Ferdinand

Mine doesn't but I tend to have 1 or 2 every year. And he may get some useful stuff the other way. He does well on Google as they are called "Energy Performance Consultants" ?, and he is a former senior policeman in his second career. F

Thanks. I'm quite keen on considering orientation, sun, view, overlooking before thinking about "this cupboard is in the wrong place". But the advantage of BH is that you get good support on both sides (winks at @ToughButterCup), and we all have different angles. As a concept design it is important to remember that this is the architect throwing thoughts around - a sighting shot, and your role is to be an active client and give vigorous feedback - not be a doormat. I hope that is not taken the wrong way, but it is a common thing for self-builders not to be assertive enough and end up with the architect's vision, rather than their vision made workable and inspirational by the architect. Tea now with Any Questions. Brief comments later. I wonder what @the_r_sole or @AliG has to say. Both very good at this.

I mentioned micro-hydro before, and it has got lost on this thread. If there is that possibility even 80-100w can make a hell of a difference in winter, and is complementary to solar. The blog I mentioned before has a lot on there buried quite deep.

I'm being thick, but which side is the front for "facing" purposes ? Is it "facing" the lawn and the trees? So the orientation of the "Ground Floor Plan" you just posted is NE towards the top? Would you mind posting a copy of your design brief, or the short summary thereof you gave to the architect? I'm thinking there are possible position-on-plot and orientation issues here that could make your house much less livable, but I don't want to give you a half-baked reaction that I can't justify.

Easy peazy.

North arrow? Is there a location plan showing site boundaries?

@Codydog I hope it is still the size you told Planning it was going to be ?

You may get some good ideas by looking at a few episodes of Your House Made Perfect, which gets 2 architects to do designs on a project and presents them in a virtual studio. One architect is normalish, and the other is nutter-ish, so it is a good balance. And the client gets heard for once. I recall one or two good ones long, narrow places.

Get 3 estimates and show him the biggest one and ask him to take it off the price .

In one case I quote, yes. But it may be different things in different houses for me, and there are all the houses in the PRS with similar questions. And beyond that all the houses in the OO sector when someone finally gets around to applying a stick to get the quality of those improved. So underneath there is an important fight for the principle. Perhaps Councils will shift their position when they are overwhelmed ?. The current houses of interest are between 1850 and 2010.

We'll see. I'm expecting "prove you own it", and some gubbing about copyright. But I want to explore / map the process and the thinking. The copying cost should vanish when I request a PDF. Accepted, that they may say "you can access these documents through XYZ chargeable process." I've been on the fringes of MySociety for about 15 years, so I have some involvement with this kind of thing. I will copy correspondence here.

If you aren't buried in the bodies of the millions of birds that are killed by the turbine in the 10 minutes you are there.

Try 1: FOI request submitted to my local authority, to see what they will send me:

Generally agree on EPCs. Some landlords are wanting more exemptions, and at the new cost cap that you don't get an exemption until you have spent 10k - consultation is out to increase that from the current 3.5k. They are trying to shoot the messenger. Presumably falsifying an EPC is essentially fraud on the person buying the house. On the approved designs my view is that the common good simply requires these to be public documents. As for planning. I can see no good reason for concealment. If I can take a building to bits and discover your detail, I don't see why the docs held by the Council should be hidden. That argument is strengthened by eg Grenfell. If those docs had been public, would it have been spotted? The Mail argument that they make no attempt to evaluate lifecycle carbon use is as relevant as arguing against cats because they can't fly; that's not what it was for. And of course it does assess carbon usage, as there is an Environmental Impact algorithm and number included, and even the RDSAP method is full of it. And if they want more they can pay £300-400 for a full SAP calculation.

Engineering Approximation of 100% ?

2.5 kWh per day is only 204 W ie 0.2kW, so that is quite possible. In old money it is 2 lightbulbs. If you put a 25% tolerance on your guesses, that could be half of it.

