Ferdinand

If you have that level of capital available, then consider gobbling a bungalow, or getting something with a chunky garden - which are still available in London if you navigate the system. There are lots of historic ambiguities that create nooks and corners. The "hypoallergenic" house on Grand Designs was built on such a plot in Richmond. Quarter acre Plot with PP cost 675k about 10 years ago. https://www.granddesignsmagazine.com/grand-designs-houses/grand-designs-healthy-house/ There are quite a lot of other infills in London in GD.

Who is going to visit you with a coat to hang, btw? Or does it come in the category Third Party Presentee-ism?

Take the paint back to the stone (chemical?) and leave it as a bit of the house's history.

Watched the episode, and I quite like the house. In the landscape it reminds me of Stonehenge. I'm not quite clear where the 400 square meters went, except that the corridor is about 12-13% of the space. I'm quite appalled by the waste, however - throwing away more glazing units than were installed is shocking. And by the rather chaotic budget. Suspect they could have kept 95% of the attraction and only used 60% of the budget.

Go on holiday to Scotland and make your own.

Coat hooks are so 1990s.

Going a little off topic, however there are now various wet underfloor systems that will go into an 18mm thickness, suitable for use under a wooden floor. There are even ones that don't need to be overlaid with board. Info elsewhere on the forum. As ever with ufh, it is about the insulation underneath. F

Welcome. Seriously playing the self-build game in London is likely to mean capital / finance needs of *at least* 750k to a million in due course, depending on how good you are at it, and if you find windfalls or can be creative. Buying and improving can be better, as the market moves quickly sometimes and there are loads of people speculating to get richer off the tax breaks on their own house value, and an unstable market. You are a little out of London, so it may help for you to look further out or buy a wreck and look to replace with a newbuild later. Transport from some way out of London is quite good - especially look at places with travel by overground rail. One hint: look outside the London boundary, as two of the last three Mayors have been as mad as hatters (not telling which ?), and at some stage anyone inside the boundary but outside the centre will get financially heavily spanked. I have family 400m outside, and they thank their lucky stars several times a year. At present new people who live in the CC zone no longer get a 90% residential discount, so it costs £15 a day to drive at all except for exemptions. Electric cars stop being exempt in 2025. Currently there are conversations about extending charging quite some way. Far easier to raise charges rather than address costs. F

Sounds like it. Learning from the Olympic bicyclists .. marginal gains on gas usage.

I think I might link that to the level of resource Councils think they need to meet expectation, and that yes there probably is an expectation. Also interesting is a modest fall in qty of applications.

For a useable loft room architects usually say you need about 9ft at the apex. And that's without all those trusses. Storage with an insulated hatch (if it will fit) or leave alone.

Big windows facing South are surely old convention? Perhaps we all need moats and drawbridges ? ?

Bearing in mind that you will be on low energy bulbs, I don't see much stress on the wires. I think the US seller is probably taking care to avoid potential liability. Remember - ProoDave is a sparkie.

What are you counting? There were stories last summer too, but perhaps a little earlier. https://www.theplanner.co.uk/news/districts-report-sharp-fall-in-planning-applications Also possibly linked to 1 - Widening of scope of PD. In the commercial sector, this has been a radical widening with broader Use Classes. Has saved my gym a COU planning application (at least the Council have not whinged yet, and we discussed it with them when the Use Class changes were being dragged through the Courts ). 2 - Start of the school year. 3 - I think there have been modest expansions in PD rights for householders. Planning app. stats. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-planning-application-statistics F

Do you need the screed? I might ad 25-30mm insulation to the middle, and put a floating floor down, using wood or laminate. Could even use plywood + carpet. Did both of those with a renovation several years ago, and it has been fine since. F

Or this?

This?

On the house, I would pause once the weather goes, and do some careful thinking / analysis in the time before Christmas and restart next spring. I think there is a lot of detail that is best sweated now, rather than when you have to change it later. Read some of the site blogs. For the pool, have you considered a natural swimming pool? You don't need heating; you just need not to be a wuss. Though that diving ledge looks dodgy at first glance:

Saints as in Saint Sebastian. (Tied to a tree and shot with arrows)

Demand is forecast to start rising from around 2026 in the latest information from the BEIS. https://www.icaew.com/insights/viewpoints-on-the-news/2020/nov-2020/chart-of-the-week-uk-electricity-projections Which is quite logical if we remember that under 1% of UK cars are pure electric, plus whatever use is electric from hybrids, and it will not change significantly as an overall percentage for at least another 5 years given the % of the car stock being replaced with electric. And that things like ASHP compulsion for new build (which add less than 1% to the housing stock each year) do not even *start* until 2025. Anyhoo things to do. F

Building Standards are the people you need to convince.

Correct.

How many days has that happened to the whole country on? OK. The numbers. If all the nuclear powerstations except Sizewell close, loss of generating capacity = 6 GW. Currently 2 gas fired power stations mothballed = 1.6GW Wind farms under construction due to come on stream between 2021 and 2026, 75% by 2023 = 5GW Wind farms proposed under the current round due to be commissioned by 2025 = 4GW (And I am not sure that is all of them). Plus demand is falling. Plus we have a number of interconnectors to I think France / Netherlands / Norway, which can service around 10% of electricity demand if needed. The situation is radically different to 2 years ago, and I don't see much of a threat now. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_gas_power_stations_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingdom)

The Ikea ones slide neatly under the worktop if you leave a void. Too high for your reduced-height Gran - trim the legs.

On the reduced height kitchen, I thought that most "feet" are adjustable, and these days a new set of plinths for when you sell it would cost very little. Could you perhaps slice them 1/3:2/3 so you can make it more normal-height when you come to sell the place? I bet my Ikea one is a smaller quantity of spondulicks. That plus a new bead of silicon on the wall at the back of the worktop. The old one won't show as it would be hidden. Probably just needs some reasonably careful thinking about detail to make that doable.