Ferdinand

Hopefully various bods here can help you do your detective work in the most useful directions. I think that whilst you have the budget to do it well, to keep to budget it will need to be done carefully to avoid sacrificing quality. And I think you do not have the budget to throw an army at it except for specific small projects. As it is a long term house, I would not want to sacrifice practical quality. It is a significantly large renovation (2000-2500 sqft?), so I would probably suggest some sort of phasing, based around what you actually need to have by Christmas plus stuff which is basic (eg structure changes for spaces you are renovating now), and the overall strategic things you need to do now. Overall things might be roof-repair, sort floors, perhaps rewire and reheat in part, and reglaze. F

That is perhaps a quote for an architectural view, by my eye - and may not pay sufficient attention to services and fabric. Does it have, for example, a new heating system included? And what work on the fabric? The new glazing? In my view, your ensuite and bathroom together could well come in at 6-7k for a good standard of finish. I have comments to make on the project sequencing etc later on, so I will leave that there. But more on that later. For now - given that you have a full QS assessment, which I think you mentioned, I suggest a quick "top slice" on some of that data - so that you begin to build an understanding of where your prices may actually be. By top slice I mean select a sample of items - say a couple you think you understand and every 10th or 15th in the list, and check what prices you can easily find for those. Create a spreadsheet parallel to the QS, and just start to make some quick comparisons with the best you can easily find online or locally - this is not to do with dissing the QS, which is still useful information, but building understanding of what you can do in your particular circumstances. Ferdinand

I think mainly depends how extensive repairs are needed. Reroofing the whole thing is going to be well into 5 figures at the very least, and it may be worth you buying your own scaffolding. If you are going to take the roof off, then you will want to insulate it working from the outside for some of your necessary increased performance. The sort of thing that can really derail this sort of project is if you turn out to have dry rot in lots of your joists, or similar. Btw Qs. 1 What are your floors downstairs ..solid or suspended? 2 How high are your downstairs doors? Can they be sensibly trimmed by much? Do you plan to keep them? 3 Has tour architect talked you through how to stop it costing a fortune to run, and what your statutory obligations are wrt u-values of walls and floors etc? Personally I would consider a full structural survey .. probably intrusive .. just to establish where my baseline is. F

Serious = something big enough to disrupt your budget, or fundamental things you cannot go back and do later eg if you needed to insulate under the floor. If there is anything known to you, then knowing helps us comment. Ferdinand

Yes, it would .. surely. ? Somewhere in the mix there will have to be at least £15-20 of time, and probably £5-10 of vehicle expenses, for each visit. Assuming 10 miles to town. Unfortunate, but unavoidable. In London they may still add x parking tickets per year to the overheads! (Ooops. Thought I hadn’t posted that.)

Welcome. Reposted from the other thread. ----------------- Right, useful questions. I think there are still a couple that you have not covered. 1 - Where are you *roughly* (ie county) for weather and Regulations background? 2 - Is it listed or protected in any other way? 3 - Can you upload a site plan (square drawn on a Google sat-view would do)? 4 - Is there anything serious wrong with it - are we into major floor renovation, new roofs, new windows etc? 5 - Are you in a compulsory rush, or is there a reasonable amount of time? 6 - Is everything roughly level? 7 - Can you give us at least a couple of known dimensions, which would really help? A scale if there is one in the top plan would do, or a room size or two. 8 - How many decades (roughly) is your planning horizon? Say 10 years, 25 years etc. The more we know, the better we can help you think. The general approach that often finds favour here - subject to constraints - is "fabric first", which prioritises long term easy-to-run-ness / liveability. I'm sure I saw something not dissimilar on Escape to the Country, over my mum's shoulder. So you are not alone. We are in the throes of redoing bathrooms for accessibility ourselves, as it was one of just a few things the previous self-builder got wrong (bath downstairs, shower upstairs). (Update - I see you have already answered some of these in the intro forum - cheers. Trust me to choose the wrong one.) F "A ‘fabric first’ approach to building design involves maximising the performance of the components and materials that make up the building fabric itself, before considering the use of mechanical or electrical building services systems. This can help reduce capital and operational costs, improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. A fabric first method can also reduce the need for maintenance during the building’s life." https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Fabric_first "

