Ferdinand

On cost estimating, if a "newbuild" figure is (say) £3k per sqm, then that averages out more money on the ground floor because you don't need to build eg another set of foundations for upstairs. In your case, since you are remodelling and extending downstairs, I'd say use the newbuild figure for the whole thing for an upper estimate rather than reduce it "because we are remodelling", as you are doing extensive work downstairs too. That will in practice give you an extra contingency -which given the project may be useful to have built in. For a second estimate, perhaps use the newbuild figure for the area of your extension downstairs, plus the areas of the other stories, plus a 'remodelling' figure for the existing area you are retaining. Perhaps add a number for the extra cost of each "feature" if that is not in your basic numbers. That will begin to give you a pair of bracketed numbers for upper and lower figures (they will be indicative, not boundaries). Tip one: study your T&C agreement / contract with the architect with a fine tooth comb. If you have a % deal (say 15% for design and supervision to completion) then what happens if your needed budget increases by say 15% is that you suddenly find yourself paying an extra 15% extra architect fees without much extra work being done. It's your call how to deal with that type of potential elephant trap. Tip two: Architects quite often quote for an idealised version of your brief, and have a whole selection of ready less-expensive feature suggestions for when the customer goes GULP! Don't be afraid to ask for 95% as good but less gold plated ideas. Ask your architect for his better or more practical ideas than your suggestions or what he has shown you - that is the experience you are paying for. But also the more knowledge you develop yourself, and the more thinking time you give yourself, the more effective customer you can be. In this case, I'd say that you are quite attached to your architect, and you need to keep an eye on yourself to make sure you reflect on each thing before agreeing to it - rather than risking being a "Yes Customer". It's all about creative and thoughtful dialogue with an architect as you design your house together. HTH F

Hello.

I'm just about to do a round of descaling shower heads - as recommended by a 7x year old tenant and it seems to woek. Currently my only descaler in the house is the expensive one for the coffee machine. Can anyone suggest a good general purpose descaling fluid, or a la Harris something on ebay for thruppence which has the same active ingredient? Cheers F Medical update: docs are happy with current recovery and (as evidenced by this post) I am getting some energy back. Expectations are that I should be back at more or less normal energy levels by Christmas, which means I will be able to be as large a PITA as previously.

That's a beautifully smooth design, but I'd not convinced of the practicality / safety for say a 70-year-old - "forever house", remember. The handrail looks very very smooth, and very difficult to use for applying steadying force at the hand - especially dry and weaker hands of elderly people. Sympathetic staircase design is one of the elements that makes a house practically liveable or not as we get older. If the space is available and you want a curving staircase, I'd suggest an open well staircase to make it more sympathetic, with the spiral handrail as a feature. Given the project is large, I'd also provision for a lift. F

I think the overall feel is Grand Designs about 10-15 years ago. Out of date for a contemporary buildng, and I can't imagine it ageing well. Loadsabling and veined marble. Ick. I wonder if the original is listed, or Planning tried to treat it as if it were listed? I think the sharp distinction between old and new is still a preferred approach for listed buildings. Perhaps that's the only way development was allowed. The Architectural Bollocks is .. architectural bollocks. "Masterclass of blending old and new" ... lol. It's the opposite of blended - it's oil and water deliberately separated so both can be appreciated on their own for their separate attractions, in theory. Isn't Saltwood where the shagging-obsessed-Maggie-obsessed diarising politician Alan Clarke, with the appetite for older cars and younger ladies, used to live in his 15C mini-castle with his collection of Bloomsbury Group paintings? Fantastic writer of diaries (inlcuing Backfire about the car collection and his wife's later reflections), but a bit of a sh*t.

PHPP has been mentioned. Also, one of our members created a spreadsheet which many have found useful. You may find this useful as a starting point. Here's the thread.

My grandma in her 70s used to look just like that. All of 4'10", with a hat pin.

Yes - chronic condition came out of remission, and needing the next round of treatment. I have since 2020 (lockdown year 1) a rare form of leukemia called Hairy Cell Leukemia. No one knows what causes it. It is treatable but treatment loses effectiveness every X years, resulting in massively depressed energy levels until it gets short term treatment (a drug called Filgrastim) to stabilise until long term treated can be done again. My 2020 treatment, which was the second line one for COVID reasons, had that happen in January. I am being set up for retreatment hopefully later this month with a drug called Cladribine, having previously had a monoclonal antibody one called Retuximab. Let's say I am getting value from the NHS - just looked up the prices of the above, and I thought diabetic treatment was expensive ! I had a period in hospital in May-June resulting from being immuno-supressed letting a bug in in June - quite the experience. I didn't know they had so many IV antibiotics (nearly 100 portions over 2.5 weeks) in stock in the entire hospital. Massively impressed with *all* the staff at my local District Hospital (Sherwood Hospitals Trust). F

A serious illness intervened, I am afraid - spent several months flat on my back. The fox is still around, but the back garden has not been touched by me since last year.

