ProDave

Snowcrete is regularly used up here with light coloured sand and a dash of lime to make white self coloured render, used on 99% traditional harled Scottish houses up here. I used some left over bags of snowcrete as ordinary cement on the last build and I can't say it was any different to ordinary Portland cement. Buy a bag and get some of the lightest coloured sand you can get and mix up a test batch lay a course of bricks and see how the colour looks. If it's acceptably white it will be by far your cheapest solution.

But the stupid electorate rejected the one and only chance they were ever offered when the LibDems proposed an AV system. I doubt we will get another chance to change the system.

This is why I think plot prices are too high at Graven Hill I give you this, a ready to move into contemporary 3 bedroom house for £413K at......... Graven hill https://www.rightmove.co.uk/new-homes-for-sale/property-84118883.html Okay, @DarrenA house is bigger and better spec, but it's is likely to cost £75K more plus all the work of building it.

It always stuck me as an odd expensive solution to paying a bit of VAT on the services connection for instance. I would love to see a true costing to see how much extra fees you end up paying compared to how much VAT you save doing it this way.

A small wind turbine is on my "to do eventually" list. Definitely sub 1Kw and it will have to be cheap (probably Chinese from ebay) as I don't expect much yield from it.

Good point about multiple wires. The junction boxes are not big, and if the existing are wired in 1.5mm cable, you may struggle to get a third one in. I can never understand why people use 1.5, in most cases 1mm is fine and a lot easier. And good point about CO alarms. As well as it should be a heat alarm in a kitchen, you should also have a CO alarm in any room with a combustion appliance, and a room that a flue pipe passes through. Aico do a handy combined heat and CO alarm, but they don't do a matching combined smoke and CO alarm (when I asked them recently they said they are thinking about it) Which irritated a recent customer who now has separate smoke and CO alarms on his living room ceiling.

This is the device https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Aico-Ei1529rc-Ei1529-Alarm-Remote-Test-Hush-Locator-Switch/293030933347?epid=2254772143&hash=item443a013363:g:hNIAAOSw4oFcoikA You don't legally need an electrician, it depends on your competence. It will need to connect with a bit of 1mm 3 core and earth cable to any one of the existing smoke alarms, and that usually boils down to which is easiest to get access to. Usually an upstairs one with access from a loft above.

First thing, they are Aico alarms, imho the best you can get. Don't discount that there may have been an issue, did you have any heating on, anything that could be smouldering? They will trigger long before a room is full of smoke. You should really have a heat alarm in the kitchen, not a smoke alarm. Being Aico you can swap the kitchen ionisation alarm for a heat alarm just by sliding one off it's base and sliding the replacement on. No need for an electrician. Aico sell a clever switch that you can link into the system that when pressed will identify which alarm has triggered, it might be worth getting one of those fitted.

I wasn't meaning to offend. It is more my disappointment that the plots are so expensive, and come with so many restrictions.

It has to be installed by an MCS registered installer. The HP itself must be on the approved list.

Someone near here when digging his foundations dug out what looked a bit like a flakey dry slate like material and thought it would do for his long steep driveway. As soon as it got wet, it turned to a horrible slippery slimey mush that made getting up the drive very messy and difficult. I expect chalk would behave the same.

Hi and welcome to the forum. Nice to see more multiple plot self build projects, and unlike that well known one in Oxfordshire, sensibly priced plots. re the ground works, Ben sounds a practical chap, so he could do what a number of us on here have done, and buy your own digger. Then sell it when all the work is finished.

I don't need to bother with an MOT on the mainland any more (> 40 years old) , and £0 historic road tax. That load of firewood had the rear axle down on the stops. Good job I only travelled about 500 metres loaded like that.

That sounds strange. While you can apply for PP on land you don't own, that would increase the land value so the owner would then want building plot price for the land, if indeed he agreed to sell. Normally there is some form of agreement with the land owner before applying for PP.

My ASHP came from ebay for under £1000 though it was not without issues (they sold me a dud one, it was 11 months before I connected it and found out, I then had a battle but got a replacement)

Could we have a more general further out picture of the meter showing the kitchen cupboard that already encases it? And a picture of the fuse box?

Ouch. You have paid £275K for the plot and foundations. That is more than my entire build including land. While I love the principle of Graven Hill, I think they are taking the p**s with the plot prices. That is going to be a £500K cost house at least by the time you have built it.

