flanagaj

Does anyone have any experience with Openreach, eg, getting a new connection to your property. I registered with the developer portal, uploaded a site plan .... I then received a call from an Indian call centre telling me that they have been unable to locate my site (no idea how) or the planning grant. I then simply received an email telling me that my application had been cancelled. Should I be going through a third party for getting my connection, or did others do exactly what I have been trying to do? When I login to the developer portal, the registration has vanished and there is absolutely no evidence that I ever submitted one.

I was under the impression that regardless of whether an objection is valid or not from a planning perspective, if you receive more than the planning authorities threshold, the application automatically goes to committee. We only had four objections and we had to go to committee. None of the objections had any merits in relation to planning policy. Thankfully, the planning officer had recommended to approve and our application took no time and was unanimously approved by the committee members. I would not wish committee on anyone. Some of the applications that were recommended for approval were refused by the committee, simply because objectors turned up and were like rabid dogs. Quite sad really.

I cannot brick lay, nor can I do electrical work, but I am planning on doing as much as possible on my own. I have found a chap who has self-built two homes himself. He is mainly groundworks, but that is perfect for me. I just don't have any family members who could assist. We all live miles apart. I have no choice to do as much as possible myself, otherwise, we'll overspend and we will have to sell 😞 We had a quote from a builder who for some reason ignored the brief and quoted for everything. He came in 150k over estimators online!

I have never done or seen an example of drawings submitted to BC and as a result have no idea how much detail is involved. For example, I am currently looking at Posi-Joists and thinking of getting a quote, but I am now thinking that the technical architect will need to provide this level of detail in his technical drawings that he will submit to BC. The same goes for the ground floor slab makeup. Do I need to tell him that we are planning on having the unconventional insulation / dpm / 100mm slab with the UFH tied to the steel mesh?

@nod Apologies, but can you clarify what you mean, as I didn't understand a word of it. I am also very interested in the approach taken with the construction method. So I see you have got a solid 100mm + 225mm + 100mm wall? I have not seen this before and always assumed that you just laid the blocks as standard and then filled the cavity with concrete. Is this an alternative option to that approach?

I pulled the sizes from this page. Specifier - Wolf System Easi Joists

Can anyone advise here regarding how they would arrange the joists for the below floor plan. Would you simply lay n joists across the 6.4m span across the whole length of the house? We are using sleeper walls, so could also have the joists orientated across the sleeper walls, this would mean that the widest span would be the width of the kitchen at 5.7m. But if you do that, I assume that you will need to add batten to the top or the bottom of the joists to ensure that the finished floor level and also the ceiling levels are the same? I did ask our technical architect who is doing the drawings whether we will have a steel and he replied "I haven’t designed any steels or structural elements. The structural engineer will do this. Do you have an engineer in mind?" Which did concern me a little. I just had a quick look and a steel spanning 5.7m will be 300mm deep, where as a Posi Joist is only 254mm (600mm centres) or 219mm (400m centres) we are already quite restricted on height and a 300mm steel would eat into this height and also make any duct / pipe routing slightly trickier and require a bit more though. That being said, bouncy floors is definitely something that I would rather avoid.

So if you don't have an internal thermostat and use weather compensation, how do you control the zone valve to switch the flow off to your UFH and rads?

Are you basically saying that you have a single thermostat for the whole house?

Does anybody have an example schematic for the above. In our last house we had a single zone and radiators. Things have moved on now and I understand that with UFH you have the manifold which allows for n individual circuits, but if I am correct, these are not zones, but simply a way to balance each of the loops. Much like you would with the valves on a radiator. So how many zones are people installing. Again, if anyone has a system design that they can share, that would be great. Thanks

No problem. I have redacted the details. Obviously, each report will differ based on the site, but hopefully provides an example as to what they were after. Biodiversity_Enhancement_Mitigation_Redacted_LP_Final.pdf

I'm not sure I speak for others, when I say that most requested reports are nothing more than an annoyance and red tape. Let's take the Construction and Environmental Management Plan (CEMP). We are renting a Persimmon property and a quick glance out the window and I see stone saws being used without dust suppression, piles and piles of rubbish just piled up high (Animals will make it their home) .... I am building one house and they are building over a thousand. It's hard to conclude that it's nothing more than keeping consultants and others in employment.

