TerryE
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In our case, I didn't employ an architect. I used a 3D visualisation to plan out the layout to ~5 cm precision. We had some particular (but not uncommon) requirements. The whole house is on 3 storeys including a warm loft (used as my live-in son's bedsit) and laid out on a general 3×2 tile with the front centre tile being a lofted hall void with an open floating staircase spiraling up the two flights and the rear centre tile used for utility and bathrooms to simplify pipe runs. I had to make damn sure that this would work as a space and comply with BRegs. A local architectural technician converted this to basic plan and elevation drawing to our planning application. I passed this AutoCAD drawing to the MBC AT and we went through 6 design cycles to get to the final drawing sets for both slab and TF / cassettes, UFH plans, etc. I had to do a load of tweeks, e.g. slightly repositioning glulams to keep foul-water and MVHR runs clear. We have 60° reveals on all of our windows so I did all of this detailing myself -- We have a stone skin, so fenestration involved 3 separate subs (MBC for TF, local builder for skin, Internorm for the fenestration) and any interface between three subs is always a recipe for trouble. So I probably did a better job myself and also saved maybe £25K professional. OK, this took a lot of focus and effort on my part, but thanks to MBC I didn't have to worry about cold bridging issues and how to make sure that the build was airtight.
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Meaningless. I did my build in 2016. What's the value of knowing the price of 6 apples in 2016 if you want a dozen Clementines starting later this year. As I said our local stone skin cost me more than the TF + Slab + design + all engineering calcs for the BInsp.
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@SBMS It is difficult to do an apples and oranges comparison here. The fact that a lot of members including me chose the MBC route means that it can be an excellent price for a given set of circumstances. The best thing is to talk to the vendor direct In my case I felt that MBC offered a pretty well rounded passive offering: custom slab and TF design including fabrication and onsite construction. The MBC design and the construction guys onsite really understood the implications and detail of building to passive class. You can be confident in getting a complete airtight (say to 0.4 ACH) and well insulated build -- all in one package. Yes, you could multi-source and reduce the nominal costs, but only then to find that you need to take on a lot more detailing yourself to hit the as-designed spec. As point of reference we have a natural hand-dressed stone skin on our house (to comply with Local Planning requirements); the materials and labour for this cost us as much as our MBC bill.
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My plumber is going to commission my new OSO UVC on Tuesday. At that point I will have 2 × SunAmp PVs going spare either to give away to someone who is interested or to scrap. One is fully working and is used as our main HW system until this Monday. The other one died (thermo failure on the PCM heating loop?) but is a good source of spares and should be repairable if you know what you are doing. I am willing to give them away as-is, without any warranty from me to anyone willing to pick them up / arrange collection. Alternatively if no one is interested that it's a case of scrapping them. Any suggestions on disposal?
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UVC Retrofit: Tundish D2 Discharge Pipe in a Passive House
TerryE replied to TerryE's topic in Boilers & Hot Water Tanks
In our case the UVC is free-standing in a utility room, which is basically a corridor from the hall to the back door with sink, worktops and whitegoods along one side. The OSO UVC fits in a gap behind the hall door, and is in open view. Because the room is only about 8m2 area inside a passive house, a conventional UVC would be unsightly and would turn it into a hot room. As for the extra £400 or so, IMO this is a small price to pay to keep Jan happy and maintain harmony in the household. I am fitting a couple of digital thermometers on the tank, so I can use these to tune the Immersion timing. -
UVC Retrofit: Tundish D2 Discharge Pipe in a Passive House
TerryE replied to TerryE's topic in Boilers & Hot Water Tanks
The wonders as formed vacuum panel insulation. 🙂 -
Microcontroller based power switching revisited in 2024
TerryE replied to TerryE's topic in Boffin's Corner
I've been burnt by a mindfart when wiring up the new UVC installation -- or at least decommissioning the previous 5V switched SSRs box because the UVC pipe runs have to go along where it is mounted I've been reusing the existing dedicated redials but repurposing some of them. Unfortunately they were wired 2 + 1 onto the two sides of the consumer unit (protected by separate RCBs), so the Neutrals were wired likewise 2+1 -- except that I swapped the role of one of the cables so that a LH Live was returning to a RH Neutral. Powering it up trips both RCBs. Duurrrrhhh! Idiot. A quick shuffle fixed this. LH is LH and RH is RH now. It struck me that you could easily fall into the same bearpit with the power monitoring multi-relay boards such as the Shelley and Sonoff ones as these are wet contact. -
Just started a self-build in Dorset. Exciting times!
