ProDave

+1 to above. The really noticable thing is on a windy day you can open 1 window or 1 door and not have a howling gale flowing through it. Unlike a normal house where doing so would have one of the internal doors slamming shut with the through draught. But why do you want to open a window in winter to let the cold out? In summer we regularly sleep with the bedroom window open to hear the gentle trickle of the burn, and the owls hooting throughout the night.

Was it me that originally posted that? I think so but not in this thread? Just to clarify, my measured flow rate was not satisfying the flow switch so my flow switch in my heat pump must be well on the pessimistic side, or my own flow meter is reading a bit high, or a combination of both.

What is the floor construction? I have twice been involved with the renovation of (older) houses that have flooded from burst pipes, and the remedial work has been serious, strip everything back to bare joists, try out for weeks with industrial dehumidifiers and rebuild. Not a cheap or quick process. I guess they are concerned if you don't strip back and just dry out what you can see and redecorate there is the risk of something like dry rot later?

What this shows to me is how much prices of materials have risen. We built our previous house for a construction cost of £110K for a 180 square metre house in 2003, so that was £610 per square metre. Not as expensive finish and not as well insulated but a lot cheaper.

No don't go talking to your mortgage yet. As you were gifted the land by the farmer you must know them well or have some close connection, so I would start by talking to the farmer and pointing out the mistake and see if you can buy enough extra of the land so you then own all the land the house is on. That has got to surely be the easiest resolution? The other issue is have planning noticed the house is in the wrong place? Don't go mentioning it to them though.

How did this come about? Was the plot wrongly fenced? Was it previously 2 parcels of land and a mistake happened when you bought the plot an only one got transferred? Or did someone simply make a total error when marking it out and put the house in the wrong place but that would presumably have involved removing a fence? Before you can apportion blame and look for a resolution, you have to understand exactly what happened to result in where you are. How long since work started? i.e. how long have you been occupying this wrong bit of land, and did the owner of it not notice and mention the problem to you?

At least the builder of that had a spirit level and a string line

We settled on a "chimney" type island extractor. It was a very difficult thing to buy, probably one of the hardest kitchen items to choose. The first problem is there are not many to choose from, and that is compounded by the fact we could not find ANYWHERE to actually go and look at any. The only white goods shop left in Inverness had NONE on sale. Pathetic. So we had to buy on line trusting pictures and dimensions and our own judgement visualising that. Then had to battle with some suppliers wanting silly money for delivery further limiting the choices. We ended up with one from B&Q When it came to fitting it, it was one of the most awkward things to fit. You fix a bracket to the ceiling. That is the easy bit. The hood then hangs from that on 4 "legs" These legs are 2 parts and are "telescopic" so I assembled them at their shortest extension only to find when it was fitted it hung down way too low, lower than it's specification suggested, so low if you leaned over to stir something in a pan you hit your head on it (and I am not exactly tall). so down it came again. The only way I got it high enough (and still not as high as the instructions suggested was possible) was to use just one of the two telescopic parts but that needed re drilling a set of holes at one end to match the ceiling bracket. That has got it above head height, but still not as high as the instructions suggested. The only way you could achieve that is with a hacksaw and more re drilling of holes. And it is a 3 man job to fit it, you have to assemble the complete thing then lift it up and screw it to the ceiling bracket, so 2 people to lift it and hold it while the third goes round fitting the screws. That is a lot of waffle to say a chimney type island hood probably works better and is less bodgery to fit if you have a taller than usual ceiling. At a standard 2.4M ceiling you may find yourself struggling

So check NI building regs for activity space. circulation space or whatever else they call it. Perhaps others from NI could advise?

Where are you? That kitchen would fail Scottish building regs on activity space and circulation space. I am not convinced it is big enough to support an island. Check building regs where you are to be sure it is compliant.

Don't forget to put the cables under the cable clamps.

No blending valve and manifold pump?

I would file that in the "A solution looking for a problem" category.

So January you use 6903 kWh that's 222kWh per day (ouch) or an average of 9kWh continuous so a 17kWh ASHP would need to be heating the house 13 hours per day to achieve that (plus the time it takes for DHW) So the sizes about about right, but don't forget to allow for the increase when you build the extension

Yes I have that unit. It was a cheap ebay purchase. When you drill down into the detail, my understanding was it cannot extract entirely from a humid area so no good for a swimming pool or large changing room. But in a domestic setting ours extracts from 2 bathrooms, a kitchen and a utility room. It is rare for more than one bathroom to be in use at once and the utility and kitchen are rarely very humid. So the high humidity while showering is "diluted" by the other rooms. It certainly does not give any issue in use and the heat exchanger core never appears to be wet or in any distress. As to the question in the OP, mine is off to one side in the house not central with the shortest vent run being about 3 metres and the longest about 10 metres. It was no problem balancing it.

Yes a GSHP is a bit more efficient than an ASHP. But it is a LOT more expensive to install. What were they proposing for a heat collector? A borehole? Or dig up your entire garden, lay slinky heat collector pipes and put the garden back? Before you comit, forget their heat loss estimates, look up a whole years worth of gas bills and post them here so we can see how much gas you use in a year. That will give a much better idea of how much heat you need than any estimate just by looking at the building. That will give a better idea what size heat pump you would need.

