Gone West

Yes we found a lot of those in the roof when we were demolishing the bungalow. I don't know what made them but it wasn't the common wasp.

You have discovered, as did I many years ago, that planners have only a small vocabulary and the same words are used whether correct or not. Those were exactly the words used for our application. We had to hip the roof and dormers to get around that one. I can't see what they are talking about in your case. I can't see how something that is not visible can add to the massing but unfortunately there is no logic to their thinking.

Bring her over again. I promise she won't suffocate

Hi Michael, welcome to the forum. So is that a public road outside your house? Nice scenery.

I must admit to 5 and 9.

Although from what I've read designing a PH bungalow is very difficult, although it's something I've yet to try. The ground floor makeup is:- Earth 200mm compacted type1 50mm compacted 4/8 granite fines 300mm EPS300 (Peripor) 200mm RC 30/35 Porcelain tiles There is a 200mm thick EPS300 upstand around the slab. I can't say because it's dependent on the outside temperature and amount of sun. Last winter before we had the electricity connected IIRC it used to be around 16C/17C first thing in the morning but I don't know what the weather was like. I like the idea of the small ASHP being incorporated in the MVHR as it's a neat solution which could be increased in size for larger PH buildings.

Certainly not significant if set up for PH ventilation rates.

@Nickfromwales I’ve been thinking about your comments on PH space heating in relation to floor temperatures. A PH isn’t just a conventional house that doesn’t require much heating. In the short time we’ve been living in our new build I’ve come to realise just how true all aspects of PH are that we had to consider when we designed the house. In our house, walls and floor as well as all the other surfaces, are at much the same temperature as the air. Even the glazing is similar and it is that similar temperature which creates the comfortable feel in the house. If the air is at 20C, 22C or 24C the surfaces including the floor will be at a very similar temperature. If you create significant convection currents you start to lose the feel of comfort. UFH creates convection currents so in order reduce the negative effects of convection the floor temperature is kept at only slightly above air temperature. When we designed our house we considered UFH but we wanted a ‘dry’ house, a house without water based heating. We found from modelling our house in PHPP that is was feasible to have a warm house without conventional heating. If our house had been larger we could not have used our system. In the house design in which you are currently involved it seems that there isn’t a suitable product which will provide the level of warm air heating required due to the house size. With the PH concept I like the idea of moving away from traditional wet systems with large tanks, boilers and UFH and with Sunamp, Genvex Combi etc it should be possible to design novel systems.

If there is a greater differential between floor and head height as there would be with a 24C temperature then it would be more noticeable. I'm sure you asked me to measure floor and air temperatures and IIRC the difference was very small. As heat rises, with UFH you should have a greater differential, but you won't unless there is high temperature water in the UFH.

'Surviving' sounds as though it's a struggle whereas it seems to be a simple and effective solution in my house. The reason we keep the internal temperature high is because that is what Wendy likes. The primary heating is via the electric towel rails in the three bathrooms. In our view the rooms you want warmest are the bathrooms so it's an effective way of achieving that and then extracting from those rooms via the MVHR. The EASHP in the Genvex Combi will increase the supply heat to the other rooms if required. So primary heating is from the towel rails. The problem with quoting PH alone is that it is a maximum requirement for space heating of 15kWh/m2/yr which may result in a whole house heating system being needed but when the specific requirement is significantly less that 15kWh/m2/yr there are novel ways of achieving that without wet UFH. Decrement delay is mentioned a lot but it is not simple to model and how important it is to achieving a comfortable heating/cooling balance is going to be dependent upon the wall and roof construction, shading and weather. What are the effects of ventilated spaced surfaces within the wall construction or having the house shaded by large trees all day or living where it is always windy. Not so simple .

We asked one of our parish councillors who wasn't on the Planning Committee to support our application and he spoke in our favour at the hearing. Nobody ever objected to our application except the Planning Department. We obtained the names and addresses of the Planning Committee from the council website and took the document to their home addresses during the day and put them through the letterbox. The committee made a site visit and we had a presentation showing all the drawings and a scale model. We also marked out with spray paint on the ground the footprint of the proposed building. We were not allowed to speak to any of the committee members but the planners had a representative from another area supporting their claims. We also had support at the site meeting from the Parish Council. We didn't previously know any of the committee members or people at the site meeting.

A chap living in Canada who was on another forum used spray foam behind the lath and plaster and apparently it made a huge difference. It obviously requires the right type of foam and care in application.

@oldkettle we were in a very similar situation with errors stated in the planners refusal. A week before the Planning Committee hearing I hand delivered a document to each of the committee members outlining what I felt were errors and what we were trying to achieve with our build. At the hearing I spoke for three minutes reiterating what I had put in the document. The committee members overruled the Head of Planning and it was passed unanimously much to the annoyance of the Head of Planning who was furious. The planning department had concentrated so hard on refusing my application that they forgot to remove permitted development rights and allowed a balcony which originally they didn't want.

It depends whether the 160m2 is the external footprint and it has thick walls.

Welcome to the forum. If it is a nice looking, well built farmhouse I would not demolish it. I would improve and extend. I have done renovations and a new build and I found the renovations much easier. Others will disagree. Good luck with the project whatever you decide.

A lot quicker than doing it by hand using a rasp which is how I did all mine. Wish I'd known they existed a few years ago.

All I know is I won't have to order oil again but I do have to get rid of the oil tank somehow.

We're hoping to to have all the rubble crushed on site and used for our driveway etc.

Unfortunately it has rained a couple of times recently and I've removed most of the roof, only the rafters to go. The floorboards have got wet and swollen so unless we have a dry spell they might not come up too easily.

@jack I have the softener drain pipe and overflow pipe both running into the same waste pipe. The drain pipe might cause some resistance if it remains at 10mm for a long distance but if it opens out to say 15mm I can't see any problem.

The Roughneck looks ok, I wonder how it would cope with thicker boards and cut nails. I guess there's only one way to find out.

@Onoff the Screwfix version looks a bit puny compared to yours. Isn't there more danger of the boards splitting if the lifting plates aren't articulated?

Even the recommended ones sometimes come with cautionary tales. I asked @MikeSharp01 if he could recommend an asbestos removal company which he kindly did and he added that there were things they didn't do. When I asked them to quote I listed the things Mike said as well as every possible aspect of the removal I could think of and got it in writing. Fortunately it went smoothly.

My slab had voids in the concrete as a result of the concrete 'going off' too quickly resulting in areas of weakness. Different solutions were proposed none of which I considered worth the risk so it was agreed that the slab would be replaced completely.

That is correct. I had never heard of MBC in 2009 when I was researching for my build. My frame was supplied by a local company and is a completely different type of design and construction to that of MBC.