TerryE replied to NailBiter's topic in Introduce Yourself
@Thorfun, that's because their warm slab is an on-ground insulation-wrapped slab. A warm basement is a completely different design requirement. -
UVC Retrofit: Tundish D2 Discharge Pipe in a Passive House
TerryE replied to TerryE's topic in Boilers & Hot Water Tanks
Thanks Nick. The direct distance UVC to stack is ~3½ m so even with the elbow reductions we are well under the 9m limit for 22mm. -
Just started a self-build in Dorset. Exciting times!
TerryE replied to NailBiter's topic in Introduce Yourself
By way of 2016-17 prices, our village plot was worth about £150-200K, bought-ins about £350K, labour and profession fees save by our contribution maybe another £120K giving an effective total of £650K which was about what roughly comparable houses were selling for in a village setting at the time. OK, splitting the plot off probably lost us only about £50K off the selling price of our old farmhouse. We have no CiL then and saved on stamp duties so probably saved ourselves maybe £250K on buying a "comparable" previously built house in the area. Except of course that you could buy a passive-class house and certainly not the exact spec that we wanted nor to the build standard that we actually achieved. There were some major cost elements imposed by the LPA, e.g. local stone exterior skin, and natural slate roof, that added to our bought-ins. At today's prices we would probably be looking at £750-800K to do a custom build to this spec. Can I suggest that it might be worth looking at an MBC twinwall TF build as an alternative to ICF at least for the main living space? Their warm slab and TF design patterns have been well tuned to a passive-class standard over more than a decade's refinement. I agree that if you've run your own building company, then you and whoever else in your family that worked in it will have lots of relevant experience, and you will have many areas of expertise in-house that you can either use directly or to enable a decent level of quality control. One thing that many here evangelise is achieving a passive class build as this has major running cost savings, as well a far more comfortable living environment. We are in our early 70s now, so we appreciate this as we age. We keep our entire house at 21-23 °C (the first floor bedrooms are a couple of degrees cooler than the ground floor) 24 × 7, and really miss this when we visit our children and other relatives. I personally would recommend that you or one of your close family really gets their head around the implications of building to passive class: where the heat goes and (through solar gain) where it comes in. Relevant contributions of: slab losses, external walls, roof, fenestration, air exchanges. Get a good feel for the impact of U values and how these reflect unit costs and performance; air-tightness and air exchange losses, and so on. You will need to make various trade-offs to optimise costs vs achievement off your overall spec, and you or someone you really trust has to make these decisions. Achieving this class of house requires an attention to detail both in design and in construction. It is not unusual for two houses with the same nominal as-designed spec to vary in as-built performance by a factor of 2. An example "close to home" is that my daughter's living room is impossible to heat economically: the large panel of bifold doors leading onto the garden have a poor U-value and leak terribly; areas of wall and ceiling insulation are missing. You haven't mentioned your age, but I infer that you are getting close to retirement and therefore this will be your property "to retire into", so living comfort will be important. You've mentioned a gym and workshop but what you have mentioned in bridging space to the exterior: a conservation or atrium. I am not talking about the 5 × 4m bolt on the side of an existing property, but in your case you have lots of area to include a decent spacious environment that to could properly integrate into the building fabric, and that could connect you to the garden. OK, not needed in the summer where you are planning to build, but this could extend you comfortable "outside-ish" space for another 3-4 months of the year. BTW, even Nick (@SteamyTea) would admit to being a tad irascible at times; yes, he is also very particular about units, dimensions etc., because the implications of kW vs kWh, etc. are a lot more than a little "h". He is also well respected for his contributions here by the forum regulars. 🙂 -
Just started a self-build in Dorset. Exciting times!