Cables can pass under rivers and streams (the 33KV underground line passes under our burn just upstream under our neighbours garden) so I don't see why not under a pond providing the depth is correct. There are minimum distances for building next to underground lines, I would have to look them up for 33KV but as long as the house is built greater than that distance from the underground line there is no problem. If choosing a house on that development I would be choosing one opposite the underground line, it would quite effectively prevent further houses being added the other side of the road.

Probably the controller that comes with the heat pump. Which probably also translates to heating is on or off, no chance of zoning upstairs and downstairs.

What RHI payments have they indicated you are likely to receive?

I shall watch this with interest. I too have discolouration of the water in my UFH manifold flow meters (very similar manifold to above) But in my case it is an ASHP, so in that the water just passes through a stainless steel plate heat exchanger. All pipework is copper. HW cylinder is stainless steel. Heating is Pex Al Pex under floor heating pipe. Just about the only thing in my system that is ferrous metal is a Grundfoss circulating pump. And I have 25% antifreeze / inhibitor. So I am at a loss in my case to know what is discolouring my water.

Some quick googling: Ecodan 11.4Kw monoblock ASHP £4499 inc VAT (you can claim the VAT back for a new build) https://www.wolseley.co.uk/product/mitsubishi-ecodan-air-source-heat-pump-pack-ftc4-112kw/ Ecodan 11.4Kw monoblock with pre plumbed 300L HW cylinder £6706 inv VAT https://www.wolseley.co.uk/product/mitsubishi-ecodan-heat-pump-112kw-and-300l-pre-plumbed-standard-cylinder/ Just the first one I could find showing an online retail price, does not mean a recommendation or that it is the best price. To me, that says the Misubishi pre plumbed cylinder is expensive at £2207. I paid just under £1000 for a 300L Telford Stainless unvented cylinder with heat pump input coil. If those prices are representative that means they are charging £2K for the installation. Personally I would be looking at the Mitsubishi heat pump with a Telford HW tank at a component cost in the order of £5500 and just get a competent plumber and electrician. EDIT: post crossed with above but I think we both found just about the same figures.

"Expensive Antifreeze" = Screwfix No Nonsense inhibitor / antifreeze at 25% gives protection down to -10 degrees. That will be a LOT cheaper than paying an F gas engineer to visit site, make the refrigerant pipe connections, leak test it, vacuum it down and fill with gas. Re noise. With a split system only the fan unit is outside. The compressor is in the inside unit. Think the compressor of a large refrigerator running whenever the HP is on. It may not be that noisy, but I still prefer it to be outside. With a monoblock unit the compressor is outside as well, and it is only a water connection from inside to out, it comes pre charged from the factory with the refrigerent gas, so no need for an F gas engineer.

I am not commenting on price other than that sounds about the going rate for a "renewable heating company" But 200Litre water tank imho is way too small. Bearing in mind water heated from an ASHP tends to be at a lower temperature than say a gas boiler (we store ours at 48 degrees) so you will use more hot with less cold added to bring it down to temperature. We have a 300L tank and on a couple of occasions (until I installed an instant electric heater as backup) we had some "run out of hot water" incidents which trust me, does not impress the ladies with their hair wet and full of shampoo. What savings are you hoping to make? and what is your practical ability? The easiest saving would probable be do the UFH yourself. Also who chose a split system? A monoblock system would avoid the need for an F gas engineer to be involved and would open it up to any plumber being able to install it, plus it would put the bit that makes all the noise, outside the house.

Not sure about the EA, but up here you need permission from SEPA to culvert a watercourse. Ours is culverted in several places by big steel "tubes" that I am sure had some previous industrial use. They are about 1 metre square with flanges on the end, so several sections could bolt together and what is now the "top" has ladder rungs welded to it, which makes me think in it's previous life these were mounted vertically. My neighbour (with permission from SEPA) just cast concrete strip foundations along the top of each bank, and then bridged the span with pre cast (probably pre stressed) flat concrete panels that were lifted into place. But I think he has built in a time bomb, because he now has several metres of the original bank that no longer gets daylight, so nothing will grow. And with no vegetation I fear in spate the soil is going to get washed away over time from under his strip foundations.