Thedreamer

Not going to say the bad word! ? I bring the temperature up to 22 degrees in evening. When I retire to bed I bring the temperature to 24 degrees and then it gradually comes down over the night. It's usually 20 degrees in the morning and then depending on the solar gains and external temperature it might stay at that, but the coldest it been this winter has resulted in the temperature dropping to 18 degrees before I start the process again. From about March to Octoberish I won't need any heating.

That's seems like a lot of electricity. We usually have a temperature of 19-20 degrees. Best thing to do is to reduce temperature and then monitor the change. We are in a 3 bedroom all electricity house (but just have heat pump for hot water) and our usage is 10-11 units in the summer and around 13 units in the winter.

Is that your land sorted? How many m2 in total? People usually reckon £1500 per m2 is a good starting point. Mate rates/family connections are great, but you might need to wait if work is required above their normal work. Planning, firm connection quotes for services, and then financing that's the order I did stuff.

Yes this https://www.mygov.scot/self-build-loan-fund/ Very limited £175k max borrowing and you need a mortgage promise for the end and have to stick to tight deadlines. If you go over the deadlines you pay 9% interest, that is why I discounted it.

First point is that I'm in the opposite end of the UK to you (Isle of Skye). You could build a mansion for that up here! Less lenders here, so I only had the choice of three or four, but the mortgage offer was not really much in the way multiples of my salary. At that stage we had a £38k grant secured and serviced plot valued at £75,000 to £80,000 and still it was nightmare borrowing. By far the hardest bit of the entire build was the financing. I had costed the project, as being a Chartered Accountant this was an area I wanted to add some value.

Log burners are split on here, many love them and others despise them. Log burners need to be considered carefully or you will just waste a fair bit of money. I live in rural area with access to wood and put the stove in the middle of house. That's our evening heating source for the winter months. Also you mention GSHP in your post, might be worth considering air source, it is more popular here. Even if you are building to modern regulations and monitor the standard of work, you will not need heating upstairs.

There would appear to be quite a few events needing to happen for this to work. What would happen if your costs were 10% higher, interest rates increased etc. My own experience was that it was pretty difficult to get a self build mortgage and the amounts we could afford no way reflected what was offered.

Hi Oxbow 16, I am heating my house with just a Charnwood C4 maximum output is 4.8kW. I am in strange position of having a suspended timber floor in a new self build which is well insulated but not to passive standard and take the air from the void below the floor. Is your floor a slab? My wife did the caulking it makes a big difference for us it was a final layer of airtightness. Also do you have trickle vents in your windows? It all add up but older properties need some airflow to prevent condensation both in the internal and external spaces, so each bit needs to be considered.

I would make sure you install a treatment tank, rather than a septic tank. Lot's on here about them. I'm across the way in Skye, but there are few members on here around Inverness.

It was a real pain getting the broadband connected. I can't even remember what we did as it had loads of steps and lots of delays. I paid the fee to the Highland Council for that Royal Mail database after we had been connected.

Looking forward to seeing this development over 2021. You have similar priorities to me regarding the rural lifestyle. It might come as a shock to my kids one today that some children live in a world surrounded by tarmac.

Perhaps your kitchen supplier might change the invoice, that would be the first suggested action. You don't ask, you don't get. There is a section on the VAT reclaim form concerning where invoices are not made out in your name. Maybe somebody else here can say if this box has been that effective. On your second point. Yes if a supply and fit it should be zero rated. I would ask them to refund the difference and address it to you. I took out trade accounts everywhere so I don't see why it would be an issue for you.

I agree with this. Nearly all of our native woodlands disappeared.

Yes, I like walking ancient routes. I like old boundaries too, stone walls etc Look interesting, perhaps it might be a Christmas present. I think most people who want to live this way, wouldn't want to be with to many people. They want to have their own space. I think there is a big difference being off grid and wanting to live fairly remotely. The core reason for doing it will be different. For me it's like when people go camping. When I mean camping, this is not a camp site full of people, but camping in the middle of nowhere, so I can be left with my own thoughts.

I often wonder what life would have been like in the iron age. A simpler way of life, connected to nature. I would go for it, buy a little area of woodland somewhere really remote. Why can't people live like our ancestors, if they want? Ideally if I we able to, we would like recreate the iron age broch on the croft that would be amazing. Sometimes I just sit here and try be connected to the previous occupiers.

I agree with this, to many variables. Similar to cost per meter squared threads. All self builds are unique. I don't suppose anybody would compare a self builder in South East of UK with one in the South of France. Different conditions, different approaches. Your point about temperature is interesting, I would imagine all newish self build on here should be able to get to between 18-19 degrees without any heating.

Do you recycle the heat leaving the pool? I would imagine you would recover a fair amount using an exhaust air source heat pump.

This has been a useful thread. Honestly I'm surprised by the amount of energy being used by others. Many of the builds seem to have more insulation than me but the energy use seems to be higher. If we light the stove it raises the temperature by 4 degree but it would still be comfortable at 19 degree without it and since moving in it's not gone below 18. The last few nights have been minus temperatures but still little difference.

Lucky you have mains gas, if that was oil would be costing a fortune. A modern self build needs hardly any heating.

Been in the house for nearly 6 months, but coming in at 25.92 That me taking the electricity energy units 1815 units / 6 x 12 / 140. Yes, I need to declare this, burn a trug of free logs each night as well.

PIR, Quinn therm in my case. I've burn some on a bonfire and it's produces a lot of heat and horrible toxic black smoke. I was glad when it was all covered up with plasterboard. Zero waste with glasswool, as you can always use bits elsewhere.

Yeah I expect that would be the case. I used a mixture in my build of PIR and glasswool. If I go could go back I would have just used glasswool. PIR really is horrible stuff. Dust in your eyes and mouth, a pain to cut and get accurate. Also if you have ever burned PIR it scarily.

That's another problem. A couple of newish cars are ridiculously expensive for a young couple. Often this is required now, as both parents are now encouraged to work and they need a car that will be safe for little ones going between childcare. The whole system is a mess and I would expect the huge burden for COVID 19 debt will fall on the young generation even though we would have been rarely affected by the pandemic. Perhaps somebody on here will know, but I would expect all the austerity savings since the recession in 2008 have probably been wiped out. Trouble is that most young folk can't create any political pressure, as their views typically change once they are out of university bubble. The major parties bend over backward to accommodate pensioners. The term pensioner when I was young a kid, I associated with the war veterans/blitz survivors, but now the vast majority have just had the good life, low property prices, good pension etc. I'm 34 for the record.

I used frametherm 35 140mm in my walls good stuff. Might worth considering frametherm 32. I used it in my floor and roof space, it looked like a thick rug.

I don't think we can compare a cafe with a house purchase. Shared equity/help buy schemes are a con. They don't help people on the housing ladder, they help the rich get richer. Every few months of so, you come across a BBC article about some young twenty year ago, saying how they saved £10,000 deposit to buy a 2 bedroom developer home and now have a massive mortgage. Young people read this propaganda and fall into the cycle. If you are a young couple, both go to Uni £80,000 worth of debt, struggle to get decent graduate jobs, then buy a crappy over priced developer home with 10% or 5% mortgage and that is you sorted with a chain around your neck for the rest of your life.