Ferdinand

Ok. checked and the product name is Nuance by Bushboard. https://www.bushboard.co.uk/nuance It appears to be some of patented wood fibre based core, so I had the wrong end of the stick. Thickness is 11mm. Any comments? Ferdinand

Sounds like they are looking like an excuse to say yes. Eventually you will get a hand emerging out of the top of the pile of paperwork, holding a sign saying ‘we submit’. Bit like Excalibur and the lake. ? And then they will go down for the third time...

Let's talk about heating systems and insulation. AIUI, GSHP is now really a niche solution, and ASHP more widely applicable. The complexities with GSHP are that you have to dig that damn great hole, that the special chemical to fill it all is pricey, and that it is more complex to maintain. ASHP, othh, is aiui a lot simpler and is more widely used. There are others on here who have had it for years. I have not done one yet since I have not done a reno in the last 12 months. The next one will have it. Listen to other bh people on this. I had a thread on BH here looking into ASHP for refurbished houses for rentals, in search of simplicity and getting rid of gas - which discussed some issues similar to yours. Both ASHP and GSHP attract govt subsidies under the RHI (https://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/scotland/grants-loans/renewables/renewable-heat-incentive), which could be £1000 a year or so in your case for 7 years (guestimate) - based on how much CO2 you save and your current EPC certificate. Crucial - get your evaluation done at the right time because if you improve the place first you will be saving less CO2 and will get less grant. You need to navigate the system to your optimum whilst following the rules. Discussed by me here, and read the comments from @joth: My impression is that you need to understand it, and then it is robust and fine. There are little wrinkles like you can get one that runs backwards for cooling in the summer. Given you do not know what your heating demand will be, and eg whether you will be going into the roof, then I would be leaning towards a bigger one - which is what will be specced if you evaluate before restoring much. For you, one issue is how much you will improve the fabric, and whether you go for ufh (underfloor heating) or rads. That is something we have not talked about, but ufh will struggle with a poorly insulated building as at the top end it runs at a lower temp and gives out less absolute that radiators. Hence why what you do with your walls floor roof matters. My view is that for now you need decide about floor and walls, and also think about roof insulation (but I would just repair the roof and park that until you are in). My comment would be to do a very good job on the floor with at least 100mm celotex / PIR between the joists, to give a u-value to enable ufh (issue is losing heat downwards). U-value would be about 0.19-0.20. That then gives a good base so you can think about the others, which look to be more tricky to decide. Walls would need to be internally or externally insulated - Internal now (50-75mm of celotex - approaching minimum newbuild standard) or perhaps External later. In a place with smallish rooms it is a tricky call because 3-4" can matter. But if it is solid walls you will need something to improve it significantly. External is expensive (your eyes, they will water), but a far better technical solution if done properly on a suitable house - needs careful thought. Internal is more established. Personally I would go for internal now, as that is also something that you can probably help on. (On a side note if you are improving your fabric then ventilation also must have attention, as if your house will no longer be horribly leaky you risk condensation). With underfloor insulation or heating, you also have the issue of those two solid-floored rooms and how you do those. My answer would be to put more insulation on top of all of it, plus a floating floor, run your electrics in channels around the internal walls under the floating floor, and use one of the overlay ufh systems (eg Wunda). You then trim all your doors by about 2-2.5 inches. The electrics underfloor worked on my latest refurb, and I will do it again, but it is a little unusual. I have not yet tried it with the ufh, as I was not satisfied that I knew enough about ASHP. I do not know anyone else who has tried this. Another way to tackle the concrete-floored rooms would be perimeter insulation installed outside the walls going down the face of the wall about 18" to 2 feet. That works (and you only have 2 rooms with short outside walls) if you have a water table below that but conventional workmen may quirk their eyebrows. So lots more to think about ... some of it before you actually do extensive new works 'cos you won't get another chance. Ferdinand (Everything on this thread is general advice /education, not recommendations - obviously - since we are all sitting in timbuktoo with personal opinions not having looked at your house in the flesh).

While chatting to my fitter doing the shower last week, he alluded to a new type of shower wall panel made from some sort of recycled plastic, which he compared favourably to the plywood core Multipanels. Does anyone have any idea what these might be? Cheers Ferdinand

Can you potentially use something like Snagit to capture a scrolling screen grab?

How does this design handle a typical family? Say parents, 11 year old boy, 15 year old girl? or those plus grandma and granddaddy? or plus childrens’ friends for a holiday? (Yes, I am positing awkward but typical use cases.) F

They do that so that a - They can control and defend it for integrity and trustworthiness reasons. b - They can charge you money for it.

