ProDave

Todays job "my bathroom fan does not seem to be working" I find a small development of houses, built somewhat better than the average developers house. These are reasonably well insulated, decent windows, UFH and were built with an Exhaust Air Heat Pump system. The story goes the EAHP broke a couple of years ago, everyone he called could not fix it, so he had a new heating system installed. A Mitsubishi ASHP and cylinder. Nothing wrong with that. Except in the process they disconnected the UFH and installed radiators instead (why) and left the property with no ventilation system, hence no bathroom fan. I wonder too where the cooker hood vent pipe goes (probably nowhere)

So 6KW (if they are 300W panels) you might generate as much as 5000KWh in a year, depending on where you are and how much shading, roof orientation etc. IF you were able to self use all of that, then your annual saving would be approaching £700. But it is very unlikely you could self use all of that. Not without battery storage. We are struggling to self use all that our 4Kw system generates and even that at mid day some gets exported. I have a more realistic hope of self using £250 worth of electricity each year.

Just quoting the number of panels is meaningless unless you say the wattage of each panel. Remember more than 4KW nominal (3.68KW) you need prior permission from the DNO before you connect them which may come with a cost. They must be some pretty big panels to produce the savings they are suggesting, and even if you did achieve those savings, it is a payback time of over 11 years. I keep saying this, for non FIT solar PV to be viable it needs to be a lot cheaper than that.

Yes, sorry, Toby is the local name used here for your underground water stopcock. Anything after that, is your pipe and your responsibility, and once you have the supply on your property to your building standpipe, you can add the pipework to the house when you are ready.

I am damned sure that would not be anything like £4K at Howdens. Do bear in mind, Howdens are very negotiable.

Well again, I admitted defeat, and renewed the self build policy for another year. They were happy to do so. In the process I increased the buildings sum as it had gone over the original estimate slightly. Of all the people I phoned, I only got 2 alternative quotes, one from AJ Galagher, and one from Adrian Flux. Both were in the order of £650, which is £100 more than the self build policy renewal. Adrian Flux did offer to bring theirs down to just under £500 when I told them it was too much. The reasoning behind just renewing the self build policy is that if I let that lapse, I will not get it again. I was worried if I let that lapse and went for the slightly cheaper Adrian Flux quote, by next renewal they might not do it cheaper again, and I would be stuck with a more expensive policy.

The iboost or similar will only put excess to HW when nothing else is using it and it would otherwise have been exported so "real" use gets priority which of course is the best use for your PV power. So far I am finding about 1/3 of what I am generating ends up as hot water. Even then, at this time of year at mid day, the immersion heater cannot soak up all we generate if the house is not using much, so some still gets exported (in my case for no payment)

Re the water company inspecting things. Your life will be a lot simpler if you just have the site stand pipe as your ONLY connected "appliance" when your water connection is made. Then once connected anything after your toby does not need further inspection, other than anything your BCO may want to do.

I was going to suggest the "test mode" Try turning the power off, waiting a good couple of minutes then turning it back on. That should restore normal mode.

With SE input, you might be able to cantilever out from that existing wall to get the size you want. He would want to inspect the foundations to satisfy himself of their load bearing capacity and indeed I am pretty sure building control would only allow you to build up from that with calculations from a SE. the foundations are probably deep because the site probably sloped originally and the level terracing you now have is probably all made up ground.

I will be updating my thread later. After I have renewed my self build policy for another year having failed to find a sensible alternative.

Can someone explain the figures? £11 billion smart meter program 15 million smart meters fitted I make that £733 per smart meter fitted. That can't be right? If it is, then it is an outrage. I will be a good citizen and continue to refuse one, thus saving (insert name of who is actually paying for them) my £733

Yes as @scottishjohn says we are STILL waiting for the housing market here recover from the 2008 downturn. 10 years of stagnation and counting.

If the existing pipe is old and rotten and keeps bursting surely they would jump at the chance to have a section of it replaced for free? And talk to them, while doing the bit across your land for free, offer to do some of it on their land at cost price at the same time?

It is a terrible scheme designed to shift new houses at the expense of making it harder to sell second hand houses that do not qualify.

What is this "connection card"? I just asked for a new supply and SSE did not care where it was. No mention of it being permanent, temporary or builders.

That is what people told me in this position, but I am buggered if I am going to drop the price so the old 5 bedroom house sells for less than the cost of building the replacement 3 bedroom house. Aka I am NOT going to pay to downsize. MY "solution" to this dilema was raid one of my pensions. I have one defined contribution pot (the others are defined benefits) and by putting that into flexible drawdown (required transfering to a different provider) I was able to draw 25% tax free, and the rest is available but will be taxed as income. I don't have any worried raiding a pension in this way as the money will be replaced when the old house eventually sells, with the bonus that it will be outside of a pension wrapper so there won't be any tax liability when we draw it to spend.

You are not confusing engineered boards with laminate are you? Engineered boards are real hard wood, on top of 2 or more layers of softwood, Typically 6mm thick hardwood, plenty to sand and re finish should you need to, and a lot more stable and less prone to warping or cracking than solid hardwood.

My external meter boxes are set between substantial fence posts. You could do something like that and just say no more. I doubt they will impose a time limit on a "temporary" supply, and there will be a further cost from them to move it again into the house.

Don't forget the option of making your "temporary" meter box a permanent construction and just leaving it there, and running your own cable from there to the new house when built.

In practice most DNO's wont want to supply a 200A single phase supply without a very good reason. Try finding a domestic CU rated at 200A or even a single phase meter rated at 200A. Just not going to happen.

I am intrigued to find out why you think you need such a big supply.

Membrane can go straight onto sarking as long as it is "non tenting"

I am confused (easily done) So that's not the hole it is going into is it? If not why did you store it on a hole?

All our walls roof and floor are in the order of 0.14 150 square metre 1 1/2 storey house (upstairs room in roof) total winter heating bill £234 using an ASHP and UFH and this is in the north Highlands so would be lower in less harsh climates. Triple glazed and air tight with MVHR is the bit you need to consider as well to get the energy down. If you don't detail the air tightness, your heating losses might be dominated by ventilation heat loss. @JSHarris has produced a good spread sheet to model your heat losses and it certainly came up with figures incredably close to what it has actually turned out for my house. Don't be afraid to over spec the floor insulation as you will lose some of your heat to the ground.