jack

Assuming you get through all the other questions satisfactorily, I wouldn't show them your preliminary plans. A better idea is to take all the important information that drove the drafting of your preliminary sketches and put that into the design brief. Things like available views, desired rooms (eg, must have one ensuite and walk-in wardrobe), how you want to live in the house now, whether you have (or will at some stage have) a family that will need to be accommodated will be taken into account by any decent architect. The architect will guide you through the preparation of this document.

Thanks Jeremy, this is exactly the approach I have in mind (except for the mediation bit, as there's no dispute over the general cause of the leak nor of the damages involved). That's the big question though - is it actually my right in law? A firm answer to that would make me a lot more comfortable with pushing back.

Update on this (and looking at the date of the post above I can't believe how long I've sat on it!): We eventually managed to get everything repaired and have picked this issue back up with the roofing company in the last few days. I forwarded them the reply we had from the insurer. They were (understandably) surprised hear from us after so long, and had assumed the insurers had dealt with the issue last year. They said they'd get back to the insurer to confirm what had happened. A day later, I've just received the following: _______ "Our broker has looked into this for us by contacting the Insurer Aviva and the reply from Aviva was Aviva did not receive a reply to the correspondence sent to you on 06.03.2017 so after some time Aviva closed the case. We have been advised to ask you to please redirect your claim to Aviva by contacting <name of useless person at Aviva we were already in contact with> and quote reference <blah> so Aviva can pick up your case. It needs to be pursued this way as we have gone down the insurance claim route. Aviva have all the information from <supplier>. So I assume Aviva need a reply from your side explaining the problem then hopefully all can be resolved." _______ Aviva clearly don't have "all the information" from the supplier (or they're lying), otherwise they wouldn't have come to the conclusion above. At this stage, my main interest is in getting a definitive answer to the question of whether they're able to require me to go via their insurer. As @JSHarris says above, my (consumer) contract is with the supplier, not the insurer. However, it's possible that, by going the insurance claim route, they're implicitly appointing the insurer as their agent to handle this matter. This would be analogous to requiring me to communicate with them via their lawyers. I can't even think where I'd go for a definitive answer on such a thing, short of speaking to a lawyer with an insurance specialisation. Of course, if I wanted to escalate this to small claims, then I'd be suing the supplier directly, and for the amount I'm seeking I doubt the insurer would get involved. Any thoughts? I have strong preference for not dealing with this issue via the insurer, partly practical and partly because the person we were communicating with at the insurer is a twat.

Welcome to Buildhub! Other than those in the trades, I think it's fair to say that every one of us was naive and ignorant at the start of the process. Some of us are only slight less so at the end! Does the plot have planning permission? That's a hugely important matter to sort out before you consider finalising the deal. If it can't get planning permission, or if you can't build for some reason even if you get planning permission (no way to get services in, for example, or too costly), you may be paying a lot for the assumption that you can build.

If you're in Scotland, the build cost will be far cheaper than in the South East (friends of mine in the outer reaches of Surrey are having trouble getting anyone to quote less than £2800 per sqm for a fairly ordinary build). Bear in mind, however, that it's much easier to overcapitalise in many areas of Scotland. Even if you plan to live there forever, if you have kids, you may want to at least consider what you'll eventually be leaving them. I agree. With absolutely no disrespect intended, I'd be concerned about how efficient it will be for the original poster to design a house from scratch. Some people on Buildhub are anti-architect, but I personally think they can be very useful (we used one when we built, and we're very happy we did so). Many architectural technicians are also very good. One way or the other, I'd encourage you to at least have a chat with a few local house-designer types to see what they can offer. Given the size of the house you have in mind, it's possible that a good architectural technician or architect could actually save you money through good design choices.

Nothing at all wrong with the premise, but you really don't want a room that's 6 or 7 times longer than it is wide. Why do you have a particular square meterage in mind? One way to think of this is to look at your budget for the building itself, and divide it by the anticipated cost per square metre. You might hope to get this down to below, say £1800 per sqm, but depending on where you are in the country, even that might be optimistic if you aren't doing some of the work yourself.