TerryE replied to NailBiter's topic in Introduce Yourself
I entered this thanks to a poke from @MikeSharp01. What @NailBiter is going through now is a journey that we started back in later 2013, with us moving into our new build in Dec 2017, a 3-storey passive-class (almost) house were we live on floors 0+1 and my son has bedsit style area in the warm loft on 2. This is about a quarter of what NB is planning. We've been living in the place for over 6 years, and we are still amazed at how well it has all turned out in terms of performance as built against design expectation, and also in terms of its extreme durability and ease of maintenance. We build on a split plot by selling the other ½ with its 17-19C stone farmhouse. We saved a lot of money by doing a lot of the design, procurement and internal trades ourselves. So the entire process was extremely profitable My rule was only to take on tradework where our standard of build / finish would be at least as good as we could get from local tradesmen, and since we kept a very tight control on compliance and quality, the overall build standard is consistently high. Overall we put in over 3 person-years of equivalent effort. This was a big percentage (effort and therefore saving) of a 230m2 build, though it took us years to recover from putting in this effort and the general strain/stress. Our sort of input just wouldn't dent a 1,200 m2 build. You are going to have to rely on buying in at a realistic commercial rate a far larger percentage of trades and professional services. Also guessing your extended family size, I suspect you have an expectation of a lifestyle, per-person use and general quality of finish that is also on a different level from what most members here aim for. I make this comment with no criticism intended, but more of a level-set from my experience and costs at 2015-2017 prices: my instinct is that you are at least 100% out on your budget expectations. I would strongly suggest that you have the entire project plan and scope independently reviewed and costed by an experienced quantity surveyor: your overall project scope needs to be realistically matched to your finances, as there is not point in running out of cash with a half built project. I have a few technical comments, but I will defer them to later posts. -
@vik2001 you need to tread carefully here. The Land Registration records the accepted boundary, and in practice the boundary is where is boundary is, unless you have prior photographic evidence that your neighbour has subsequently erected his fence within your curtilage, and in doing so possessed some of your land (without your consent?) This could easily escalate into a formal boundary dispute. You need to decide your priorities: do you want to get into a boundary dispute with your neighbour, or do you want a supporter of your application? Even if you both agree that the current fence does not reflect the actual boundary, then you'd probably need to offer some sweetener to remedy this: e.g. offering to replace the fence as new on the actual line, plus .... A difficult one to navigate.
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They probably do, but why do you say this with 100% certainty? It is the LPA that decides. An expert such as a planning consultant who is familiar with the LPA's process and practice might have a relevant informed view. It is dangerous putting in a PA "blind" because rejection kicks off what might be an extremely long process - a year+ delay, if not indefinite. IMO, far better to have a dialogue with the Planning Department, and then submit an application that has a local officer's support. And the officer might just say "this doesn't need an application", in which case a CoLD is essential to protect the owner.
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The LPA might be willing to issue a Certificate of Lawful Development in which case the issue is solved and you've got no worries. IMO, what you need is to establish a constructive dialogue with your LPA planning dept. sooner rather than later. You might need to get your case together first. A local planning consultant might help if you are worried about approaching the LPA. (These firms are often staffed by ex-planners who have gone private because the money is better.)
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I am curious. You've had plans drawn up, commissioned a builder and started work. Why did you conclude that it wouldn't need PP? I am assuming that you have read the "Permitted development rights for householders, Technical Guidance" before starting the development (I see that @joe90 has already given you the link.) As far as I can see, the PD limit for an infill extension is 8m not 10m. You've also got the side elevation within 300mm of the curtilage and added two fenestration openings directly overlooking the neighbour. IMO, stop and start talking to the planners.