Ferdinand

Great attitude. It is far better to have more feedback and reject some than to not be told things and find out later that you really needed that extra insulation underneath your now-built house. F

You need one of these for your lounge to lower the floor level !

i can not find a clear reference on BH, but this thread on GBF includes some clear explanation. http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=10829 F

To add one more, I would think about a full size glass panel next to the door in the studio, to get light down to FF. As you are arty Types, what about stained glass or even etched glass (my favourite). F

An elevation or two would be very helpful, too. To me it looks like a very good, effective plan for London ... up rather than out; the opposite of a traditional city gent ... and fully exploits the plot. The orientation is good, as you will not have direct sun at midday on any side, and you obviously know about light in studios. On specifics: 1 I think you perhaps want something to allow use of space outside the kitchen in light rain, evenings or winter for eg meals, parties or gardening activities. Perhaps a pergola? 2 I think provision for a shower in the downstairs cloakroom is important. Muddy dogs, disabled guests, future old age etc. 3 I a not sure that those stairs will take a stairlift, so you will perhaps need to identify a possible location for a future lift .. which is a better idea than a stairlift anyway, and is a good thing to be in a 3 story house, especially in London, and especially if you have oodles of kit and stock to take up to the top floor for your craft activities. It is a massive advantage to plan for that from the start. 4 The garage and carport look pretty good in design, but do consider maintenance of the wall and windows above - provision for a walkway and ladder stand up there? 5 I concur with Agent Epsilon that you could benefit from facilitating future rearrangement to a more usual Master Suite plus Hoi Polloi plan; the current one feels a little too egalitarian for what the market may want in future. 6 I am not really convinced by the inner landing, especially as it is large. if you turned the two ensuites by 90 degrees you could have larger bedrooms and keep the same ensuites, or shuffle the staircase along and make 3 beds 3 and 4 larger. IT might be an idea to use the extra space to give a big joint walk in wardrobe that could be repurposed as a dressing room in future to make one of bed 1 or bed 2 into a master suite in future. You still get a slightly smaller inner landing. Another option might be to make bed 3 and 4 divided by a well insulated stud wall that could be removed later, which would give a master suite with his and hers ensuites. Very luxurious. 7 I think the house would significantly benefit from fixing a way to get more light into the central spaces on the Gand and 1st. lots of ways to do this, but this reply is long enough already. 8 Do you actually want a cloakroom in the studio now, so you do not have to go downstairs when you are in full creative flow? 9 I think the his’n’hers loos in the family bathroom are innovative and completely darling . I’ve been imagining the tortured faces that Geoffrey Palmer would have been pulling having a conversation with Wendy Craig trapped in such a bathroom in Butterflies, presented in a letterboxed talking heads format, but even Carla Lane did not think of that one; it would have been a slightly different sitcom. Finger trouble in the symbol box in Autocad? Rejig that, perhaps in conjunction with a minor re-layout of the 1st floor, and you could have a 4 piece suite with bath and a large shower in the family bathroom. I do like it all. Ferdinand

This needs careful thought as to access and use. E.g. IF she is going to be up there when callers arrive it will be a right pain, but given your site you may have a videophone half a mile away like the Men from UNCLE. Also if it is intended for storage etc or slightly heavy kit or use later in life then good access is required suitable for carrying steam powered sewing machines or rails on the stairs for grandma when your wife is 75. There might be mileage in finishing off after sign off or calling it a storage platform. Ferdinand

