SuperJohnG

My advice (slightly off topic) would be to look away from scotframe. Its a circa 25% markup using them compared with others. Fleming homes (located in the borders) seemed to offer a very competitive price when compared to scotframe. As a background to the above... I'm located in Scotland and at the final stages just about to select a supplier for my kit currently between SIPS ECO (sips kit obviously) and fleming homes for their factory insulated TF kit. Either kit will be finished with render board and render mounted in batons to provide my external cover. I did weigh up block and render as that seemed more 'sturdy' but...it added cost to the insulated foundation for an extra ring beam..and I can't be doing with relying on brickies turning up and at ridiculous rates and having a messy wet trade. I'm aiming towards high levels of airtightness and insulation but not to passivhaus levels (budget driven). I'm also going for an insulated raft foundation semi DIY. Save yourself time and just look at Kores foundation system. Half the cost of others out there for me such as isoquick and izodom. From under your render board down to cover your insulated foundation edge you would use cem-rock I believe. That's what kore says and shows on their wall buildup. See attached. Hope this helps Kore IFS Standard Details Rev 4-TF_46.pdf

I'm on the middle of doing a cost analysis between slate and tile. I specified 'marley edgemere riven on my planning permission as I knew it was an area I could save money. However now find myself pining to have a 'proper' slate roof. As above Spanish cupa heavy 3's seem to be the best of the bunch albeit top end (400x250mm seems to be the common size here in Scotland) Burton roofing are their main distributor (now owned by the Cupa pizzara quarry itself) and nationwide branches. But they also sell all the tiles. I got a quote for 350m2 of cupa heavy 3 which turned out to be 8360 tiles at a total cost of £9030. Vs the marley at £3900. Its double the costs however, I'm still working on the costs for labour to install. Tiles are easy and can be done relatively cheaply and even easy to do yourself as I understand it. However slates will cost invariably more as you need to grade them (sort them into thicknesses) to get it good and smaller so takes longer. They are also going to come back with another option on slates that are cheaper and apparently pretty good...so I'll update once I hear more on that and labour costs. Cheers.

Its likely, depending on the unit, that even if the unit itself was covered your excess would be more than the cost of replacing a pump. Even at that..mechanical breakdown is not covered under regular house insurance. So it would only be if you damaged it somehow. It should be well buried so you shouldn't be able to damage it? So in my mind there is no need for cover. I see you're possibly worried about contaminating a lake? Any specific reason why? If the units installed correctly it'll be fine. For your insurance just read the t&c's to see what is covered and that will tell you.

Following this topic with interest. I'm due to place an order for a kit in region of 80-100k in a few months but this part is bothering me already. I can't believe that there is nothing put there already to cover this. It's worth nothing for all that a companies house check will show you the P&L for any accounts that have been posted but it will tell you nothing of their current cash position so tread carefully. A good history of trading profitably will help reassure but it by no means precludes any company from going under.

Hell no ...makes perfect sense. Nothing wrong with changing a plan half way through

I've been quoted 169 for walls and 194mm on roof from SIPSECO which seems to be there middle of the road option. However currently out with another few suppliers to see what they are offering. If I recall correctly however different sips companies use different insulation hence panel thickness can vary for the same performance.

I have questioned this also. DPM is usually placed inside the raft from whay I have seen. When you see it below the raft it is actually a radon barrier (common in Ireland). This is what I have picked uo anyway. I have have seem some without any DPM inside the raft which I found strange and have previously questioned. See this thread.

Haha @SteamyTea this has also always amazed me too.

As a fellow Engineer...I do need to enquire how many days you procrastinated over this...any less than 4 and I'd be disappointed.

It costs for engineering hence it is calcs. Cheaper than what I had been told to budget at £2500 by everyone. But still nobody any difference between the two things.?

I have been gathering prices from the usual suspects (Kore, isoquick, Izodom) for my insulated raft foundation. I thought i was up to speed however Kore has just thrown me off a little with the engineering costs sheet they supplied. (See attached) and below for the two specific paragraphs. So when we are talking Kore type - insulated foundations, when is a ground bearing insulated foundation, not a insulated raft? Insulated Foundation Engineering costs (One off).pdf

Welcome @Alister84. Glad you took my advice to come check out the forum....hopefully plenty good info for you! Cheers

@LA3222 while did you go with? (Dont know if I already asked you that). I've only had one price so far from SIPSeco here in Scotland.

Welcome to the forum. Better late than never as they say! Looking forward to seeing some pictures. I'm due to commence a SIPS build later this year up in Ayrshire. Who did you use for the SIPS supplier?

Looks cracking wee spot

Works well in a bathroom. Bright white light. I changed mine a few years back to LED GU10, couldn't see for three days in there while my eyes adjusted but couldn't without now.

Thanks @jamieled even the name of the company would be helpful. Cheers

@jamieled I'm.quite interested in your set up here. Have you got a borehole? Did you buy your water treatment equipment independently? I've planned a bore hole but hadn't bothered researching if I could get the treatment equipment cheaper than buying through the borehole supplier. I know my way well around plumbing and I have designed hydraulics for the last 15 years. Copper is certainly more aesthetically pleasing with soldered joints and integrity should be good (done well!) However as an amateur push fit stuff will be very forgiving and cheap if not pretty. If you want a nice end job. Plan the routes, mount the equipment then have a GOOD time served plumber come for a day and make it look nice.