Make sure you pay attention to ventilation as well as insulation.

Since this has woken and I was summoned, here's a piece in Country Life I did not link before. https://www.countrylife.co.uk/gardens/natural-swimming-pools-everything-need-know-building-one-garden-184617 and House an dGarden https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/how-to-build-natural-swimming-pond

That's over my line. I will keep stumm and let them make wrong assumptions, but I will not lie to a supplier. My choice. Also - TBF - my generation is heavily morning biased (80% of panels East Facing), so little generation in the peak period, plus my traditional 'overnight time shifted' loads are covered by my heavier AM generation. F

Sounds like a possible next step for me then, if I go for a battery at some stage - and it doesn't screw the FIT, which is worth about £600 a year to me.

Octopus are really helpful in my experience. But there are hoops including needing extra documentation about your FIT install if your solar install is FIT.

Not totally convinced by the Octopus Flux pitch. It is marketed as "for solar and battery". but the key feature is charge your battery the previous night, and discharge it at the next day peak. That means that you lose the opportunity to charge your battery from your solar if it is already full, which is the Octopus logic ("top it up overnight"), depending on the size of the battery vs how much you can cram into it in 3 hours. Basically it involves an arbitrage of the price in the cheap 3 hour overnight period vs the price you are paid for solar export during the day. Once the export price you are paid goes below the price you are charged overnight, you are losing. Octopus control both prices. It needs much careful thought, especially about possible loss of flexibility in use of your battery vs the benefit of being paid 15p per kWh (for now) for what is left in your battery as you approach peak period. One obvious thing is that solar generated energy needs to be used by the house in preference to using battery, or exporting it, during the day. Do these installs do that? I have been on the Flexible Octopus for energy I use from the Grid, plus Agile Outgoing Export for energy I export (which replaces the export element of my FIT setup, and is linked to wholesale market prices). Currently my export price has settled to about 10p/unit for the last few months. Ferdinand

Rights of Tenants is a very different issue to Regulation of Landlords. I think you are quoting English practice, where the size of the PRS has been flat since about 2015, and shrinking since approx 2017 (quoting the English Housing Survey numbers, which are the gold standard stats, from memory). That is despite being one the smaller sectors in Western Europe. I'd refer you for example to repeated and fairly routine insertion by local councils of unlawful clauses in their Landlord Licensing Agreements, and the sheer amateurish management of such. Going back roughly to the 2005 Act. There's plenty of other abuse - one common one is a decision to reclassify individual rooms in an HMO as separate Band A properties for Council Tax Purposes, which hits hardest the people who can least afford it. I'm not doing chapter and verse, I'm afraid - too busy. Ferdinand

No I don't think so tbh. I refer you to 20+ years of political rhetoric and media coverage. A platform of ignorance has been built, that is believed and malice uses as leverage. F

Isn't that a story from Yankland, where regulation hardly exists? Here the Private Rental Sector is regulated to death (compare with other Western European countries), largely by clueless politician-twats who everytime they do anything make it far worse for tenants, because they are gagging to bash landlords rather than address making the system work effectively. eg See what the last lot of legislation did to means of efficiently managing pet tenancies; everything went including extra pet deposits, professional clean at end as a condition of Fido living in, professional dog-behaviour check up front and so on, so that all that is left is a higher rent throughout. In Scotland, for example. the PRS hs shrunk by 15% between 2015 and today, according to Scottish Govt figures. Ferdinand

That's politics. AIUI 2025 was D to be required. And there has been a game of hokey-cokey, which leaves me with no idea where it is at present, having been addressing EPCs in my rentals from about 2013 when the EPC-regulation programme was announced by Lib Dems in the coalition. Also the definition of EPC changes depending on political goals. I would expect Electric Vehicle Charge Points to be a positive factor before long, as reducing C02 emissions from ICE ehicles.

Because a rental market is required eg for th emillions of people with poor credit who cannot get mortgages, for those (eg single mum divorcees or many pensioners) who are on pension or the 41% of people on Universal Credit in employment often on a bit over minimum wage. Or for those who are mobile by job requirement or choice. F

