LnP

That’s bat emergence surveys. The initial survey which looks for signs of bats and suitability for roosting can be done any time of year, but if the ecologist decides they need to do an emergence survey, where they look for bats at dawn and dusk, that has to be done between May and September.

What a nightmare. 1” NPT has a pitch of 11.5 tpi. Is that what you have? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_pipe_thread fittings available here https://pipefittingsdirect.co.uk/contents/en-uk/d123_NPT-Fittings.html

Good to know, thanks! Low maintenance is one of our goals and my wife, who has a lower tolerance for dirt than I do, is particularly concerned about cleaning the blinds. The alternative would be roller blinds, but I like the way that you get more control of the incoming light with Venetians.

Hi, I'm thinking about overheating and since we don't think we can work overhangs into our design, I'm looking at external blinds. Internal Venetian blinds can be a bit of a pain to dust. What about external ones? Do they get dirty? If you need to clean them how often do you do it and how? @Bitpipe @craig @Thorfun I think I've seen you post about external Venetian blinds. I'd be interested in your experience. Many thanks

Talk to a planning consultant. You can find one for your area on the RTPI website.

We’re in a conservation area and have not found it problematic. We bought a 1960s dormer bungalow which has a Victorian coach house in the garden - the plot the bungalow was built in was taken off the garden of the Victorian house next door, and just happened to have the coach house in it. We’ve just finished completely rebuilding/refurbishing the coach house and will live in it while we replace the bungalow with a new house. Other than it being very slow, so far we haven’t had major planning problems. I recommend talking to a planning consultant. We engaged one up front and he has been very helpful. His advice regarding the CA we’re in is that it is more about the leafiness, rather than the buildings. You can find a planning consultant in your area here. It won’t cost you anything for an initial chat, which will probably answer a lot of questions.

I think you’ll have to swallow it, but let the builder and the trades people know about the bill. You can do this in a way that makes it clear you’d rather not be faced with such a bill, but don’t get angry. Try and get them onside that this is something you’d appreciate their help in trying to improve, and ask them for suggestions how to do that. Then when you’re on site and the heater is not running, be sure to thank them - give them positive reinforcement for the behaviour you want. We provided a caravan as a site office and rest room. We stocked it with tea, coffee, chocolate biscuits but never thought about smoking until the first day when I noticed the builder smoking. We didn’t want the caravan smelling of smoke. At the first opportunity that he was smoking, not in the caravan, I went up to him and said I really appreciated he wasn’t smoking in the caravan. Problem was solved by positive reinforcement. Neither he nor any of the trades have smoked in the van.

I didn't know either, but found this ... https://renewableheatinghub.co.uk/weather-compensation-the-lizzie-curve

You might be better off with a trailer. It would be cheaper and there's less risk of problems. I've been thinking about getting an 8ft twin axle one with a load capacity of about 2 t.

@tuftythesquirrelYour "plant room" looks amazing! You'll have to give guided tours, it's a work of art!

What about the Worcester Bosch EasyControl with smart TRVs? Any experience with that?

I had a Honeywell EvoHome system in my last house, installed as part of a new boiler and DHW system project. The house was over 3 floors with a zone per floor (radiators), as well as a separate zone fo the UFH in the kitchen. There was also a zone for the DHW. The controller was connected to the wifi and hence to the internet. I liked being able to control it remotely and found the programming easy to use. A problem I was never able to resolve though was zones dropping out. The installer tried moving the zone valve receivers around on advice from HW, who said it was probably due to them being too close to something metal or a mains wire and that was interfering with the RF signal. Moving them didn't sort the problem out though. Looking back through the fault log, I was getting these faults on different zones every day. The faults would clear themselves without me taking any action, but it did mean occasionally no heating to a room when we wanted it. I'm not in a hurry to buy another EvoHome system.

I really appreciate all the great comments and advice. Fantastic. @Kelvin @ETC Regarding the comments about balconies being a bit of a white elephant, I know what you mean. But for us it's also about having a larger ground floor footprint than first floor, which means a single storey area which we might as well put a balcony on. The views over the canal are quite nice.

Hi @AliG, just making sure I understand this comment. Regarding the landing and bedroom 1, I think you're saying that the north wall of the landing (north is up) needs to line up with the north wall of bedroom 1 so the whole of that first floor wall can be supported on a steel which runs as shown as the dashed blue line on the GF plan below. Is that right? I've shown the new position of the landing wall in red on the FF plan. Regarding your point about the FF north wall of bedroom 3, I see what you mean about how will that be supported. I think your suggestion is to extend bedroom 3 so that its north wall is directly over the study wall. I suppose we could also move the study door and have a steel as shown on the plan below? Thanks

I'm looking at our new build design and wondering how big the plant room should be. We currently have 2550x950 mm. We're future proofing the house for an ASHP, but will probably initially install a gas boiler, depending on building regs and how the relative price of gas and electricity are looking at the time. So that means under floor heating with all the manifolds and a bigger DHW tank. There will need to be room for the ASHP gubbins. We will have MVHR, but that can go in the loft. Have I missed anything? How big would you advise the plant room should be? Thanks

