Kelvin

Playing Devil’s advocate. He’s driven past your site by happenstance (let’s assume) he works for the HSE and sees two builders on what looks like a building job on a frosty day. What’s should he do? Drive on by or check what’s going on? He doesn’t know if you are a keen DIYer not bothered by H&S or a builder taking a chance or a contractor being coerced to work when it’s not safe. Seems fair enough to me for him to check given that the construction industry has the highest number of people killed in the workplace than any other albeit the agricultural industry has the highest rate of death per capita.

Place a bit of insulation on your hand then place the ice try on top which is how the uPVC window is made up. It’s not solid plastic.

I guess it’s a balance. If they have to dig up the road to get the cable to you then that should be at your cost. If they have to reinforce the network then that benefit is shared by other people either immediately or in the future so that cost shouldn’t be borne by one individual. As has been pointed out on another thread while the UK might be able to generate all the electricity the country needs the bigger challenge is that the local infrastructure can’t always supply it. My original quote for a 3 phase supply was £26500 as they needed to re-inforce the network. After a bit of back and forth the final cost was £450 for single phase. They’ve subsequently come back and mentioned that they could upgrade me to 3 phase for not much.

Yes you’re right to be concerned about their definition of entire perimeter. I can see their general point but the condition is poorly worded. Just about every new house with a level threshold (typically required for wheelchair access) would fail on this wording. Therefore I’d put this point to them and ask them to re-state the condition.

That’s good advice. Generally the odd extra condition shouldn’t necessarily be a problem but in reality banks are really tightening up lending criteria. The problem you then run into is while you can easily explain the background to the condition to your buyer (if you sell say) you never get to explain this to their solicitors directly or the lending bank so you get caught in a loop of despair of ever decreasing circles of email to your solicitor then to theirs then to the bank. When we had our warranty completion certificate problem I inadvertently got copied in on the email chain between the solicitors. My solicitor had completely mangled my very clear explanation of the problem, and how it was addressed by conflating two different problems and getting both of them wrong. This then lead to a long chain of ever more confusing emails between them arguing about the principle rather than the point. I had to intervene and copy in both managing partners. Two months of delay resolved in one email but only because I got sight of the mess they had created. Therefore, ideally you don’t want any extra conditions on the certificate regardless of how inconsequential they might seem.

When I looked at Internorm they were 0.76. I’ve been trying to balance the cost of everything with the performance as we all do. Going lower than 1.0 was almost doubling the cost for us which I’ve diverted to triple glazed upstairs rooflights.

We’ve ‘cheaped’ out on the front door I think but I like the one we’ve picked. U-value 1.0 w/m2K. What do you think should be fitted?

It’s like razors. Costs won’t be similar. Probably requires a re-design of the frame. Weight problem making large windows more challenging to make and fit. Are they really needed in much of the country? In Scotland there possibly could be a justification but the market size is probably too small.

I’ve visited several self-build sites mid-build. I’ve ‘looked around’ several others and while all had portaloos none had any kind of ready room as far as I could see. There were a couple of random dodgy looking cheap sheds.

My garage will be an insulated steel building and the first thing going up so will use that as the office initially. The house is a timber kit and will be up and weather tight quickly so will transfer to that.

Our ridge height is 6.1m and 1.5 storey. Upstairs rooms are big enough.

Thanks for replying. The groundswork company I’ve finally selected specialises in drainage and he’s quite comfortable with what’s been proposed for the foul soakaway. However, he also said the rainwater soakaway is pretty big and he’s recommended multiple routes for the rainwater anyway. Our percolation test was fine so there are no issues with that. He thinks it’s typically just over engineered.

Room in roof so 1.5 storey. This is an example roof window layout. We have large top hung Velux windows in our Longhouse design for the view across the valley.

I’ve done our whole house in 3D. These are quick pics of my monitor so not great quality. Easy enough to do using software called Room Sketcher. It can’t do the roof or more complex ceilings like vaulted ceilings. And it works at a floor level. However you can get a good visualisation of each room. You can put it in 360o mode and scroll around the house. You can also do some rudimentary landscaping views but not terrain. I have some other software that can do all of that but it’s a lot more complicated to use. We’ve found being able to do this, making quick changes to visualise the change, invaluable.

The quote is £1444 inc VAT supply only. This is a VELUX window.

Anything can be made if you throw enough money at it. It would cost a small fortune given how dear our 1m x 1m triple glazed fixed skylight is going to be.

These are great designs. I was really keen to do similar but our plot doesn’t cater to this kind of design. This is what we considered: (238m2)

That’s great news. Well done.

so what is it that you can’t make up then? EVs are also going to start paying vehicle excise duty which is fair enough. The push to EVs is about reducing our use of FF. This has been incentivised to encourage the shift. But ultimately the shift isn’t about it being cheaper.

Sure but it wasn’t a conspiracy

This is a different problem. Clearly you end up with the same outcome but it’s still a different problem.

Yes it’s tWh. The point still stands that UK energy consumption has steadily fallen over the last 20 years.

Yes the UK energy strategy is questionable especially around nuclear. That’s there for all to see. That’s not the same as predicting the worst energy crisis in a generation in the space of 6 months which is the root cause of our current crisis and the reason for the various emergency plans. If nothing else it highlights the need to reduce our dependence upon energy supplies from uncertain sources.

You assume petrol won’t go up. The recently volatility has shown that’s not likely. Moreover oil is run by a cartel of a small number of countries.

Switzerland has a potential fundamental electricity supply problem this winter because it relies on France to plug the gap and France has challenges with its nuclear fleet. In normal times i.e. not at war, they would go to its neighbours but they also have problems. The UK has talked about rolling blackouts as a consequence of similar problems. Therefore, it has little to do with EVs are bad and I told you so and everything to do with the current energy crisis. Now if you predicted we’d be in this energy crisis a few years ago then you are a sage.