Search the Community

This story seems to come up every so often, regarding people with electric boilers and massive electricity bills. https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-7966625/The-eco-boilers-cost-5K-year-green-energy-deal-gone-wrong.html It allows the Daily Mail to pander to their older readers who believe everything new is bad. Reading this story though, I couldn't help but wonder did Falkirk Council deliberately install boilers that would be very expensive to run as I suspect installing electric boilers was a lot cheaper for them than installing gas boilers and the running costs weren't their problem. It is now exacerbated by people being locked into some very expensive electricity pricing, but anyone who knows the price of electricity versus gas knows that this would create a massive increase in heating costs. The story keeps calling them eco boilers. In no way should an electric combi be called an eco boiler, clearly people have no idea of the difference between these and ASHPs. The DM then have a further story today about banning every new home being connected to the gas grid, that ASHPs will cost £10k to fit and that they won't work in older poorly insulated houses. Assuming that gas boilers are eventually banned, then over time they can be replaced with ASHPs, however, I was thinking is this as simple as it seems? Even relatively modern houses will have heating systems designed to use 75C hot water from a gas boiler. Is the replacement of boilers as simple as it seems?

Hi When planning a new build - is there a method or guideline to pre-emptively calculate/predict the rates for the property once it is built? Is there a bracket between m2 of the dwelling, a difference between 1 + half than a 2 storey, size of garage, etc.? I intend to install a sizeable portable shed at some stage but I don't think this should affect it. If I knew there was say a 10-15% difference in rates between having a 200m2+ dwelling than keeping it under, I would design it accordingly. We are based in a fairly rural area and will need to connect to electric grid just.

I’ve had varying conversations and trawled hundreds threads of built cost /m2 to try and rationalise my budget and reduce my overall anxiety towards price and also to be realistic. I think it’s important to be prepared upfront and if its not going to work reduce the house size from the outset. I’m shooting for £1200/m2 because it suits my ‘ideal’ budget of 240k for a 200 m2 house, which I believe to be a decent size, to suit my family, I have also allowed the obligatory 10% in reserve which will be ring fenced and only come into play if required. So theoretically you could say I’ve allowed £1320/ m2 But my concern is that it is my 1200 is driving that budget and house size. I’m aware that I wont know until the end that actual costs which could be much less going by some peoples build…but also could be much more. (I doubt I would breach 1700/m2). As much as I’d love an answer to exactly how much it costs I know those answers are purely subjective. But what I do want to understand is how others have approached this from the outset? Did you wing it and pray for the best? Did you plan thoroughly and then knowing you wouldn’t meet your budget reduce the house size before starting or did you plan to use that contingency? For context. My plan is to use a kit supplier to supply and erect a closed panel system, whether it be SIPS or Valutherm, get it wind and watertight then proceed with managing my own subcontractors. I don’t want the build to last years…ideally no more than 12 months. I will also correctly plan the build, schedule, cashflow and take the time to do this before even thinking of breaking ground to ensure we can derisk and identify as many problems beforehand rather than on the fly. I work full time, so it will be very difficult and we are prepared for this, ideally I’d use a main contractor but I want to avoid this to save costs…or is this just a false economy? So really….I’m asking how long is a piece of string??! I suppose my worry/anxiety/ panic is based around…what happens when it costs more…how did you deal with it. If you’d been naïve and hoped it would cost less but it cost more how did you remedy that situation?? Any pearls of constructive wisdom…greatly appreciated.