What's the biggest thing you'd differently if building again?

[Andehh]

Should have paid attention to the windows more, we were set on an aluminium single large pane of glass..... But someone somewhere (expletive deleted)ed up the order and split the windows with one fixed pane and one opening pane, and a massive mullions down the middle of it. Was devastated when they turned up and we realised, builder replaced the kitchen ones back to large single pane but gentlemens agreement that asking him to replace all windows and take the £20k hit would come back to haunt all of us.

 

Electric UFH mat in the bathrooms, for when the tiles are cold but the house is too warm for the proper UFH to come on.

 

Electric towel rails, we have the ASHP powering the towel rails on a circuit and it never gets hot enough to do anything.

 

We have a lot of of glass which makes the house feel chilly through science I don't understand... Not sure id change them to cancel this out though.

Edited Thursday at 06:55 by Andehh

[LnP]

2 hours ago, Andehh said:

 

We have a lot of of glass which makes the house feel chilly through science I don't understand... Not sure id change them to cancel this out though.

That's a pity. Are they 2G or 3G?

[jack]

It's interested how many points are being repeated (and I experienced several of them).

 

We don't have UFH in the bathrooms. I think this was probably the biggest mistake, at least in terms of being reminded about it every single morning in winter. We've retrofitted IR panels in the ceilings, but it isn't the same sort of heat. I reckon it cost us at least twice as much to do that as what it would have cost us to add UFH mats during the original build.

 

I'd have thought a lot harder about windows. Examples:

• We have floor to ceiling windows on the two "free" sides of our kitchen diner. Great for views, but terrible for furniture placement. One window is a 5.5m long slider, which if I were doing it again would be replaced by a pair of central doors with windows either side (starting at least a metre off the floor).
• The downstairs toilet has a window that finishes just above cistern height. Although it opens out onto a space beside the house where no-one generally walks and can't be seen from next door, we do park out there, and it would really have made more sense to have a smaller, higher-set window in this position. The same applies to the bathrooms on the same (north-facing) elevation.
• Our bedroom window is way too big, and again, floor to ceiling.
• Some of the windows have opening panes that are too large. This means they swing an awfully long way into the room, making them borderline unusable in some places (can tilt them rather than open them, but sometimes you want to maximise airflow!)
• Some of the upstairs windows have large opening panes but also start only 500 or 600 mm off the floor. For safety, we should really have stays preventing them from opening, or some form of railing or glass panel. Doing this again, I'd have had a fixed pane on the bottom up to the building regs height, and split the window into equal opening panes (rather than one very large and one small).
• I would have used a cheaper window supplier.

I didn't think hard enough about the kitchen diner layout. We do have space for a sofa but it isn't really a place to spend a lot of time in comfort.

 

We have balconies off two of the bedrooms. They're never, ever used, and all they do is collect leaves and dust (and, we noticed yesterday, a dead bird from some time ago). I'd have left the overhangs (which are only a metre or so) but done away with the balconies. They also introduced cold bridges that we didn't discover until it was too late.

 

I'd have spent less on windows and found the money for a partial basement. One thing we'd really get a lot of use from as a family would be a gym, which basements are great for. We currently have half of the garage taken up with gym gear. It's fine, but it's way too cold in winter, and I'd rather use the garage for other things.

 

I'd have put external venetians on more of the windows. They're hugely effective - it's very noticeable during hot spells which rooms have them.

 

I'd have gone for a larger plant room and, more importantly, thought a lot harder about the layout. We have a lot of awkward runs of electrical conduit and pipework that could have significantly been reduced if we'd thought harder about things up front. It looks horrible.

[Super_Paulie]

9 minutes ago, jack said:

We have floor to ceiling windows on the two "free" sides of our kitchen diner. Great for views, but terrible for furniture placement. One window is a 5.5m long slider, which if I were doing it again would be replaced by a pair of central doors with windows either side (starting at least a metre off the floor).

agree to this. Was totally seduced by "Grand Designs" and went for double set of doors meaning the entire back end of the house cant be used for furniture at all. If i could go back id do what you suggest there for sure. Saying that, in summer its the absolute dogs danglies but summer is "blink and you'll miss it" here in the North East.

[Iceverge]

10 hours ago, SimonD said:

Should have done a smaller project first!

 

Absolutely. 

 

A cardboard model. 

 

The a ply model. 

 

Then a bird house. 

 

Then a dog house.

 

Then a pump house. 

 

Then a garage. 

 

Then the house. 

 

 

 

 

[Jenki]

For me, (budget was way too small), but I would have loved, and have not given up on the idea of standing seam roof. We used thin leading edge concrete tiles, nailed and clipped every where and we still get tile rattle with 50 mph +  Westerly winds. I've used and will be using more roof sealant on the verge tiles 😔.  

