Scoobyrex

Back to three phase vs single phase. I'm no electrician but work with lots of computers in datacenters with 3phase power and we use geothermal and solar in some countries. something to consider with solar power and 3 phase costs. Upto 3.6Kw solar on single phase does not need permission from DNO. Above 3.6kw needs permission, I have permission for 10kw on single phase. 3 Phase solar Invertors distributes the power generated across each phase evenly. To use this power rather than export it your workloads need to be balanced, easy with 3 phase devices like car chargers, impossible for most domestic workloads. secondly maximum demand billing, you are billed 3 x usage of the highest demand phase. if you have unbalanced load you are paying at the peak usage of the highest phase for all 3 phases. Imagine this scenario, everything in your house is single phase, oven lights ect, your 3 phase is used by a car charger, & heat pump. When you are not charging your car, your phases are out of balance as only the single phase consumer unit is consuming electricity, but you are being billed at 3 x the rate. Unless you have a 3 phase consumer unit and your loads are balanced you are paying more. and of course maximum demand billing is very well known with commercial customers, lots of new domestic customers will have bill shocks and of course the power companies are not explaining this when promoting 3 phase.

I import from Europe and China and export globally, brexit has added paperwork handling charges, all of this gets added to the end price. Imports from China have gone up significantly as well as shipping charges. As economies open up I can see prices continuing to go up not down due to further demand, and increased hassle / work getting stuff into the country. A kitchen component supplier in the netherlands has now stopped shipping to the UK altogether, not worth the hassle was their response.

1. The lounge is very long at 7m, would you actually use all that space. If not, I would try and shorten it and add the space to the sitting room which is comparatively small. The siting room is actually the study. The study could be bigger, will see what it looks like. 2. The WC is extremely small relative to the house. If you take the idea above to make the sitting room larger I would then make the WC larger. Not overly concerned with the size of the WC, to make it bigger forces to move the wall with the stairs back which eats into the dining room width, which we do not want to make narrower as it will be difficult to navigate around the table and chairs. 3. I would think hard about the kitchen layout. It looks like it is set so that the kitchen units will be where you walk in, then a dining and sitting area at the back. Imagine you are cooking for guests, would you want to take them in past your cooking to the table. Hadn't considered this, discussion with wife needed.... 4. We have a larger room than you have there as a gym and it never seems big enough, but we often have three people there at once. I would look to steal space from the laundry/utility area and add to the gym. You need a surprising amount of space for some exercises, especially when on the floor. Our current gym is around the same size but a more useful rectangle shape, agree it needs to be bigger. 5. The laundry/utility area is too large. I cannot think what you would possibly do with all that space. I would probably take the plant room a little bigger and rein the space making the gym larger. You won't hang out in those space so they really only need to be as large as needed for their functions. The utility area will be our main kitchen during the build, as we will move in before the main kitchen is fitted. We also plan to use the utility as a kitchen. 6. Upstairs I would make the two small ensuites at least 1.2M wide. 1M is very small especially compared to the size of the house. I would also make the wardrobes in those two rooms larger, probably moving them to the righthand walls of the rooms. All the bathrooms upstairs need work. Beds 2 and 3 are for our sons, they rarely use the wardrobes they have as most clothes are folded, shelves, The rear of these wardrobes will be a duct for the MHVR piping as well, so probably should be bigger. 7. I think the suggestion to model the house in 3d to see what it looks like is a good one. I am less of a style expert. I might consider rendering the part where the front door is and having more glass above the front door. Will discuss with the architect, I agree it would be helpful. 8. Counting the steps on your stairs, is the ground floor only 2.4M high? It really should be 2.7M in this size of house. At the moment you cannot have a longer stair which would prevent this. My wife wanted a split stair, but I persuaded her to go for one really nice stair, we have a curved stair. It looks like the stair has a combination of half landing and winders. It seems a bit fussy and I am not sure it will flow well. I think one stair along the wall where the kitchen door is then turning left would be a much nicer stair to use and then you could have a double door not the kitchen with a sightline right through from the front door. I believe the stairs are missing one additional tread on the lowest part towards the front door, the lower treads would also be slightly wider than shown.

Thanks for all the feedback, lots to think about.

What we have struggled with size wise is the kitchen/dining/living, as well as the gym. The only room which is bigger than needed is the living room, the siting room is actually a study. Bed 2 and 3 are the same size as our kids current bedrooms. Bed 1 is big, but we want it that way, our current bedroom is frustrating size wise. We have our parents and in laws stay quite often so all the bedrooms need to be doubles. We entertain a lot (well not at the moment), but plan to resume that at some point.

I'm going to look at cladding. I am not a massive fan or render, we have that on our current house.

In the pre-app phone call the planners said they would not accept large windows or all glass at the front. I might change it and put full height glass in and see how they respond, it is also south facing and concerned with solar loading.

That is a good point, I could bring it forward and make the rooms slightly bigger as well as widening the landing a little as it is narrow for the size of the house.

The reason for the mass of glass at the back is the view, rolling hill down to a natural stream, and a large wood beyond.

This will be sitting on a 0.4 acre plot on a private road. It is all brick (Cambridge buffs), with a plinth and corbels. One of our concerns it is a large house and will it appear quite plain, would cladding or rendering the garage help ?. The front of the house is pretty much south facing. Do not pay to much attention to bathroom layouts, stuff is just plonked in for now

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