jaymd_123

Perfect Glad you got it sorted.

I've been reading a lot about warm roofs, especially for our living area, which has vaulted ceilings with exposed oak trusses (though not so important for the rest of the house). In your experience, what were the pros and cons of a warm roof?

This is exactly what it could become if we use it for more than storage. I don't imagine it will ever have installed heating, though I will likely add insulation regardless. This is why I was playing with the idea of stairs. Imagine the kids want to have band practice kind of thing...

I will need to investigate this further. I haven't given stairs much-to-any thought as we've planned a bungalow. We had thought that we could add the stairs to the garage, and we've seen a few houses with outside staircases leading in which would be suitable considering the use (currently: storage / future: activities like playing instruments).

What are your thoughts on bigger openings? Say 5 meters of glass. One set of french doors plus side panels wouldn't really work here as the opening would be too small. Is there a suitable alternative?

This is a really good point. I had assumed you tiled and then fitted solar over the top (my lack of knowledge showing for sure). In that case, does it not make sense to populate a vast majority of roof in panels? I assume there is no happy medium? You're saying at 45 degrees, you get really good summer results with less in winter... I believe there will be a lot of variables, but in normal circumstances, what would be the sweet spot for a solid balance all year in terms of angle? How much run time do you get from your system from 100% battery on a rainy day around this time of year (i.e. very little charge but electricity in normal use?)

So really, in Scotland where the winters are long and cold, 50 degrees could be a better angle? In Summer, we use significantly less electricity (lights and heating mainly). Sorry, not trying to hijack your post. Just curious to how you're progressing and the choices you're making and why. Great to see the progress you're making.

Considering having a separate office not accessible from the house, but still attached and integrated into the design. This would free up the old office space to become a mech room (if the mvhr, heat pumped, solar batteries etc don't end up in the loft). Does anyone have any observations/thoughts on this? Any suggestions on a better use of space for the office or mech room proposed in this design concept which I may not have thought about? Cheers

Completely agree. It makes sense to have better access and more space regardless of what we use it for. I just want to make sure the attic trusses are appropriate with solar panels in terms of pitch and load capacity.

We aren't planning for a usable room in the roof for completion. The loft will be for storage and potentially where we keep the mvhr, heat pumped & solar batteries. In the future, it may become an activities room. By the sound of it, the easiest way to plan for the chance we decide to use the space as more than just storage, will plan to have a hatch in the area we would add stairs if we choose to create the additional usable space.

ProDave to the rescue once again. Nice strategy to wait for completion. Thank you, sir! Will plan to install a hatch to start with and if we need stairs later, we can go down that route. Don't want to over complicate things (even more) Good call. As Dave mentioned, timing would be important. I think I'll go with the hatch as you both suggest. Sounds like a much more straight forward route.

Good feedback. Thank you. It is interesting you mention ceiling height for the hatch; we're planning 2.9m which I assume would be similar to what you have now. Any reason you'd opt for a hatch and pull down ladder vs a set of stairs?

Hello, Thinking about best practices for attic space and have a few questions: Any issues/observations I should be aware of while considering attic trusses? Are attic trusses appropriate whilst using solar panels (noticed the pitch is going to shift due to height requirements)? Is it worth having stair access to the attic vs a hatch and ladder? Can we keep our mech (mvhr, heat pumped, solar batteries etc) in the attic, and if so, does it need to be enclosed within a mech room? Cheers

@DannyT How did you plan the pitch when planning your roof for solar panels? Currently, I am looking at a rise of 210cm, which gives me a pitch of 45 degrees. I'm planning to use attic trusses for additional storage (maybe in the future some sort of expansion) This won't leave me with much internal headroom. I could add to the rise, that the pitch will enter 50+ degrees. I believe 30-40 degrees is optimal. Any thoughts or observations on this from your experience?

Welcome!

This is incredibly encouraging. We are planning a house that is slightly too large for us, mainly because our family is growing and we (plan) to only do this once lol. Granted, the house is 178m2 + 37m2 garage (attached). The plan is to build block and render. There is a small area of stone cladding which I will do myself. Planning to use attic roof trusses for all areas minus the living area where we will use oak trusses for a vaulted ceiling. The oak trusses are probably the only 'luxury' thing we're planning. We will likely go for a retail-bought kitchen and bathroom. We bought all the things we have in our current home (renovation) on sales and it saved us a fortune... The only 'fancy' electricals I plan to fit is cat 6 throughout, as WiFi drives me crazy. That said, it isn't expensive to do this and I know what I'm doing here. Windows is a good call; we currently had in our minds we would add french doors to most of the house vs windows. Pricing it up, they we're a great deal more expensive than the window, but it does stack up and I could probably shave about £3-4k going for windows vs french doors. Anything in the above screaming "don't do it - that will kill your budget"? p.s. loving your solar blog - thank you for sharing that. Checking our their website, they have some pretty good looking kits, but I need to do a lot more research into this.

I will take a read. Thank you. Any thoughts on what are generally cheaper materials?

Do you think a single-floor build is cheaper to construct than 1.5/1.75? Obviously, there is the additional land cost, but in terms of construction?

This is a really great setup. Any advice on some reading so I can get up to speed? Would love to understand this area of the build better, as being more self-sufficient is certainly on my radar.

This is my worry. Although I work in construction, my job has very little to do with hands-on building and residential isn't something I've come close to. I am at best, a semi-experienced DIYer. Will be relying on trades for a lot of the build.

If you have a blog, chuck me your link. Would love to get your take on it (as I assume you're close to me also being in Perthshire). Will hold off with my million questions until we have found land.

May be a stupid question, but wouldn't this cost a small fortune (i.e. 4x more than his £25k rent). Curious because we considered a granny anex.

Very nice design. What do you think you'll produce with the solar? What setup are you using?

I'd love to know more about your experience with Heb Home. We've seen a few designs we like. How were they to deal with? How did they compare price wise VS other kit companies?

Great idea. Thanks for noting. We had one in our living room in Galatina, Italy when we stayed there a few months back. It worked far better than I expected - I completely forgot about it. Do you think it would be beneficial to add these to the living space, too? Very conscious the room is pretty large and the windows are at the far ends. Any thoughts on cost-saving potentials on this sort of layout? Anything I should consider?