Thedreamer

I am sure others will be long shortly but first point is it definitely a cement render on the stone wall (with no cavity this means that moisture won't be able to pass through). I lived five years in a old house on Skye and it was nightmare to heat and had damp issues. Is the plan to build a timber stud house within the house? Whereabouts are you?

I stay in Staffin, opposite the kilt rock if that makes sense! Nice views in Broadford, Cullins/Sea. How far along the peninsula in Kintyre are you?

You can copy them to any thread. If you see where the paper clip is just along a bit. I keep a blog and take loads of photos as this is useful later (where is stud or a wire/pipe etc?) I think it also helps others see how the how the house build comes together.

Hi @Ola Yes we like photos here! I would say on average, members favour Rationel windows here. I compared prices and went with Nordan as it was easier to get them to be delivered. Perfect time to start a self build. ? I'm also on the west coast in the north end of Skye. I keep a blog here

Hi @Nick A We are building in Skye. Whereabouts's are you in the Western Isles? I'm using a surveyor who officially project manages the build which consists of the inspections to satisfy our lender. If I didn't need a mortgage I would go with trusting a good joiner/builder. The one area you definitely want to have inspected by a structural engineer is your ground conditions/foundation. I know that a lot of Western Isles tends to be peaty, bedrock or sandy soil.

Is it an exhaust air source heat pump you are after? We had a discussion on this recently, this entry might be of some interest.

If your buying through a building merchant they might have a primary relationship with a particular supplier. We have done a loft conversion and a self build using quinn therm. Although i'm not sure on shrinkage as it's all covered up with plasterboard. Really not much to choose between brands. The main point is to make sure you invest in proper protective items (good mask, googles, henry hoover etc). Last thing you want is to breeze in a load of dust when coronavirus is going around.

No, not for this. If we sold today we would have pay back the grant or proportion of it out of the sale proceeds. But the property could be sold to somebody who wasn't involved in crofting. I had come across Rural housing burden before here. https://www.hscht.co.uk/uploads/4/6/8/5/46858349/rural_housing_burden_factsheet_2019_.pdf The HSCHT actually ran the self build loan scheme for the Highlands before it went across Scotland. I had a few discussions with the officer managing the pilot fund but as mentioned earlier it was not for us.

We have to follow a agricultural plan for the next few years but which consists of keeping 35 Ewes, but after that the grant conditions are discharged. The house could be sold. Although it seems generous no affordable housing has been built in our community for the last 25 years. This is meant that first time buyers like us have struggled to get on the ladder, as property prices on Skye have been inflated by a tourism boom. Although everybody is building for different reasons this was the only affordable option available. Therefore my self build is fairly low tech compared to others and was originally designed for building regulation but I have upgraded as we have gone along. I'm 33 and learned so much over the last few years on buildhub, I would definitely consider another self build in 2040 or 2050 for retirement.

I consider this but was put off by the high interest rate when you go out of the agreed build period. This fund is better for speedy build, of course this comes at a cost. I was happy to wait to save, source materials myself and do some work. My wife is a crofter and the self build qualify as new built croft house which allowed us to access a £38,000 grant from the Scottish Government. The site is decrofted and my lender Scottish Building Society have a normal charge over the house.

Yes looking forward to moving in. Just a case of gathering folk up to do the remaining work. No moving in date set at the moment. But the middle of June is when my three months of extend self build insurance runs out so I'll need my completion certificate by then. I also have to submit a grant claim to the Scottish government for the middle of July.

Ok thanks, reason being that I'm concerned that I might end up with the heat rising from our stove etc and the upstairs being hot and the downstairs being cold. Upstairs, we have 6 large veluxs, 2 smaller ones and a window on the gable end all with trickle vents. I can heat the house with our stove although with the trickle vent this is going to be inefficient. But I can compensate for this inefficiently by using our endless amount of timber in our stove.

Thanks @Jeremy Harris & @PeterStarck for your comments on this thread. Peter I note from reviewing your blog that your system does MVHR and hot water. I've learned a lot from the forum, if the budget allowed I would have pushed for this when our design was being done. Looks like a good set-up. I'll provide an update once the system is up and running. One final question we have quite a few velux windows upstairs with trickle vents. In winter would opening the trickle vents upstairs rather than downstairs result in air movement in warmer upstairs air being pulled downstairs and then into the system. Sorry @DamonHD for moving away from your opening post.

These systems run in conjunction with an electric immersion so the recovery time will not be as long as mentioned earlier. The longer recovery time is based on just the heat pump working by itself and also using a cooler outside temperature. Using some electricity to heat the water and a warmer air temperature is going to result in a much faster recovery time. From reviewing the manual there is two fan speeds so perhaps we will go for a slower speed for long period, prehaps when we are out at work. This should result in the requirement for fresh air to be reduced. Generally, I don’t rate the stand-alone ventilation systems in bathrooms. You can buy one that shifts x litres per second but pretty much every one I’ve ever had has not worked well, I always just open the window to get rid of the steamy air. Living in a windy climate we always have a breeze here. This is an area where I can't see how a flat in central London and a croft house in the Highland can be compared under the regulations. Overall my expectations for the system are cheap hot water for six to nine months of the year and in the winter I’m going to rely more on the dual immersion heater within the system and make use of the stove to heat the replaced cooler air in the house. Hopefully over the course of the year it should balance out. I spoke with the building control about the system and no concerns were raised.