It would be useful to know more about your plot, but... if the plot is a subdivision of land which has had access unrestricted for 20 years, then you should be OK if you can prove it, as access rights would run with the land. Equally if it is a separate plot which has also had the same access, then you should be OK. But you need to be prepared in case a poleaxe emerges from somewhere, such as a permission letter from the owner acknowledged by the previous owner. ideally you want a couple of signed Statements of Truth from long term residents or previous owners in your filing cabinets eady to be revealed to whoever makes a fuss. If you are building in your in-laws former garden then a statement from someone who is outside the family would help. On the services, I am not sure what rights are inherited, or what you can run as sub services from your inlaws. I would love to know on that. Also, providers may have some rights to run services for a new dwelling, but may not wish to use them. F

if I did a post like that, it would be a telltale that there was something useful I was avoiding doing. Good posts. @zoothorn take a look at doing perimeter insulation a la Ed ... may be worth thinking about, but you would need to perhaps combine with some sort of thought through floor covering to give a warmer feel. Cork tiles might do it, or some sort of cushion floor, or a minimal thickness floating floor which would feel warm even though that on its own would not fix your insulation issue, 25mm pir and laminate click-fit would do that. Your issue with perimeter insulation may be that there could be no or minimal foundations, so it will risk destabilising something. If so, digging up internally would be better as perimeter insulation will need to be perhaps twice as deep. On the height ... just to check. Do you have exposed beams, or are they actually covered over with eg plasterboard. If still covered, removing the boarding and reverting g to a beamed ceiling would perhaps help the ‘feel’ of the room. My former cottage was 7’4” between beams AFTER the ceiling boarding had been removed, with the central beam being about 6’6”. It is now rented to a short tenant. F

HNY Zoot. Tell us about your floor. How do the levels and heights work? Can you go upwards instead of digging? F

I think it is a little disappointing in saying that modular homes are quite such a new thing, and there seems to me to be a fair bit of huffery-puffery going on. Not that penetrating an analysis for the In Business thread. I think what is happening now is a popularisation rather than a whole new thing. This for example is from the Egan Report (1998): and Space 4 in Castle, now owned by Persimmon, have been going for approx 20 years, with onsite construction from kits to weatherproof in a very few days years and years ago. One difference now is that the prefabs are more like the systems pioneered by eg Whitbread or Hotels, where things come in as "rooms" or "quarter houses". One downside is that they are turning high value jobs into low value jobs, by deskilling for factory manufacture. Good or bad? But as to whether it will increase quality. Hmmm. And I see no plans to tackle the Planning System, though Councils giving themselves permission can presumably wing it, and avoid Section 21 etc overheads. Ferdinand

THe 'Productivity is Falling' claim is interesting, I wonder how that was measured?

@LearningCurve One option which may help and has not been mentioned is to use what we call Skirt Insulation ... that is vertical insulation down the outside of the foundations. That is used for renovating and improving existing properties where the floor cannot be lifted as part of some External Wall Insulation projects. You run say one foot of EPS insulation along the outside of your house wall below ground level to the bottom of your foundations in a trench with a drain at the bottom ... a French Drain ... to keep it dry, to lengthen the perimeter heat loss path so your floor loses less heat. Over time the earth under your house warms up to higher than its normal temperature. The constraint here will be whether your ground conditions somehow inhibit that tactic. Ferdinand

Equally that means that if you do or the immediate people by agreement do something, then no one can enforce on you either. F

Your spec is ... as highlighted ... roughly Building Regs basic. That concerns me given your original aspiration to be Near PassiveHaus spec. Are you actually getting what you think you are getting? If you are not, then you need to stop now and reoriente / check your expectations, as every project stage will reduce your scope for correction, and related costs will increase by several time at each stage. Without running any numbers, I would estimate that this design will have you with energy bills of more like £1200-£1500 than £400-500 per annum. Not a problem if you are expecting it, but a surprise if not. Estimate or measure 10 times, build once. Do not feel got at ... all of us here have made various choices that could have been done differently to save 4 or 5 figure sums, and tried to learn from them. For self-Builders we usually only do it once, so need to learn and apply the lessons from others before we make any mistakes, as we do not get the chance to learn from our own mistakes or sub-optimal decisions. Wishing you a good New Year and the very best of luck. Ferdinand

And get the right music for the cabin if you get a posh one.

