DevonKim

@Moonshine Yes, I agree about that access to upstairs bathroom, thank you! I'm glad you agree about the location too.

Thank you for the comments so far folks, much appreciated. @ETC, I have seen you work magic on some of the other plans on here, so I'd be grateful for any improvements / suggestions 🙂 The roof pitches N /S so that I have got a really good S facing slope for solar. I have to have the front of the house facing the road, so that is why I have ended up with the odd roof pitch. Its a slightly moot point on my plot, as I don't have a road frontage, but I am trying to hit the spirit of the planning conditions. The L shape is to make the most of the plot, as I am keen to have private area at the back of the house, in the L. I did think long and hard about the single volume, but I wasn't able to make it look anything other than a big box - I'd be really interested to see what you might be able to come up with. The other thing for me is that I want more downstairs space than upstairs, and I love the look of a vaulted kitchen. It was a bit of an attempt to make it faux Devon vernacular in style too! Possibly a misguided attempt. The garden, and making the most of the sunny area is pretty important; as you can see there are two root protection areas too. This is why I want to get the house as close to the Northern boundary as possible. Again, this is why the main block is 3 storey (most volume for footprint). There are quite a few 3 storey buildings on the main estate, so it fits with the local development too. It would be great to see what you might be able to come up with 🙂

@Stellaburns the build budget is £300-£350k, but I can't afford to over run that, which is why I've gone for a simple, boxy design. I've run my calcs, and it should work if I'm careful.

@Radian I was planning to get a little robot one 😀 its a nice flat plot, and the lawn bit will be smallish by the time I've got a greenhouse & veggie beds on there.

It sounds like an absolute bargain 😏

Good evening all, I am (hopefully) going to be the owner of a nice, flat plot in Devon soon. The plot is about 0.2 acres, and the plot passport allows me to build up to 150m2 footprint. I can't afford / don't want something that big, but I do want to maximise the garden. Just to give a bit of context, I am messy, and would like a reasonable bit of space, but I live alone, so don't need a huge house. I don't like en-suites, but want a big utility room so that when I come in from a walk covered in crud and dripping wet I can enter the house through the utility. I work from home, so need an office. I want it to be simple to build, and cost effective, but with a few "pretty bits". It is at the back end of a fair sized estate full of boxy houses, so won't look out of place! I want solar on the S facing roofs. The house has been designed with that sort of thing in mind. The back of the plot faces S, so I have designed this house as an L shape, with the inside of the L facing south, giving a private area. The main "box" is 2 storey with attic trusses, which will be white render, and there is a single storey "shippon" style part at the back. The single storey bit is the kitchen, which will have a vaulted roof, and will be timber clad. Plans and plot layout below. At the moment, the windows are a bit messy, so they need tidying. I wasn't too sure what this might look like, so I made a scale model, I'm just hoping that the real thing will be better build quality! I'd be interested in some feedback here, and have a few questions Internal layout I have been doing some research on fire regs and what they mean for a 3 storey house like this, and I think I will have to have a fire door (or doors if I want a double door) between the kitchen and the living room. Double fire doors are expensive, but a lot cheaper than a sprinkler system. I assume that the planners won't be particularly bothered about things like that, so can I adjust minor details of the internal layout between planning permission and ordering the frame? Orientation on the plot I need to go back and lay it out either on the plot, or on a proper large scale plan before its position on the plot is finally fixed. This will also depend on what access I am able to negotiate, as the key bit will be getting the van onto its space. It may slide a few meters one way or another, or turn by a few degrees to make it sit well on the plot. Again, how much of an issue is that likely to be? Value engineering Is there anything that will be particularly expensive about this design? Are the room sizes sensible for construction? Will I need any steel anywhere? Is there anything that I haven't spotted / need to be aware of? Does this design look as though it should work? Comments appreciated! Kim

@pocster yes, I'm hoping to do some of it myself. I'll be learning on the job a lot of the time, and I won't touch plumbing or electrics, but I reckon I can put the cladding on the single storey extension myself, for example. I'll be attempting to project manage it too - I have managed a number of projects before, albeit a while ago, but this could be a bit more challenging. @Radian yes, the plot is lovely 🙂 and the scope for a lovely garden is the main reason that I put the offer in 🌺. There are two big oak trees that I will need to be careful about, this is a general view of the plot, but I will also post the plans as @Iceverge suggested.

