windows/doors. Underneath the balcony we want a wood or certainly wood effect similar to this pic below. I think we are now considering a timber front door matched up with whatever wood effect we have on the balcony . Our entrance is currently like this and we like this set up to leave parcels, wellies etc, aside from the naff bricks so could replace that with a steel structure. Sticky wicket is that due to the location of our peioery the canal and river trust are suggesting the design is ran past them before pre planning advice with the local authority anyway so we will see. As it's quite modern I don't think a stained glass look will work. I'm trying to look at timber doors now. I did see some nice modern ones at a company called Spitfire in Macclesfield. I'll try and find a pic.

Thanks so much for updating. We are considering Euroclad and Tata for our roof and cladding, same colour as you too. It will all depend on pre-planning advice though and whether whether the LA and Canal and River Trust like it - they may insist in conventional slate tikes.

As an update to this, very interesting visit with the Nuenta rep, the sticking point is the depth which is minimal in the bywash. I'd definitely be keen to use the blades but they would have to be just after the bywash into the canal but we really need to get advice from the Canal and River Trust but trying to get anyone to respond to emails or phone calls is impossible. It would be easier to context Santa Claus! The technology and concept is however really good and we are most certainly going to try and pursue this.

Our architects are working on a design statement for preplanning advice. Strangely we had clear ideas on the metal cladding, render, sliding doors, slim window design etc but when it comes to front doors we are stuck. The house wil be quite modern in appearance but I don't like the modern doors or designs that seem to be associated with more modern designs that have been suggested like th epic below. Does anyone have any inspiration?

The bywash depth is definitely more than 600mm having stuck a pole into it it went deeper than that, but how deep I don't know and will need to check (more pics attached for clarity from different angles). From our time and our neighbours the bywash has always had continuous flow, there are three locks the other side of that bridge and 5 mins walk the staircase locks too. I guess once the Nuenta guy visits I'll have more info on if such a system is even viable where we want to put it, and then it'd looking into the figures and comparing it to an ashp.

That's really interesting, I'm just about to read your blog @Stones. I have a visit from Nuenta in two weeks so I'll certainly ask the questions re hot water. It's reassuring to know a ashp can give the hot water needed. I guess we just need to review figures for ashp and the blade water source, though the water source has higher rhi payments.

You've hit the nail on the head there. Exactly our problem. Coming from gas previously or even the current oil system we love a hot steamy bath and hot water. We are what you'd say 'nesh' and I, coming from my parents who have an aga and continually heated house, every house I've ever lived in since hasn't t had the constant heat I was brought up witj. We are typical 'always cold' people and I love a nice hot steamy bath and don't know if the system will do this, but then I'm not convinced an Ashp will either, but we do know we want underfloor heating throughout, my brother has it and I love it. This technology is without anything else such as solar etc, obviously we need to get some figures and go from there and compare with Ashp.

Well just now Nuenta had replied to my email and have offered a site visit to look at the potential for mounting and give some advice about installing in the canal (they aren't a million miles away so this will be helpful in determining if it is an possible option). I'll keep you posted in the meantime as it's helpful if anyone else is exploring this option. In the meantime some documents attached that may explain it better than I can with the case studies too. Nuenta_Energy_Blade_Datasheet_1 (1).pdf Nuenta_Energy_Blade_case_studies_1_(2).pdf

Thanks for this, I have indeed. I have had a lot of if formation on the blades from the ISO website already, https://www.isoenergy.co.uk/latest-news/isoenergy-news/cutting-costs-with-the-energy-blade-heat-collector Nuenta is the supplier of the blades. The information on the podcast was really helpful and made me more keen to explore it. It's ironic hydro has been mentioned @ProDave as this was something I initially explored, BUT the cost was likely to be huge. The red tape is very, very complex. Planning permission, abstraction licences, fish things and major environmental agency permissions all make this a non-starter. In addition, whilst the flow is sufficient, we don't have the drop at all. Our property is adjacent to the canal and the bywash is on our side (see pic). Now water source closed loop like the blade, no planning permission, no abstraction licence, very little red tape as long as the c&r trust are on board.

I can't recall ever seeing it on there but in seems a shame not to consider it, but trying to get any information is difficult. I have done so much research and from what I can gather is the COP is much higher with flowing water which means compared with an ASHP it is more effective and the RHI payments higher. Of course, trying to get someone to quote for such a system is yet to be explored and we are still negotiating with the C&R Trust too, but I'm keeping everything crossed we can actually make good use of this.

Now we have an architect and are working on designs for our complete remodel, our attention has turned to our heating system which needs completely replacing - on oil currently, no mains gas. We want underfloor heating throughout so a heat pump is our preferred option. After a lot of research, research I started even before finding an architect we are taken with a water source heat pump given the canal side location of our property. We have a contact at the C&R Trust who have been helpful so far and our idea is a closed loop system and what we have read about the Nuenta Blades seem positive if we can get permission to site these in the canal bywash adjacent to our house (see pic) as there is continual flowing water. https://www.nuenta.com/viewproduct.asp?pid=109 It's a niche area but I wondered if anyone had any experience of these, either in their property, of fitting, maintenance etc etc. Obviously all early stages but there is lots of info on ashp and gshp and I'm curious on this technology with a heat pump. Any help or advice much appreciated.

Yep we fell in love with it and did a great deal of research before hand, the house is kind of irrelevant as the plot is lovely, although we have fallen in love with the odd layout to some extent as it just seems to work so well on one hand, but we need more practical space.