[saveasteading]

41 minutes ago, Jenki said:

the idea of standing seam roof. 

Is that just for the looks? I have always persuaded clients to use profiled, screwed cladding. Why?

1/3 cheaper, and much less specialised.

You should avoid any penetration through cladding but esp with ss.

If there is damage through wind or branches, ss is horrible to repair of replace.

In an urban situation, ss is mimicking zinc or lead roofing. In a rural situation that doesn't apply.

Can suffer from 'oil canning'.

 

FOR ss....no exposed screws.

I reckon 1 per thousand has needed remedial work.

 

[Indy]

6 hours ago, Andehh said:

Should have paid attention to the windows more, we were set on an aluminium single large pane of glass..... But someone somewhere (expletive deleted)ed up the order and split the windows with one fixed pane and one opening pane, and a massive mullions down the middle of it. Was devastated when they turned up and we realised, builder replaced the kitchen ones back to large single pane but gentlemens agreement that asking him to replace all windows and take the £20k hit would come back to haunt all of us.

 

Electric UFH mat in the bathrooms, for when the tiles are cold but the house is too warm for the proper UFH to come on.

 

Electric towel rails, we have the ASHP powering the towel rails on a circuit and it never gets hot enough to do anything.

 

We have a lot of of glass which makes the house feel chilly through science I don't understand... Not sure id change them to cancel this out though.

 

This is a good shout as I'm in the process of finalising the bathroom design on mine and had missed off adding UFH and the towel rads are currently fed off the ASHP. Will go back and incorporate these changes.

 

We've also got a lot of glazing in our design though I'm loathe to change that - it all looks so pretty!

[LnP]

I wish I (or my plumber!) had known about manifolds on DHW systems. I've got a boiler which is a long way from the kitchen and it takes ages for the hot water to come through.

[JamesP]

6 hours ago, Andehh said:

Electric UFH mat in the bathrooms, for when the tiles are cold but the house is too warm for the proper UFH to come on.

I concur. Never used the UFH upstairs just tiles in main bathroom need a little heat occasionally and electric matting would have been ideal.

@miike Great thread.

Edited Thursday at 13:23 by JamesP
Stuff.

[LnP]

17 hours ago, Great_scot_selfbuild said:

I'm just about to start sizing up the plant room space and trying to keep it as small as practicable - would you mind sharing any details of yours? (please DM if not wishing to share too much publicly). Many thanks, Dave

@nod Please share it in the forum rather than DM. I imagine there's nothing confidential about the size of your plant room!

[ProDave]

5 hours ago, jack said:

We have balconies off two of the bedrooms. They're never, ever used, and all they do is collect leaves and dust (and, we noticed yesterday, a dead bird from some time ago). I'd have left the overhangs (which are only a metre or so) but done away with the balconies

Interesting.  We love our balcony, a lovely place to sit on a nice day and look down on the burn and listen to the wildlife.  But out balcony is 2 metres deep, I think it was mentioned in another thread, it has to be big enough to use, not just a narrow space barely wide enough to stand on.

[ProDave]

5 hours ago, jack said:

I'd have gone for a larger plant room and, more importantly, thought a lot harder about the layout.

Another post i will disagree with.  Our plan had a large "plant room" but the realities when actually doung the work, was it made no sense.  All that is in our "plant room" is the mvhr, a few electrical boxes related to the ASHP, a circulating pump and an expansion vessel.  There really is not much indoor stuff for the average ASHP.  Consumer unit was far better on the wall in the utility room.  And hot water made much more sense in an airing cupboard formed from the corner of the spare bedroom putting the tank central to hot water points of use for quick hot water delivery.  I summary our services are distributed each being where makes best sense. 

[Jenki]

3 hours ago, saveasteading said:

Is that just for the looks? I have always persuaded clients to use profiled, screwed cladding. Why?

1/3 cheaper, and much less specialised.

You should avoid any penetration through cladding but esp with ss.

If there is damage through wind or branches, ss is horrible to repair of replace.

In an urban situation, ss is mimicking zinc or lead roofing. In a rural situation that doesn't apply.

Can suffer from 'oil canning'.

 

FOR ss....no exposed screws.

I reckon 1 per thousand has needed remedial work.

 

@saveasteading The SS option I suppose was more of a longevity viewpoint. I have zero experience with SS. I know cladding with metal profile would have been exponentially quicker and cheaper. I was worried about it's lifespan being so close to the coast. Who knows I might be tempted to rip off the tiles and clad with metal profile if the tile lift keeps waking me up,might have to go back to work though😔 .