Thanks all. I have found doing functional training - and in particular using weights from 10kg up to 70-80kg around for the different exercises - useful generally for knowing what will work for me and what is foolish to attempt. Personally, as a non-sporty desk-jockey I have always been a little inflexible (not quite Ent, though), and Yoga stretches and torture postures. I now sympathesise with flamingoes. I have also picked up on the importance of warmups and warmdowns. Ferdinand

For the insulated one my approach was to notch the (obv. tanalised, probably 200mm x 47mm in your case?) joists, leaving them some way proud of the wall plate. That lets them sit whilst you fix them. I also used mini joist hangers that were only a couple of ££ each (Wickes?) to make it rock solid. This means you can fix your box-section directly to the joists. It is important to match your joist spacings to where you will want to walk, but also to the down bits in the corrugated - box section is more forgiving that trad. I would use the OSB for a ceiling finish or just not have any. I think full sarking is gold-plating for a possibly temporary garage, unless you want to walk absolutely everywhere on it - and as you say you lose your ventilation that way and any moisture that gets in could condense. Ventilation I left the corrugated approx 25-50mm short of the wall for ventilation, and expansion if necessary, then flashed over that with wide enough Ubiflex (now I would use the middle spec as it is more malleable), leaving the ends open with insect grilles. I arranged a slot outlet at the bottom end of the roof. Then I insulated between joists leaving a 50mm gap (I used 100mm rockwool and a staple gun), membrane beneath that attached to the bottoms of the joists, then any finish (I used hollow plastic fascia board). I used a combination of lights on the walls and joists, and external lights wired on the joists. I made my finish removable where needed - any fixings will be in lengthways tension, so you want screws anyway. This gave me a conservatory - lounge type space that is happily used for dogs and people all year. The only limitation is that it will overheat in very high summer when the sun comes in - that was for 2-3 weeks last year, so I would have provision for a lot of ventilation (2 sets of doors each end?) if required or close it up and use a portable aircon for those rare occasions. This one is North-West facing and fine all winter; it does, however, have insulation (75mm Celotex) under the floor over the slab. I used mini shed guttering from (I think) B&Q. I would also consider leaving an overhang at the lower end if you can - perhaps 0.6-0.8m - for standing or leaning things with or without tarpaulins that need to be kept out of most of the weather. That does leave you with a question about mounting guttering though. If you put a silicone nipple or part-bead under the end of each corrugated trough it helps control random drain-off or track back and keep moisture off your timber. In my case I could not find a happy way to mount the gutter on my roof, so I did not do an overhang. Ferdinand

Just musing. @Sue B said on another thread. This is a comment from one of the thirty-something girls at our gym after New Year. We have seen a few injuries reported on BH around backs, lifting, muscle pulls etc, in addition to the rips and cuts and falls and cracks. Is there mileage in specifically looking to get a bit fitter, learn about lifting etc before starting, especially as there is something of an overlap between self-builders and the type of people who perhaps have more sedentary office-based jobs? I have done more gym-ing / cycling / dancing and so on over the last several years, and I find that while I am not comfortable moving eg plasterboard around as my builders tend to be, I am much more comfortable hefting things like 20-30kg packs of flooring etc around, than used to be the case. Having done some weight-lifting and flexibility work at the gym has been a real benefit. Professional tradespeople, another self-build demographic, are probably better on the general fitness and manual handling side, but it seems to me something that professional chair-sitters, keyboard warriors or more elderly potential self-builders might find a benefit here. Thoughts? Ferdinand

Yes, most definitely talk and keep talking, and ask explicit open and closed questions as appropriate. E.g. CAn you take me through the feedback received, and What is your feeling about the proposal, and Can you think of any improvements. You need to know what is in all the objections (also ask about verbal feedback received), and what her ideas are going to be, such that you can address concerns with your solutions influencing hers not having hers imposed on you - which is the default if she does not know what your ideas are. Once a decision is baked in a notice, changing it is a long and painful process. IT is much better to pre-negotiate. You need to be polite but not bootlicking. You also hopefully have a couple of WIBNIs in there that you can negotiate away if needed to preserve the Must Haves. F * Wouldn't It Be Nice If.

