dnb

Yes, I am looking to project manage etc myself as far as I am able. To a large extent it depends on my day job - it has periods of extremes at the whims of the civil service. (best not go in to that) I will get some photos of the site - it really is fantastic. We spent nearly 3 years looking - along with all the pitfalls of getting beaten to it, out bid etc. It came good in the end.

Like most new folk here I am about to start building a new house. I have 1.7 acres of mixed (mainly oak, but without any TPOs!) woodland on the Isle of Wight, with a clearing at one end. It has planning permission for a 2 storey house with significant easily convertable attic space and a large garage all to my design, with a lot of help and suggestion from my architect & planning consultant. I have opted for piled foundations for all of the project (trees and heavy clay - no other sensible choice really) and a SIPs panel build for the house (the garage structure is to be built later). I looked at loads of other techniques and SIPs fitted my design the best. The house design is a conservative "New England" style with real wooden cladding, painted light green (blame planning for this). I am aiming for it to be very efficient by using Passivehaus techniques but am not aiming to gain certification. Each floor is approximately 125m^2, giving 250m^2 of total living space, and a useful attic space of around 80m^2. Some of the attic will contain plant, and the master bedroom has a vaulted ceiling (I had to have some architectural feature!). I will be looking to use renewable energy where possible because the only services to the site are electricity and water. This is the area my first questions will come from. I have some ideas, but no idea if products exist to make them a reality. I have satisfied all the planning conditions (only 11 of them) to start the project now, and am working on the building regulations submission with my long suffering architect and the SIPs supplier. Hopefully not too much longer to go now before we start drilling holes. The Isle of Wight don't seem to have adopted the CIL, so this is one less thing to worry about.