Stand alone as we have no MVHR. No like the ecocent you can set-up these up to extract moist stale air from bathrooms, utility etc. I've been in two new builds that use this system and it appears to works well. The only slight concern has been noise. But I've put steps in place to minimise this. I am not sure on the air moving through the tank I looked over the specification but can't see this. We are putting in the 260 litre tank. In the summer the heat loss will be fine as the house won't miss this heat. In the winter I'll need to cover this heat loss with electric heating but as I mentioned previously I have endless amount of timber. The stove therefore is going to be more important than a top heater that other might use. The stove air intake is fed via a duct under the floor. We do have ventilators in the windows. The house will be air tight but not to the levels most have on the forum.

Thanks for this, interesting comments. I was thinking that the heat taken up the duct into the heat pump would need to be replaced by heat from some other form. They say it can be 1 to 4 efficiency, which I should get in the summer, but in the winter I don't know what I will get. The moist air (from the bathroom, ensuite and utility) will be extracted up into the duct and the heat used in the pump and the moisture dumped outside. This is more extraction as there is no intake of air. The ducting is running one way. Once it's all installed than I plan to crunch some number to find out how efficient this system is.

This was the main reason I went with the Joule product. The cylinder (stainless steel) should be a higher quality material when compared with some of other similar systems. If you change the anode annually there is no reason why the other systems would not work well. The heat pump is small but simple technology. The tank I'm purchasing is around £2,500 which is quite cheap when you consider that it's has a small heat pump, hot water tank and also provides outwards ventilation. Of course I don't really know how well it will perform until it's all commissioned. The heat pump should work very efficiently in the summer but in the winter I will probably need to use more of the back up electricity to heat up the water. I have also made extra consideration to the noise of the system. Fitted a good silencer, going with a flexible duct for the last bit and using a thick anti vibration mat The alternative I was considering was splitting the heat pump and hot water cylinder.

I've ordered a similar system but called a Joule Aero. I was put off by some of other similar models as the cylinder might not be very long lasting. I've ducted mine from the bathroom, en-suite and utility as it's also providing my ventilation. I'm going to lose some heat from air but I hope this is not noticeable.

This is the stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy_willow Quite nice to put in vase in the spring.

We seem to have quite a lot of pussy willow growing on the verges. Thanks for the link @Cpd I will have a look at this.

Interesting, I know that willow are fasting growing, but how long will be until you can start harvesting? Also what sort of soil have you got for the willow, where I was thinking of planting is quite boggy, no good grazing for our sheep.

Ref, Date, Supplier, Description, Gross, Net, VAT, Paid Not at a VAT reclaim stage, but keep a spreadsheet with these columns for the running costs of the build. Keep it simple and easy to update. More regular members (ten posts) can access VAT information on the forum.

Very interesting numbers. Yes definitely not sustainable for the vast majority of the population but we have enough trees and land for it to work. Our stove is a bit smaller than that at 4.8kw rated output and I would expect our house will be better insulated than the houses in the data. The stove is also in the middle of the house so the heat is not lost in a gable wall etc. A number of trees were felled when the access was formed. We should have wood for around seven years. This wood is so well seasoned it's grey. The trees felled were mostly thirty year old sitka spruce and have been replaced with slower growing native types, in particular oak. I am interested in planting some willow in a rough area of grazing and seeing how much we can produce here.

This is a valley and we are not in this situation. We live very close to the coast the prevailing wind blowing the smoke would mean that it would not reach another house for 30kms+, across the sea. Even then very sparely populated areas. We are in an unusual situation and that's my point, some wood burning stoves are acceptable, like ours, as nobody (with the exception of us!) will ever be affected by the smoke. If I was building an airtight house with MHVR I would not build in a valley as you have no control over the air (except using really good filters). I agree that this is unfair as smog is horrible even in Portree (which is in a valley) and if I had MVHR I would be just as annoyed as you. But what could I do. I incorporated a stove in the centre and focal point of the house design because it worked with our surroundings i.e. free access to sustainable wood and no ill affects on others.

I am sure the numbers back up what your saying about the decay. But what happens if one falls on the road, damages other trees, preventing new growth or is a hazard. Who would be transporting or storing the rotting trees to safe place? I agree with your points regarding damage to health etc. But you can't compare the great smogs of London with sparely populated areas such as the Highlands of Scotland. I think our set-up is an exception where wood burning stoves can work.