Ferdinand

Mine is currently running at 50C+ boiler temperature to keep the place reasonably warm (20C) whilst outside temps are just above zero, But my walls are 0.2 u value ish (floor 0.18) which is too poor, but not built by me. My problem is emitter area and not enough insulation under the ufh. Not much can be done easily, though. Total energy bills are not that horrible for a 200 sqm house, but I don't like it. F

Do you have roof tiles left over?

I was reading what I think is Tony's blog, and the heating system he installed a few years ago is interesting. The premise is a full basement with little insulation on the floor (I assume building regs minimum plus the 25mm on top of the slab), and shallow boreholes used to put excess heat into the ground under the house via waterpipe loops during the summer. Rather than the pfaff about mega-insulated tanks of water or blocks of concrete, there is a simple reliance on heating up the ground under the slab. Does anyone have any views on this, and @tonyshouse - does it work? ? Has it overheated, and if it did how would you manage that? The idea of just using less insulation seems quite good under "reduce" as the first circuit of the green spiral. As an alternative use of heat that would be vented to atmosphere it seems a decent idea. Articles: http://tonyshouse.readinguk.org/heating-the-ground/ http://tonyshouse.readinguk.org/interseasonal-thermal-store/ Ferdinand

Read that first as jaune...

2 acres may be over what HMRC consider as "garden" in this scenario.

If your laundry is upstairs then you need drying arrangements upstairs too. You don't really want everything to be tumbler dependent. Otherwise you are carrying the wet washing downstairs and outside every time. There are other variations we have not talked about yet. One is to do the full width extension at 3m or 4m, and have the utility room in the corner of the kitchen back to back with the improved shower room. That would also give you mops, buckets, food etc out of sight. That gives you the option of keeping the garage, or turning it into a long office, or a storage area plus an office. What I like about that is it puts your nonhabitable rooms in the area of the house with no natural light, and allows you to separate kitchen storage from workshop type storage. F

Remember the time factors that you cannot shift.. Anything you need PP for will be unlikely to get started before say June - up to 12 weeks for PP plus designing first and then getting trades and builders lined up. Permitted Development stuff may be quicker, but you will still have to do building regs. But both are dependent on lead times. I think the garage conversion may need PP. Both front and back will need Building Regs I suspect. The crunch may be builder availability. I think there is an argument for phasing it and starting the back first, and perhaps roosting in the existing dining room as the temporary office, whilst waiting for planning on the garage conversion. F

This is why I say your most important point is to take your time. Orientation to the sun is so fundamental, that it is absolutely the first thing that almost any architect thinks about. F

You seem to meet all the criteria for Grand Designs. The only ones missing are baby 2 on the way. And hills for your machinery to be sliding around on. Welcome.

When you get your original bat report, it may be possible to negotiate a modest update fee if you go beyond the 2 years which I think is normal for the validity.

So if a usual Google image, the back gets sun through the day.

I thought that was to make them line up with the one's on the wall.

The back of my house faces North, so I get very little sun in my kitchen extension, as the sun goes E-S-W through the day.

Post a Google Maps satellite view, with identifying information removed, would do.

That last sounds like one thing that Sarah Beeny did albeit called "environmntal protction scheme"; they planted a few thousand trees under a Section 106 "Planning Obligation" agreement. What it does is alter the perceived "harm/benefit" balance to change to application from "hmmm. no" to "hmmmm. yes" ie "make it acceptable in planning terms". You need to take advice from the council as to what form that should take. It may be a Section 106, or a Unilateral Declaration (which is like a Section 106 but a binding proposal you make - can save time if you know what they want already), or a simple Deed, or whatever they have set up for this scheme. Take brief advice from your solicitor. We are all assuming that your Appeal established the principle that hosses were agricultural use, and that is now out of the picture. Obvs any new app will need to reference this F

We still need North. Do you intend to spend your time in a N-side kitchen and lounge? (if that is what it is). F

There is some very good thinking here, but you have lots of very different options and they need reflection. TBH I think that it is important to take time upfront to get this right - plan 9-12 months, not 6, in toto. And give yourself several weeks now to think carefully about layout, and then 1-2 weeks away from it for it to steep in your background head. I agree it is good to forget a front extension - means you need no PP depending on close-to-boundary at the sides. I think looking at the loft extension too, that a priority should be to avoid a perceived rabbit-warren house; keep it uncomplicated for layout.

I take it the Appeal means you are now out of your "free second try on refusal" period? (Is this still a thing @DevilDamo?)

You probably ended up alright. Occasionally on here we get somone for whom risk has not worked, and it can be very painful.

Wishing you all the best. Who knows there may be a 350k house out there with a big garden.

Can you post a plan of the upstairs, and an orientation sketch or map with adjacent houses, roadway, plot shape, and North arrow. And a bit more about your approach - is this cobbled together bits do-the-minimum, or a particular budget (25k, 50k, 100k?, 150k?). Won't be a cheap project. Do you plan to lose the garage? Are you happy just turning the existing dining into a study / office / spare bed? I would also like to know which internal walls are stud / block / structural. That will get you far better comments, as I think there are fundamental questions here. For me the existing hall-shower-kitchen-closet area is a core blockage, as it is very subdivided. I don't think turning several rooms into corridors is necessarily the best way ? . Also worth considering what is very difficult to move, such as soil pipes. Moving stairs can be done, but will add a general 6-10k to the cost, once you have buggered about with the upstairs as well. If you are happy to lose the garage, I would be looking as the start at putting the office and bathroom semi-detached in the garage, accessed by a lobby from the hall, so that when you are in your dotage you have a more private set-apart bed-bath area. Ferdinand

Somewhere in Peru there is a series of books about a Bear exiled from Somerset....

Klotzen nicht Kleckern That is, concentrate and do not disperse your efforts. In self-building, it is often best to decide on a couple of things and do those - rather than pfaff around over bits of everything. You won't learn 10 trades in a year, so do no try. You can decide to get a couple of skills deeply, or perhaps provide dogsbody type skills to enable you to exploit your pros effectively That might be tidying up the site and labouing for a brickie, or making sure that materials are all in the right place so your £30 an hour whatever does not waste their time. Or becoming an Ebay-sniffer to get high quality things at a low quality price. Or indeed realise that you may add more value by working because you are paid more than you save by doing brickwork slowly. Or spend your time building a knowledge of what you want so you can avoid building it 10% bigger than you need. There will be a collection of things that nobody except you can do - find out what they are. One is to be the keeper of the copy of Spons. (I see that Buttercup has not mentioned the wall that blew down ? ? .) F

Pargetting, of course, can be applied to parapet walls. Even if the pattern is a row of fingernail trails leading to the edge.

I mean in a recessed doorframe. It could be that one or both walls continue straight. (He said, convincingly.) F