puntloos

And how much was standard ground floor build? If it was 100/sqm then a basement at 500/sqm doesn't sound good So this means you had neighbours close? Which would presumably increase your base 'foundation' cost a bunch? And the final question: this is in Holywood Ireland? No idea how to work the price in there.. So what would be the 'cheapest' ground structure? I do understand that the underground water level matters a lot, but I assume you mean "clay" vs "gravel" vs "basalt".. So how much was the excavation then? As I understand it this is an important part of the total cost... trying to wrap my head around how much it would cost here.. Very good point, I think we are kind-of maxing out the price of our house after all's built. Adding a basement will be 'cool' but not sure if it'll yield more.. although perhaps I can address the evil geniuses ('Comes with an underground lair!') market.. hmm Huh, interesting choice, why this? No space upstairs? SWMBO! (please report back) Pretty much nothing. Make an occasional coffee.. Entire thing from scratch! Thames Valley.. hmm might be comparable to my pricing (herts).. We're in clay-only here.. is that good or bad? ? Basement inside envelope seems sensible enough, I'm not a massive fan of wooden floors (creaky..) but perhaps something a bit more passive-suitable happiness through chemicals is doable.. what's the ideal UFH floor anyway.. I thought it was some type of resin/vinyl/laminate.. Might be a fun AirBNB (or Mother in Law) option at some point Not sure I understand, do you mean your entire shell, even if you didn't have a basement? Yeah I imagined. Main cost I assume is making it watertight and actually getting the sand out of there That's at least a ratio I could live with.. my current rule of thumb is 2000*250m2 = 500000 - if I can get 375 for 600000 I might... might.. consider it if the gods of finance allow it..

Figured I'd open a specific topic to narrow my thinking a bit. So. BASEMENTS! Functions: which things in your house do you have, or would you loved to have had in a basement (if you only could)? Which things you have in a basement do you regret? For example: - An electrics closet (servers? consumer unit?) might be 'tucked away' nicely but I can imagine getting cables there is a hassle? - Air conditioning/ASHP/MHVR? Noisy devices, but they typically need 'outside access' and short pipes, so putting them in a basement might decrease their efficiency? - Freezer? Basements are cold, so efficient, but is it a drag to go up and down the stairs carrying food? - Washing machine? Noisy but carrying them up/down extra stairs is a hassle? - Guestrooms? Kid Rooms? Quiet, but no light gets you down? - Showers/Bath/Sauna? Getting wastewater out is a hassle? Cost vs size and other factors: - What would be the cost of a 1m2 basement (meaning: are there any costs you always have to pay?) - Full house size saves on some costs but at the end of the day is serious £££ - I doubt you can get it below 1000? - In NL, it's quite common to create a crawlspace rather than a basement. Basically a 1m high unfurnished basement allowing easy access for plumbing etc. - Furnishing - if we assume an 'empty hall' (with the necessary weight supports) is 1000/m2, how much would making it 'proper rooms with all the normal, not excessive trimmings'? -> what can we do to minimize basement cost? Position: - As I understand it, neighbours might not like 'basement building activities' very near to their property(line). not sure why? Is there a risk that a basement cut too close to the neighbours will unhinge their property? - Am I correct heating/cooling gear strongly benefits from being right next to a wall? Or is it fine to get a reasonably short duct (2-3m?) for whatever heat/gas/air needs to go in and out?

*nod* I think I see the idea.. and indeed we're more thinking of a carport than a proper garage. I'm surprised cars even fit into those small tunnels! But yes, at least part of the place could be 'open' - but some part is probably going to be used at least for bins, washing, bikes strollers etc.