That's pretty much the same figure I got it..it only accounts for doing the connection to the main. You have to dig the 2m square hole around the connection point and reinstate etc..

As @eandg Said Econekt are in Clydebank. I did talk to the MD recently (Frazer) who turns out lives a mile from me. Seemed knowledgeable, but I have no more experience of them than that. I did get a price for an insulated raft foundation using the izodom system (they are the exclusive UK partner I believe) and they were flexible about whether they would supply only or do the full job. I'm going to get him by once this phase 1 of lockdown is introduced for a site walk around, although as mentioned above they seemed expensive. They are currently completing a job with AC architects who aren't the cheapest.

I'd agree with @ProDave do the bare minimum if you dont need water straight away then do the rest later. I was planning in getting a supply from 450m away from SW main line termination (fire hydrant point). The whole process was flawed from the start they couldn't tell their arse from their elbow when I had a pre start inspection etc. Even though they wouldn't adopt the line from the connection point (it would have been a private line) they still wanted to do a track inspection Eventually I realised it was far too costly to come down a B road 400m. I sacked it off and have opted for a borehole as it's cheaper, less hassle dealing with SW amd I cant guarantee 3 bar at the house...provided there is water there. ? However that's me not you. Defo do what you need for them then do the rest at another point. Be prepared to be running around after them.

Hi @Bernie Welcome to the forum, lots of good information to be found here. I'm a bit north of you just south of Glasgow. A kit at 35k sounds very cheap in my opinion and most likely unrealistic. I had a quick look at the website and see they are made in Estonia, I've not had any experience of buying lots from abroad (or at all yet as I'm a fee months away from making final decision on kit supplier) but sounds too good to be true or will be very very basic and you could get better local. Fleming homes are down your way, they make kit houses and will know the local authority well and planning requirements. I've heard some good reports about them on here. Being complete for 65k seems very optimistic even if you do a lot (most) of the work yourself. I would investigate services and the plots locally in detail to understand how much it will cost to get it fully serviced then possibly work from there for a house design to meet tour requirements and size. If you wanted a two bedroom small bungalow say 80m2 for the build alone as a minimum youd be looking at somewhere around £1200/m2 if you were doing a lot yourself and you werent in a rush. So say 96k plus a 10% contingency then services and plot on top. This is of course on my my opinion.but hopefully helpful.. Best of luck.

@ProDave. @eandg Its probably my fault. Everytime I seem to move or buy a house there is a major financial speed bump. I bought my first property in Oct 2007. Bargain deal at only 10% over the asking price. Moved in...market crashed and we were there until 2014. It has never came back to the value we paid and unlikely ever will for some time. We should have sold it on 2 years later for 10-15% profit all going well, like all my friends who are slightly older. They have all seen the good days where lots of money was to be made. We had to move in 2014 ( first child came along) so couldn't sell it so have rented it out. I did get the upside slightly on a 3 bed detached house as the market was still down and the oil price was crashing. Still here just now...however just completed purchase in my plot. I had planned to start building in in August then sell in spring. But we will see. I'm hoping that it doesn't go to a full blown recession as I cant be bothered with it. My hope is we get moving again...I get the benefit of a slow market during the build with cheaper labour or reduced prices from kit and window suppliers and then next spring it rockets off again and we continue moving and I sell for a good price. But yeah the housing market here in Scotland is just a PITA. I feel I missed any boom by about 3 years, had I been born in 78 vs 82 I would have been seeing 40% returns in 3 years like some of friends. I'm in the west just south of Glasgow.

@Tony K absolutely. In my experience, I've never came across a plumber or heating engineer as a sole trader type person who would ever design a system. My best friend has a plumbing / heating business and he wouldn't dream of doing any of that design side. Thats not to say it's all plumbers but I would say the vast majority. If you want something like that done, you'd be high end high cost with someone to get it properly designed, which would likely be even more then the £25k quoted. do you know the heat input requirements? there is a simplified spreadsheet on here somewhere, done by @Jeremy Harris that can give you the required nominal figures for your construction type to get a max required heat input which would help you size the ASHP. (Attached below) For the the hot water cylinder, 300l seems to be the go to number for a DHW storage with an ASHP as you store water at a lower temp hence you need more volume. It would suit a normal sized family. You could go smaller if there is less than 4 people but IMO better to have 300L, unless you are tight on storage. MVHR - Contact BPC ventilation, give them your plans and they will give you a price and design and its very easy to self install . Underfloor heating - Wunda for all the components (lots of threads to read on here about that) but general consensus is wunda system with a wilo pump option (very quiet apparently). The heat recovery unit is the MVHR. The above is what I have selected based on countless hours of reading on here and going with general consensus, but obviously your build method, U value, airthightness will all be specific to you. Do you have high levels of insulation and air tightness? what stage are you currently at? hope this helps Heat loss calculator - Master (1).xls

12kW sounds way overkill for a new self build of that size assuming itll be relatively air tight and good levels of insulation. Assuming a 5kW would do..I'd estimate £10k for all the materials. That's 15k fitting...not chance I would pay that. As above..if you have the money and want someone else to have the responsibility then go for it...but at least get a few quotes.