ProDave

Another feature of our house is we have nice views and no neighbours in front. So it would be such a shame to block that view with frosted glass, so we didn't. Eventually we will have vertical blinds so you can angle them if you feel you need some privacy.

It's simple. All the intermediate joints in the wall board sit on the centre of a stud. But the very first (and last) sit on the outside edge of the stud. So think of it as the first stud is offset by half it's thickness to account for this. Don't forget this fact when cutting your noggins. If the "end" is a corner, then you also have to decide which board will overlap over the end of the first, which gives you another correction for the thickness of the board to make.

Part of our thinking, is the utility / wc links through to the garage. So if you are working in the garden, enter via the garage and the WC is 2 steps away in the house.

Yes bathroom is upstairs, as are all bedrooms, so guests would use the upstairs bathroom. Downstairs wc is just that, a "convenient" place to go in the daytime without having to go upstairs.

You will probably hate our house then. We have the unconventional layout of the downstairs WC in the same room as the utility room. So alongside one wall there is tumble dryer, washing machine, sink, a cupboard, then the loo. the other side has cupboards and the "pulley" for clothes drying in winter. We did it this way because there was no easy alternative. Plus sides, the combine function room is large and spacious, nothing at all cramped about it. Oh and building control are happy with it.

It's the difference between a Trabant and a Rolls Royce. They both do the same thing, but the quality, and the price. The cheap one does not look very deep to me, I am not sure it would have worked for us. The treatment plant outlet was 700mm down and then another 100mm ore more step for the sample chamber, you will be looking at about a metre down.

On ours, we just did the "distribution" underground with a few tee connectors, @scottishjohn waiting for the Italian pump to arrive.

I know hindsight is a wonderful thing, but if you knew then, what you know now, would you just have stuck with the Sunamp PV?

That's a pathetic target to reduce heating needs by 15% by 2030. Compared to our last house, my heating needs have dropped by 75% and compared to the one before more like 90%

Between the septic tank and soakaway is usually a sample chamber, one pipe enters, thre is usually a small drop and another pipe exits. the idea being SEPA / EA or whoever can drop a container in and take a sample of your effluent Here is the first one I found doing a quick search. https://www.wplinternational.com/optional-extra/wpl-sample-chamber/

So why did the supplier describe it as 3KWp?

I presume quoting for less than 4KW is because one of the roofs won't fit enough panels? How bad is the shading? Whole roof? one panel?

Yes. With a TNCS / PME supply, neutral and earth come in on the same conductor, It is not unknown for the outer neutral conductor to fail. If that happens and there is a load connected, the "earth" could float up to L potential. Very bad news for someone standing on the ground next to it and touching it. Same reason caravans should be on a TT earth.

I certainly would not pay that. That £40K would buy quite a lot of LPG. Even assuming £1K per year usage that's the next 40 years then.

Indeed. So if new homes won't be able to have gas, what will they use instead? Don't tell me those in charge still believe that wood pellet stoves are carbon neutral or environmentally friendly? If so heaven help us. And if Electricity is to be the new fuel, then what is going to happen over the next 7 years to improve the capacity? Turning more homes all electric, and the growth in electric car usage, is going to impose some massive changes to the network, with little sign of much of a plan to deal with that. Or is there another side to this, the fact that North Sea gas is in decline and it's a case of wanting to reduce our dependance on gas so we are not held ransom to imported gas?

7M from front wall plate to rear wall plate. 45 degree roof pitch. You can do the maths to get the length of each rafter from the ridge beam to the wall plate. They are quite close spaced, 400mm I believe.

My roof span is 7M and uses 195mm timber rafters. Remember these span from the ridge beam to the eaves so are less than 7M long.

Regardless of that though. the current product seems only capable of reliably storing half it's rated capacity. Will n ot others using it a different way, see that ass a failing as well?

Inside to out: skimmed plasterboard Battened service void Air tightness membrane (Protect Bariair) 11mm OSB (for racking strength) 195mm rafters full filled with frametherm 35 100mm Pavatex wood fibre board over rafters Protect VP400 breathable membrane Counter battens Tile battens concrete tiles. The builders built the frame putting the Wood fibre and breathable membrane on the outside. I then fitted everything else from the inside, i.e frametherm between the rafters, then the OSB then the air tight membrane, then the battens and plasterdoard.

I charge £25 per hour, so £200 if I do a full 8 hours (I rarely do that much) and not VAT registered so no VAT obviously. I know plumbers round here are more like £35 per hour.

The sloping ground really does not seem an issue. In the simplest form you did the footings until you hit hard ground. sure the footings may be deeper at one end but it is easy to make them stepped and build up from there. Choosing a septic tank will prevent you from connecting to a watercourse, you would have to accommodate a soakaway somewhere. It really would choose a treatment plant, there is very little extra cost and they are so much better in so many ways.

Our vaulted roof seems to be performing well with 100mm wood fibre on the outside acting as a sarking board, and 200mm of Frametherm 35 (earthwool) between the rafters. I found this a lot cheaper than the blown in alternatives as it was a DIY job to install it. Originally we were going to use blown in wood fibre beads. Our span front to back is about 7 metres so not quite as large as yours.

In practice, dedicated high up ones for a tv, or low down ones for a washing machine, will be hidden anyway and your BC inspector will neither see them or query them.

That site does not look bad at all. It will take a decent digger a day or less to level the house site area. aim for the floor level of the house to be the "average" of the present ground level, so in some places you lower the finished ground level by digging out, and in other places you raise the finished ground level by building up with what you have excavated. Definitely go for a treatment plant, not a septic tank. And choose one that works on the air blower principle like the Biopure, Conder, Vortex, Graff and probably several others. Trust me, you do not want to be the one servicing a failure of some rotating mechanical parts down in the brown smelly stuff.

And I don't think any of them actually built a finished house for £100K