K44

For washing up, showers etc I’m guessing 150 to 200 litres a day for house of 3. Have seen plenty of hot water cylinders with built in heat pump of that size with immersion heater and maybe a coil for solar thermal but none that have supplementary coil to take feed from wood stove back boiler. Could solar thermal coil take the wood stove feed? Much higher temps I guess….

Planners have refused solar panels on roof to preserve the look of the 200 yr old stone barn (Lake District national park and world heritage site). Would need separate planning app, biodiversity net gain report and mitigation before we could put in the field behind. Shelving that for now. slab boiler is basically a copper tank that sits in additional masonry section on top of stove body with plumbing connections (no pics I’m afraid). Flue boiler is this https://www.charnwood.com/files/documents/instructions/fb100~200~300.pdf

RE solar panels, we have been told we would have to do a Biodiversity Net Gain report and mitigation. we are in the Lake District national park which is also a world heritage site

ETC. To clarify, the building is an existing old stone barn. It is structurally sound. It is being converted to a dwelling. Are we officially a new build or a conversion?

Oh sorry, you said floor space.

Thanks, Does ‘living space’ include bedrooms etc?

We will have a large glass, south facing door (in place of old barn door) will this be seen as a negative in the saps calculation? Do we need to worry about a way of reducing the solar gain? (I would just open it personally… )

To recap. - small, open plan barn conversion. - will meet current regulations on insulation. - access to free wood - can we get a tank with built in air source heat pump and feed from a stove? - Is using self heating appliances (such as showers, tap in the kitchen) a good way to use less electricity? - Is it worth us using Solar panel batteries without the Solar panels or is this an unnecessary upfront expense?

Is this the right place to post our idea for our heating/hot water system for people to comment on? (If not which topic should I put it under?) we are trying to work out an energy efficient, cost effective heating and hot water system. we have unfortunately had our plan for solar panels removed from our planning permission (barn conversion in Lake District national park) We want to use a stove (Ecco stove is the one we have decided on) for our heating. We have access to free wood and the house will be small and open plan and well insulated. For hot water we would like to use an electric shower and have an electric hot water tap in the kitchen because these things only use electricity when in use. We would like a hot water tank with a built in air source heat pump so that we are using our emersion heater less to heat water (for occasional baths and hot water in the bathroom sink) and we would like the tank to also have a feed from our stove (which would have either a flu boiler or slab boiler) Does such a tank exist? We might use Solar panel batteries to store cheap energy at night for use in the day, and might eventually be able to get permission for solar panels but we have to work on the basis that we won’t. Does our idea make sense? Does anyone have a better one? comments welcomed

Do we need a building regs certificate in order to get insurance?

What Conor said is what we believe to be the case I think.

Thanks, that’s all really helpful! I’m still confused though! 😊 We have a design (layout & structural) done by my stepdad, who is a retired architect. He is also working on the build and has started. He didn’t bother with building regs on his own house and I don’t think Saps existed, so he has just started, but we think we need to meet all regs to get insurance (is this correct?) and that if we don’t pass a saps test the build could be stopped (is that correct?) We have been told a building regs person won’t come to see us until we have a saps calculation done. It seems we need to gather loads of information in order for them to do the calculations and it isn’t information we have. We thought we could decide on things such as our heating and hot water systems once we are at that stage in the build. That’s the way my step dad has always done things. He is concerned that standards have changed and wants a chat with someone from building regs before he proceeds too much, so we are madly trying to find out about things we know nothing about (insulation, water tanks, etc) and also work out what will give us a sap’s calculation that will pass. I thought we had to pass this test before we are allowed to proceed?

Thanks. We were under the impression that we need to work out everything in order to do the test. do we need to have details such as what shower, what water tank? We are struggling to figure out things like how much insulation on different areas and our hot water system, without knowing what will score highly and what might fail. It all feels like a dark art, where you just have to guess and then pay somebody to tell you if you have guessed correctly. We are very confused!

Hi, We are starting a self build barn conversion. A family member who is a retired architect with self build experience is leading the project. We are all currently feeling baffled/stressed by all the new regulations! Particularly SAPs at the moment. It is a struggle to know who to ask which questions, so I’m hoping this forum will be help us navigate our way forward. I might be asking a lot of (probably very silly) questions on lots of topics 😊

It seems we need to get a SAPs test done before we can engage a building regs inspector? Is this the case?