[nod]

2 hours ago, LnP said:

@nod Please share it in the forum rather than DM. I imagine there's nothing confidential about the size of your plant room!l

i answered a question I’ve no control over the question being direct message 

Given the choice I’d remove the option of direct messaging 

[Kelvin]

Plant room size is an interesting debate. At the start I wished I’d gone a bit bigger as we made the hallway 400mm wider by stealing it from the plant room. However as necessity is mother of invention I made it all fit relatively neatly and the wider hallway is far nicer. Unless you’re going to also use the plant room for storage space with cupboards and shelving then it just needs to be big enough. 

[Bramco]

1 hour ago, Jenki said:

Who knows I might be tempted to rip off the tiles and clad with metal profile if the tile lift keeps waking me up

 

Be careful what you wish for - we have black corrugated cladding and roofing on the 2 storey section of your build. Looks great and fits in with the rural location. But in the summer months as the sun comes up you can hear bumps (best word to describe it) as the metal catches the sun and begins to expand. I'm assuming this is the same for SS?

Wouldn't change it for anything though, it's just one of those things you hadn't thought about and have to learn to appreciate. Feature, not fault...

 

Simon

[ToughButterCup]

Metal gutters. 

The noise the rain makes on the roof is lovely - soothing. But the the piddle, the tinkle, the widdle, the weewee, the Jimmy Riddle sound.. 

[joth]

On 29/10/2024 at 18:44, nod said:

Not much for us this time round 

But I slipped up badly with the plant room While we fitted everything in It was far to small We’ve doubled the size this time and it’s jus about adequate 

 

 

Yes, I made this mistake too - thought 4x2m would be plenty for plant+washing/util+cat feeding but it's way too small. Having 2 doors into there (access through to garage) doesn't help. Also I think I'd push a bit harder to get the laundry in the upstairs fam bathroom (or adjoining it). 

In addition, I regret going with plasterboard and 25mm service void in the plant/util room. It would have been much better with ply-lined walls, no service void, and have all services in surface trunking. I've tinkered with so much of the ASHP since install (3 years ago) this would all be much more robust without crumbling plasterboard.

Finally, putting more effort into coordinating the layout of manifold/UVC/ashp pumps etc - The installers put the all in rather haphazardly again not making best use of the space.

 

Other than that, the main thing I'd do differently next time is demolish and rebuild rather than deep renovate, perhaps doing something more ambitious with planning like upside down house, if the plot suited it. (Our current house really would work nicely like that, enclosed bedrooms on GF and nice views across road to the common on the FF). This is not so much a regret of the last project: on balance I'm far happier we cracked on when we did rather than drag out a couple more years on the design and PP for a rebuild, but if doing it again, a clean sheet rebuild would be the main motivator.

 

 

[joe90]

I think the size of the plant room depends on what goes in it, planned well and  access to anything that requires it, other than that it’s dead space unless used for storage. 

[ChrisInKent]

We’ve just got the house structure up so not ‘post build’ in any way but I would:

- work out services costs and soil conditions pre purchase. Yes an expense but it could have given us leverage to get the land price down a bit (clay required piling, no easy route for services) 

- look every company up on Companies House. Nearly got burned twice by companies in liquidation

- trust my instincts more, not use anyone who I don’t like when meeting them

- make sure everyone understands what we are aiming for, is invested in it with us

- go local whenever possible, didn’t do this with TF company and are happy with that choice but we are using as many local trades as we can now. They have reputations to protect where out of area trades don’t

- apply for the services sooner, it’s a year in and we’re just about to get power (hopefully!), another month for water…

 

[SteamyTea]

Interesting about the plant room size.

Always worth baring in mind that 'things' in it may need to be replaced, or stuff added.

 

As for window size, how often have I said that people put too much glazing in.

[saveasteading]

1 hour ago, Jenki said:

lifespan being so close to the coast.

It is a very good point. I had one building (of 200+ with clad roofs) that had corrosion problems. It got legal.

It was near the sea. The findings were that it was the architect's liability.

I think standing seam would have been worse.

Others near the sea were fine. Lashing rain is your friend.

I don't want to hijack this thread so no more detail here.

[JohnMo]

3 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Interesting about the plant room size

Never really been convinced with plant rooms.

 

Our UFH manifold is in a walk-in cupboard in the utility - makes it an airing cupboard. Our second MVHR is in the hall cupboard, then cylinder is in a insulated loft with primary MVHR and a gas boiler. Mostly use the loft for storage - like most lofts, but is fully insulated. ASHP obviously outside.

[Temp]

More insulation and avoid wood windows. Had enough of painting.