Right, useful questions: 1 - Where are you *roughly* (ie county) for weather and Regulations background? 2 - Is it listed or protected in any other way? 3 - Can you upload a site plan (square drawn on a Google sat-view would do)? 4 - Is there anything serious wrong with it - are we into major floor renovation, new roofs, new windows etc? 5 - Are you in a compulsory rush, or is there a reasonable amount of time? 6 - Is everything level? 7 - Can you give us at least a couple of known dimensions, which would really help? A scale if there is one in the top plan would do, or a room size or two. The more we know, the better we can help you think. The general approach that often finds favour here - subject to constraints - is "fabric first", which prioritises long term easy-to-run-ness / liveability. I'm sure I saw something not dissimilar on Escape to the Country, over my mum's shoulder. So you are not alone. We are in the throes of redoing bathrooms for accessibility ourselves, as it was one of just a few things the previous self-builder got wrong (bath downstairs, shower upstairs). (Update - I see you have already answered some of these in the intro forum - cheers. Trust me to choose the wrong one.) F "A ‘fabric first’ approach to building design involves maximising the performance of the components and materials that make up the building fabric itself, before considering the use of mechanical or electrical building services systems. This can help reduce capital and operational costs, improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. A fabric first method can also reduce the need for maintenance during the building’s life." https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Fabric_first

Don't be nervous - it's a constant theme, here. What will we all do in our dotage? My favourite response was Baron Morris of Castle Morris: "I have bought a small manor house in Derbyshire to decline and die in". It was in the village of Foolow. I heard about 8 years ago that his widow was still there, and was the official Duck Warden. My informant was a GP who was the Deputy Duck Warden, who was required - under the instruction of Lady Morris - to let the ducks out from the Duck House onto the village pond in the morning, and return them safely at night. Apparently Lady M is a character; hope she gets a memorial with a duck on it. (Matthew Parris has done something similar more recently.) I believe that the Duck House was bought legitimately, and not paid for out of Parliamentary Expenses. On the positive side, and before I make a serious response, if you *do* kill each other it will solve the budget AND the space problems . Welcome. Ferdinand

I doubt whether you will get the full responses. I would expect a confidentiality clause.

But sale prices could be nearly retail.

