ProDave

Separate issues. You need planning permission for a residential caravan but you don't need building regs for it.

Hi and welcome. Lots of people one here done wet UFH. Just post a question in the UFH section.

Interesting. So does the "caravan" thing ONLY apply to a portable building used as a residence then? Slightly grey area I still have the static caravan and the PP allows it to remain as a "garden outbuilding" but NOT for residential use after the house is occupied. Does that mean it also loses it's BR exemption status?

I would have kept the large bits to use somewhere else or put them on freecycle. The small bits I would have bagged up and taken to the tip, or if not in a hurry, a few in the bottom of the wheelie bin each week fortnight. I would NOT have paid for a skip to dispose of it.

You can also avoid building regs by making the building comply with the legal definition of a caravan (which does not mean it has to be on wheels, just be able to be moved) and that can be up to 100 square metres.

I got mine from ebay. Gumtree is another place to keep an eye on. You really want to find one fairly local otherwise transport costs to get it delivered can soon rack up.

UFH is best IF you can get enough under floor insulation. That may be a big or messy job to retro fit. Domestic hot water is no problem. I heat the DHW to 48 degrees with the ASHP. I have a 300 litre unvented cylinder. 48 degrees was chosen by experiment as the hottest I could hold my hands under for any length without it hurting. No point having it hotter than that and no need for an immersion boose (other than using up excess solar PV) The hot water cylinder was almost £1K so that doesn't leave much in your budget. you should get an ASHP for £2K if you shop hard, but then there is all the insulation, UFH or high capacity radiators. I assume you are on Total Heating or something similar. Sounds like you need to ditch that in favour of a single rate tariff or even simple E7 or E10 What is your current heating input requirement? simply look at a years worth of off peak, how many KWH is that. That will give you a good idea of the heat input the house needs so you can work out what size ASHP you are likely to need.

I forget the price of the wood fibre cladding (It was not itemised on the invoices) but the Frametherm to insulate the whole house, floor walls and roof was about £3K so your insulation figure sounds high. Air tightness membrane, (Protect Bariair) cost less than £400 External wood fibre fixed to the frame with a lot of 150mm long screws with big plastic round things to hols them on, not very expensive. I presume your prices includes fitting? (I did all mine myself)

Our build sound similar, except 195mm frame. 100mm wood fibre on the outside then render. The frame insulation was originally going to be blown in wood fibre. when the budget got tight we changed to Frametherm 35 insulation in the frame. Hardly any difference in insulation value but a lot cheaper mainly due to being a DIY job vs employing a team with the machine to blow the other stuff in. The building is performing very well, heat loss (not much) matches the calculations, very low heating costs and very long decrement delay.

Remember the old saying. There is quick, good, and cheap. You can only ever have two of those. I am aiming for good and cheap, I have definitely missed quick by several years. The definition of "good" is very open to interpretation. I have aimed for "good" as in lots of insulation, good air tightness, good triple glazed windows (though not too many of them) and mvhr and ASHP. Good quality oak flooring and doors etc. But I have not wasted money on what might be called "bling"

I can only relate my own build. We started off with a similar sum to "get us started" before the old house sold. Only the old house didn't sell. 5 years later we are living in the house and the end is in sight. It is amazing where you can magic up money from and how if patient enough you can "build as you earn" I have been doing almost all the work myself. We are expecting to complete for £1000 per square metre, the bare wind and watertight shell was just over half that. We lived on site in a static caravan until the house was ready to move into (far from complete when we moved in) Money saving tips. Buy your own digger, use it and then sell it. Very handy to have it there for whenever you need it. And we bought our own Kwikstage scaffold as well Build the garage first. You can never have enough covered storage / work space on a self build.

Note to other buildhubbers. do NOT let your OH see this thread or you too will be looking for a new seat. Funny how it was not noticed immediately, this pan and lid has been in use for 18 months.

The magic search word to avoid a wrap over lid appears to be "slim" With that new found knowledge a quick search on ebay finds this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Modern-D-Shape-Slim-Toilet-Seat-with-Mute-Soft-Close-Seat-Cover-Quick-Release/323964824352?epid=27035068818&hash=item4b6dceeb20:g:zeUAAOSwYSFduoZ8 I will order one and see. The seat is 36cm wide, I would like 37cm, but it is an improvement over the present one that is only 34.5 cm seat width.

This "issue" appears to be the wrap over lid. Someone decided it would "look nice" and would "look nicer" if the wrap over lid was exactly the same size as the pan. This forces the seat area to be smaller than the pan. A case of appearance being more important than function. I am not bothered by this wrap over lid nonsense. The one @Temp linked to above is the first D shaped one I have yet seen that does not have the wrap around lid. So now the search is on for another one like that at a sensible price. Oh the choices we have to make to get a self build "just right"

That's a contender, the first D shaped one I have seen that does not have the silly wrap over lid. The price is an issue, we paid less than that for the pan (with a seat)

That's the same size as what I have, and I have not found anything bigger yet. It's beginning to look like rather than the seat being too small, my loo is too big.

The change from G59 to G98 was the result of an EU directive that imposed further technical details. The current limit of 16A remains the same. It is total generation that must be limited to 16A on the assumption if nothing is using power in your house, all 16A could be exported. I see nothing wrong with an E/W split with 3KWp each side as long as the inverter is g98 and can handle the voltage and current that each string can output.

How does that assumption work? We can have a spell of really wet weather and the RH goes up. How does that mean the CO2 level also goes up?

New rules apply now. a <16A system is now under the G98 rules. Make sure any inverter you buy is now G98 compliant. you cannot now register a new install with a G58 inverter. That will limit the generation to 16A. You can have more that 4KW of panels connected to the inverter and it will never output more than 16A so will be compliant.

@Ferdinand What is the width and depth of the SEAT in those pictured? Screwfix were one that does not seem to quote the size on their website. Why would anyone want trivial information like that?

The one we have is 440mm deep by 360mm wide. So to get the seat to equal the size of the pan I guess we are looking for 450mm deep by 380mm wide. It is surprising how many I have looked at on line that don't even mention the size. Or to put it another way, I want the SEAT to be 440mm deep by 360mm wide, if the lid must wrap over then the overall size will be bigger. They seem to quote the overall size which in the case of a wrap over lid, is just plain silly.

This picture from one of the sires @Onoff suggested illustrates the "problem" The lid overlaps the seat, and you can see porcelain around the edge.

I doubt it. But it was just posted to counter the argument that it is "expensive"

We have two "back to wall" toilets, both came with D shaped seats to match. Now just about every toilet seat I have ever seen, has a lid the same size as or very slightly smaller than the seat. And the seat is normally just a little bit larger than the pan. Not so with our 2 toilets. The lid wraps around the edge of the seat all round, and the lid is made to be exactly the same size and shape as the pan. This means with the lid up, the seat is slightly smaller than the pan and you can see a strip of porcelain. The management have decreed this is unacceptable. A couple of days ago SWMBO came home with a replacement D shaped seat. And upon unpacking it, I find it is EXACTLY the same size with the wrap around lid, so if I fitted it, it would have the same "problem" So the question to those that have fitted many more toilet seats than me, is this wrap around lid a feature of D shaped seats or will I, if I look hard enough, find one that meets the requirements of seat slightly larger than pan, and lid same size as seat?

I hear what you say about planning, but 2 windows upstairs might make it more attractive when selling as someone will see an easy conversion to 3 beds and think they are getting a bargain.