WElcome to the forum, @slridg. Roughly, UFH with basic Building Regs insulation levels is quite sub-optimal, and with no insulation at all .. or imo cutting pipes into already minimal insution ... would be a USA 1970s style of mad, as you lose much of your expensive heat through the floor. 30mm is not a lot of insulation, and I think as it is a whole thermal element unless it is completely floating you will need to comply with Regs, or do it so as a separate exercise perhaps before BC arrives or after they have gone. I think that given the size of the project, a careful reconsideration of heating strategy may be appropriate to get something good enough for the overall enterprise. WIth those minimal heights available I think, if you are going ufh, you need to consider using a thin ufh system that fits into 18mm, and a laminate or similar floor, rather than screed and tiles. I think even 40mm is very tight for ufh. Are your door heights generous? For UFH I would be wanting a minimum of 100mm of Kingspan or equivalent and that would perhaps not be enough to make me happy. I think you would be best to take a step back at this stage now that you are well underway, and do some thermal analysis of your completed house .. also taking into consideration what is happening upstairs i.e. Ufh, rads or what? IT may be that digging up those floors is a beneficial option. And what is your planned heat source? My house is very similar to your project ... double fronted 800sqft bungalow taken up to 2100 sqft with a new storey, though renovated by someone else. One issue will be your control system for upstairs vs downstairs on a relatively low spec build, and how to stop it being f%:;()£&g complicated. I have oversized rads upstairs and ufh downstairs, a BFO Combi Boiler, and two entirely separate control systems. Functional, but not ideal. For here, a plan or two, elevations, cross-sections,, a couple of pics and a rough location would help the thread and the feedback. You would be more than welcome to come and visit me if you are near Notts. I would also recommend that you visit someone with a similar build but a simpler heating system. You can get a thermal modelling spreadsheet from @JSHarris' blog, linked from his signature. Ferdinand

IIRC, @JSHarris has 6.5kWp of solar. Can I interrogate this number, Jeremy? I think the last thing I saw from you on Energy Costs was this from March 2017.: Am I right to think that your +£200 here is a delta, and that the context is that your balancing financial position (PV revenue - Energy Cost) becomes £200 better, in this case by taking that off the money you are paying out. Cheers. F

Sufficiently light such that one man with climbing equipment, a block and tackle, and oodles of safe lifting experience can do it in under a day and survive intact . What we need is a planning regulation that requires one of those Georgian Warehouse Hooks and a Capstan in every self-built dwelling.

Are you better with one of the cans rather than a gun for this, as they come with a flexible drinking straw that can be bent further into the hole more easily? Is that any advantage in these circs? Or can a flexible nozzle for a gun be manufactured / repurposed?

I have lined with hollow shiplap plastic fascia board before now. It works out at about £6 per sqm, can be wiped or even hosed clean, and does not suffer from mould or deterioration if it gets damp or wet. I have known it used successfully for eg The ceilings of bathrooms in HMOs subject to much abuse. Ferdinand

Happy new new year all, particularly Russell (!) .. take up fishing for calmness. And I am sure you can water ski in the space you have; set up 2 tow-stations at either side of the pond and have a party. What a good thread. Me, I hope for a renovation or two in 2019, and to do a loft conversion I have started thinking about. 2018 was a stressful year for nearly everyone in my circle. Personally and family wise, I want far fewer medical issues, to get my sleep patterns sorted after a hospital spell in 2018, and get a holiday or 2 in, and some BH build visits - I managed to get to three or four this year and it was really enjoyable. Business wise, 2019 is the critical year in the growth of the gym I sometimes chat about. We took a huge risk by jumping to a two-levels-up venue in 2018, and this year we should break through to be a larger operation employing staff and offering a wider range of services. And I hope to start a blog under the moniker This New House, for musings and to recycle some of the 12k+ posts I have in various building type forums. There must be at least 3 which are worth preserving. Ferdinand