1.The plot already has full planning permission , we would just need to make some design changes to meet our needs, how long could that take? 2-5 months once you have your changes in your hand. Depends if they are minor or major. 2. Anyone had success with getting decent broadband into a rural area? How did you do it? Running a business and 2 kids makes this as essential as running water! Yes Others will comment on your area. 3. Living on site? If we bought a static, how easy is it to get connected , permission to live on the site and can you have a caravan as an address so you can get post? Living there seems to be JDI in most of Scotland. Usual for power on Buildhub is I think to connect to a kiosk at the boundary, then get your lecky to run what you want where you want it. 4. Self build mortgages for people who run their own business, where to start? Small building societies UK wide, search on here, esp. try Ecology BS, or a broker. Avoid Buildstore. 5. We intend to do a lot of the work ourselves, what is a realistic cost psqm? My architect reckons with current rise in costs the lowest we could aim for is 1500/sqm. Others will comment. 6. ANy other general advice? Take time to get it right in your head. Cheaper than building it and having to live with a cockup or redo.

Thread is 2 years old.

Are you sure he didn't mean improve either a) the EPC number or b) the environmental impact, as solar panels don't really reflect on energy efficiency, as they generate extra free, clean clergy which is pumped in? Solar panels are a well-known EPC level dodge. A bit pedantic, I admit. (Interestingly, my EPC advisor today said that he thinks non-MCS installed solar panels do count towards the EPC improvement.) @micheal300 Is that Heat Pump a bit small? (Just my gut feel). Imo 15 years ago was before most of the significant improvements came into Building Regs (I would date it at around 2010 when energy efficiency became required to a half-decent standard): https://cambridgeenergy.org.uk/is-this-the-biggest-change-to-building-regulations-in-the-last-20-years/ That suggests that you may need to look for tactical improvements - eg insulate more properly as you open up things to work on etc. One other alternative is to see how good your airtightness is, which accounts for a good deal of heat loss. Why not get a test done, and see how good it actually is?

I suspect that is the policy in many places. Whether such a policy is lawful is a different matter - local authorities constantly get away with breaking the law because it is almost impossible to hold them to effective account short of a many months long campaign by letter or the High Court. For me, the idea that in 2021 with all the environmental concern we have, I can be denied access to the information used in a public process to define *my* house, is *incredibly* offensive, especially as an explicit provision in Copyright Law grants an exception for private study. This is as bad in principle as MPs concealing their expenses information as a means of continuining to break the law. Disagree on EPCs. In many ways they are a very useful, inexpensive, tool. I have been discussing how to raise a particular rental property from a D to a C with my EPC adviser this week. In landlord-land we are regulated on it, and if a property does not meet the required standard it is illegal to rent it out (on an increasing quality ratchet E .. D .. C towards 2028-30). Some stone-age landlords who have not wanted to invest in their properties can see the (see Goldfinger) laser beam getting closer to their balls. But this has been known about since 2012/13, so zero sympathy is deserved. But there is some squealing in eg the Daily Mail. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10028271/Government-urged-scrap-Energy-Performance-Certificate-expert-slams-rating-system.html Another EPC will not help - as they are required to follow a process, which includes defined assumptions in the absence of specific evidence. One is that in the absence of a FENSA certificate they have to assume poor quality double glazing. In this case I have a house with 50mm of dot and dab insulation on the back of IPB as drylining and I want to get that acknowledged in the EPC without demolishing my decoration.

Try asking your building control section. For a recent new house they will hold that information, though they may want to keep it to themselves like a squirrel with a hazelnut.

Thanks.

I'm after the BC information for a house I own, specifically because there are various features not listed on the EPC report and I need to be able to evidence them in order to meet the coming requirement of rental properties to meet a "C". Does anyone have any experience of this? What lawful access rights, normal policy and processes are, for example? The initial comment from my Local Council is that the information is kept restricted for 'commercial reasons' (ie BC services are chargeable), but that it may be obtainable under either a FOI or a Subject Access (Data Protection Act) request. Just beginning to explore this, so any comments are most welcome. Ferdinand

Hieronymous Bosch knew the answer to this as far back as 1550. It is rank and they are all going to hell. https://www.hieronymus-bosch.org/Tondals-Vision.html where they will be punished in a bizarre satire of their hot tub activity (on the right), by being boiled alive in a Hot Tub by demons. ? Now, why can't we get Extinction Rebellion to protest all this waste by squatting in all the nation's hot tubs to make sure they stay unheated? I'd support them doing that.

In relatively the middle of nowhere I do not see how increasing the height of say 0.01 Ha by 45cm increases the chances of flooding elsewhere.