ProDave

Post individual questions in the relevant sub forums. A lot of us here regard building regs as the minimum standard and aim to exceed them.

Yes to all of those for me. But the average person in an existing house heated with a gas boiler and radiators, no to most of them. they might not change their minds until the price of gas rockets above the price of electricity.

Yes it is not rocket science. At the moment, at best, a well installed heat pump working well will just about match the running cost of a gas boiler. That is not much of a selling point is it? Most of us on here do it for other reasons, mine being no mains gas here, and I did not want an oil tank.

Global sea level rise over the next 100 years is inevitable. What are "they" planning to cope with that. What about all the low lying coastal towns and cities that may be under water? At what point do you stop planning defensive walls and start planning relocation?

We built our first self build just over 20 years ago. I knew nothing then of passive houses. But coming from a 1930's semi with solid walls and high heating bills, the "standard" timber frame build of the time was very warm, comfortable and not outrageously expensive to heat. but it had many shortfalls, mainly as I have discussed before, the huge amount of holes in the structure forced by building regs to have extract fans in so many rooms, and other "standard" things like a cat flap, a letter box and a non room sealed WBS. In the time between that and starting our second build I did a spell of work for a local company building "low energy" modular homes. I learned a lot about insulation, air tightness and MVHR from that. So that is the principles we applied to out second self build. My 2 main things, I wanted a heating load low enough to be satisfied by a small ASHP. We have no mains gas, and I did not want an oil tank or bulk gas tank in the garden. And I wanted air tight and mvhr with no unnecessary openings in the building structure. So no cat flap or letterbox, no individual extract fans (that most of the time are just a hole to let heat out and draughts in) and an air tight structure. We achieved that and are pleased with the result. I think the term "Passive House" is confusing to the layman, they expect a house that needs no heating. I don't think that is possible in most of the UK.

No sorry I don't. At the time I was scouring all sorts of on line suppliers and merchants and I stumbled upon it, or more likely someone on here pointed me to it. It did the job well but I can't find it again right now.

I have this arrangement: To the right is the stack pipe coming down from upstairs then straight down into a rest bend. The 110 sticking up is where the downstairs WC connects. The 50mm branch at the left is washing machine and sink discharge. It has never blocked, probably because unlike @MortarThePoint outside pipe, this has a regular flow of grey water into that 50mm end pipe to keep it flushed free of any solids that are reluctant to move of their own accord.

Another thing with posts, you need to dig a nice parallel sided hole. At one previous house a neighbour had a fence installed. The contractors were not very careful, and the first gale, many of the posts simply pivoted out of the cone shaped hole with a cone shape block of concrete still attached.

Used crushed / irregular stones, they will lock together and not move much. Do not use rounded "pebbles" it will be like walking on marbles. (a mistake I only made once when ordering 20mm stones from a builders merchant without seeing them or asking any more details)

Could you actually see movement at the base where it comes out of the ground? It is surprising just how much concrete posts will bend so movement at the top if solid at the bottom is okay. However it does look to me like they filled the holes not with concrete, but with bricklaying mortar, probably because they had plenty of that on site ready?

I looked into GSHP's for here. I soon concluded even if I did all the digging work to lay the slinky myself, the cost of the pipe, fittings, and the brine to fill it was way more than the cost of the GSHP. Then when you see the advice is replace the brine every 10 years, the ongoing costs outweigh the additional efficiency compared to an ASHP.

+1001 BC are not interested in that. We formed the entrance, got services connected and the static caravan on site before we even started on the building warrant.

If it has planning that is locked in because the development is clearly "started" then just go ahead and create the entrance using the details on the plans that are already approved. THEN think about a new planning application, knowing you can still fall back on the existing "started" application if that is refused.

That is for a Scottish temporary habitation certificate, I don't think England has such a formal process.

I got this written into the planning for ours, that I wanted the static caravan to remain after the build as a "garden building". This overruled the usual clause saying the static caravan must be removed. Instead they inserted an alternative clause "habitational use of the caravan shall cease upon occupation of the house" They are just ensuring you don't end up with the caravan as a second separate dwelling.

In principle you should be able to find the structural points of the wall at first floor height (that will probably be supporting the other floors) and span a floor from those. but to access your new mezanine floor you will need a short staircase up from the half landing but there I see a problem, those stairs will be cutting across a dooorway. Picture from below may help?

English BC must be somewhat different to Scotland, as once our shell was up wind and watertight and all insulation in, BC inspected and I then asked what is the next inspection needed and was told "completion" They never did inspect first fix plumbing and electrics. As it happened we got them in sooner to get a temporary habitation certificate and then the completion inspection.

And for mass take up of renewables like heat pumps and solar PV someone really really needs to give all the DNO's a kick up the whatsit and make it their problem to upgrade the grid rather than saying no you can't have. Take away the hostility that people like me would face if they wanted more PV for example.

The electric car thing. We are being told they are just as good as an ICE car and we should all have one. Just 2 problems with that. First they are NOT as "good" in some respects because range and charging times limit their use compared to almost instant refuelling of an ICE car, and they are even more hopeless if you want to tow something. The "sales pitch" needs to be more honest, they are just as good for many users that don't do long journeys or tow anything, but be HONEST that they are not a drop in replacement that will suit all uses. And if you answer that with "they will get better" then that just reinforces my point, they are not yet ready for all users so why buy a pre production development model? And secondly they are just too expensive, most people like me could not afford one even if I wanted one.

You build up the foundations from the existing ground to your finished floor height and then you infill the ground around the house to raise the level. Building up first would mean you are building on unstable made up ground.

That calculator gives me estimated 7KVA rising to 14KVA if I add a car charger. I better not tell anybody if I ever add a car charger then. Actually our 12KVA supply is in no way limiting, it is wired in the same 35mm concentric cable to the house as any other modern connection, and fitted with a 100A main fuse. So it is 12KVA only in name.

SSEN We are not far from the substation but we were the 8th house connecting to an existing 100KVA transformer. They seem to have calculated 100/8 = 12.5 and offered us a 12KVA connection hoping we would cough up to upgrade the transformer. They clearly have not heard of diversity.

Yes we need some "levelling up" They were equally hostile when applying for a new supply, 12KVA was all they could offer without charging for a network upgrade, I got the distinct impression they expected me to decline that and say "how much for an upgrade"

Here is a thought. Can't a solar farm share the same land as a wind farm? Mostly built in hills so not productive farmland. Yes some panels would get some shading from the towers but it would seem to be a good dual use of land and infrastructure.

The DNO's need to be forced to be less hostile and more accepting of solar PV. When ours was registered with the DNO (under the old names I forget which but 3.68kW) they read the model number of the inverter "TL4000" and without reading anything else rejected it, told us to disconnect it and apply for permission and there would be a network upgrade charge as it was over 3.68kW. Forcing them to read the documents and that even though the inverter had 4000 in it's model number, it was only 3.68kW resolved it and they accepted it, but it showed they are hostile, do not really want it, and will use any excuse to try and extract money from the customer.