ProDave

+1 to the above. It sounds like you want to use ICF because you believe ICF is good and timber frame is rubbish. Your existing timber frame is probably rubbish, because it was built years ago, probably with a thin lightweight frame and little or no insulation. A modern well built well insulated timber frame house is as good as any other modern well built house. You can build to passive house standards with almost any build method if you want to. I would as suggested above build the extension in timber frame and strip back, repair, strengthen and properly insulate the existing structure. How much work it is renovating the existing structure depends what you find when you strip it back. IF you find the existing frame is rotten, you might be better doing a full rebuild with the advantage of 0% VAT.

A well set up ASHP heating system, will deliver a COP of about 3, which means for every 1kW of electricity consumed, you get 3kW oh heat. With electricity being about 3 times the cost of gas, that roughly means an ASHP will cost about the same as a gas system. Your problem is a poorly insulated house, with two 30kW boilers that struggle to heat it and cost a fortune. To replicate that amount of power with an ASHP is impossible, and even if you could, the best you could hope for is similar running costs. Anyone who says it will be cheaper is an eternal optimist.

No,I just know it is common knowledge the big house builders are only sample inspected. There are no end of complaints and newspaper articles about defects, missing insulation being a common one. As I say, they have proved themselves untrustworthy and whoever allows this sample inspecting should disallow it and make sure every single house is inspected.

I would advise you to edit your post and remove your email address. If you want a particular member to know it, send them a PM

Yes this is a big issue, big housing developments only a sample are inspected by building control. That needs fixing imho they have proved they cannot be trusted so every single house needs inspecting and defects corrected before sign off.

Yes, first dose (daily for a week until it started to turn brown) appeared to work. Then a month later a few shoots appeared again, only in 1 of the three places, so daily does of Gallup XL for another week until they turned brown. Finally 1 month later just 2 shoots which got the daily treatment for a week again. I expect that is the last I will see of it this year as it's turned cold but fully expect to have the sprayer on standby ready to pounce in the spring and just keep at it.

YES. They would get it right next time. When I last had a proper job, the industrial unit I worked at was having an extension. A big gable end of the building had been built of brick and block cavity wall. A few days later they were taking the outer brick wall down and then re built it. Building control had failed it for the wrong cavity width or some other detail. If they are made to put incorrect work right, it will focus their mind to get it right first time.

But until BC inspectors have the balls to go up into a loft like this one and say "Sorry chaps, that insulation is not installed to an acceptable standard, it has to be re done properly before I will issue a completion" then mass market builders will continue turning out sub standard rubbish. Most self builders will do it properly because we are mostly self building to get a good house at the end of it. Mass market builders need to be forced to do the job properly.

If you have fallen out with your original installer, probably the best thing you can do is seek out a local to you heating engineer, or dare I say an electrian that understands heating system would be the best person. It is a question of first understanding how the system is plumbed and wired and then methodically going through everything to make sure the right demands are in place and the correct motorised valves actually open and pumps pump when they should. Remote diagnostics on a forum I fear are not going to resolve much. And someone that knows the Ecodan heat pumps care to enlighten us what an L9 fault means please. P.S I don't rate your original installer very highly. He has never heard of pipe insulation up in a cold loft.

So you could do that under permitted development, 3 metres at the front reducing to 2.5 metres at the back. OR make it slope sideways and level front to back, so 3M at the party wall side sloping down to 2.5M at the right as viewed from the front. It would give you the high ceiling one side and should still be high enough to stand up at the other. But that is just your fall back position of what you could do without PP should your appeal fail.

Perhaps a picture of your existing garage? It it attached or detached? You could do it under PD as above with a pitched roof limited to 2.5 metres at the eaves, which would not give the headroom you wanted at the eaves but would in the middle. But at least you should be able to stand up at the eaves. I read it as being a flat roofed garage at the moment and raising that to an internal height of 2.7M would make it more like 3M outside which would be above the PD rules.

That is abysmal workmanship. What little insulation there is on the upstands is doing absolutely nothing by virtue of the fact cold air can get behind it. To do that properly is going to take some care to fit the insulation a nice and snug fit, foam in the gaps, and tape the joints so everything is enclosed nice and snug with no path for cold air to bypass the insulation. And sadly what most of us know of mass market builders is the chance of actually getting them to do it properly is quite slim. But you have to try and if it is not done right keep banging away at them. When you do get them to do it, please post pictures as they go.

