Conor

Have you received an enforcement notification for these issues? Cant comment on the new fence without seeing where it is on a plan. For the removal of the heras fencing, has there bene damage done to tress/hedging? If not, then not an issue.

Blinds2go

You could do an experiment. Get a smart thermometer (e.g. meross) set it to log temperature every 15mins or so, hang it off the ceiling at about head height. Get a cheap oil heater, set it on low (750W or so), and leave it on a timer plug (12hrs a day) for a few days and see what happens.

Those sources are wrong. Never believe randomers on the internet 🤣 I don't know how cold it gets there, or what expectations you have, but my first thought would be an air-to-air heatpump. A lot less complex that UFH and will heat the space faster and more efficiently than UFH laid directly on the ground. Is your basement currently completely dry? By adding insulation or other layers, you might actually create moisture problems as the ventilation system could be dealing with any moisture on its own. If you were to insulate, I'd go for 50mm. 25mm not really worth the bother. How much head height do you have and what are the local building regulations?

You need to do site investigations really, the map won't be accurate. It's a hand drawn map in feet and inches AND metres, and hasn't been accurately georeferenced to the OS map. There's no proposed building / plot on the map so can't comment on your specific proposal.

What's the winter time soil temperature where you are? That will largely determine your insulation / heading needs.

And first named storm that comes rolling round, that lot is going flying.

we went for a heat pump with 90% more capacity than heatloss as we run it over 7hours on low rate rather than 24hrs. You'll be looking at a 12kW pump or bigger regardless of how you run it. A key thing is how low the heatpump can modulate down to. Ours ranges from 2.5-9kW, our heatloss is ~5.5kW and we run the system as two zones, so there's never a risk of being over powered. You do NOT want to be under-powered.

Do as the others have said and set all your stats to something like 24c, so constantly call for heat. Reduce your flow temp to 35c and just leave the thing alone for a few days, keeping an eye on your electric consumption. Adjust each room temp by the flow rate.

"integrated hob - air extractor - ducted out"

We did exactly the same. Went from partial basement to full, with the new 8x4.2m earmarked as home gym / cinema. First fixes done for AV, network points etc. never gonna any further. Currently full of my tools, brewing equipment, bikes and general junk. We'll likely never put the cinema in, as the storage space is proving to be too valuable. Go ahead and build up, don't need to commit to a specific use if you don't want to.

It sounds more like an issue with poor build quality (insulation detailing and airtightness) than heat pump performance. Heat pump sizing is borderline for the design heat loss. If heat loss is higher than design, then the heatpump won't keep the building warm enough. Is this a one-off build or part of a development? The airtightness result will be mentioned in the SAP report. Fyi our house is 253m², A93, airtightness test result of 1.5, all triple glazed, 9kW heatpump. 40m² of glazing is huge, and if only double glazed, then you'll have massive heat loss. Add in bi-folds and it'll always struggle. Go through the SAP report in detail and make sure the assumptions match the actual build.

No need, we did our boarding first. Polythene dpm and foam edge strips keeps screed away from the boards.

You don't need to commission screed. Let it dry normally. We used portable heaters and dehumidifiers to keep the house a sensible drying temperature (16c) before moving in. You get a COP of about 1.5 from a dehumidifier, so cheaper to run. Much simpler and cheaper than building a Willis arrangement. We sold the dehumidifiers on at £80 each, they cost £115. We set our ASHP on a base of loose laid concrete blocks. We still haven't sorted a permeant hard standing three years later lol

For perspective for the type of structure you will need to fix to, one section of ours was fixed to a 203mm UC and the other into a 200x200x400mm reinforced concrete ring beam that was built on top of the walls, and doweled down in to the block work below. Bolts and rods were massive stainless steel affairs that cost a couple hundred quid. I think they were M12, one every 200mm. After seeing storm Eyoin batter them the other week, I'm happy with how it was done. Your main issue with a 2.3m long piece of glass that is only fixed at each end is flex... The glass will deflect under load and there is a serious risk it could pop out of the channels. There's no real restraint in those fixings.

Yes, you need to have this calculated and taken in to consideration of the overall design. Again, you need to engage somebody who knows all this stuff. Our architect used PHPP to model heat loss and heat gain, this was invaluable. Our house gets quite hot in the summer, but would have been a lot worse if we hadn't modelled it and tweaked the design. You can mitigate with shading, shutters, costings etc. but best is to reduce the glass area, also benefits in winter with less heat loss. Hard to tell without drawings.

Nothing wrong with what you are suggesting. Me, and a lot of sound evidence would suggest burning wood in a domestic ain't a good idea for your, or neighbours health. But nothing to stop you doing it.... Yet! A small ASHP delivering hot water and UFH is the best, most cost effective way to go about it. Most people here will tell our the same. Direct electric heating of any type is the worst option. Including showers. If you are going to splash out on any sort of ashp, make it work as much as possible. Stove is good as backup or extra source of heat. BUT, a stove installation in an airtight house to meet the required regs isn't trivial or cheap. That buys an awful lot of heatpump energy, free wood or not. I'm saddened to hear you can't get solar panels. Do you have room for ground mounted solar panels or panels on an outbuilding that's not visible from the principle elevation? These would need separate planning but it's worth it. Batteries are not cheap enough to make economic sense yet, especially if you are going to be a low energy user. Many here have them though and we better placed to advise than me.

Nope*. Two things are needed. Spec from manufacturer showing the force compliance, and a drawing from your designer showing what it's attached to. And suppose theidly, it constructed accordingly. Don't need calculations persay, just need to be shown on the main design that the SE has provided. This is what ours did and it's all annotated. *Yet to pass final inspection but BCO was happy with principle.

I think you need an up to date professional to help you before you go any further with your project. As you have a design done, you could probably hand over to an architectural technologist who can do the detail design and ensure compliance with latest regs. There's been a lot of changes in regs and technology over the last few years and it's very hard to get your head round it all. Good luck.

Yes. (Normal house insurance, I assume you are referring to)

For some additional context, we ran our first floor UFH pipes across a timber landing due to manifold location. A dozen pipes clipped to the SIDES of the floor joists, before 22mm chipboard, underlay and carpet. Not actual UFH but you can still feel the difference in floor temperature. Insulation definitely not needed.

You need a design stage SAP to submit along with your drawings to building control to get initial approval to proceed.

I did the opposite, thermal blocks, treated sole plate, then studs. Directly on the slab, no trench underneath. This was because most of the walls were being built in block, so made sense to build the studs off the same first course of thermal blocks. That was the ground floor... For the other floors, the stud frames were built directly off the floor structure (concrete planks) and boarded, before screeding. If you leave your stud walls till after the screed is down, you'll have an almighty amount of cleaning up to do of the screed before flooring.

Coming to this topic a bit late. Don't panic. You've just dumped a load of moisture (plaster skim) in to the room at the coldest time of year. Keep it ventilated and dry out for 6 weeks before considering doing anything.

Ours was a locally made 150mm thick hollowcore tensioned slab, 1200mm width, length 4.5m. 115m2 installed in a couple hours, directly off the lorries. You carry a lot of extra risk using any system that doesn't have local expertise.