deancatherine09

Thanks all. You've confirmed my concerns. To further complicate matters, the old owner of the site (who got the PP) has already done the self build exemption for the site, so now I need to work out how to transfer it over to me. I can't do the transfer form as it needs signing by him, so will have to try and assume liability from scratch myself and then re-apply for the exemption - hopefully that will work.

Hi all, We completed on a plot with full PP a few weeks back. We are in the process of getting the services to site and need to dig a narrow trench to lay the pipework before the water board will connect us. We are also going back to planning to amend the design of the house, and hope to put a new PP application in within the next month. My question is, should I be applying for the self build exemption based on the current planning, in order to dig these trenches and get the pipes installed? Will these work trigger the CIL liability? I had hoped to wait and apply for the CIL exemption when we had the new PP, but I don't obviously want to breach the conditions now.

We submitted costings from Estimators Online, think it cost £150 from memory. Ecology's appointed valuer didn't question it and they accepted it with no questions.

Welcome! We have just bought a plot just outside of the New Forest - nr Romsey. The forest is lovely but also there are so many more restrictions on planning, so do your research before you buy ? I had always wanted to live in the forest but when we looked seriously at the practicalities and expense, we decided to change our search to neighbouring villages.

Just a quick update on this. We took ownership of our plot (finally) on 1st April 2021. Off to the NSBRC on Saturday for more research and architect appointment next Wednesday, so it's full steam ahead now.

Thanks Bitpipe. We've done a prelim SAP using Stroma already but will need to tweak it for new house design. Encouragingly our architect has done several MBC passive house projects so we are glad we have found him!! Doesn't sound like the 'other' BC docs are that onerous so that's really encouraging. Thanks

The plot sounds very overpriced unless you know something we don't. We are buying a stunning 1/3 acre plot in an expensive Hampshire village for £375k - amazing views etc. I know you said you don't want to discuss merits of the plot price here but in reality if the plot was cheaper you would be able to afford to up your build budget and the project would be feasible. How long has the plot been on market and have you tried an offer yet?

Thanks Bitpipe. I remember your super helpful comments on my intro thread and hoped you might find this one. You have confirmed my thinking. I will go it alone with the help of my dad who is helpfully a QS Did you go with a BCO linked with a warranty co or an independent private one? It makes me wonder why MBC don't have an option to sort the BC for you, if what they do is 90% of the work. I know Fleming Homes will sort your BC for you if you want them to (for an additional fee). Out of interest, what were the other documents the BCO wanted to see? I am going to go ahead with the planning as the original design has been done by someone who clearly hasn't a clue on passive house principles so I want an architect who knows what they are doing to re-do it. I want to get this right and I don't trust myself to do it justice.

I'm sorry to hear this. I was convinced that this would happen to us, but to our delight the valuer (also Allied via Ecology) passed no problem and we got our offer last week so we can go ahead and complete on the plot. We don't have any issues with access though - simple flat plot with nothing on it but a shed and a garage at the moment. I wonder if its due to the expiring PP? Ours expires in October which I thought would cause us issues but it never did. For the costings, we had our own but we didn't think they would accept those so we submitted an estimate from Estimators Online instead (within £10k of our costings) which they passed without any questions. How many m2 is yours?

I have just got a quote through from an architect who has worked with MBC beforehand on passive builds. £4k + VAT to amend the planning permission already granted £7.5k + VAT for building regs / construction drawings House will end up being about 220 - 240m2. What exactly would they be doing for their £7.5k for the building regs? I would have thought much of the construction specs would come from the timber frame supplier (who would design the foundations + the frame)? I've got room in the budget to accommodate the professional fees quoted but equally if they are charging for something I can fairly easily do myself in conjunction with a timber frame manufacturer then I'd rather go down that route and spend the saved cash elsewhere. For the planning, I could probably get a technician to draw up some ideas for us but I think the quoted fee is pretty fair and I would like to draw on their experience on passive house design.

