G and J

Excellent question, and the simple answer is I don’t yet know. Peeps have referred to using the sheathing as the airtight layer which makes sense until I get to the upstairs ceiling (I’m assuming a cold loft).

With the plasterboard, OSB and 11mm service void that will accommodate 25mm back boxes. There won’t be any pipes in them. (Though I will have to cut the hole in the OSB oversize so the back box can grip the plasterboard.) We're planning vertical cladding, hence the 40mm for counterbattens, but I don’t know how to do that on ubakus. I like the idea of Frametherm 32 @ 140mm to deaden sound, but not sure it’s worth 60mm off of the width of the house. Will investigate, thank you.

And in my experience many struggle for a myriad other reasons, often factors outside of their control, though I’d be interested to understand your data source on that one. I still think gas is likely to be the most sensible answer here.

You could have an instantaneous elector water heater, however I suspect there might be a bigger issue. I visit peeps in their homes, usually social housing. Some councils and housing associations have done what you are suggesting for option2. The result is cold houses, ASHPs going 24/7 in cold months, and heating bills unpaid due to their sheer gargantuan scale. I suspect that these organisations have simply fallen for the hype. These properties tend to be as retrospectively insulated as can be hoped, and they run happily and cheaply on a high flow temperature gas boiler. But they simply don’t suit low flow temps and they need lots of heat, which gas still is. Having replaced a gas combi less than 9 years old I think the world of gas is farcical. The carbon to produce a new boiler must outweigh the gas saved. But I strongly suspect irritating and high maintenance gas is still your best bet. Sorry. But top marks for wanting to do the right thing. (PS I am actually a fan of ASHPs, will be fitting one in our new build, but I’ve also been a landlord).

So, the answer is on site stick built. Took me a while but I got there. I've been looking at ubakus and that’s been rather illuminating, though it’s raised as many questions as it’s answered. I seek a wall build up that is circa 300mm thick, has a sensible u value, has the required fire resistance due to proximity of boundary being less than 1m. Experiments show using lots of PIR makes for a thin and insulative wall. Rockwool or cellulose increase u value quite a bit. I note the comments on here about PIR alternatives being better for sound attenuation, etc. and I thought long and hard about this but then I realised SIPs were PIR and reports appear to say that they make good houses. So, I've come up with a build up which appears to hit the mark but there is a warning on the drying reserve. Should I worry about that?

We bought our plot with outline permission in ‘91. It had gone through and the planners fought us on detailed every step. Most unpleasant. We clearly suffered because we tried hard to plan a build that looked dead right for the road/village, meaning we had little to concede to let the planners feel they had won. A few years later we bought some field behind us for extra garden. The planners were just as difficult. A few years after that we decided to extend. Put in our plans with much gritted teeth and trepidation, despite again working hard to design for looking right and not disadvantaging anyone else. We were in for a shock. The planners were lovely, could not have been more helpful. They seemed to recognise that we were trying to do the right thing and they responded accordingly. They even made suggestions that improved our design. A few years after that we had cause to apply in the Lake District for conversion of part of a garden to parking space. In a conservation area and the National park. Again they were lovely and helpful. Our experience this year was also good. In fairness we tried hard to design a house which would look right for the area so maybe many would view our plans as lacking ambition, rather staid perhaps, but the planner put the time into feeding back on our pre app, we followed the suggestions made so I can’t but view their service to us as professional and helpful.

Gym in man cave at bottom of garden. Long throw 3D projector in top kitchen cupboard projecting onto wall of snug area next to woodburner. 400m from swimming pool, so better for the environment to use that or indeed the river which is even closer. Still no snooker table though. And yes we use up spare space, we fill it with tat that we should not be keeping!

Given complete free range I’d have had a basement, but we didn’t actually need the space; I’d probably hardly ever use that beloved full sized snooker table, or the drop down scalextric track above it; it would probably badly bust our budget; and we’re building on very sandy soil v close to neighbours 100+ year old foundation free crumbling, timber frame houses. I can dream.

Actually, I think I should recuse myself for being unbelievably off topic. Sorry!

Have you watched Grand Designs : The street series (I think it’s called). What a wow of a set of disparate designs, but I love the idea of enabling self building to be accessible to more peeps.

I wonder if an MVHR design service offering independent advice would make money. Send in your plans, fill in a questionnaire, get back a list of requirements for each element, suggested vent locations, maybe a couple of suggested products to make searching easier to get into, etc. I’m currently swamped with offers of ‘free (but biased) advice’. Sigh.

Granted. I think in public buildings bold statements and innovative design can really lift an area. However I wonder how many of the more eye poking designs one sees on the tele are driven more by the ‘look at me’ ethic than the drive to improve the general look and feel of a locale. I want our house to be brilliant to live in, but I only need two people (plus a small dog) to love it. I’m quite happy if (in time) no one else notices. On the practical side I want it boringly cost effective to build and run. No alarms and no surprises……please.