Yup, I assumed that there's some 'startup cost' and only after that it's a steady cost for every extra m2.. We're pretty close to our neighbors though, my idea is that if I have a small central(ish) basement the neighbours wouldn't mind.. but indeed "FULL SIZE" would be much cooler. As I understand it a large part of the cost is actually carting away all the soil? That's a shockingly low price... but perhaps it depends on your area? excluding the basement, what price/m2 did you end up with? We're expecting 2250/m2 with a theoretical basement addon of 2500/m2 (which was quoted for a 25sqm basement). should we be looking for another builder? (or a .. basementer?) So to be clear you have divided it up with various rooms, perhaps a bathroom/toilet etc? Very cool.. I wasn't planning on making it habitable really - obviously my "3x2m" basement idea wouldn't be.. but if eg I could get a full basement (about 100sqm I suppose.. ) for 100,000 I might strongly consider it ... if covid/brexit are kind to our finances. https://www.aco.co.uk/products/domestic-soakaway ? Yeah, I was thinking more about if a major water tank would die, is pulling it up through the stairwell even an option or would we have to dig it out?

A quick followup here - which is embarassing, but it looks like I didn't mention the reason for my question was how big a basement I need ? I'm kinda figuring that a 2x3 should even suffice, maybe 3x3 for some extra space.. Does that make sense? All things being equal it sounds like hiding equipment into a basement would be a good improvement in quality of the house, and assuming 2500/sqm would make it not insanely pricey.. (or are there starting costs for a basement that don't factor into this 2500/sqm quote I had) With of course the added question: will dropping ASHP and tanks etc into a basement cause me headaches later, for example if stuff breaks.. not *too* likely but at some point, lifting tanks in/out of such a basement will become an issue?

Yup, this. (sorry for late response). If it's all BISL underneath, competition, quality of service etc would suffer?

Just an errant thought, but going through moneysupermarket and similar sites, there's tons of 'insurers' but a ton / most / all(?) seem to be underwritten by the same company, BISL. Why is this? And doesn't this create a problematic situation?

Obviously! You are helping me out! So we're paying for aesthetics with, well, money and less space. Always a tough call I suppose. I do like the look more.. but perhaps it is a compromise we could consider if budget is cramped. We did look at the 'flat' design too but we tried to stay away from "box" design I'd love to see a picture or two of your situation. But yes, my idea in the back of my mind is to split the garage in half - one section indeed a 'car port' (that would not fit an entire car but maybe the front seats could exit without getting wet) and the other section a small utility room Main idea being that if someone really wants an actual garage they can do it, rather than having to settle for a fake garage. I'll take a closer look, I do agree that walking 'into' a wall is not ideal, but we figured we'd have to put the ensuite 'somewhere'. The illusion is valuable I think.. but indeed how much.. surely we can make it work 'somehow' Just me being a terrible user of the program, but indeed they are arches currently.. or 'doorways' So.. what did you settle on? ? I think the rationale is mostly around not having an overhang but Id have to look back..

Interesting thoughts for sure. The 'thin single storey' idea was done by the architect to make it more visually appealing rather than less (by being more cluttered). While of course your picture is 'just an example' I tend to agree.. but .. perhaps that's just because I'm used to it. You're of course right that a simpler design is typically cheaper. That storm porch does look quite nice. Will consider it.. thanks!

Outlawed.. interesting part for me is that I see almost no difference between where you would stand between standard top-hung and cabrio. I assume with cabrio you can stand maybe 30-40cm forward but I wouldn't consider this meaningful enough to outlaw? What's this experience? You're not even using them? Fair

So 'standard' ones, not with the balcony effect? I'm trying to figure out in my head what the difference in experience is. I think.. effectively you are not standing further outside your house, it just feels a bit safer? Good point, I'm 6'4 - so indeed the top of the window needs to be pretty strategically placed then.. You're very lucky, beautiful views. I will look over beautiful.. neighbors?

