ProDave

It would probably make a very good central location for a hot water tank to aid that hotpress function. Now it has gone, just where are you going to put the HW tank so it is central to all points of use?

Sunday dinner tasted very nice indeed. Things we like (compared to the caravan) in no particular order. Having a shower where you don't bang your elbows and it doesn't take an age to wash the soap off (decent flow rate) Sleeping in a bed where you can get out both sides with more than a 6" gap A kitchen with a decent amount of work surface, AND a bowl and a half sink. God I missed that extra half bowl. Part way through washing up and you realised you had not rinsed the coffee pot and the only place to do it was the bathroom basin. A dishwasher. Sitting on a proper sofa rather than the built in foam seats in the 'van Watching tv on a set with decent surround sound. God how I missed that and being forced to just use the crap built in speakers. Listening to music on a decent pair of speakers. God how I missed my hifi. A well detached house means I don't have to worry about troubling the neghbours. Going upstairs to bed. Don't get me wrong, the caravan did us well for the 15 months it was our residence, but we are glad that is now in the past tense (to all practical purposes) Later on it will get repurposed as a work space.

I much prefer that layout. Much better use of space and less "fussy" with no awkward corridors. The top one of the 3 revised layouts would be my favourite. Having a wardrobe tacked onto the end of each en-suite would give a bit of extra soundproofing between each en-suite and the "other" bedroom. The en-suite that has no window, I would fit a solar tube or light pipe to illuminate it, we had one in the last house and it worked very well. Re the architect and building control. To avoid delaying things I would let the building warrant go through so you can start the foundations, then submit an amendment. If your relationship with the architect has broken down, re do the drawings yourself

2 things don't work for me: The funny corridor to get into beds 2 and 3 off the landing Solve that by making the landing wider (less void over the dining, and reduce the stairwell void) That corridor takes a big bite out of what could be en-suite space. Secondly En-suite 2 is forced to be longer just to encompass the window it seems? That takes a bite out of the corner of bed 3 making it look awkward. Solve the corridor entrance, and move the window over, and both rooms can have a larger en-suite, both the same size, each taking up half the wall between the 2 bedrooms. I would still swap them over, the master and it's suite seems over sized to me. Why not share the space a bit better?

Unless there is a particular reason, I would swap the left and right hand halves over. You currently have the largest half as the master, dressing and it's en-suite and the smaller as beds 2 and 3 and their en-suites that look a little cramped. I would try the smaller left hand half as master, dressing and en-suite that would then give a bit more space for beds 2 and 3 and their en-suites in the right hand part.

Horizontal cladding will men you have to shape all the edges so they are not square, to give a chamfer for water to run off. Hit and miss vertical won't let water in. I would not do vertical with gaps.

The trouble with an ASHP is they are not good at heating hot water especially hot. I have ours set to a target temperature of 50 degrees at the moment. That means you really need more water storage volume as when you run a bath for instance, you will be using a larger proportion of hot water and adding less cold to it. So I suspect that tank at only 150 litres might let you down. Also you really want the high capacity heat pump input coil otherwise it won't get up to the heat pump temperature or it will take longer or force the heat pump to heat it hotter to get there.

My vote would be bath under window, toilet to left of bath straight ahead as you enter, really generous shower at the end (what you have drawn is too thin, take the shower area right up to the edge of the window) And your bid double basin along the wall adjoining the dressing room. And do the whole floor as a wet room so you don't even need a shower screen if you don't want one.

My LG Therma V has a cooling function that I won't actually be using. I am not sure I would recommend it though, so see what others suggest.