Apologies. I meant Radon. Depends on your viewpoint, but a lot of the reports are simply box ticking exercises that create employment for said consultants. Not sure where the Professional Indemnity insurance comes into play for any of the mentioned reports.

So when our planning application was granted, it came with 25 associated conditions. Some of them were informational, but a number of them CEMP Biodiveristy Enhancement & Mitigation Plan Lighting Strategy Tree Protection Water efficiency Required us to submit reports. As we all know, when a report is requested, it usually involves writing a cheque for a few hundred quid. Well, on this occasion I decided I would try and create the reports myself by feeding ChatGPT with the information from the planning grant and all of the reports that were used to gain planning. It did a very good job at creating the required reports and apart from the Argon report (still waiting), the LPA has signed them all off. Given our previous architects wanted just shy of 2k to go through the conditions and arrange 'experts' to create the necessary reports, I am pretty chuffed that for once, I have been able to save some pennies. Hope this helps others, who are also trying to avoid the continual cheque writing.

So a 5kW unit which can also operate in cooling mode will then suffice for both heating and cooling. Regarding the modulation. What about when it's 10C outside and your heat loss is < 1kW. If the unit does not modulate that low, does it simply mean it will be cycling?

My PT is 2.2Kw, Extractor 1.2Kw and bench saw 2.2Kw. These will all be running together as sometimes I am moving between the two machines frequently. The electricity company has said that there is 2 phase and mentioned 46KVa, so I assume that would mean two 23 Kva lines into the consumer unit. So on that basis maybe it will be ok. I think my issue, is that I have no idea how I go about calculating the size of the ASHP and the Air conditioning unit. I know people have said to go with fan coils upstairs, but given the recent warm weather and the large amount of glazing, I want a simple solution that I know is going to work. Turn on the AC and within no time the rooms can be chilled to 18C. No faffing around. We won't be using electric showers as we intend on having a HW cylinder. Dual ovens and an induction hob. Apart from that, there isn't anything else that is significant.

Thanks. It's all so complicated. Makes my head spin.

Below is my heat loss calculation. So according to the below I need something that can output ~ 2Kw if I don't want the house to get cold when it is -3c outside. So a 3Kw unit would suffice, but I assume I also need to factor in the corresponding Kw for hot water heating. If so, how do you go about doing the calculation?

I appreciate that this might sound like a rookie question and if, I do apologise. So I have completed the heat loss calculator and if I use 0c as the outside temp, the hat loss in coming in at 1.7Kw. If I take this down to -10c the figure rises to 2.6Kw The reason I need to know the size of the required ASHP is that I need to try and get our electric supply down to 100 Amps. So on that basis, I assume that if the heat loss is < 3Kw, Then the actual electricity load to generate 3Kw is actually only about 20%, so it would equate to about 600w input? It's so tricky knowing what supply I actually require. We need to have an EV charger and I also want to run my woodworking machinery ~ 5 Kw with everything running. When I plug these number into SSEN, it put me over 100 amps.

I hit chalk within a metre, so planning on using strip foundations. Estimators have gone with trench fill and they have listed the following m2 figures. Block solid concrete 7.3Kn 100mm, cavity walls. M2 62.983 Block solid concrete 7.3Kn 100mm, internal walls. M2 20.583

Back in the day (a long time ago )when I was a labourer, we were a gang of three. 2 brickies and myself. Estimators online are stating that below DPC, internal sleep walls and then DPC to plate as 20 days labour and with a labour cost of 20k. Given brickies are ~£300 an a labourer £200?, This is still seems high and considering I just received a labour only quote of 30k. I am thinking that either estimators is wrong, or the brickie who has quoted is expensive.

Not sure whether I am missing something here. I am inputting my figures into @Jeremy Harris heat loss calculator. I assume the total wall m2 is minus the associated m2 of doors and windows? If so, I think the sheet would be good to have a total m2 for the walls and then a cell which subtracts the window and door m2 values. Sorry if this has already been discussed

I assume that from a legal perspective, self-build finance is more aligned to a re-mortgage than a purchase?

What is the expected cost for conveyancing for a self build mortgage. This is solely to arrange financing for the build as we own the land. Getting quotes for 2k and I am sick to death of writing ***** cheques out for what appears to be not a lot of work.

Thanks nod. That looks perfectly adequate. I think the architect thought he was designing an entrance to a HGV yard.