(did I overlook a topic about this already?) Does anyone have experience with Velux Cabrio windows [video]? - Are they actually nice, or is it a gimmick you'll never actually use? - Is the glass above you annoying? - Does it feel scary? - Do neighbours (or planning permission teams) complain about them? (privacy?) - Any downsides when you are NOT using them in cabrio mode? - Easy to clean? etc etc

Thanks for your response, inline! Yes I think under the stairs is wasted space otherwise. Not sure I understand. Do you mean remove the garage door? Or make the door from the kitchen an open walkway? The idea is that we won't use it as storage for a car, but we wanted it to be 'theoretically suitable'. We'd probably put a door halfway, so there is still an outside(ish) space for trash bins, bikes perhaps, and have a more heated 'utility' section. Interesting point. We could consider this. It also would work a bit better with the projector. The idea for closing is that we want to separate smells and mess from the living room, but I imagine it mostly happening with guests, and not 'day to day'. No, the reason is twofold: 1/ to have the walkway 'disappear' as to give an idea of space. If you can't see where it's going your mind imagines much more space then there actually is 2/ To be able to split Bed 2 into two bedrooms. It's 1m.. not that bad? But, we could perhaps open into Bed 2 downwards (we left space..) but then you'd have to walk around a corner to get back in. Fair point.. not the end of the world I'd say, but perhaps less elegant than ideal, thanks will consider alternatives. Not sure which arches you refer to.. between bed2-sleep and bed2-play? Nope, this is intended to be the loft access (of course not always in the 'down' position) - not a glitch.. I assume what you mean is the ensuite being down to the front, but that comes with downsides: - Privacy (either no windows, or it will be hard to prevent people seeing your outline as you move around..) - Bedroom 4 becomes quite small You mean my current design? Your suggested solution, or this one, is all we could come up with so far.. We thought about this, but this is also about noise separation, the kid can be loud, and with age gets louder, so we figured having a 'layer' between our bed and the rest of the house is important. But yes, all compromises.. Ha, one design we did consider at some point I think, but "a little"narrower is pretty optimistic, it'd stop being a 'king size' bedroom. Agreed, we should fix it.

Are non-material amendments a big time sink? Esp with covid I imagine that it'll take a while to get stuff through. Of course you can tinker until you're old and grey but the 'exact' location of windows, especially the bathrooms and walkin is indeed kinda TBD and 'floating'. Back of the house, and no major oddness. A little I suppose, rather than spaced evenly one window would now be a bit closer to the other. Done! I don't think they worry we are giving up (plus why would be planning submission speed matter..) but indeed I can't quite work out what their rush is. The only reason for rushing (other than 'financial') is that it's probably good to have things standing before winter sets in.. Fair point, TF is "soonish" Tempted to agree with you. Can you define 'small' though? The moves I'm thinking about are 50cm either direction PD? Why would neighbours care? I'm .. tempted for sure.. but it is expensive of course. I should perhaps wait to see if my financials bounce back after covid.. Do you mean a planning team can 'approve on the condition I make xyz (e.g. the gable) smaller'? Yep, well, the idea is to not really "add" so much as move gable forward 25cm but move entire house backward 25cm so not a major difference, just a minor garden impact. Nice, yeah I'll go do that I'm not going 'full Passivhaus' unless it's literally a tickbox at some point, it's not a goal. As for wall width, I star My main concern indeed is screen-projector-seating distance calculations. In my current design I'm mounting the projector 'into the kitchen' (see https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/14363-critique-my-final-design-almost-ready-for-planning-permission/) The ones I'm having in mind are built into the wall..

Here's the updated thinking on internals inside my own program @ProDave - as you can see we shared your feeling around the master, so we flipped things around to "default" to a larger space, that can be closed off into a 'walk-in' Reasoning here is that my wife and myself have very different schedules around work and kid, so getting dressed is much better in a separate area, and obviously we're tight(ish) for space. @wozza - hmm not a bad idea, I'll consider it. Downstairs: Upstairs: I found animating the differences very helpful. See the attachments, the forum doesn't allow animated gifs apparently. Check here: Downstairs: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VHx0uhvZdlPeAzS9fRyImbke-Mo_ujru Upstairs: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wbFll6l-7pOGSXlw4orxYWlhdLlvIPG_ This is what Master now looks like: (note one of the closets in walk-in is a mirror)

