Bramco

This is something that has got me thinking. Assuming we have our bathrooms warmer than the rest of the house and also have heated towel rails in the bathrooms, won't the returned warmth that an MVHR recovers as the air flows from the living spaces through the bathrooms to the outside keep the living spaces warm. So you can imagine that the heated towel rails are actually doing the heating which if these are electric are at a COP of 1.... Is this an issue? And if so how do you prevent it happening. Simon

Hi there, wish I'd found this forum earlier!! Not that we're in need but there's loads of great experience here which could have kept informed and entertained as we ground through the planning process. We finally got permission a week or so ago after 3 years - I'm sure there are plenty of members whose trials and tribulations were worse than ours but I'm sure it's a pain for almost everyone. Our build is in the Green Belt and is obviously infill, therefore not inappropriate - the officer that dealt with our pre-app decided that the plot, was too wide at 32m. She then went on to give permission to another application in another village stating that their frontage of 100m was fine for infill. Beggars belief.... Anyway, we won the appeal with ease and then had the haggle of getting our design through (oh and another officer on the reserved matters decided the outline permission red line wasn't correct, so we had to put in a full application). So here we are 3 years down the line, when we should have been living in our German kit house for 2 years, being unable to afford the Germans because of the exchange rate, watching materials prices shooting up due to Covid and Brexit, as well as possibly a housing market slump in a years time when we want to sell our existing house....... The upside is that we'll be much more involved in the build which should be interesting... Our permission is for a 3/4 bed timber frame house to passivish standards but not certified - although we may need to be when it's done. Metal roofing and cladding with some wood and render, ashp, mvhr, solar at the top of the field, triple glazed windows etc. Simon & Jane PS We're just south of Nottingham which seems to be a bit of a desert as far as self builds go...

Hi Bozza, That's not going to work.......... I probably don't need to say any more....... Thanks for the info though. Simon

Hi, We've just been granted planning permission - the 'granted' bit makes it all sound a bit medieval - which it is - took us 3 years and an appeal..... That aside, we now need to make sure the finance is in place. We can cover all but about £100k and have been looking at how to find this part. We own our current house outright and it's worth about £450k, so naturally we would look to a mortgage on this rather than a self build mortgage as the rates are much better. So the question is how do you convince a bank or building society to loan you that kind of money on a new mortgage on the current house? Speaking to brokers some time ago, as soon as we mentioned financing a self build, there was much sucking of teeth and quotes for bridging loans at extortionate rates. I noticed someone on a post a couple of years ago saying they had said they wanted to buy a 2nd home. We have rental properties, so I guess we could say it was for a deposit on a new rental property. Is there any experience of raising money on your own home and if so how did you do it? And which bank/building society did you use? Thanks in advance for any help. Simon