@Mrs S Some plan comments. Being provocative. To me that whole area around the garage / utility / entranceway / stairs is a bit of a mess. A rabbit warren that should deliver far more value for the floorspace. IMO: 1 - That garage is partly 5.1m long. May not count as a parking space. 2 - Why 2 loos downstairs, and that strange Jack and Jill upstairs? 3 - As discussed before, the insulated envelope is complex, as are the walls. 4 - That staircase looks tight for such a relaxed house. 5 - Balcony? Hmm - why? There is another bigger one within about 10ft on the other side if someone wants to use it. Personally I like the over-dining one. Suggestions: 1 - Upstairs, Drop the end balcony. Unnecesessary. Make it Juliets and get a bigger lounge, then you can sit on your inside balcony in the warmth with a cocktail in December with the same view. I would rearrange that window (offset or x2) so the room could potentially be split into 2 doubles / study(s) later. 2- I don't understand a shower-loo straight off a lounge. Feels like a bodge forced because the store is in the wrong place, @AnonymousBosch has one of these that will open up secretly like a James Bond spy complex, but with a specific reason. Split it into 2 - one for the bedroom, and a family loo off the hallway (rearrange plant room?). If you absorb the balcony into the lounge, you can nick a bit of lounge for the entrance if needed. Given that you are all ensuite, I would consider squaring that off with the lunge alcove and putting the *bath* in there, rather than in the master ensuite. 3 - Those stairs are too steep. Making them say 36-38 degrees will make the house feel far more luxurious. It just does. 42 degrees is for estate houses and developer boxes and if it cannot be avoided. 4 - Make the garage a real double - minimum size to count as parking spaces perhaps 6m wide x 5.6m long (ish). That will mean revising your attractive entrance route, but that will also help simplify and save. 5 - Put the obtangular insulated envelope around all of it, including the garage. 6 - Then fit the rest around that, which should be easier and a lot less expensive. 7 - Personally, put the garage-house door in the utility, and get rid of the second loo in the utility (if necessary put a door from utility - accessible loo). 8 - I like the Mackintosh-esque double gables of similar height, varying width on the top side of the plan, but having the eaves line lower seems to complicate everything with that roof. However, to change that would imo be very fundamental. I have now abolished your very nice drama-generating but somewhat crippling-for-everything-else entranceway - though I think a front door next to a garage door is rather too modest. I would deal with that by having a pointed or segmented arch entranceway (*) to the RHS of the garage, which would signal "front door here", either with a wrought iron or solid gate, and an entrance in the corner of the dining room / garage wing. If necessary add 600 or 900 to the dining room single storey bit to make it fit. If you wanted a covered walkway or arcade over the path there it would be possible now or later. I might apply a similar or echoing treatment to the heads of the garage doors, or the doors themselves. * I would have considered a round brick arch but that is more Surrey than Scottish. Though a round arch in a pointy-topped wall might work ... as I have sometimes (I think) seen on small clan burial sites. You have a lot on this thread - don't try to absorb, accept or reject in quick time - allow a couple of weeks and run some numbers. Look up Visti's cost reduction thread here: Ferdinand PS Have you provisioned for a lift / stair lift?

These are in Sheffield. Still need anything @Hecateh ?

A temporary cheap kitchen may be less complex, and save more money. For now.

There is good advice here. My comment is that is far better to do all this in your head and on paper than once it is built wrong and needs to be sorted, or if you have spent 60% of the money on 40% of the house. But you know that. My suggestion would be to self educate a bit more., then have it costed by a QS. The process itself will mean you cover everything thoroughly. My general opinion is that if you are working from a professional estimate careful thought and careful buying and self-project management should save 15-20% or more, but saving that cost will possibly cost you 1000 or more hours of time. More savings are possible, but they need to be identified. If you have a contractor things can still be done, but you are working at one remove. In the case you may want to hav3 a bonus clause. Two plan comments 1 - Including the garage in the insulated envelope is a no brainer because including it takes less cost than excluding it afaics - compare the length of wall - and saves megapfaff with insulating the ceiling. Put heating and insulation in the floor and make it the same as all the rest of the slab. Cost saving and more flexibility. 2 - There was an interesting steel roof product in the Grand Designs the Street Kevin McLoud programme, which looks not dis-simiilar and could save 10s of k over zinc. Wrt to architectural chats ..ultimately, who is the client? F

Check with your council.

Usually it will be about "Parking" and "(Private) Amenity Space" in sqm. The latter will exclude the former, and a lot of other things like area open to view, bin space, access paths etc. F

I think this is to do with the Permitted Deveoplment RIghts Introduced by the Govt in 2013 to allow office buildings etc to be converted to eg flats as of right. It was due to expire this month I think. But It has just been extended indefinitely iirc. Some 50k dwellings have been created this way over the last 3 years. There is a Commons paper about the current state of play published this month here: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01301/SN01301.pdf If you have any questions about the real detail of these measures then I would recommend the appropriate sub forum at LLZ where there are people who do this sort of project https://forums.landlordzone.co.uk/ There has been some kerfuffle in the papers because somebody found an Office Block in Harlow converted into ‘mini flats’ where some London Boroughs have been temporarily accommodating their homeless people / families. Claims of ‘social cleansing’ etc. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/16/is-harlow-being-used-to-socially-cleanse-london F

Ruffling feathers is good.