Thanks for the reply. I was slightly concerned that I was being too vigorous in my feedback, but most of us here lewarnt long ago that it is far better to get too much early rather than living for the next 25 years with a window in the wrong place. Can I add a bit more about the Au Pair space that I had not noticed. I am not sure that a basement room with a light well is adequate. I think it needs windows, or moving to a secluded spot on another level. One possible option would be to move your "secondary means of escape" round the corner to be outside the Au Pair room (or give the Au Pair room a wall on the end facade), and turn the "secondary exit area" into a possible mini-patio garden (maybe only 4mx4m, easy maintenance, say coloured pavers, where an au pair could put a table and chair and a tub plant for private sitting out), and have the secondary exit going through it. Have you considered your personal lifecycle? I can't imagine a nuclear-family couple retiring to a place this size, unless you are from a background where extended family living is the norm, as is also becoming more common amongst tradition caucasian-British communities. You could do something wild like provisioning for easy conversion to 4 apartments, you keeping the Ground Floor one to .. er .. "decline and die in" (Copyright Lord Morris of Castle Morris *). Ferdinand * Quotes from a column. "I have bought a small Manor House in Derbyshire to decline and die in" by Lord Morris of Castle Morris circa 1991. It was (and is if Lady Morris is still extant) in the village of Foolow near Edale. I knew the Deputy Duck Warden, who supervised the ducks on the village pond, where Lady Morris was the Honorary Duck Warden, who got the prestige but did not have to let the ducks out and put them away in the village duck house each day. Just thoughts. Ferdinand

Hmmmm. I'm taking the back as South facing - due to panels. You don't mention budget, and really we need a plot-and-adjacent houses plan to evaluate a lot of stuff. This look to me like a £2m-2.5m project, perhaps more if passive since everything will be slightly gold plated and perhaps ph-certified. That is based on average 150sqm per floor (arguably an underestimate) x 4 x £3k per sqm plus expensive bits such as the 4 storey lift and architect and extra height. I'm also thinking its a tightish streetscape for the size given the depth to width and the wise decisions to put habitable rooms facing forwards and backwards. For me it has the feel of one of those huge houses on a small plot on the way into London. You look at it, think "house", then realise it is like a tube of toothpaste squeezed sideways with an extra floor and twice as deep front to back as anything in the provinces, due to London land prices. I think the solar is imo marginal for a huge house - 10 panels is what goes on a 3 bed Barratt semi. I'd say you need 3-4x as much if you want to impact for bills and supply required; go for the full 10 kW peak install imo - if serious. Can you add more on outbuildings or the ground? I have 35 1mx1.6m panels on a big 4/5 bed house 1/3 of the size of yours. Unless these are special elephant sized solar panels? On layout I think you are under-living-roomed and over-bedroomed on balance. I think there are not enough separate spaces for people to get away from each other, except for bedrooms. IMO relayout the au pair lair with a kitchenette and sitting / dining area to give a private space. Should be doable in the same floor area, or borrow a little from the huge cinema. What is the reason for that glass ceilinged corridor in the cinema room? On minor stuff that will need detail sweating later that I noticed in passing, I think your bathroom door may clonk the knees (or the butt) of a bidet-user. Is your lift travel height (4 floors) beyond the domestic norm, and going to boost the cost? AFAICS a big travel distance is about 13m vertically - and you may just have squeaked in. I think I would suggest that, as often happens in self-build, perhaps space efficiency is not as good as possible - so maybe try to modify the plan to be 10-20% less floor area without losing any features. IME constraints are always good for architects. That could perhaps save £250-350k on the price if my numbers are about right. You can never do too many thought experiments in advance; its an insurance policy at getting things that you dislike when its too late. Wishing you all the best. Ferdinand

Reading that one (and off topic) I'm surprised the old scroat got off so lightly. He's done similar before going back 25 years, and clearly thinks he is above the law where the law is inconvenient for him, even when it comes to damaging an SSI for which he is responsible, a salmon (and other species) river. He has a long history of similar vandalism, reading the history. It was an open and shut case, as he entered a guilty plea - so the sentence would be more like 18 months than the 12 he received. Plus 1.25m court and reinstatement costs. I'd be happier with more like 4 years for a (£25m) multimillionaire who thinks laws simply don't apply to him. Pour encourager les autres. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-65339969.amp

You should not have chosen a user name "Rotating" wrt Pocster, who has a sense of humour like Just William accidentally corrupted by being lost in the Raymond Revue Bar for 25 years. You are most welcome, but please be aware of the conditions for non-commercial and non-service-promotion. Attempts to use the site for commercial promotion causes us problems sometimes, so we take a fairly hard line rather than getting into permanent games of whackamole.

Excellent thread. We have a newbuild-ish slightly down the road (I think it's sideways and upwards on a bungalow), for which purposes the peeps bought track 2 into the local allotments to give more space sideways. I (and my neighbour the architect) find it OK but uninspiring, and so much more could have been done. I have not told them my opinion, and see no reason to do so since it is quite unobjectionable. If I were asked for my opinion I would have done much more with the upwards extension, which is only going to the master suite, and could have had far more. But - not my place to say unless asked, or some other reason were it to impinge on neighbours. I might have been incliined to be a little less prickly with the PCC Chair, but I was ot in the situation. Ferdinand