Ferdinand

Welcome. I think your single most important step, if you have not already done it, is to go and look at one for your ultimate size of application installed in a site as similar as your requirement as possible which has been there for 5 years, and have an in depth conversation without the presence of a rep, particularly about the reliability, ongoing maintenance, and install costs on top of the supply of the unit itself. And about space requirements, since the 16 person Clearfox seems to be a bit of a chunk once assembled. I would be interested to hear the Clearfox price, as it does not seem to be widely advertised. We had a normal Aquatron at my parents home for up to 4 bedrooms, and that did fine for decades with zero maintenance except a once a year minor dig-out for compost. I am not clear why you are thinking about the stream - if it is as good as you say it is and you are on 20 acres, then a leach field or land drains should probably be good enough. I think simple septic tanks are now ruled out by regulations on output quality. On the electrics, the Clearfox EW16 Nature (is that the one?) technical data seems to talk about a "dirty water pump 230V", which is far better summarised by the German word "- Schmutzwasserpumpe 230V". "Ew" seems an excellent model name for such a device. Not sure what that is about. Check the datasheet section on this page: https://clearfox.com/en/domestic-wastewater-treatment/ . One question that some here have prioritised is whether you have to get down and dirty when doing maintenance. We have some threads which touch on this and some questions around sewerage treatment, regulations etc - I have linked a couple below, but you will need to explore if you have not done so already. The old Ebuild checklist has links to regulations. Ferdinand http://www.ebuild.co.uk/topic/18509-checklist-in-preparation-off-mains-drainage/

That was The Triangle in Rugby - at least the plywood chimneys were. They are now on about site 8 or 10. I tracked the the first few, and they did get better each time. At the start they were a bit gimmick-driven eg pocket orchards. Now they do far more in-house, and particularly thorough engagement and Design statements. But they are still in expensive areas. https://www.habhousing.co.uk/projects I am quite impressed with how he has driven it on. It is the type of smaller company we need another hundred of. Ferdinand

Isn't that actually 2 and cut as they are 450mm long?

Here is Eden Council's explanation. It may be called a "Predicted EPC" or similar https://www.eden.gov.uk/planning-and-building/building-control/building-control-guidance-notes/sap-calculations-explained/ Having read that, I am now thinking that it may not be quite as straightforward as I suggested.

Sorry. What I meant was that your Building Regs submission will have a document which I think says how much it is estimated to cost for energy. And you know what your current bills are. If you take the difference (which may be £1000 or more per year), add up that saving over say 25 years, it is perhaps more than the 20k you have just sunk into your foundation, and it may be a source of encouragement when the self-build blues strike. So you still are up on where you would have been, even in addition to the benefit of having a nice new comfortable house. It is a bit of a motivational trick.

Super.

If you have a heat model or Design SAP, running a set of numbers including the first 20 years of index linked energy bills can be encouraging as a self-motivation tool to look beyond the crap, when compared to the same for your current home. F

Keep in mind that there are thin wet ufh systems that will sit on top of the slab or suspended floor in addition to in-slab systems, as shallow as 18mm, and that they can be not much more cost than rads. Just flagging up the option. Obvs depends on slab build up and floor finish. There has been a recent post or two about a system by Wunda from eg @PeterW. Ferdinand

I don't know .. I will ask you in 2045 should BH still be running . Being a bit more serious, since so many people asking questions on BH are building low maintenance and low cost forever or retirement houses it is probably a good question to keep asking, along with 'where could the lift go should you need one in the future'. Especially given demographics and that as a country we will be working to get social care right for decades. From my own family one relation just about to turn 80 reckons that the good fortune of a house with a shallow staircase and half landings able to take a dining chair for a rest gave them years extra of being able to get upstairs reasonably comfortably. Thinking too about all those people stuck downstairs in terraced houses who are there for a decade or more stuck downstairs after they are unable to get upstairs due to injury or low mobility. Fit people, accident-free mountain walkers / cyclists, yoga / Zumba types / physical workers who keep within limits and dancers etc may be better off. Personally when I get round to self-building from scratch it will have potential full living facilities downstairs and lift-provision as I have a chronic condition that may eventually cause serious physical problems. Had a salutary reminder this week when a tradesman currently working for me has been off for 5 days because he did his back picking up an empty cardboard box at new year. Ironically it was exasperating an old "Good Samaritan" injury from when he lifted a heavy bike off someone being crushed after a motorbike accident 2 decades ago - so no more heavy work and a career redesign will be necessary for him according to the doctors. I guess there is similar stuff about landscape plans designed to need less maintenance over the years. I still remember a garden programme from the 1980s where 2 vigorous 6x or 7x year old golfing-type ladies described the garden of their shared bungalow as a Geriatric Unit designed to be adaptable to zero maintenance plus an occasional gardener as the aged. I love people like that. F