Yep - I would pretty much agree with some of that ... but they do let non-specialists loose are far too many technical subjects. ? And they do having a decades long habit of horribly inaccurate reporting on housing and rental subjects. Imay do a full evisceration of that article if 1-1.5 hours is available. Also to be fair - it is the easiest to read (as is the BBC) as it is open to any reader - the Telegraph and the Times are both behind paywalls.

It sees itself as Social Democrat I think, or 'Liberal'. Pops are not a problem; outright bullshit is a problem when it gets believed. Though the other types of papers sometimes fall down too in similar ways.

Fine. Your life, your call. But have half an ear to changing *some* things - the ones that are not fixed yet - midstream. On the MVHR, there are middle ways. One could be to provision just in case - fit the plastic ducts and take photos before you PB, so you know where to put them in later should you need. Another could be to fit single room Heat Recovery fans with background trickle settings. Whatever you decide, it will not entirely survive contact with the build itself. Ferdinand

Guess why I feel provoked?

Thanks for that. Currently out to consultation. For the record, the list of changes is: 2. LIST OF CHANGES 1. CO2 emission factors, primary energy factors and fuel prices, have been updated using the latest data available. The method to derive them is unchanged from SAP 2012 except for the fuel price attributed to electricity exported to the grid, which has been reduced to the electricity wholesale price. 2. The assumed heating pattern has been changed to a consistent daily pattern for all days of the week – previously a different pattern was used at the weekend. 3. Additional design flow (heat emitter) temperature options have been provided for heat pumps and condensing boilers, which affect their efficiencies. 4. Default heat pump efficiencies have been updated. 5. Default distribution loss factors associated with heat networks have been increased. 6. The calculation of lighting energy has been updated to allow recognition of new lighting types with higher efficacy. 7. The options for entering heat losses from thermal bridges have been revised. 8. An additional thermal bridge type has been added for junctions in roof-rooms which don’t fit any of the existing categories. 9. The calculation of hot water consumption has been adjusted to account for shower flow rate. 10. The treatment of mechanical ventilation system heat recovery and aerodynamic performance has been revised. 11. The default efficiencies of some solid fuel heating appliances have been updated. 12. The air flow rates associated with chimneys and flues have been revised. 13. SAP 2012 used a fixed assumption for the proportion of electrical energy generated by Photovoltaic (PV) systems which is consumed within the dwelling. This has been replaced by a formula which also includes recognition of the presence of battery storage. 14. The impact of PV diverters2 is now taken into account. 15. An option to allow the overshading factor used for the PV calculation to be taken from Microgeneration Certification Scheme data has been added. 16. The assessment of summer internal temperatures has been refined and the blind/curtain use factor has been revised. 17. The air-conditioning efficiency (‘SEER’) table has been updated. 18. The treatment of heat losses from heat interface units (used with heat networks) has been adjusted.

Inspired by *this* piece in a newspaper by Rupert Jones, I am compiling a Checklist of Items for testing the dodginess of an article. 1 - Is the author a specialist in the area being reported? 2 - Does the feature image actually relate to the content of the article? Is it giving a false impression? 3 - Does the Title represent the article accurately? Is it sensationalist? (The title is the snippet that will make Twitter). 4 - Does the "hook" (probably first sentence of paragraph) ask a relevant question? Or is it misleading? 5 - Is the killer fact to set the agenda credible? Is it anecdotal? Is it evidenced? 6 - Are relevant facts or information missed out when a point is made? Why? 7 - Are claims supported by linked evidence? 8 - Is anything simply wrong? 9 - Does the newspaper show any evidence of subeditting or fact-checking? This is a checklist and a work in progress rather than a scorecard; yet the article linked above scores about 12 out of 9.

A final query, @A_L . This is SAP 2012 - are we not on SAP 2018 now? (Admit that I am not familiar with the detail here. But I thought it changed.). Cheers Ferdinand