Thanks @AliG for your comments. Regarding your comments on construction, I'll talk those through with the architect. Regarding your layout comments: 1. Windows as mentioned. I would replace the roof lights with an east facing window in the dining area - I agree 2. The WC is too small .... I would probably move the WC to the back of the enormous pantry . Not a bad idea. We'll look at that. 3. The plant room is possibly too small depending what you want in there. If you have an ASHP outside that will help. The MVHR can go in the loft. Our current plan regarding heating is to future proof it for ASHP but install a gas boiler. So that means the plant room needs to take the boiler, DHW tank (sized for ASHP), manifolds and whatever gubbins the ASHP will need. How big do you think the plant room should be? 4. The boot room is at the side of the house implying that this is where you plan to come into the house, . Yes, that's right. Could the garage be at the side and attached to the house? We want to maintain access down the side of the house, and don't want to build right across the plot. 5. It could be a bit dark in the middle of the kitchen without another window at the side. I agree. We'll put a window on that wall. The sink is too far away from the table for clearing up dishes and getting glasses of water. Great comment. We need to think about this. 6. ...I would consider making the dressing room smaller and putting a laundry room in part of the space. Then it might be easier to arrange the boot room space downstairs. Interesting. We have talked about a 1st floor laundry room to save carrying washing up and down stairs ... but these days if the weather is good it has to go on the washing line, which anyway means a walk downstairs. But the utility/boot/WC/plant room space is a crowded so your suggestion would help there. 7. I'd put another velux on the second floor landing. I agree

Good point on the VAT, but I think it's money we'll probably never spend anyway. We're not planning to sell it unless it's to pay for social care! Our children can decide after we've popped our clogs, if they want to finish the top floor, if there would be a return on that, or sell it with the potential for the extra 2 bedrooms.

Interesting. Thanks @Radian for your comments. The orientation is just 11o off being due north and south. It had occurred to me that we could rotate it a bit if that helps getting natural light to key places. Overheating - it's something I need to discuss with the architect. I wrote in the design brief that I wanted a roof overhang at the front so we could get winter sun but keep summer sun out. This design doesn't have that. I don't think the house would look right with small windows and I like big windows! Windows on SE side - I think we can fix that. NW elevation - yes, I think windows in the lounge and the study on that wall is a good idea. NE elevation - We've gone back and forth about where to put the kitchen. Our last house had French doors off an east facing elevation from the kitchen, and it was great to step out of the kitchen onto the patio for breakfast when the sun was out. That's why we've got those French doors on the SE elevation off the kitchen out onto a patio. Btw I think we'll move the house a couple of metres to the west to make more room for that patio. We're currently living in a house on this plot (which we plan to demolish) and the rooms on the NE elevation, which is really facing almost due north, are quite dark.

Good point about council tax. I hadn't thought about that. I was also thinking about not installing the stairs to the top floor, which I think helps us regarding fire regulations. For example, I think it would mean we could delete the door between the hall and the sitting room, which would give a view right through the house from the front door.

You're right, thanks. We can fix that.

Hi Everybody, I previously posted an earlier design for our new build project and got some very helpful comments. So helpful in fact that we couldn't fix the problems with it and decided to start again. Here's the latest and I'd love to hear your thoughts. The house is just for my wife and me, but we want guest accommodation, hence only 3 bedrooms on the 1st floor. It's a "forever home" and we don't plan to develop the 2nd floor at this stage. But thinking about resale value, thought having the possibility for the extra 2 bedrooms would be a good thing to do. The dressing room could also be turned into a bedroom. It's 136.5 m2 on the GF, 105.5 m2 on the FF and the loft is 48 m2. Views are to the rear (north) over a canal. Many thanks

All good advice thanks. I'm going to fix the balustrade to the inside of the parapet wall to give the full 1100mm without a step and also greater assurance of the strength of the fixing.

I'm refurbishing a Victorian coach house which will be ancillary accommodation to our main house. It's about 60 m2 over 2 floors and the refurbishing has included insulating it to meet Building Regs. It has a bathroom with a shower (no bath) and a kitchen. I've used the famous @Jeremy Harrisspreadsheet to size the boiler. Heat loads vs outside air temperature are as follows: 15oC OAT - 0.7 kW 10oC OAT - 1.1 kW 5oC OAT - 1.6 kW 0oC OAT - 2.1 kW -5oC OAT - 2.5 kW I've sized the radiators with the intention of running the flow temperature as low as possible. I'd prefer a combi boiler to save cost and space, but a system boiler with a DHW tank isn't out of the question. I've read on here and HeatGeek about sizing the boiler to avoid cycling. We live in Cheshire so the heating will most of the time only need to deliver about 1.0 to 1.5 kW. I'm having difficulty finding a combi boiler which modulates down to that low level of heat output. Please can anybody suggest a suitable boiler or other suggestions. And, do the heat loads I got from the spreadsheet look reasonable or are they too low? Thanks

All good advice thanks. The copings are going to be fixed with dowels to give the balustrade a firm fixing. But I will discuss this with my BCO.

I'm creating a roof terrace on a single storey flat roof which is about 2800 mm agl. There is a parapet wall around the edge of the roof with copings on top and I want to fix the balustrade onto the copings. The finished height of the parapet incl. copings is 260 mm. According to Building Regs Part K2 Diagram 3.1, the height of the balustrade should be 1100 mm, and I would like the balustrade to be 1100 mm above the flat roof surface. That means an 840 mm balustrade on top of the parapet. Building Regs also says, "To prevent children from readily being able to climb the guarding: avoid horizontal rails". Do I have to consider that a child might stand on the parapet, in which case to maintain the 1100 mm, the balustrade would have to be 1360 mm above the roof surface? I'd prefer to keep the height of the balustrade to be 1100 mm over the roof surface. At 1360 mm it will feel like being an animal behind bars at the zoo. Thanks