I'm assuming the 8m and 12m indicators aren't related to the underlying drawing, as that would suggest a house much larger than the 200m2 (100 up and and 100 down, I assume) you mention. The long, skinny utility and storage rooms won't work, and the kitchen/diner aspect ratio also seems wrong. Another way you can approach this is to think of rooms as blobs, and just draw out where each blob is relative to the other blobs/rooms - this sort of thing. This will focus you on function. Once you have that, you can start thinking about room dimensions and relative positions. Also important is where the sun is, and where views (and things you don't want to look at) are located.

One thing to consider: it you ever needed to sell it (never say never), the lack of a central heating system is likely to be seen as a significant negative for many/most buyers.

Same as you, I very occasionally - once every few months maybe - crave a full-strength coke. Unfortunately, the last couple of times I've given in to the craving I haven't enjoyed it at all. The last time was last week and I think I'm now officially off them for good. Can't stand the taste of artificial sweeteners in anything.

I can't believe that even an unqualified person (eg, a homeowner) could/would do this bad a job.

Or "what's-the-point?" Coke, as I like to call it.

Sterling work gents. Given how much beer and bacon you got through, would it have been cheaper to just buy a new system? When you've had some rest, we'd all love a brief summary of what went wrong and what you did to fix it.

This is also the first house I've ever lived in where I don't wake up every morning with a stuffy nose.

I sleep very well in ours - it's very quiet, for a start! In winter our bedrooms are cooler than downstairs by typically a couple of degrees. It's enough to be noticeable as you change levels. That makes it perfectly cool enough to sleep in. Also, rather than cooling the room, you can just use a thinner duvet or a blanket to reduce your sleeping temperature. I'm struggling a bit at the moment, as we have a duvet that's a bit too warm now that the house is warming up a bit with this milder weather.

Welcome! A good sense of humour will definitely help you through the process. When you're ready, head over to the relevant sub-forum and ask away.

Welcome to Buildhub. By far the friendliest and most information building and renovating site in the world (honest). The Dunning-Kruger Effect!

As is so often the case, it depends who you get. Well done for taking the bull by the horns.

Or they could do like probably 90% of the trades we had onsite and refuse to use any form of PPE. I'd say well over half of the people we had onsite wore trainers. My worst memory was trying to hand a youngish guy a set of ear defenders and face mask while he used a petrol diamond saw to cut a load of blocks. He refused because they were "uncomfortable" and he didn't have that many to do. My ears were ringing just from the 10 seconds I was standing nearby waiting for him to finish a cut. He was cutting for 15 mins straight. I can't comprehend people not being interested in their own health.

I know exactly what you mean. I've been repeatedly disappointed with the work of experienced tradespeople, even when they come highly recommended from friends and family. I can't say that we had anyone on site where I felt completely happy with their work, except maybe our electrician and the guys that did the screeding in a couple of downstairs rooms. I've become so disillusioned that I'm trying to finish the work myself, but I'm very slow and often not very good. I don't know what the solution is, but I feel for you (if it helps, I spent around 10 hours last weekend rectifying the plasterboarding in our garage, due to the boarders not listening to the one simple instruction I gave them).

I've heard this before, but ours (AEG) works perfectly well in our warm and well-insulated house. The previous condenser dryer we had needed its heat exchanger cleaned periodically. Could yours be clogged with lint or has it always been the same?

I just assumed £200 a day and was thankful whenever it was less!

Just to be clear, the heat pump is just the means by which heat is generated. A heat pump is more efficient than direct electric heating. It's the condensing nature of the dryer that avoids the needs for punching a hole and feeding huge gobs of energy to the outside world. There are condensing dryers that don't use heat pumps (in fact, the vast majority don't). I don't know whether heat pump dryers use the cold side of the heat pump to improve condensing. Seems to make sense that they might.

We had a glitch with ours around the two year mark. We had great service from Quooker - they sent out an engineer who replaced several parts at no cost. However, for the time we didn't have it, we were completely lost. Who knew that having to figure out how much water you need, and then waiting for it to boil could be so bloody infuriating! If I were building another house, a hot water tap would be at or near the top of the list of things I'd specify.

Check whether what you're looking at actually delivers "boiling" water. Some apparently only deliver a lower temperature.

You can connect either or both. You get the highest efficiency from connecting both the tank and mixer valve: http://recoupwwhrs.co.uk/installation/installation-methods/