Kelvin

Yep. The gutters were full of moss so I thought it was but still doing it after I cleaned them. Only happens with very heavy rain. The guttering is quite narrow though which doesn’t help.

I’m not necessarily seeing much change in Perthshire yet.

The farmhouse we rent has exactly what you propose and heavy rain launches off the roof as described

Yes our plant room is designed to be quite central for this reason but it does mean all the MVHR ducting has to be threaded through the ceiling.

Yes can see why it’s there.

The problem with balconies is that they seem like a good idea and something you think you’ll use but ends up being something you rarely/never actually use.

If there’s anything I’ve learned about digging big deep holes use a machine. Done in minutes as opposed to hours. I dug a 21m trench for the electricity ducting to go in. I did have someone coming with a digger to do it for me but it was only a few days before SSEN came to lay the cable so I didn’t want to risk any delays. Took me days to dig it by hand largely because of big stones under the beautiful top soil. Do you know anyone with a digger that could come along for a few quid? When I had a percolation test done they dug multiple biggish holes all around the plot where a soakaway might go (so away from the house) It was surprising how different the results were between the trial pits.

Yes it’s cost us over £1000 here and there for reports we’ve not really needed. Very frustrating.

Now I’ve looked at your plans you’re probably ok at 950mm as you have double doors across most of the width to give you access.

Geberit

Ours is 3.6m x 1.2m. I’d say yours is too narrow. What I did is get the measurements for the plant and drew it in the room to get a feel for the space. Assuming it’s monobloc ASHP the exchanger is outside and the only thing inside is the hot water tank and associated components. You might have buffer cylinder too. Our MVHR is in the plant room too as we don’t have a loft.

We had them in a previous house. Out of 5 loos 3 failed (same fault) within 5 years. I had real trouble finding replacement parts and eventually got a box of 5 units from a building company liquidation. Replacing them wasn’t terribly easy either as the space through hole was just big enough for the part and my hand.

We’ve ended up with a similar problem due to some challenges fitting a 4m triple glazed sliding door. Attached to this was a 1m coupling tilt and turn window that could be used as a door as direct exit from the kitchen. In the end we’ve had to reduce the slider to a 3.6m triple glazed slider. The problem this caused is the tilt and turn window is now 1.4m wide and inward opening only so blocks the stairs when open or clashes with the island. It also creates a slight unevenness as the two other tilt and turn windows on this elevation are 1m wide. Our options are fit a fixed light window instead and give up on the door. However, practically I think we’ll use a door more often to exit on to the patio for morning coffee etc than we’ll use the slider so I really want it still to be a door. Our solution is to fit 1.4m wide French doors. Although I believe our window supplier only do them as inward opening. The reason I mention all of this is to test if you are more likely to use a normal door to exit onto the patio than slide open either slider for the morning coffee etc. We felt for us doors would be more practical for daily use. That said, having two sliders would create a very open feel so of all your options 4 is probably best but I’d definitely think through how you think you’ll best use the exit. The renders are really nice. What are they done in?

I made offers on a few plots in the SE. All went for considerably more than I wanted to pay using the thirds guideline. One half acre plot went for £450k and I offered £250k and it wasn’t a great plot. This was also 9 years ago.

The above is a good point. We’re building a modified kit house and it’s designed to minimise the need for a lot of steel supporting the structure

I have a friend with them. Nothing but trouble. His are accessible for maintenance and he’s thinking of removing the blind completely. It’s just one example of course. That said I’ve been in plenty of offices that have them and seen plenty that are knackered.

I like it. It’s quite big for just the two of you although I understand your point about your development schedule. Why split the boot room and utility room? I’d remove the wall and have one big room. The size of the plant room is an interesting point as we’ve had that challenge too but I think I’ve solved it. Having looked at all the stuff going in ours it does need to be a reasonable size.

Got approval letter today. Just wanted to share! Groundswork company lined up to start. It all feels real now!

I asked our window supplier (NorDan) if the glass doors could open outward and they said they only do inward opening doors including the French doors.

Well done on getting the gas safe certification. Due to similar stories I am considering doing similar with some of the trades for our self-build. My dad taught himself every trade as he didn’t trust anyone in our house 😂

Like a few others on here I am anti log burners and we aren’t fitting one in our build. That took some ‘negotiating’ with my wife however. Hypocritically though we do have one in the rental and have been using it but are just burning trees that have fallen in the large garden that we seasoned plus the gorse logs I pulled out of our plot last year I have principles and if you don’t like them I have others. 😂 It has underlined how much I don’t like the things though.

Sheesh what a nightmare. Electronic components recover well from getting wet as long as they aren’t powered up when wet obviously. I ran a maintenance company for several years and we regularly bathed components to clean them using distilled water and soft brushes. This was back in the days of smoking in offices so for anything really manky we’d use isopropyl alcohol as well. Take all the covers off and use an air duster to remove any loose dirt. Submerge in a bath of distilled water and use a soft brush to clean. Drain the water off and then leave to dry. Anything that had a screen might well be buggered though unless you can source replacement screen parts. We also used baking soda to clean components. We had a special low temp oven type thing to aid drying.

Oh yes that all sounds familiar. Whenever we had family staying at the old house everyone would get in a pickle with the lights. My instructions were really clear. Do not touch the switches. Let the house do its thing automatically. If you need to control any of the lights use the buttons conveniently placed around the place marked showing what they control. Also no one could switch the TV and AV on. I programmed the remote with one button that said on the screen just press this. That was it. One button. Switched everything on and off. But no whenever I was away I’d be on Facetime trying to work out which new creative way they had figured out to (expletive deleted) it all up. I’m also getting the ‘what if you die’ strawman for the house we’ve yet to build. 😂 My general response is you might go first. 😂 But if I do peg it first there will be a graceful degradation of service until she’s sitting in the dark in one room with her head torch peeing in bottles.

For quickness fit a PIR light then when time allows build some micro-controller based thing in a custom box that isn’t quite watertight that works some of the time but also comes on once she opens the front door and doesn’t switch off for hours. Also it must only ever really work for you and generally never for her.

My experience of my SWMBO is that any automation needs to work 100% of the time with zero interaction from the user with no obvious fiddling from the on-site IT support. Anything less than this and it’s ‘what’s wrong with a switch’ Plus she has a head torch already so I don’t have this problem 😂