That wasn’t the point. Perhaps I was not begin clear enough .. sorry. If someone is needing to use a wheelchair to get into the bathroom, then how will they bathe? Clearly they cannot climb into a bath. A wheel in or walk in capable shower will give you more market, and may give you a premium niche. perhaps amongst those with a frail grandparent or disabled family member, even respite care organisations. I have just redone one of my bathrooms .. downstairs ... to be a shower, because mum can use the shower, but not the bath. We have a walk in shower upstairs, but in due course she will have moved downstairs. If you want a bath, I would say a shower-bath in the en-suite. F

Dinning / Dining Your wheelchair accessible bathroom needs to be a shower room, unless you are providing a hoist and attendant. Do you have to apply for Change of Use PP to run it as a holiday rental business, even though no PP for the residential? F

My comments on this thread are: 1 - I think you have chosen well. (rightclick->searchbyimage on the floorplan took me - astonishingly - straight to your record on Zoopla). Inexpensive house in a nice village-town. South at the back. Needs reno - classic "unrenovated since grandma house in a nice street". 2 - I would concur with the above - live in it for a year doing minimal things. Don't do stuff that would be difficult to reverse if you want to do something different as that will throttle your dreaming. Get to know the area, and work out contacts and what your local ceiling price is (as a measure of what you cold do before the financial limits kick in), and what that buys. 3 - I would say there is scope for a big transformation should you choose to do it. There may be scope for profit should you choose to have that as an objective, or for a happy medium of what you like plus some free equity. 4 - Mine was done from a similar base (except south is at the front) before I bought it. 2 beds, lounge, kitchen, bathroom 1940s-50s grandma-bungalow. They absorbed the driveway into the house and made an internal garage, went back 5m across the full width, put a big front to back gable across 2/3 of it, then put a hipped roof at right angles. Ended up with 4/5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, 800 sqft to 2000 sqft. The recession meant that in the end he did too much for his return, and he had to cut his price substantially (20%) to sell it, which was - I surmised - a very bitter pill. Having said that, I had to drop mine by 25% to sell that, so it's swings and roundabouts. This maybe suitable for a classic fat-at-the-back modern extension, like every property programme for the last 20 years. You may have potential to do that should you wish, or anything in between. The key there is take the time to reflect and to think first. 5 - In your first months I suggest playing the "21 year old ingenue wanting to hear from experience card" with your new neighbours, to learn all about the community and what those with similar experiences did. You may also find out what you could do that will eventually make your house more desirable in the area - long term consideration, but good to think about. There will be much guff, but also much insight and much to read between the lines. Just like BH , but with free tea. 6 - Take care of your relationship. Building projects break relationships unless there are similar long term goals driving your dynamic together, not apart. Grand Designs the Street lost one out of ten, and several more suffered and came out stronger with scars. At early 20s it is the nature of things that your life-trend may not yet be set for as long as the building ownership could last. IMO give at least modest consideration to a setup in your project that one party can exit should the worst happen. I was formerly invested in a business where 2 long-term young friends went into it together. 4-5 years was fine, then they took on a better site, and signed a long lease. 6 months later one decided to change career, and left. It happened reasonably amicably, and no one turned bitter. But it was hellishly challenging for 6-12 months afterwards. The unexpected happens. Wishing you all the best. Ferdinand

Ok. Reflections. @dpmiller - I quite like that idea, but I would like to glue as well as screw (it is into plasterboard). There might be issues screwing through both sides if a clamp hinge for the wall attachment? Are there any pros or cons when attaching solid material to the shower screen that might cause it to shatter - eg if the angle turns out to be 41.5 degrees not 42 degrees? I have allowed .5mm over the 6mm thckness of the glass to give a slight "movement buffer" which will be filled with clear silicone used to bed the screen on the slot. Plus the screws will not need to be that tight. I imagine ally as a less forgiving material in this situation. (And TBH, having a 3d printed item is more fun.) @Temp The screws need to be where you have put them, as it will need to be on the screen first, and screws below will be left going at 45 degrees into the plasterboard due to the screen itself. To my eye the mechanical weak point is the close proximity of the slot for the screen to the screw hole, even though there is continuous material covering the gap for 90% or so of the length. If your judgement is that that will be strong enough, can we go with the design we have with the 150mm length reduced sufficiently to have it done with a single 10m pack. Do I get to choose a colour? ? White or cream ideally. Or "Jasmine" to match the grout ?. Also - shoutout to @ElliotS for kindly making a similar offer. Cheers Ferdinand

I don;t have faith in bespoke loos, having suffered from seat-drift on unusually-shaped loos. I have just bought *these* Ideal loos (£120 ea) from Screwfix, explicitly because *these* soft-close replacement seats can be purchased without a new loo. Bought 2 spares from the start (£45 ea) . There are other options if you dig, but that was recommended by my bathroom fitter as one previously used (so to speak). It's Marks & Spencer suits (2 x trousers) for bathrooms. Ferdinand

Thanks. Let me think until tomorrow ... going straight into plasterboard on angled surface, so a screw hole or two may be a good idea. Cheers Ferdinand

Not entirely sure that this is the right thread, however ... I need a custom part for my shower, and it strikes me as probably a 3D printable thing. I have repurposed the former hinged bath shower screen as the end screen of my walk in shower, as it is under the stairs. A side benefit was to be that the narrow 450mm entrance gap would you be opened a little wider for horizontally more extensive people, or putting a shower seat inside more comfortably etc. Due to a need to reposition the shower closer to the stairs, there is now such a minimal gap that I need to fix the screen in place, rather than let it move. So I need a part with a 42 degree upper surface and a slot to fit over the top of the 6mm hinged screen, which I can then glue or silicone in place. Pics and a diagram are below. Any comments on the material needed, the design, or offers if anyone actually has a 3D printer would be most welcome. happy to either pay or donate to BH. Cheers Ferdinand