Interesting idea. The non larch bits are either glass or render and I think the render will be ok on the same wall build up as the larch. (Dangerous thing, assumption!) We put a lot of thought into the look of our new pad and we’d be disappointed if we have to change it, plus, I’ll not be going back to the planners unless I have to. They’re lovely, helpful peeps but it slows everything down so much!

It’s a personal preference, but I’d always choose to hear ‘new house? Really?’ from a passer by than ‘wow, that looks space age’. A good few of the grand designs buildings remind me of the front of Asdas. 😞

SIPs just couldn’t cost in, now trying to hone my understanding re standard(ish) timber frame. I’ve finally worked out how to start to use the ubakus thingy and playing with that has been fascinating. Vertical larch cladding is important to us aesthetically, so whilst I understand the advantage of non combustible materials it’s not what we want. I’ve posted our plans on our first blog entry in case they’re of interest. So we’ve got the challenge of construction phase fire resistance (hence cement board sheathing) and resistance to external fire source (treated larch cladding). I do like a challenge!

That does sound onerous. I’m guessing the very updraft one builds in to keep the wood dry is effectively a chimney which will encourage fire to grow quickly. Scary.

We are due to commence detailed planning soon. So not yet. Thank you for doing all that, that’s lovely of you. I will admit I’m becoming apprehensive about the required build up due to fire resistance requirements, but that aside….. some questions: Is the extra batten width to give greater fire resistance or are you recommending that for stiffness? (Or both?) I’m assuming strapping is another name for the horizontal battens we will need to clad to. I was under the impression that I could sheath our frame directly in cement board, so not needing OSB as well. Is that correct? Is there a reason I’m not aware of that both are needed?

Hang on ProDave, if you did that where would the spiders live? We should be wildlife friendly you know. 😉

Sort of on topic, sobering stuff from the news today for big solar PV plans. I know it’s sunnier in Spain but if the rush to solar pv is as intense as I think it is then maybe this is a possible scenario here. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czkkgnp1d2xo.amp

Beware though, over analysis of the cost of different building options boils your head. :-0

Years ago I ran Ethernet cable around our house, connected just about everything that had an Ethernet connection. Didn’t really improve things but I like a project. Wi-Fi was still patchy and that’s the thing that mattered most to day to day life. A few years later I bought some of these BT disc things. Turn off router Wi-Fi and plug a disc via Ethernet into my router and the discs connect to each other wirelessly. Brilliant. Ended up disconnecting all the Ethernet apart from hive hub and one BT disc which sit next to the router. So forgive me being dumb, but I think the only other thing I’ll need in the new pad is Ethernet to my man cave at the bottom of the garden (mainly for the TV). So why, apart from remote buildings, would one need cat whatever the latest number is in my house?

Back in ‘91 we self built the house we now live in. Block, render and pantiles. We were both working full time in those days and we did as much as we could, but that doesn’t include groundwork, blockwork, structural carpentry or plastering. Rural location, fields front and back, nice big garden. A third of a century later, at the end of September ‘23, we found ourselves in the back garden of a small, run down 1920s or 1930s timber framed bungalow. It’s in easy walking distance of the centre of a small market town, even closer is a lovely riverside walk, on a quiet-ish road, near a park, and the long, narrow, over run back garden in a quiet little oasis made of half a dozen other long back gardens. For us it’s the location to die for. Especially with our first floor bedroom overlooking the back garden. But the dark and sad and unmortgageable bungalow is not to our taste and crucially, it doesn’t have a first floor. Yet. On one side is another bungalow (a matching pair to ours) but fortunately on the other side is a two storey house (phew!). So we bought it, and put in a pre app during the buying process. The feedback came in (with some gentle, respectful encouragement) just before exchange and that feedback was generally very positive. Between exchange and completion we worked out what we wanted to live in and we met a couple of architects on site, one of which we were happy to work with so we engaged them. As soon as we completed in mid January we submitted our planning app, and we felled some trees and cleared lots of shrubs so we could start to see the garden. I quickly got to know the guys at the tip and I got much better at reversing Trevor the trailer. Our planning design is v close to the pre app design save changes hinted at by the planners, and in early May it was permitted without modification. Woo hoo. A few conditions (e.g. can’t start till September) but nothing too onerous. So, that means lots of time to research, plan, analyse and generally overthink just about everything! Now all we need to do is sell our house….

I bleedin wish. We have highly polished granite. When clean it looks lovely. However, after cleaning one has to wait at least 4 minutes before realising that some dust has settled and some finger marks have appeared. It doesn’t help that our kitchen chairs, on which we spend hours most days drinking coffee and generally avoiding chores, are such that one’s eyeline is just perfect for seeing all said crumbs, dust, et al. Shiny worktops. Just say NO!

The cost of my shiny granite worktop is constant polishing. Never again. I like it to work on but boy is it high maintenance.

Some things like MVHR just get in due to how nice it is to live with it there, like nice sanitary wear or cladding that looks right for the location and design. The latter two do not have a payback financially, except perhaps sale value and I don’t much care how much our executors sell for. MVHR requires airtight therefore that’s in too.