They should provide the grounds on which they refused the permission. i.e. reason for refusal. I would appeal. That costs you nothing. Don't mention the Arcade machines, just focus on the fact at the moment you have a garage with very limited headroom that you cannot even stand upright in, and you just want to raise the height so it becomes a normal usable garage that you can stand up in, keep your car in, perform normal maintenance tasks on the car, and have some shelving to store usual tools and materials.

It is not clear, has planning permission actually been refused, or are they merely at the moment discussing the application with you and saying they are minded to refuse it for all sorts of odd reasons?

Normally once you start building and building control (or equivalent) are involved, then changes to building regs mid build do not apply, you carry on working to the building regs in force when the build was started. Missing insulation sounds like a failure of the builder and failure of the building control body to notice.

Re kitchen and cooker. Fit a recirculating cooker hood with a filter and then position the kitchen extract a little away from this.

the network operators are very aware of that issue. Up here in the sparsely populated windy north, where a lot of new wind power is being built. They are upgrading the grid as fast as they can to carry all this newly generated power down south to where most of it is needed. But it seems to be a slow process. There are already pinch points on the grid where it is already at capacity and that is limiting new generation coming on line. It has been at least 5 years, probably much longer since the plan to build a third HV grid connection from the far north to the Central belt was first proposed. The section of line that will pass near us is now in the public consultation of it's third proposed route. It has not even got as far as a formal planning application. To all those "stop oil" protesters, I say it is no good telling the public to stop using oil. You need to be be lobbying the government so that the necessary upgrades to the grid to enable the full potential of wind power, does not get bogged down in a 10 year planning battle before they can even start the 10 year build program to implement it. The government needs an honest discussion. Do we carry on as we are, and take a VERY long time to plan anything like this, so we "get it right" or do we adopt what some countries have and "do it regardless" because it is important. It will be quicker but there will be a lot of people moaning they were not given the chance to object. You can have it quick, or you can have it right, but not both.

This just highlights how easy it is for countries with low population density, abundant land, and a warm sunny climate to go completely green. Not so easy for the UK with a much higher population density, not so much "spare" land, and a much less sunny climate. Oh and tight planning regulations. We can see the difference in the UK. Orkney for instance produces more green energy than it can use. Easy on a low population windy group of islands. Even Scotland as a whole with it's low population density, lots of coastline for offshore wind and already a lot of onshore wind should be able to generate it's own green energy. Not so easy for the SE of England with it's high population density and not much "spare" land.

It seems to vary a lot. BC inspected my wind and watertight shell. I asked when was the next inspection and they said "completion"

Keeping a room cool in hot weather, we achieve by a "night purge" Keep the windows shut in the day to keep the heat out, and as soon as it cools down in the evening so it is colder outside, throw all the windows open. That does not help of course if is remains uncomfortably hot overnight, but that is seldom a problem up here.

I have indeed, I have some in my own house. But I did once have trouble with LAP light switches where the screws would not grip multiple cables. Separate to "what make" the ones I hate are screwless flat plate. You really do need a perfect wall and a deep back box to stand a chance of getting them right. Some are better than others, and it's not easy to generalise what is good and not.

We don't have heating upstairs, not needed. When the heating is on, we keep the bedroom door shut to stop heat rising by convection. You can still open the window of you want to cool it down more, mvhr does not prevent that, but having mvhr means it is not necessary to open a window to get fresh air.

That differs to my findings, it is a long time since I have regarded MK as "quality" I have had lots of problems with jammed screws in new MK sockets, jammed to the point you can hardly turn them, and I am not alone.

If it is a 3 phase board I can easily see it costing that much, but equally it would have to be a very rough 3 phase board to warrant ripping it out and replacing. So it's a 16A circuit for the kitchen at present, I agree that is too small for microwave and kettle, regardless of what diversity says, they WILL be used at the same time. So that's north of 20A. You need to find if it's just a radial circuit at the moment and of so what size cable. It could be feasible to convert it to a ring. It is pretty normal for tenants to be responsible for electrics in commercial. One unit I know which the owner bought for his own use has a REALLY old rewireable 3 phase fuse box well past it's best, but it is still there as no tenant has paid for an upgrade.

My favourite are Scholmore Click Mode (available from toolstation) They are budget price but good quality.