This is 3 bed detached with a single garage. A very similar sized house locally that was 4 bed (but one of those downstairs) so very similar, sold last summer for £250K. Our all in price with land, services and legals will be about £225K so I am absolutely convinced if I had paid for all the labour, the total cost would have exceeded market value. As it is arguably 5 years work for £25K "profit" is poor value. But we have got a better house than if we had just bought one. The weather man confirmed this evening what I have thought that we have just had the coldest January for 10 years yet we are nice and cosy, never feeling cold and with nice low heating bills. As I say not finished yet. Sun room,. decking, car port, driveway to finish, balcony, a bridge over the burn, garden fencing, another shed at least. Yep i will be at it for another 2 years I bet.

I hope the rotary isolator never gives trouble and nobody wants to take the cover off

Yes cost includes VAT, about to send off my VAT claim. The refunded VAT should complete the sun room and other stuff so net build cost should not go up any more. I will recalculate when finally finished to take into account larger area and final costs.

No I have not measured my DIY hours. But I suspect if I had to cost all the labour including my own, but build cost would comfortably exceed the market value of the house. I took the floor area from one of the design documents I think it was the DER report, so I don't know if that used the internal or external floor area. I should just look at the plans and calculate it myself. Here you go, from the plans, external floor area 173m2, Internal floor area 150m2 That makes it £940 per m2 internal or a better sounding £815 per m2 external. It is actually better than that, as those areas are just the main house, but included in the cost is also the garage and the plant room above it. My brain is starting to hurt now. No I can't relax yet, must press on with that sun room (windows now ordered)

I can't help directly buy my LG ASHP does a similar thing. Annoyingly it is not a documented function and I can find no way to turn it off. The LG one operates slightly different that it opens the heating valve and so sucks it's heat out of the heating loop, but as the UFH is no energised at the time it only has a relatively short length of pipe run to keep recirculating. Nonetheless it does still suck some heat out of the house.

This may be of interest to people in this area. Highland Council are updating the local plan for the area and it is currently out discussion and comment. The gist of what is proposed can be found here as a starting point. https://consult.highland.gov.uk/kse/event/35403/section/5445428 One point of not that stands out in my brief reading is the following with regard to self build: " Research shows there is strong demand for self build and that there are a number of benefits which can be gained from increasing the supply of plots. In recent decades, within the Inner Moray Firth, like within many other parts of Scotland, new housing has been largely delivered by "volume" housebuilders. Whilst this is an important part of the housing market, there is growing recognition that self build in urban areas can play an important role in the supply of new housing. As it would essentially be a new part of the market in some urban areas, it could complement volume housebuilders in promoting faster sales and quicker build out rates. It could also provide a much needed boost for smaller sized developers which have declined in number significantly over recent years. Furthermore, self build can contribute towards placemaking by delivering greater diversity and innovation and enhancing the character of our neighbourhoods. Evidence shows that as self build is often taken up by older people looking to build a more suitable home it can even be a good way of providing housing for an ageing population. As one of main barriers to self build has been the lack of available sites, we think that the best way to increase the number opportunities is by introducing a new policy which requires a certain proportion of land to be available for self build within larger housing developments. We recognise that the detail of such a policy and how it's applied must be subject to consultation with the development industry and all other affected parties. We also don't want such a policy to undermine the economic viability of sites confirmed through this Plan. To ensure this, the policy's application will be subject to proof of demand for self build in that part of the Inner Moray Firth. The forthcoming, statutory register of interest in self build will provide the evidence necessary to apply the policy. Where registered demand doesn't translate uptake of plots over a defined period then that portion of the site would revert back to general demand housing. Self build may also be appropriate in rural areas especially where suitable sites are not available within nearby settlements. We will analyse the future statutory register to see where such interest originates and whether both the affordable and market sectors can meet it on allocated sites within settlements or whether a more flexible approach is required for example by broadening the suggested policy approach to include consideration of smaller development sites in rural areas." And the proposed implementation of that would be: "Each developer of a large (50 or more dwellings) planning application will be required to safeguard and adequately service part (a minimum of 10% of the application's total dwelling capacity) of that application site for self build plots. The exact number, location, size and shape of those plots should take account of the Council's statutory register of self build housing interest - i.e. best match the supply of plots to local, registered demand for those plots." Self build has always been popular in these parts but to have a set figure of new developments allocated to self build is a good step forward, one I feel should be implemented in other places as well. There is also much emphasis on "sustainability" with most new development targeted on settlements with good public transport links and away from settlements only accessible by car, but the new proposed local plan still provisions for individual builds on mainly infill sites in such areas.

Now that the main part of our house is finished, I sat down and added up the build cost, excluding land cost, design, planning legal and professional fees. Total cost £141K House floor area 147 square metres So that's a cost of £959 per square metre. Well chuffed to just get in under £1k /m2 That is just the main part of the house. The sun room is yet to be completed (though that cost above does include the shell and the roof of the sun room) and there is still outside work to complete like decking, driveway to finish etc.

Looking at the state of the loft insulation, it looks to have been thrown in rather than carefully laid. so it would not surprise me to find gaps where warm air from the house can get through and as mentioned above if no vapour barrier moist air getting through. Looks typical of a poorly built mass produced developer house I am afraid.

If this is really temporary site accommodation then take the easy route. £5K or less will get you a good static caravan with all services ready to hook up and move into.