Ferdinand

What a wonderful learning opportunity ! If you can't play the trombone, that will be an even better demonstration 😛. Or strangle a few elephants. Elephants are an essential tool for self-builders. They do far more around here than just be in the room and ignored in all our projects, donate their breath as a Farrow and Ball paint colour, and paint themselves pink.

Having used it for a decade, I'll be very happy to have something different ! Very fiddly, and difficult to read anything. That's one reason why I'm somewhat drawn to a WifFi linked controller.

My Honeywell CM907 controller has finally died (LCD screen). Can anyone recommend a good replacement option? I still have to decide whether I want a wired and fixed controller, or a wired base and WiFi controller. It is gas fired with ufh. Thanks Ferdinand

Welcome. That looks like an interesting old area (almost 'Open All Hours' as some are around here), where a couple of houses (or landlords) have cashed in their back gardens for a windfall. Interesting that there seems to be no off street parking, as would most likely be required now in that location. Possibly it is a bungalow due to light requirements of neighbours, either statutory or because they owned the plot. For acoustics I recommend the trombone. Very good for reminding neighbours how thin the walls are, and that they need to keep the noise down.

You won't know that until it happens. I'm expecting definite (and imo necessary, des[ite being a dyed in the wool small government man) hits on: - Electric cars. The govt needs, based on past tax, about £2.5k per car per annum, from somewhere around VAT / VED / fuel. And posh, big, expensive or new cars will pay more than the average. - Income taxes to be raised, though we have had that flagged already and there's a lot of fiscal drag coming in. - Capital gains tax and other capital taxes. Allowances are already coming down. I'm not clear whether Self build tax breaks will be reduced, as we currently do quite well from those. Personally I want the sort of wealth tax regime they have in Switzerland - which is low but progressive rates paid by a very large number of people, rather than eg soak the 0.1%. I'm also a fan of addressing various housing market distortions to tame the housing bubble, starting with CGT Main Dwellings exemption; no idea if we have any politicians with the balls to do that - but once it's done it won't be reversed. Whatever happens, Labour will tax/spend more than Tories. And electric cars will be hit from 2025 imo. You need to allow for the possibilities in your project, as further potential risk. F

Precisely. Somebody *else*. You are clearly too house proud and not stubborn enough 🙂.

Would I not want a repellent to drive them out, rather than bait blocks? Or is the idea to stop them chewing cables by diversion? Cheers F

Two wet rooms. So what about the cats? 😛 (Yes, I know your boss moggie lives in the sun lounge, but I have already tried that one on this thread.)

If this is your "decline and die in" house, have you considered a walk-in shower to replace the bathtub. They are transformative over a small shower cubicle. Complete with shower seat and grab handles and the rest, of course. F

Have you considered fitting the world's only room to room indoor catflap, if that would help manage the doors problem? 🙂 If you are worried about loss of heat to the sunlounge if that is where it goes, you can get passive house catflaps like the airlocks to spaceships - but that would require you to build an uber-thick inside wall to fit it in.

I think you need to have a quiet word with these cats; they seem to be a complicating factor. Can you move the litter tray to the sunlounge or the family bathroom?

Hmm. May have a problem. I am hearing scurrying noises above my kitchen ceiling. It has a bedroom above that. Concerned about possibility of rats or squirrels. The only obvious entry point I can see is the flappy paddle external vent from the cooker hood, which seems to be rather open. And a few weeks ago my neighbour gleefully brought a rat round in his trap to show me that he had caught in his lift. I do have a rat / squirrel trap inherited from dad, but I probably need to get an air pistol to kill anything I might catch - been wiffling about that one for a couple of years. How does one proceed? Especially given that winter will drive any pests to seek shelter. I have not detected anything not sealed behind the ceiling. Do I put one of those metal mesh vent covers over the top of the plastic ventilation outlet, or will that risk making pests die inside? Or do I clear all detritous from around that part of the garden first? All comments welcome. Happy to post pics. Ferdinand

If it's built, then grin and bear it. No one will do anything as they will call it de minimus. This was one to catch when you saw the plan, or when the foundations were put right on the boundary. Too late and not worth the aggro, unless you have a written agreement that says something else. You could say to your neighbour - "I think you got this one wrong, but I am not going to get into a big dispute about it." If you caught it before it was built you could have made them put the gutter on top of the wall, with appropriate flashing. I did that once to a neighbour in 2005-6, and their house since changed ownership, and no problems since. The one thing I would check is outlets. Where the runoff goes - it does go to their property? If it goes to yours they could end up with a prescriptive right to do it forever. And also if there are any fan outlets or gas boiler outlets coming onto your property? You need to be aware and make sure you do not block said outlets. F

If you are worried about joints, can you not have porcelain and all wear Garfield slippers 😁:

I have the privilege of being wifeless. Though up until a couple of years ago I had a mother in the house, which is perhaps more challenging. At least with a wife you have the *illusion* of being an equal.

You need to plant twice as much Lleylandii as came out 😛.