I think that it has probably been as swift as it could be really, but I'm just fed up as it is the second time I have been caught on the wrong side of probate 😞 . I originally put in an offer on a house (project) in Aug 2021, and after about 8 months it was clear that it wasn't actually going to happen because the vendor was better off sitting tight as there was a dispute over the estate. With this, probate has been granted and we should exchange before end Nov if all goes well. @Ferdinand I quite agree, it wouldn't be worth risking my relationship, particularly since my partner is very nice 🙂 but it is more that he just doesn't understand why I want to do it. I'm an engineer, and I badly need a project, whereas he has a legal background, and is very risk adverse! We don't live together, and it isn't his money though, so we won't fall out over it; the main issue will be that he won't be able to resist going "I told you so" if it all goes wrong. I'm hoping to acquire plot 7 shown below

I put an offer in on a plot well over 6 months ago, only to find it was subject to probate 🙄 however, after a long wait it is finally starting to look as though the purchase may go through. I have a design sorted I think, and a timber frame company lined up. I'm talking to builders, and will be starting to get quotes for groundworks & windows soon, but I'm still a bit nervous about whether it will all go ahead. My partner thinks I'm mad, and is very negative about the whole thing, so I'll probably be spending a lot of time on here looking for reassurance and support! The biggest problem for me is that I have been stalling for so long that I'm finding it a bit hard to get going again at the moment. I'll post some more specific questions on some of the other threads. Kim Hopefully soon to be the proud owner of a 0.2 acre serviced green-field flat building plot in Devon

@Bozza What a nice looking garage! I'd really like to build something similar - any chance of some photos of the inside?

That looks great, what a transformation!

That's really smart! Can you post photo with doors in please? Are you going to render or paint the block work?

A very interesting day, but my brain is now a bit full 🥴

I wouldn't repot it (you don't want to disturb the roots), just either pop it in where you finally plant it sideways (i.e. with the green bit pointing straight up), or pot it sideways in a larger pot with some more compost 🙂

I'm choosing underfloor heating as a distribution method because I have too many books, and radiators get in the way of bookshelves 🙂 . More seriously, it does sound as though an ASHP in a new build with underfloor pipes is an effective and cosy way of heating for me. And it may be different for other people. I think it is very easy to spend ages agonising over the choice, when each will have advantages and disadvantages, just different advantages and disadvantages, so there is no "right" choice. It can be easy to become paralysed by indecision, when sometimes just making a decision, and accepting that there will be some disadvantages associated with that decision can get a project moving.

Gosh that big stove / range is pretty, isn't it? What would you alter about your internal layout, and why?

Very smart! And as you say, it complements the windows on the main house. Can you mount panels on gable ends of a house, like cladding?

I have found that design brief really help @CharlieKLP - it helps you get your thoughts in order and work out your priorities. I recommend it as a good starting point @SueL

Thanks for this folks, I have bookmarked this thread so that I can keep coming back to it to remind myself why I am doing a self-build, particularly when the going gets tough 😀.