If they are not protected by TPO or other designations (eg Conservation Area), then legally you probably can (that is general info, not advice). However, you risk making yourself unpopular and the Council could turn jobsworth on you. That was one to do some time ago if you were going to do it. If you will need a tree survey, and they have not moved quickly to TPO, I would perhaps get a rapid opinion form a local Tree Man (ask him the questions whilst you have him out to visit about / quot for the tree survey). Remember that we are still in nesting season, which will stop your treeman in his tracks if there are any active nests. Or signs of bats. Then make your best call. One thing to remember, is that when it is gone, it is gone - and if you change your mind again, you will be the poorer.

Looking at it again, you may be able to get something services wise (eg Consumer Unit for electrics) in the corner of the kitchen, because quite a lot might fit in the thickness of the wall where the existing door to the hall is as a shallow services cupboard. That is a good central point, the kitchen is the place with the most electrics, and the core of the house is actually relatively compact. I think this is avery beneficial idea. (On a more esoteric note, personally I would be doing a separate Electrical Consumer unit for the "flat", just in case I wanted to eg let it out later with a separate electric meter / supply, or split them and sell one off - making sure that such a unit could be connected to the front easily in future. But I am an LL in the day job and think about provisioning for that type of thing in particular. I would ideally split the heating systems too, but I do not think that is anything like as straightforward). Hmmm. F

All fair comment, though taking out a wall like that should only be 2-3k .. others here will have better guestimates. As for the other end, this is a few ideas which are different to what has been posted so may be useful. I started with replacing the garage door with a big window (again not that much money) including patio doors, and putting the boiler and utility room (as small as is practical) next to the bathroom (close to waste pipes etc), and working off where sunlight would be, and leaving to all more open (new walls cost money).The perambulation around the internal window from the hall to your space seems to me to be a bit crippling on the kitchen ... just put a door there and make it glass. I would also also look very seriously at ASHP and carefully consider the specification of the fabric, most of which you have to do now. I agree with you on the porch .. far more coherent an entrance than that placement of the boiler room, oil boiler apart.

One of the neatest ideas I have seen had a ladder to a storage mezzanine which had used the same mechanism as a sash window.

My view on your parent's side, which I haven't argued yet, would be to do the through room I talked about with the bedroom off, completely ignore the outhouse until you are all in, and fniish the through room and bedroom off to a standard that will not need updating again. If needed the outhouse at their end could be done without interfering with them and breaking through with one door when they are sent away for a weekend somewhere for a break. I was also going to argue that you should move into the Master bed + 2nd bathroom + existing kitchen to get in quickly, and do this thread-project later, but you seem keen on a posh kitchen diner now ?. Ferdinand

I think the first piccie in this thread gave a slightly misleading impression that it is nearly square.

I think this is roughly what we have once the doors and leantos have gone, and walls as per the plan upthread, leaving the pillar and a pier of garage wall at the bottom. I have left off the wraparound proposal at the back replacing the conservatory (ie windows and doors in that wall can be played with), since it is not built yet. North is to the right. Front to back is about 32'. internal Width of garage + kitchen along front wall is about 22'.

See the previous thread. Or One Proposal - bits are altered, but the kitchen area seems valid for the purposes of this thread. PS The "Warren" I was referring to was entrancing the house through the parents front door, Left into the current master, then into the rear hall - I was looking at the proposal above.

AIUI that is what Buildhub is all about. You get bombarded with enough vies to challenge you from all sides, including getting answers from you that you had not considered relevant. And you develop a bit of experience, some hinterland outside what you know, and end up in a position with a wider view of your opportunity so that you can make better decisions to get a better house for you. When you feel confident to make those decisions, and able to get them sufficiently right for your project, is the point at which you can move on and take the bits suggested that help, and reject the ones that do not. Essays are welcome if they convey information, because it is quite common that comments come back on the forum, and then the questioner produces a rabbit from their hat which invalidates the base from which people have been thinking. F

I don't understand how coffee can fit into a single full height unit; it requires at least 1m of worktop plus a decent sized cupboard. Coffee is a more akin to a dressing room than a wardrobe. On the topic, a couple of qs @Powerjen. 1 - Where will the main axis for people coming into your house be? The door -> Bedroom -> corridor is a warren. Moving the staircase would help that. A main entrance through a mudroom does not really suffice imo. 2 - What is the long term purpose of "Bedroom 1"? What is it for in 10 years time? 3 - What are you going to do in your kitchen-lounge-diner? How does it need to be zoned and to what extent subtly subdivided? You basically have a 20ft by 30ft space - what do you need to fit in there? Is there a list? 4 - Re: oil boiler. Do you have no gas, then? F

Ooer. Just bought some taps from the second one. About 6 lots. So, pay by Credit Card, and collect in person. F