Having been paged by @jack, my concise thoughts are these: - Your challenges are around costs, and that the value of houses in the SE are predicted to decline by 9% over 2 years at a time of 10% inflation, and you need to make the numbers work. So potential greater variability to manage / exploit. - The risk is around how much you can afford to lose, and whether you can commit to it as a 10 year or 20 year home to salami-slice that risk over time. - OTOH costs may work for you or against you by 10-30% depending on how focussed you are. It is always possible to spend time to save money by looking out stuff at 1/3 below market price. - And you can look at our 2 offers of the week and money saving (eg Wickes Trade Account) pinned threads in the other forum. As this is a huge project, you may get years of air travel by using a points credit card etc. https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/forum/48-general-self-build-diy-discussion/ What do I suggest: - You need to gear up around your benefit (house value) or cost (money you spend) being variable by perhaps +/- 20% on both ends. At the worst your balance could be -1/3 or best +1/3. - We already have house prices forecast to fall by 9% over 2 years before recovering. Could affect borrowing ability if you may need it. - Expect a shift to capital taxes. People like me are arguing in all the forums where I am active for Council Tax to be replaced by a 0.5% of capital value tax, and personally I'm arguing for CGT on main dwellings as a way to de-bonkers the housing market. Tories won't do the first of those; in 2024 we likely get a Lab govt and they *will* hit capital in some way, especially cash rich people like you. What does all that mean for your project? - Plan it so you can achieve the outcome you need (depends on how much you really are just in cash) and can ride out challenges around potential changing costs and values. - I'd say consider adopting the Royal Navy technique of "for but not with". An example would be to do your fabric work on Barn 2 as it may be more efficient to do both, but don't commit the 30k to fit out your gym until after the main project outcome is known. You can do the same with bathrooms. But bear in mind that some stuff can be done inside your VAT zero-rated self-build benefit - eg built in loo / bath for the gym, maybe wall-bars or exercise racks, but not portable rowing machines. - On a project this size I'd seriously consider a Project Manager, either part or full time. - Depending on your barns, can you sell Barn 2 as a separate plot with PP if you can get it? That will be worth loads. - Use higher contingency than usual, and have lots of bits of your project that you can do subsequently whilst still leaving a project that does not look half finished - just in case you need to bail. Summary My core point is that you need to design in the project flexibility that you may need. As ever, the old sore applies - the two things you have to manage throughout in addition to your project itself are RISK and MONEY, and the balance between the two that matches your circumstances. F

I think all of these can be decent ideas. I like Porcelain tiles (typically whatever is the Wickes half price if OK, or a trade supplier) or Quickstep laminate, which last time I used some had a 25 year warranty of sorts, and has lasted 5 years in a rental unspoilt. I used it in the hall / kitchen / bathroom alongside carpet in the living room and bedrooms. LVT seems fine. Think about it from the other end - do you want something soft to avoid crockery-smash, or what? F

No disrespect, but if you have to tidy up for them then they are not real family 😁. According to the ghost of my mum, the only person you *really* clean up before is the .. er .. cleaning lady.

I think this revolves around: 1 - Is the change a real problem in any respect? (important) 2 - Will they be able to see it? F

The post you linked contains revision note up to 2020, so I assume it is. F

On insulation, these are levels by house type etc from the 2022 English Housing Survey. Again there is still much opportunity, but we have a lot of the low hanging fruit already. This table really rewards detailed study - for houses with trad lofts we are down to 10-15% only having less than 100mm . The tough ones are the hard-to-insulates. Solid walls, no loft, flats etc.

I think those claims are somewhat overegging it, and perhaps overstating the potential. But I think it depends what you are talking about reducing - presumably the heating cost on a totally uninsulated house? You won't achieve that when the traditional model for a trad house (eg as used by Energy Saving Trust) has 25% of heat losses via air leakage, and some more (10%?) via doors and windows which can't be insulated. If working on overall society-wide numbers we also need to remember that the average EPC number is already up at around 68, so we already have a big chunk of the low hanging fruit. This is the shift from 2010 to 2020. It becomes more difficult and far less cost-effective once your trad house gets to a C, and we will need to rely more on decarbonised energy supplies there. F

The UK Govt has been targeting heat pump manufacture in the UK for a couple of years now. My impression is that there was a slow target - 600k per year by 2026 rather than by say 2023 - partly to let UK manufacture ramp up more. In the context of our economic pivot away from the EU single market that makes sense. There were announcements in the budget back in 2020 iirc. They have a carrot - £5k grants and eg the £1.8m of support funding indicated for Mitsubishi in that piece, and a stick - which is the new gas boiler ban. And security of policy I think. That latter gives manufacturers a point at which their new boiler business will turn into a pumpkin if they do not move forward. Plus stuff like zero VAT-rating on energy improvement products. I'd expect that to succeed to some quite significant extent. There's a way ahead and a kick up the Rs. Obvs the media will whine and whinge like a labrador denied sausages, but our media could not write a fair story about a government policy if Mack the Knife was holding a stiletto wrapped in barbed wire to their backside. And I think lobby and green political groups position themselves to say Mooaaaarrrr !!, not "here's a start; let's think about how far we can get". The one thing we know when any groups is interviewed about anything whatsoever is that the interview will contain a large element of "we demand that we get even more taxpayers' money than this for our cause and our organisation". That unfortunately is just the poisonous nature of our political culture. F

I don't think they will move that fast. Octopus are making a very big play imo to dominate the developing microgrid, so they will want to keep their offer very attractive for self-generators. There are only 1 million solar exporters at present, and whoever locks in that market will get a helluva leg up. I can also see them trying to get Ovo, for example, at some stage - but may attract regulatory attention. They have been happy making losses to date, and will be so for some time more. A key hinge point will be April (or rather the budget in March) when the current support is reviewed. And I'd see wholesale prices staying high for some time; the Govt will be quite desperate to keep their expenditure down, whilst balancing that with making inflation come down rapidly. The forecasts when the support packages were announced were 5% off inflation. FWIW I think that serious powercuts are very unlikely; we have spent this year propping up the European Grid and Gas Network, so I'd say we have plenty of capacity if necessary. The only real issue I see is if Putin starts sending subs and ships after interconnectors and offshore cables, and I suspect he has been told that if he does that then there will be a *serious* response. Ferdinand