kxi

Thanks everyone @Russell griffiths The other barns on the farm are still in agricultural use, as was this one, but we're shuffling things around to make room, though since much of the ground floor can stay in farm use it shouldn't be a huge change (but the piles of old wood will have to go). The other barns are a mix of 1940s (allegedly built by/for Italian prisoners of war) and 1960s, and they are all in fairly good shape. Though the 60s ones have a bit of concrete spalling on a couple of pillars which should be attended to. In terms of future non-agricultural use, we'll have to see once we've got this little project out of the way.... there are various planning limitations. I note your question about insulated panels for the roof - this is something I've been looking at recently and will post thoughts and questions later, but it's definitely a route we're considering. Overall we want to keep an agricultural flavour and we need to find a solution that is as thin as we can make it (without going aerogel which isn't remotely feasible for ~350m2 of roof). @Bitpipe East also. I may need to ask for some local knowledge advice at some point if that's ok. Worth noting our architect doing these cardboard models really helped us grasp the physicality of different designs in a way that even sketchup modelling didn't. I know an architect isn't the right way to go for all projects, but I think it's definitely worth doing a real model, especially to help communicate to people who are less immersed in the design - family, planners, neighbours, etc.

Hello all We recently got planning for a barn conversion in Berkshire, to be our family home. We've been working on the design & permissions for a couple of years, during which time this forum has been invaluable. The barn is on a small arable farm at the edge of a cluster of in-use agricultural buildings. It was originally built as a cowshed in the mid 60s, brick on 3 sides and open at the south face, with a mono-pitch fibre cement roof. See image below. The open south face looks into large concrete & fibre cement barns about 5m away (i.e. not ideal). The north side looks out to trees then fields beyond. We have class Q permitted development to partially convert the barn to a dwelling. A subsequent full planning application to make changes to the eaves height and roof pitch was rejected and we didn't appeal. The idea is to add a first floor to the existing barn and then the majority of the house be on this first floor, with most of the ground floor remaining in agricultural use. This arrangement is to maximise the available space, gain more south light into the house (as the large sheds to the south block everything at ground floor level), and because we like living off the ground. We're also nicking off the top west corner of the existing shed to make a first-floor terrace at the west end of the house. Diagrams below show model photos and a comparison with the existing barn. The aim is for very good insulation and airtightness, but I don't think we will go for full passivhaus due to the poor form factor and that we want a lot of north-facing glazing. Our architect designed & built their own passivhaus a few years ago, so is familiar with it. The long rooflight running east-west (see model3.png) is to allow light into what might otherwise be a dark central corridor, and allow borrowed light into the north facing rooms via internal clerestory windows off the corridor. The rooflight is north-facing (though on a shallow pitch roof) so less of an overheating risk. There was PHPP modelling of an earlier iteration and the overheating was acceptable, but we'll re-visit this to check. We had originally assumed twin-wall timber frame + cellulose for the build method. However, with some changes in requirements, we are re-assessing this. Keen to get people's view on the alternatives that we'll be considering. TBC.