ProDave

Most of our external doors are inward opening, except the one to the balcony which opens out. I can't recall the logic of why we chose that. As others have said, outward opening needs care in wind but we are unlikely to use the balcony when it is windy. But outward is way better in terms of keeping the weather out. Our balcony door is very exposed and not a drop of wind driven rain has got in. The other "normal" back door downstairs opens in and is exposed to wind driven rain from the west. It does not leak when shut, the seals do a pretty good job of keeping the rain out. But it is inevitable with the geometry of an outward opening door that it relies 100% on the seals to keep wind driven rain out. The weakness is the small amount of wind driven rain that gets past the drip bead and then sits between the door and the frame, held back by the seal, and when you open the door that small amount comes in.

My even more tight economical solution was install lots of cat5 cables but only terminate the ones actually in use, which is about 4 at the moment. The rest are there for future use and in the rooms are coiled up in the service void behind or next to socket boxes, and at the cabinet end, coiled up and labelled where they go ready to be terminated when required.

The main thing here is you have cooperation from the neighbour who is allowing a footing straddling the boundary and a second wall on his side. i.e. it has every potential to be a proper job done well to last into the future. It is when a neighbour refuses to take part or take an interest that you are forced to do the best from your side which might well be a poor solution. If only all neighbours would share a problem like this then the solutions would be a lot better.

Doing a self build, it is hard to predict the financial position, until it's all done ant the dust has settled. And often, timing is everything. Those that followed our build will recall the original plan had been sell our rental properties which would give us a start, then sell the old house to finance completing the new one. But the timing was wrong. When we put the old house on the market the housing market here was moribund, still not recovered from the financial crash. It sat on the market for 3 years with little interest along with many similar properties around here. It became clear the only way to sell it would have been sell for give away / distress prices, which would almost certainly mean the old house sold for less than the cost of building the new one. There was no way I was going to "pay" to downsize, which is what we were doing. The saviour was an offer to rent it from someone ultimately wanting to buy it. We agreed. The rent income funded a slow build as you earn, and we completed the new one before the old one ultimately sold, which was an unexpected result. The honest advice is don't start a self build until the finance is 100% secure, and it is not so if it relies on a property sale. And if you don't do that, then you must be flexible.

Then use that for the Tony Tray.

It is hard to tell from the physical size. We are served from a 100KVA transformer. A few years ago it failed. They replaced it with another one half the size. I asked the guys why are they fitting a smaller one and they said it is the same rating.

Honestly, I just used Screwfix or toolstation for their honest visible pricing. I gave up with electrical wholesalers for their random pricing and often lack of stock.

post a photo of the transformer from the other side so we can see the connections to it.

Use the same as your air tight layer. Have you chosen that yet? I used Protect Bairiair as being the cheapest of the tough reinforced ones that I could find.

This post just reinforces my view that a self build only makes financial sense if you do a lot of the work yourself. I am sure if I had paid trades to do everything I would have spent much more building the house than it's market value when completed.

Our previous house had 1.5m walls at the bed head and that was okay, less than that and it would feel oppressive I think. I think and extra half metre of ridge height would make a massive difference. Speak to the planners. You would then just bring the main outer walls above floor height as shown in @Kelvin section plan above. Must then be built with a ridge beam to prevent outward force on those little walls at the bottom of the roof.

The three horizontal wires on the pole with the transformer are 3 phase 11KV That transformer on the pole is probably about 50KVA That will feed perhaps 4 houses max. I can't see from that view if it is single or 3 phase. Photograph it from the other side, are there 2 or 3 connections to the overhead lines? The cables on the pole with the lamp post are 240V That is probably single phase at that point.

If the previous owners removed the guards, then if they had half an ounce of sense they would have kept them, ready to be put back in the event of them being needed upon sale. Have you even asked them if they still exist somewhere?

How about this sort https://www.amazon.co.uk/Automatic-Adjustable-Stopper-Commercial-Adjusting/dp/B0DKWV536P?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=A3D385E63SY2UI The spring mechanism would screw to your pillar and the arm would push against the gate. Might need to search a bit harder for an outdoor version that is likely to withstand weather.

Rising but hinges (which is what the tapered washer is trying to create

You have a room thermostat somewhere. The heating will run until the rooms are warm then shut off. With a well insulated house it will be a while before it turns back on again.

Look at the normal option, all insulation towards the outside, vapour / airtight layer, service void then plain plasterboard. None of your cables are in insulation, no penetration of vapour / air tight layer, and only the battens that form the service void need drilling or notching for cables. A service void formed with 25mm battens and 12.5mm plasterboard is perfect for 35mm back boxes.

On the subject of ridge beams etc. As you want to use most of the loft space for habitation, don't let your designer design a roof construction based on trusses. Instead insist he designs a cut roof supported by ridge beams. You have enough intermediate walls to support that. That is what we have. It then allows complete flexibility what parts are used for habitation and what are partitioned off for storage etc. And make it a warm roof make up so the insulation follows the roof line right down to the walls.

Deal with one decision at a time. Don't overload yourself with all details and choices. At the moment the task in hand is determine the size of your ASHP and sort out your maximum electrical load. a 5KW ASHP will do your heating and hot water. Which make and which heating scheme is a decision for later. Now lets look at your total load that you fear is going to exceed 100A and put that issue to rest so you can move on.

Layout is simple, uncluttered and little wasted space. Can we see a plot layout so see how the house sits with regards to boundaries, neighbours and which way is south etc? Head room. a 5.9M ridge is not much. The plans are normally drawn with a dotted line depicting the extend of the flat ceiling upstairs. Your plans seem to show quite a wide area of flat ceiling. Surprisingly wide for the low ridge height. Do you have any section drawings i.e a section through the middle of bedroom 1 or 2 and a section through bedroom 3. Personal preference, have the hob on the island and sink on the wall units. I would not go to the expense of an external fireplace. Just a room sealed stove with twin wall flue that can either go up inside or outside.

So you need 3kW of heat. That would assume your heating is on 24/7. It won't be, not unless you have something else to heat the hot water. In any event, there are very few 3kW ASHP's made. the smallest is generally 5kW. That will do your heating without having to be on 24/7 leaving time for DHW heating as well. A 5kW ASHP will typically use less than 2 kW of electricity so that's about 8 amps. It won't be the ASHP that tips you over 100A. Re the house going cold. Up here -10 is not unusual and that is what I used to size mine and the house is still snug and warm at that. So your real concern is your total load. 100A seems way too high. As if you are not applying diversity and assuming everything will be on at the same time? Post your calculations that says you will exceed 100A for us to analyse.

I would just leave the door where it is, and glue a bit of wooden angle bead around the edge of the plasterboard to form a "mini architrave" and paint that to match the door. A bit like my pantry door, except here I was trying to make an ultra thin frame and in my case it is oiled oak bead.

You make my point. The map shows the front (SW) elevation as flat and the rear (NE facing) elevation as having the gable Opposite to what the photo suggests. That is why I was confused thinking the NE elevation was the entrance and the garage was going between the house and the road. Even if planning is needed it would be unlikely to be refused for a garage behind the house. Why can't the gym also go behind the house to make life easier?

Even if there is no door liner and the stud is the "door liner" I don't see why the door cannot be recessed properly. It is the position of the door stop that determines that. Picture or sketch to make it clear?

Then I must be over thinking it. If the garage as shown on the plan is behind the house shown in the picture, then the outline of the house on the plan does not match the house shown in the picture. And what is the other rectangle near the house on the plan? some other existing outbuilding?