Even if this is the one, I'll 'probably be back' Main layout: - We don't know for sure if the ASHP is in the right spot? - Note that our main walls are in line with neighbors but hoping this 'gable hall/room' is reasonable. - Total floor space about 250m2 And here's the design from the architect. - The kitchen and garage will trade some space, adding 1m to kitchen - Intending to extend the gable (25cm) and then move the entire house into the garden (25cm) so bed4 and hall(staircase) will have some extra space. - Ceiling lights in particular in the loft need to be added (somewhere).. I'll update with a few more points and an updated internal design shortly -

We're pretty close to applying for planning permission. (I might post a few final designs etc shortly!). Our architect feels we should just 'go for it' and worry about internal details a bit later, rather than getting things 'perfect'. I'm tempted to agree, tinkering costs £, but clearly changing your mind later costs more. Questions I have 1/ Moving windows Compared to the current "final design" as created by the architect, we have already updated our views a little, for example we have a walk-in closet whose orientation we intend to flip. Presumably Planning people don't care too much about internal design changes, but as you can see this example has implications for where the window goes. Would "people" (neighbours? planning officers? building officials?) care if we made minor modifications such as this without extra planning permission rounds? Of course I get that minor changes can become majorish and then major at some point, but let's say just shuffling windows around 50cm to and fro? 2/ Basement We've been toying with the idea of a basement for ages. Would it make sense to just put a 'dumb basement design' in (e.g. exactly the same size as the garage, straight below it) and then later (.. post Brexit post corona post stock crash post.. whatever else 2020 decides to throw at us) decide if we can afford it? 3/ Gable depth We have protruding (out of the building line) gable. Currently it protrudes maybe 40cm. But, with it, we have a hallway that is 'okay' but for stairs design reasons could use about 40cm depth more. Same with the gable room above.. it's 2m20 wide, while 2m60 would make it a better room. The architect has elongated the gable only 15 cm: with the suggestion that after the initial planning approval, we should ask for an amendment moving the house back 25cm into the garden, then extending the gable with the final 25cm. His reasoning is that you'd want the first impression of a house planning request to feel 'right' and moderate, and once you have that planning permission in, adding some "incremental, but non-critical" approvals are much easier afterwards, plus not the end of the world if we can't get them.. 4/ Engawa! The Japanese know what they're doing when it comes to relaxing architecture. I like the idea of making our garden room an engawa-style affair. (in my laymen's understanding you basically "retract" the window somewhat, leaving an overhanging ceiling, and a small walkway.). Would we need to design this into the PP design beforehand? My hunch is 'no', if the outer line of the engawa would be at the same place as the normal wall. But, if I want to 'add an engawa' the actual wall with window would still be in the same location, but the house roof, and floor would be extended out by (say) 1m. Would that be okay after-PP? 5/ Specialist Review We're considering hiring a few specialists for a couple of hours to look at the plans to spot any major mistakes. In particular: - Timber Frame Company - to make sure they can do it, and to get an idea of cost - Passivhaus Builder - to see if there are any glaring flaws in heat design, e.g. too many windows or wall not thick enough that will trip us up - Home Cinema Guys to make sure the planned projector/screen/speakers and wiring should work - Awning Company - 'will it fit'? What do you think - good idea? Unnecessary? Any other specialists to roll in? As for the builder they are of course on our shortlist but we made it clear we won't necessarily go with them

"Exit in forward" - I don't think we have that req no. As said I imagine you drive in forward, and then back out in reverse. I'm not 100% clear if cars behave meaningfully different driving backward.. clearly it requires a bit of careful navigating where you could get 'stuck' in an annoying way. @AliG you are correct, I'll post new versions shortly, we are nearing our final design overall I think.