Gosh, they sound like a nightmare. Did you speak to the neighbours before you put the plans in?

Hi all I have contacted a few already but I am seeking recommendations of architects in Hampshire / Wiltshire area who have an interest or specialise in passive style timber houses. We had two in mind but one hasn’t bothered getting back to us and the second cannot take us on until mid - late next year (which unfortunately we can’t wait until for a few reasons). We are speaking with a third but after only a few email exchanges I already am doubting whether I can work with them. thanks in advance!

Thanks Janet and Weebles for your positive reviews of MBC. They have cetainly impressed me so far. One question that I never asked and wish I had is surrounding their payment terms, if we are on an Ecology arrears mortgage we won't have the full amount available upfront (probably 80%-90% of it though) - did you pay them in instalments & is the last payment after erection of the frame so I can get a valuation done to release the next tranche of funds? GaryA - we have actually had a pleasing response from trades to our request for an initial quote (ballpark as no full spec yet). At this stage it's just to try and build a relationship with a couple of trades so that when we have a full spec we can get quotes from our preferred trades without having to start from scratch. Plenty of Electricians and Plasterers, not as many plumbers but we contacted one that seems really good, and has worked on lots of new builds too. I expect they add a premium for an independent job but so far the preliminary quotes we have received have been in line with what we expected. We will be making sure the building regulation drawings are done and passed over to them for the final quote.

Hi Bitpipe and Gus, Thanks so much for your detailed replies, I wanted to properly digest the contents of them before I replied hence the delay At the moment the site is a fairly flat, laid to lawn garden. It has on it a couple of small outbuildings (greenhouse & shed) and a double garage, all to be demolished in the build. The services (only electric and water as there is no gas supply on the road) are already there as they service the main house but obviously we will need to T these off and have our own metered supply. We will need to do this early on if we are to live in a static onsite, which is the plan. I've popped the topographic plan and a couple of photos below - any comments based on those from more knowledgeable people are most welcome. The build covers pretty much the whole space from just behind where I was stood taking the photo up to the end of the wooden structure in the picture. On the drawing, it's the house in the middle but the drawing shows the relationship to the current house the plot is being split from. The house next door has been knocked down and rebuilt since the drawing was done, so it's much larger & closer to the boundary now (as evidenced by the picture). The current house design is a nice size, but a bit too complex for us, we prefer a more contemporary simpler looking build. After speaking to the local MBC rep he mentioned a local firm of architects who specialise in passive style houses and have worked with MBC on a few projects in the past. I had an initial chat with them and have sent the existing plans and a few design preferences to them for a fee proposal to tweak the existing planning permission once we own the site. The main idea is just to reduce the pitch and complexity of the roof to create more usable space upstairs. We did a SAP assessment for the mortgage and got it over the threshold required for the mortgage by adding a PV system - this was before we started exploring the idea of SIP and Passive style building. I do hope that if we decide to go down that route, seeing as the SAP will undoubtedly improve and from my initial calcs / quotes won't cost much more than a traditional build - that they would be happy with us amending the construction method to SIP/Timber. We had to move quickly with the mortgage app to get the conveyancing process moving along so didn't have time to properly research the construction methods and defaulted to brick and block. Bitpipe, that really is amazing that you can keep the whole house warm with such little heat source. I suppose I am so used to living in traditional houses! How do you manage your water heating if you don't mind me asking? 1356929b-99ee-4b18-a730-e39497180b64.JPG 241 KB f21e3289-1b91-4957-afb9-f2641cd846e0.JPG 212 KB