Thank you very much everyone, that's really helpful. It is great to know that my early thinking processes are not too far off, and I'll have a rummage around the site to find other people's calcs and design thinking. I'll also upload a couple of my early sketches, as I can see that people on here have been really helpful with other people's designs. Part of me thinks that I'm being unimaginative with my designs, as it is a fairly square box, but I wanted something simple to construct and not too many fiddle details to sort, so it is nice to hear that the box shape is also going to pay dividends on the heating front. I'm agree with @SteamyTea about the jumpers, happy to dress properly for the weather, but my old house was properly cold & damp, and it started to have an impact on my joints. From everything that I am reading on here that is highly unlikely to be an issue with a newbuild timber frame with the right U values and orientated properly. This is the little Everhot, and I was thinking of putting it in the living room, as a bit of a focal point. I don't have a TV, so it might be nice to have something pretty to look at, and woodburners don't seem to go with the ultra-insulated ethos. You can turn it down to trickle heat, but I suspect that it might overheat the room given what people are saying. However, it is electric, so no need for flues, vents or anything like that, and you can stick your feet in it on a cold day 😁

Hello helpful people I am at the very early stages of thinking about heating / hot water and solar generation in a new build, and I was hoping for some simple answers. I have a plot, and I am hoping to build a heavily insulated house on it, with a foot print of less than 100m2, but an overall floor area of around 200m2 (a main block which will be 3 stories using attic trusses for the third storey, and a single storey "wing"). I would like underfloor heating no matter what, and I intend to install solar panels on a south facing roof area, hopefully connected to some kind of storage. I'm in Devon, and we rarely get snow, or prolonged negative temperatures, however, we occasionally get > 25oC I would like the temperature in the main rooms to be around 19oC, and about 16oC in the attic bedroom. Most of the time there will be just me in the house, but there will be occasional visitors, including my partner or my father, both of whom are overall less cold tolerant than me. Q1. Would an air source heat pump be able to achieve those sort of temperatures? I have been somewhat put off ASHP by reports of people having to wear thick jumpers in the house, but I suspect that is for retrofit ASHP? Has anyone got one up and running that could give me an idea of how well it works for them? Q2. If I wanted to avoid gas altogether, is that likely to be a good idea? There is a gas connection available, but I am thinking more about the standing charges than anything else. I'm happy to cook on electric, but was wondering about water heating. I like baths at a high temperature! Q3. I rather like the little "Everhot" stoves, partly because they seem to avoid the problems with either overheating or airtightness that a woodburner seems to have, would that clash with the ASHP setup in any way, or would individual room temperature control mitigate any issues? Q4. What else do I need to think about at this stage? Designing in a plant room? Ducting? Q5. Has anyone got one of the Octopus heat pumps yet? Is it any good? And has anyone got an Octopus electric only tariff? Apologies for asking what may seem like basic questions, I am slowly but surely getting up to speed with some of the technical issues, but could do with a simplified overview first 🙂 Kim

Thanks @SteamyTea, I was looking at solar tiles, but it doesn't look as though there is any advantage over a couple of standard inset solar panels, so I'll be putting on the maximum number of those that I can fit! I like the idea of fast, as there is a planning condition that says it has to be "substantially complete" within 2 years of exchange of contracts, and that feels like a really short time to get everything sorted if I run into any problems. I'd really like to be able to do without a gas connection, and just make do with electric, with a Tesla Powerwall or similar, but I need to do my research on that to see whether it would be possible. @joe90 I'm down near Exeter. Are you mid-build, or built?

I have been having a good read through some of the threads on here, and there is some really useful stuff. I think that I can do my own topo survey, it won't be too complex, as it is a flat site (rare in Devon), so the next major step looks like an early discussion with the planners to see what their expectations are for ridge heights, style etc. These have been marketed as self build plots, so there is some expectation that we will be building something a bit different. Outline budget is around 2.5k /m2, and I am looking at some of the faster build methods like timber frame. I can project manage it, but would probably prefer not too. Next step, filling in all the details on that design brief 🙂

That's a really attractive farmhouse, isn't it? What are you planning to do to it?

Thank you folks! I'm still reeling a bit, as it is all rather unexpected - things just suddenly fell into place. Many thanks for the resources & links, and I'll be on here asking daft questions soon 🙂