Jilly

I recently paid £265/day. He wasn't quick, mind...

I've done a stable conversion (half way through now, but liveable) and have watched your blog with interest. I also couldn't get proper quotes or reliable people at first, I think partly because a conversion is so tricky to price up. Lots of people advised me to apply for demolish and rebuild but it seemed that the council were very keen on reuse here. It can end up like Trigger's broom. Class Q must be stressful because you are supposed to finish in 3 years, so full planning would give you more time. My architect had a good relationship with the planning officer and discussed several versions of appearance. My neighbours managed a rebuild of a barn with living accommodation and a couple of internal 'stables' by playing the rural worker's dwelling card. pm me if you would like details.

I found a big variation in price (few hundred pounds) and very hard sell by some companies. I got Wunda (fair priced and £600 cheaper than polypipe who was my plumbers preferred known brand as it turns out they have a pita ordering system where everyone sticks a mark up on) as recommended by PeterW. Our plumber (an older chap who hadn't done UFH before) installed it with the builder. There was a bit of huffing over the instructions, but he managed fine. Call them and they'll set you right on what you need as a complete package.

OMG you poor things. I can only offer commiserations at the pain of unexpected costs. If you cant avoid it hopefully you can find other ways to save some money.

I love our UFH. You can run the room thermostat lower and the floor will work with low temp water, such as from an ASHP. We are on LPG at the moment but run it at 45 degrees (hasn't been needed since April). We didn't use a decoupling mat which apparently can reduce the efficiency (you'll get into another rainforest of screed drying time worries), and put fancy insulation under the slab as we couldn't get the recommended (on here) of 200mm (building regs is less).

Thank you for your comments. The electrician already thinks I overthink so he will love this one. However, just to overthink a little more, if phone reception is blocked by the foil in the insulation, is it not therefore possible that the WiFi is internally reflected in the building which could account for my real or imaginary symptoms...?

Not sure if I'm going bonkers here. Our house is small 60 x 10m and I can't stand the WiFi being on, I seem to get an odd pressure headache and can't seem to think straight. I understand elementary physics and exponential decay, so I'm trying not to sit near the modem/router, and my partner thought I was a bit neurotic(!) to begin with, but we also have noticed a funny buzzing when we touch some light switches, not quite a static shock and also the computer does it too and it seems to stop when you wear rubber shoes. I'll speak to the electrician when I see him, it can't be serious or it would trip the RCD, but I'm wracking my brains and straying into hippy stuff. Could it be anything to do with the ring main going into the floor around the aluminium window frames. The electrician did it for ease for himself, so I asked for a floor plug in the corner as the wires were there . We've got loads of foil backed insulation in the walls and ceilings. We also get a pretty poor phone reception which improves when you step outside the building. Is this just the usual self builder overthinking...?

Does any part of that include digging on your land? If so, it will be much cheaper for your builder/you to do it up to that point

I guess you also need to watch out for copyright.

Hello, there's a Joe90 who posts regularly, might get a bit confusing...

What a lovely old house. The Haynes manual for period house renovation might be helpful. Modern houses focus on airtight but you might need to be mindful of breathability. Can you keep those lovely window frames and make some good secondary glazing? All the best.

Gravel is cheap, easy and good enough for big country houses. You could put a strip of setts or pavers at the threshold to stop gravel creep onto the highway.

Think about living in a static on site and selling it, many self builders do this. My build went over time for lots of reasons and I could have done without paying nearly £20K in rent. It would have been great to be able to pop out and do small jobs in the evening or handle deliveries in the evening on winter. Don't underestimate the stress.

Yes, I think you do, unless you can find some way of building part and doing the rest when you have the money.

It seems heating is a bit of a black art. That's really hard to accept when you've decided to plan and get things right and part with all your hard earned cash... It seems to me you can only be about 80% sure how a building will perform in real life. Keep reading until you reach a point you can accept you have protected the downsides for your situation as much as possible.

I quite like the box...

Just the frame I think. Lots of hidden extras, they want £400 for structural calculations, but I'm not sure if these are not needed if you are smaller than Building Regs minimum size.

They are surprisingly expensive

I've been round the houses with mobile options. I've already got an old mobile 2 bay field shelter, which looks like a poor version of the above, plus a caravan (stuffed to the gills),so I'm researching doing it properly.

Hi folks, we need a home office/studio, but have no PD rights as we are in a Conservation Area. I've been researching how to build something which would be likely to be acceptable to the planners and affordable and have come up with the idea of glazing an oak frosted frame kit garage (or asking my builder to make one). They favour black weatherboard here). If we are < 3 x 5m (15m2) we are exempt for building regs, is that correct, even with this type of structure? We would insulate and line. We are on clay, would we get away with a shed type slab foundation (BC always want piles nowadays round here)? Next door have just put a hedge in. A company round here does double glazed units for quite a reasonable price, so the doors would be the biggest expense. Anything I've missed? I'll attach a picture of an Ebay post that got me thinking.

The planners could impose conditions on anything there is doubt about if they are happy in principle. You can always appeal. Good luck.

It's definitely doable, but those houses are often megabucks, and you need the right architect.

I was worried about this too and still haven't turned my floor above 35 degrees and its been tiled. Funny how this game plays with your stress levels. As a suggestion, would it hurt to design in extra expansion joints to mitigate the risk of new cracks? Our floor isn't large, so we've only got them at the the thresholds but they don't look very different from the grout lines. At least you know where to put them. Walking round the B & Q warehouse I now notice their expansion joints!