Gone West

In my previous Victorian farmworkers cottage we had the original rainwater harvesting system which the early occupants used as their water supply. There a bit more about it in an earlier thread.

@Balraj Appadu Welcome to the forum and good luck with your project. Touchwood Homes will do everything from groundworks up. Some friends of ours used them nine years ago and have been very happy with the build. https://www.touchwoodhomes.co.uk/build-method/ https://www.touchwoodhomes.co.uk/foundation-systems/

My BCO insisted that all external softwood be treated, even behind cedar cladding.

That's right, although some friends who built a self build also renovated an old outbuilding on the site and had 100mm Icynene sprayed onto the inside of the walls as IWI and draughtproofing. The only problem was it was done in the winter and apparently Icynene doesn't stick that well to cold surfaces and it pulled back slightly in places which had to be rectified but other than that it worked well. It was done about nine years ago and the building used as a artists studio.

We used 350mm Icynene to insulate our house (PH) and got an airtightness of 0.47ACH without any membranes or tapes. According to the manufacturers 100mm is supposed to be enough for good airtightness.

I see, I hadn't appreciated the basement and retaining walls aspect.

That's quite surprising. What types of EPS are you talking about.

I never said it was.

Watch this weeks Building the Dream programme which is about an ICF build where as usual they run out of money.

In your situation I would use gas with skirting radiators. UFH only works well with a very well insulated floor and even then is less efficient than radiators. There is also the potential problem of finding repair/maintenance companies for ASHP. ASHP supply and fit companies seem to spring up and then disappear but finding a service company for gas appliances is easy.

I used Sennocke Insurance and got an unoccupied buildings policy.

We used Lindab steel guttering which has been up for eight years and no problems at all. Doesn't creak like plastic. Lindab has a different way of fitting downpipes to plastic and all cuts have to be done by hand.

Downstairs is kept at 23C and upstairs is usually 22C. Wendy would be quite happy if it was 25C all the time but we came to a compromise.

We had a planning condition that said the first 6m of our drive had to be 'properly consolidated material, not loose gravel'. We went for resin bound on permeable tarmac near the road and then self binding gravel. They just didn't want loose material being pulled onto the road. Complete joke here because the lane is covered in muck off the fields all winter.

If our bedroom ever dropped below 21C I'd be toast.

We have 3g tilt and turn windows and french doors and most of the time they're open on tilt only. As others have said easy to clean upstairs. Only disadvantage we found was curtains in dormers.

Do you have a fireplace that has a chimney in that stack or is that solely for his use? If you have use of that stack then it's shared and the centre line of the stack is the boundary. If the stack is entirely his, then the boundary would normally be on your side of the stack. I say normally because there are cases where the boundary can dog-leg inside the houses.

If it's his mast on your chimney stack did you give him permission to put it there?

I don't know anything about Green Belt law but there does seem to be some logic about the argument, although I'm not sure logic comes into Planners decisions.

Correct

The local farmer here got permission to double the size of the footprint of his farmhouse because he found a 1930s map showing a much larger dwelling on the site.

Does the chimney stack serve your property only and is the TV aerial mast yours?

The only attenuator we have is on the supply side as shown in the first picture. There is a very small amount of fan noise on the extract side if you are near an extract vent. I didn't think it was worth fitting an attenuator on the extract side but if I was doing it again I probably would fit one. We haven't experienced any cross talk from room to room.

Our MVHR is part of a Genvex compact unit and cannot be heard when running at normal speed which is what it does most of the time. We have found it unnecessary to use boost even when having a shower or bath so why your boost would come on at night I don't understand. Most excess noise is caused by the system being commissioned incorrectly and having too high a ventilation rate. Our house is also a timber frame construction.

Back in the 90s I took out a large window and the wall underneath and replaced with french doors. I didn't alter the lintels and when I sold the house nobody questioned anything. How would they know what was there originally.