I just tried simulating that and open circuited the thermistor while it was heating the tank. It throws up a CH08 fault "fault with water tank sensor" after 3 seconds but resets and continues operating when I re connect the thermistor. So I think it should be okay with a brief O/C while the relay swaps over. The trouble with parallel, is if the hot tank is already very hot, it might cause a reading that is too hot (above 100) Oh and I have just discovered annoying quirk #5 with this unit. You cannot adjust the set point temperature for the hot water when the heating is turned off. To do that, you have to go and turn the heating on, where upon it will let you set the heating temperature and the hot water temperature, then go and turn the heating off. I get the feeling I am using "user interface version Beta A"

I took a second reading from the thermistor at a different temperature, and concluded the best fit to the curve is what is known as a 6K thermistor (6K at 25 degrees) From that about 510 ohm seemed a likely bet for my "temperature satisfied" resistor. So I have tried it with a 560 ohm resistor and that gives an indicated temperature of 85 degrees. So I will be using a relay to switch from the thermistor, to this fixed resistor, when I want the hot water heating off. I have just ordered 3 relays from CPC as I didn't have any with 240v ac coils. One will be used to do the HW switching, and the other 2 will be used to spare the heating motorised valves being energised when the heating is off.

Sounds like a lot of work and hassle to solve a problem with an odd neighbour. I would just over board the gaps, then plant a fast growing hedge instead on the top of the wall just your side of the fence

Coving is a personal thing. For me it's yesterdays style. Agree 1" Celotx / Kingspan etc then 9mm plasterboard to keep the walls thin. You could take the worktop off and drop a lot more insulation down behind the kitchen units.

Did it make much smell during the cleaning as it presumably burned off all the residue?

Absolutely. We considered a built in FF but baulked at adding another £350 to the price of the kitchen just to wrap the FF in a box to make it look like a cupboard. Plus the integrated ones were just too small anyway.

If you believe the saleswoman at my local branch of Howdens, their own brand Lamona stuff is made by AEG but a LOT cheaper. Just what appliances are costing you £7K, I got my whole kitchen with appliances for less than that.

The kitchen has been the priority, with the ASHP being the background job. The caravan is now only serving as "storage"

Pretty much. You can't quite see the Ben from our house. If you could it would be a bit to the left. You can see it from the top of our road, but as you walk down, it disappears behind the tree line of a forest. I live in hope that one day the forest will be felled and we might just be able to see the Ben.

The whole house needs skirting, doors, door liners and lots of finishing off. It's definitely been a case of make it so it "works" then make it pretty later on. There is still plenty of wiring to finish, note the temporary light switch by the door. I have yet to build a piece of stud wall to the right of the fridge which is where the light switch will end up. the view from the West window, which you see from the kitchen sink or the breakfast bar has been a major feature that has shaped several aspects of the house

That is a very tidy job. I wonder will they leave out the screed upstairs on the bits where lots of pipes run together to the manifolds? That's what I did otherwise that area might get too warm.

Kitchen finished today. It took me about a week to put the kitchen together and plumb in the sink and dishwasher. The worktop under the window is a cheap temporary laminate one to get the kitchen functioning quickly. Later on that will be replaced with a stone worktop and that one will be moved to the utility room, which is why it has been left over length for now as that's how long it will be in the utility. I then had to wait for Gus the joiner to machine the oak breakfast bar worktop. Sometimes even when self building, it is worth employing a good tradesman when you know they can do a better job of something than you can. It was then 2 days to varnish it, and finally today it was dry so I could fit it and plumb in the hob. Next to the fridge, where the clock is for now, will eventually be partitioned off to form a pantry. Sunday dinner will be cooked and eaten in the house tomorrow. A little more and a couple more pictures on the blog at http://www.willowburn.net/ look for the entry "Kitchen Finished"

There was one on Grand Designs where they had not thought about this until the end, and the water connection cost them £40K

The trouble with that, is the water connection will need to be deeper. Have a brown envelope ready on the day to "encourage" the guys that come to dig a little deeper than they would jus for a phone cable. It was handy having Scottish Water make the road crossing as everything else went in as the trench was being back filled.

Mine was connected in 2015

Scottish water were a bit hard to deal with, but in the end they were very good value. Our quote for the water connection was about £1K but that also did not include the road crossing. The water main was a few feet into the field the other side of the road. and we had to do all the trenching on our plot. I then started looking for prices for the road crossing, an independent contractor wanted £2K as dis Scottish Hydro, but when asked Scottish water only wanted an extra £1K for the road crossing so they did it. What you need to ask them for is an "all works" quote including the road crossing. they supplied the pipe from the main under the road, and the boundary box, we just had to supply pipe from the boundary box to the house wtc. As it happens it was not SW themselves that did it, they subcontracted it to someone else.