Have you had the 'relaxed staircase gives you 5-10 more years in your house' presentation yet ?

It does say If in doubt, Ask in large red letters in the notes, so presumably they welcome questions . On your roof windows, you could decide to leave your trusses exposed and insulate on the slope if you like that look. F

Get the swing doors like that correct, and you can go into it like Clint Eastwood into a saloon bar...

It does all seem remarkably complicated. What about one of those things which which give you both types of head at £80, as recommended by @Nickfromwales ? That is, thermostatic mixer showers. I bought 2 and they seem fine. What is mitre-ing the corner in aid of? Is it a sort of self-torture thing like building Blackpool Tower from matchsticks because you can, or is someone in the house octagonal on plan? Bemused. F

The trick I was talking about was to do a highish level bed platform in bed 4 built into the space in bed three where the medium or high levels cupboards would go over a desk or seat in bed 3, or a little lower over a bank of base unit type cupboards. So one gets a bed and other gets a desk or built in seat or low level cupboards in the same space on the plan. Just throwing out another idea, which may or may not be useful. I have not seen one of those for some years, but they seem to have dropped out of fashion whilst mezzanines are in. F

There is aiui no banner ads because there is no need at present.

Plagiarise plus donation to BH?

WHat are his recommendations? Imo you need him to say clearly that remedial ground works are unnecessary, or similar words, or how they can be made unnecessary which proposals you then incorporate in your plans, otherwise you could land a very expensive Plannign Condition from an overcautious LPA, added for mainly better-do-it-anyway reasons.

PS ON the skylight, none of the drawings seem to show where it is or exactly what size it is, so you may already have PP in practice to move it and change it. They are unlikely to enforce on the basis of 'it looks a bit different to me' where nothing is specified precisely. PS2 Do you really need 4 bedrooms? Bed 3 with an ensuite and not Bed 4 night be a better idea, depending on usage plans(?) Bed 4 does look quite compromised. Or leave it bigger with the option of a stud wall later. or even do the overlapping bunk bed thing, or put a sleeping mazzanine for bed 4 over all or part of bed 3 open to the rafters. I have not calculated roof heights for this last comment.

Cheers. this is where 3D CAD packages can be useful. OK. WOrking with the anti-clockwise version, which places the top flight of stairs in the same position on the x-axis on the plan as your half staircase, but 1m lower on the plan to be in the side gable bed3-4 part rather than the main block. We know that moving my red rectangle about 1m towards the top will place the top flight in exactly the same position in all three planes as the short staircase in your current plan, so we know that that will fit headroom wise if your existing design works The cost is that the staircase in my concept is now protruding into the main block of the house by 1m and the open plan layout is somewhat compromised, though less than in your original. The questions then become 1 how far that red rectangle can me moved towards the bottom before the headroom becomes unacceptable and 2 how can that constraint be mitigated to let the red rectangle be moved further towards the bottom or, more precisely, how can the stair tread to ceiling height be optimised at the point the staircase goes through the wall upstairs, such that the open plan living space is not compromised while still meeting both building regulations and the look and feel and flow you want for your house? things you have to adjust in this Chinese puzzle, assuming a hard constraint on the outside dimensions and ignoring an extra semi-dormer window because it looks twin axis and complicated, include: - thinner roof eg by using shallower rafters on that roof plane or section closer together and hence shallower. - less or thinner insulation in that part. - putting your skylight exactly above the staircase where you need the headroom. Glazed skylight is about 200mm thinner than a normal roof build up. This may be the simplest - get a non-material amendment for a larger skylight. - allow a step or three to run into the main block of the house upstairs ... no problem since it is basically a corridor there. Each step which runs into the main block will give you about 150mm of extra headroom at the wall transition. This may be the other simplest way. - make the floor of bed 3 and 4 a bit thinner or the ceiling in that part of the snug a bit lower. - make the top flight longer than the others to run into the main block slightly. That may impact your levels further down - very careful reading of the Regs, which often give you leeway in directions you might not expect. (I think there is also a totally different solution using staircases with winders, or even three x quarter-spirals, by treating the top flight as running left-right rather than top-down on the plan above. BUt it looks complicated to resolve and less elegant in circulation routes to me, so I will ignore that one) Ferdinand