So indeed the drawn 'turning circle' is doable if you're a half-capable driver? It's at least my theory/hope but it's tough to test

Ha, that is because it is a stair - I just used the stair tool to draw a curve. To be clear: our parking regs say I have to be able to 'fit 3 cars' on the plot. As an example: this is allowed. The self-imposed limitation is that we value privacy so ideally we only want one opening in that hedge. This means that really only the 'main' spot (in front of the garage) is what we intend to use day-to-day. The rest of the spots are a bit more 'theoretical' in that we would have to start cutting the hedge down if we ever wanted to buy more cars. The situation I'm trying to gauge is the rare situation where we have guests, the kerbside parking is all filled, and we need to squeeze two cars onto our plot. My drawing shows the car half-in the garage but really I'm thinking more of blocking one car with the other. But the question as said is - is it "reasonably doable" - whatever that might mean to you - to park a car right in front of our front door, and when you're done, back out the way you came in without turning around.. And if not - what is the minimum we can do to make that feasible - e.g. I could imagine cutting the hedge back *somewhat* and imagining the guests to really enter the parking spot in a very faint angle only.

One challenge we are trying to work out is that our main parking spot (for a 3p family) is totally fine, straight pull, done. But with the current design of our house, the secondary spot is hard to get to. The turning circle pictured is the advised one - meaning a "2.5m corridor" with a 6m full circle. But, the edge of the property is marked by the 'hedge' where we also would hope to have a bit of a lush 'green wall' for privacy reasons. (so cutting it down completely is not what we want either, even if it would solve the parking woes) So: 1/ Does anyone have real world experience with a curve like this, theory vs practice? is this actually hard to get in and out of (we ourselves don't plan to park there often, only guests, so I suppose we won't use the 2nd parking *that* often, which matters 2/ Any suggestions on a nice, realistic green hedge? Obviously we could move the entire house back but then we're eating into our garden..

Frankly I think one of the things is how we humans 'remember things'. My parents' house never was deeply cold as far as I remember, but we made a bit of an 'event' of our open fire sessions, where just for fun we just said 'oh okay, lets fire up the hearth' and we would rearrange the chairs around it and I had wood-loading duties and we would make some drink etc etc.. I don't think my fond memory has anything to do with the temperature, but this entire ritual would just feel... silly... to do around an electric fake fire ? But then again.. it wouldn't really be based on any of the other factors either.

Hm. I must say the dimplex Opti-V doesn't seem terrible. I think it's logs made out of, or covered with red leds, with an 'LCD screen' sheet in halfway, and well a speaker for the crackle. It's... not very authentic, or warming. But pretty convincing? Plus what about the angry neighbours complaining about the thick smoke. So conflict much weird.

Yep, I was wondering about if it is doable to have the 'feeling' of a fire (which is something I like, childhood yadayada) but indeed having an airtight house. Obviously trying to create as little heat as possible, and to compensate one could open a window while gas-firing.. Yes, only-ASHP seems to be the direction I'm going.

No duct-taping the gimp, then? I guess I'd love a dB reading but it doesn't sound too terrible to have this e.g. right next to the kitchen? Or would it be a bit of an annoyance? Fair point, I have not 100% decided if I want a gas line or not. I've always assumed so but I suppose we could do away with one.. Perhaps we can forego it..hmm but but but my ornamental gas fireplace... (which has to somehow work with the well-insulated house, I know..) Plus perhaps compensated by not wasting so much cold water? Makes sense Bah a little aerosolized bird crap never killed anyone.. right? Yep, I'm aware. Not trivial. Thanks a ton mr @Bitpipe, you certainly know your piping.. super helpful. Lots to think about. I suppose I am partial towards having a "eco friendly" solution rather than necessarily 'most cost efficient' (and while I appreciate e.g. a dual boiler system will be more complicated, the added price will be in the low thousands I imagine, not break the bank necessarily) however clearly at some point you have to say nevermindnevermind. Perhaps a powerful electric heating element (6kW?) can be fitted into the water storage for "OMG the entire family has to shower in 15 minutes!@£" emergencies and that'll do away with the need for a boiler, even in the -10 winters that will surely come after global climate change..