Thanks Joe & Bitpipe. Lots of food for thought. I have made contact today with MBC to assess feasibility with our project. I have been reading their website and its incredible what they can achieve in terms of thermal efficiency - so I am really keen to see if we can work with them. I do like the look of reclaimed brick ground floor and timber clad first floor, with a slate roof, but we could still achieve this either with brick slips or a full outer brick wall. Good point re wastage - for this reason we were strongly leaning towards the recycled tiles vs reclaimed slate but you make a good point re the bricks. We actually have a very good reclamation yard under a mile from the plot site where we sourced bricks for our old garden wall, so naturally wanted to use them as much as practicable in the build. Solar gain and which systems to use (MVHR / ASHP etc etc) is one thing we just haven't got our head around yet so will need to research a lot here before we decide. The back of the plot is SE facing but the S direction is overlooking fields so naturally we want to make the most of those views. We know that our current house was not designed with solar gain in mind as the back is a large oak / glass elevation which looks stunning but the master bedroom is uninhabitable in the summer due to the heat.

Thanks both. We are located in Wiltshire currently but the plot is in Hampshire. At the moment the PP is for a more traditional brick & block house but we will be looking at alternative construction methods as we want to future proof the house. We are particularly environmentally conscious people anyway so want to make our build as sustainable as we can, within our budget. I will take a look at the MBC timber frame, thanks. Did you have any issues with remortgaging the house at the end of the 2 year period with a Timber frame? Even if we do end up with a traditional block and brick construction, the plan is to use reclaimed bricks and either reclaimed slate or recycled plastic slate effect tiles on the roof. So hopefully lowering the carbon footprint of our build as much as we can. We will have to live in a static on site, as we'd rather save money on rent which we can use on the build , and our family live too far away from our workplaces to be able to move in with them. So that will be fun!

Hi all, I've been lurking for a few weeks so I thought it was time to introduce myself! I'm Catherine & I live with my long term partner of 11 years, Dean, in our lovely detached house we bought last year. As much as we love this house, we quickly realised it didn't have the space outside for us to grow and accommodate all our projects (we like old cars and are restoring an vintage American trailer at the moment, and have caught the bug so this won't be the last) - so made the difficult decision to move on earlier this year. We sold our house but struggled to find a house that ticks all the boxes within our budget, so when a plot with full PP came up on 0.3 acre plot of land in a perfect location we had a crazy moment and put an offer in, expecting to be outbid by developers . Well, there was lots of developer interest, but the elderly vendor had lived there most of his life (long story but he was splitting his large plot into two smaller, one with a house and one with full PP for one) and therefore he wanted to sell to us, a couple who would build our family home there rather than someone who would just look to profiteer. So to our amazement and I expect the frustration of the EA, he batted away all the developers and didn't want to know. The plot is perfect, there's plenty of space for a big workshop at the end of the garden and the house will be perfect for us with a couple of small tweaks to the current design. Also, the view is stunning, a real added bonus. We couldn't believe our luck! So this all happened about a month ago, since then we have been frantically trying to sort financing. We have chosen to go through Ecology for the self build mortgage and need a small mortgage upfront on the plot (annoyingly!). We had our initial assessment and submitted our full application last week - so I am really hoping that all goes without a hitch. It was thanks to the countless positive reviews on here that we went with Ecology, we hadn't heard from them until I read on here! We had our financial advisor get us some mortgage options via Buildloan and they all had so many hidden fees and awkward terms, so I am glad we found Ecology, as they have been great to deal with so far. The plan is for us to engage a main contractor for the watertight shell, and then project manage the build ourselves from then on, employing main trades and doing as much as we can DIY. There are two reasons for this, firstly to get the high spec finish we are looking for, the money won't stretch to get a main contractor to do the whole thing. Plus, when we extended our old house, we had an absolute mare with poor sparky and plumber that the main contractor provided, they were very poor quality and it caused a LOT of issues / stress (of course they were the contractors mates/family members). So we want the ability to choose our own contractors this time around. We are handy people, we restored our old house ourselves (excl the extension) and enjoy learning new trades - so will take on most of the internal fit out ourselves. Luckily we have no kids (yet) so more time to devote to the build around our day jobs. We do feel like we have a lot to learn but this forum so far has proved to be a wealth of information so I will continue reading and fingers crossed in a few months we get the "keys" to our er, plot, to start the real hard work!!