flanagaj

The driveway that has been specified on our granted planning application is 7.7m wide. I personally think this is too large and wonder what is a more suitable width. The plan is to have a single leaf electric sliding gate.

That sounds bliss. Our Persimmon 3 storey rental was 29.5c in the top bedroom 🥵 that's why I'm currently all over designing a decent solution for our build

I’m dragging this post back up as I’m keen to get people’s thoughts on their decisions given the amazing hot summer we are having. Whose house has remained nice and cool. Be honest now!

Excuse my ignorance on this, but I thought ASHP grants are only available to individuals switching from conventional oil/gas to ashp and not for individuals building a new home?

ChatGPT could be completely wrong here, but it seemed to indicate that there wasn't much difference in price between having an ASHP which can operate in both heating / cooling mode, with fan coils in the bedrooms, to having an ASHP which just operates in heating mode (heating / hot water) and a separate AC installation. It did highlight that using the ASHP in cooling mode with fan coils can only reduce the temperate a few degrees due to the associated condensation issues that can occur. I am beginning to think that using the ASHP in cooling mode is not really the best approach and it simply smells of "Upgrade your conventional boiler to an ASHP and switch your rads to fan coils and you can also have cooling too!!!" Yes, it cools by a few degrees, but if you are starting with a blank canvas, why go down that path? It just seems to be a sales pitch from the industry.

So why not simply have a single air to water system for downstairs UFH and HW and then an air to air for air conditioning?

Some interesting responses here, but as mentioned by @jack it seems that the best solution is to keep the systems all separate. MVHR for air circulation, but with added heat exchange bypass functionality ASHP system for heating and domestic HW Separate air con system for key rooms If you then add PV, why not negate all of the solutions in relation to keeping the heat out, eg venetians, solar glass ... When it's hot, the sun is out and you can simply run the aircon for free. When it's time to turn in, it's now dark and the sun is no longer heating up the house and you cooled the bedrooms during the day for free. I had a quote for external roller shutters for 5 windows and the quote came back ~ 8k, that is comparable in cost to installing an air con system. The other question I have is around whether I could use the same ASHP external unit to perform both the heating and running the air con. I appreciate that they probably are unable to heat and cool at the same time, but you could maybe have the HW feature come on at 5am to heat the cyclinder and then after a couple of hours you could put the AC on. M

I am looking for a cladding option that I can hopefully fit and forget. My current thought is to use a thermowood cladding. I have had samples of Poplar, Ayous and Ash delivered, but they are all a very dark brown colour due to the thermo process. The Ash is far denser than both the Ayous and Poplar and the price reflects that too. What I want to understand is how these timbers age with time and whether anyone has used thermowood on their house. If so, please share a photo as I'm keen to see the colour of the wood after being exposed to the elements for months / years

Our structural warranty is with Protek and it's costing us nearly 4k, but I assumed the inspections carried out for warranty are different to those carried out by LABC?

That's very helpful. Thanks I think I'll investigate private inspectors as probably easier going than labc

@MortarThePoint @mjc55 can you tell me what the associated costs are for LABC and a third-party provider?

But what do most self-builders do?

We received our mortgage offer today from Hanley BS. One of the conditions that is stated on the mortgage offer is as follows. Subject to your Solicitors confirming which of the following will carry out Building Control: a) Local Authority b) Approved Inspector (full details required) The use of Approved Inspectors to carry out Building Control is allowed subject to them being registered as approved on the GOV.UK site We will be using Protek for our structural warranty provider, but I don't understand the question. I thought Building Control was always carried out by the LABC team and the inspections carried out by Protek are completely separate and solely to satisfy the warranty provider?

Thanks for the link. I'll drop them a message with my requirements.

Interesting. I hadn't considered a local Smart Systems manufacturer. In fact, I haven't even heard of the term before you mentioned it.

I agree with your first point. We have visited Norrsken and really like the product, but just wanting to see whether there were options to try and shave 5-10k off the price. We are most likely going to require solar glass too, so that is only going to increase the price further.

I know it was a rookie error.

I have had quotes from the mainstream window suppliers (Norrsken, Velfac) for ali-timber clad windows, but I haven't really looked at aluminium window suppliers. Has anyone else had like for like quotes, eg same glazing and is able to say whether you are looking at 5% / 10% .... cost saving. I did have one quote for aluminium doors and windows from a top end supplier and was rather annoyed to discover that there quote was basically my max specified budget. I won't name names, but lets just say, I won't be going back. Just some recommendations to suppliers that I might not have considered would be useful.

But if you also have MVHR fitted in the rooms, doesn't that mess with the airflow as you have now introduced a temperature differential to that of the supplied air to the room? Or does that negate somewhat due to said airflow moving throw the building a rising in temperature, before being ducted out in the kitchen or bathrooms?

Can anyone explain to me the options for fan coils? If I am correct, fan coils are coupled to your ASHP system and depending upon whether your ASHP is in heating or cooling mode they can provide heated or cooled air. There doesn't seem to be much info online when I search for fan coils, but I have found images of both radiator type options and also units that look like they are fitted inline to an MVHR system? If I am correct and you can fit them inline to MVHR or have them installed as a radiator based offering, why would you choose one options over another? I suspect that a radiator mounted offering with it's own internal fan, mitigates possible condensation forming inside the pipe of an inline MVHR system and designs in the associated condensation traps. By incorporating fan coils, can you remove the need to install UFH upstairs?

One other question I have regarding the venetian or roller blinds is how they perform when it's windy. Ideally, we would use them to black out the room and remove the need for curtains. But this obviously only works if they don't rattle when it's blowing a gale straight at the window.

I will look at the Venetian offering. Given it is just for the bedrooms, having them closed during the day is ok. For us, it will come down to cost.

I came across these last night. They look very good for bedrooms and are exactly what they fit on the continent. External Roller Shutters | Enviroblinds

The valuable lesson. Save the +£80 fee and submit directly to the LPA.