Cheers. It is all very tactical, and depending on the material there are horses and courses. For a comparison this morning I can buy Knauf 12.5mm Wallboard, either square or tapered edge, for about £5.11 a sheet, delivered free if I order £300 for my bulky order. That is the indicated price minus normal bulk (6 for 5?), trade (10%), and gift card (another 10%) discounts from my local Wickes. http://www.wickes.co.uk/Products/Building-Materials/Plaster+Plasterboard/Plasterboard/c/1000220 That may not quite beat the price, but it may be more convenient. Others may well have better sources. There is quite a bit more on the Savings threads. For another eg, the Vapour Panel is £9.26, which is not quite as good. Unless you catch one of their 5% off trade specials, or 15% off but not trade days. Hope that helps. Ferdinand

OK. Let's talk staircases. Then I'll be quiet :-). If I fold your extra half-staircases into your main staircase, and move it into the dead space where that large lobby for bedroom 3/4 is (ie into the side block not the main volume),is at present I get a staircase concept looking a little like this, which for the parts you actually need (half landings are part of your existing floor) fits into a space of about 1.8m x 1m, while freeing up a significant space in the main volume. Notes at bottom. (Done in the Pears Stairs Stair Creator: https://www.pearstairs.co.uk/staircreator/) Fits in here roughly. Also a query on a bit of your structure - I am sure it lines up on scale drawings. Gains and Losses. + your main house volume becomes completely unencumbered. + gain space in snug by putting stairs in corner. + bedroom 2 becomes as large as the master + depending on the handing you select, you get a much bigger bathroom + no or minimal change to external appearance + I make it that you get up to +10% useable space for free + personally I think it unifies your design - extra care needed wrt rooflines and levels - perhaps Notes - That is just a concept which need playing with to optimise. I would want as open a design of staircase as possible (glass, metal or cable balusters?). - Care needed wrt to headroom at the top. Anticlockwise should be fine. Clockwise may need something like one of those semi-dormers at the top. - The actual thing is taller than my concept, as the Pears Stairs Designer has a height limit. Depending on F2C height, there may be more steps. - This is a house where you will be up and down stairs all the time. I would place a *very* high priority on shallow stairs ... 34-35 degrees not 42 degrees, even if it involved nobbling slightly into your main floorspace with the last stair or two - I think that would work design-wise. Shallow stairs make a helluva difference to perceived comfort. You could make the snug-kitchen run shallower than the rest - that would work and is where it is most needed. - Since it is perhaps a retirement house, do you need to think about provision for a future lift as well as stairs (ie do not put a steel beam across the future hole in the floor) I have shown the anticlockwise version above, so that your staircase is open to the space on the snug-kitchen flight to unify the space (gives a closet understairs in the snug), but personally I would go for the clockwise version, as it gives the extra space upstairs half to the family bathroom while still giving a bigger bed 2 / large lanbding cupboard. That would give you a nice walk-in shower in the bathroom, and more free space in the snug. See below. Ferdinand

Here's hoping they do not learn about how to write objections . F

How much is a whole pack of OSB or plasterboard per sheet? Roughly. It may be someone has a good source. F

I had to do an emergency boiler replacement for a T in late November. Had to go through one of the online sites and quotes were between 1900 and 4850. The existing would be 350 in Ariston parts plus labour plus at least a two week delay - not acceptable in a cold snap without hot water, and a lot for a six year old boiler. That was for a Worcester Bosch, and also a few bits and pieces, and some jury rigging of control systems. There were some control issues with the ufh that had been there for some time of which I was not aware. Part of the reason I was starting to ask about ASHPs. F

Finish that bathroom quickly, then.... ... and use it.