Introduction

[K44]

Hi, We are starting a self build barn conversion. A family member who is a retired architect with self build experience is leading the project.  We are all currently feeling baffled/stressed by all the new regulations! Particularly SAPs at the moment. It is a struggle to know who to ask which questions, so I’m hoping this forum will be help us navigate our way forward. 
I might be asking a lot of (probably very silly) questions on lots of topics 😊

[Russell griffiths]

Sap is straight forward 

find a sap assessor, tell him your project type, conversion. 
send him your plans, he will tell you the u values you will need to meet to pass for each part of the building, floor, walls, roof. 
you then need to design each bit accordingly to meet that u value, there are a few things you can do to up your score in certain areas. 
as in some renewable energy sources will score better than others. 

[K44]

Thanks. We were under the impression that we need to work out everything in order to do the test. 
do we need to have details such as what shower, what water tank? 
We are struggling to figure out things like how much insulation on different areas and our hot water system, without knowing what will score highly and what might fail. It all feels like a dark art, where you just have to guess and then pay somebody to tell you if you have guessed correctly. We are very confused! 

[Russell griffiths]

Your step father should have a grasp of this, he probably needs to talk to an up to date architectural technician who regularly does building regs submitions. 
you need to know what u value you need to achieve to pass building regs. 
there is a u value for walls, roofs and floors. 
these u values can be achieved by building in different ways, cavity walls, timber walls and on and on. 
 

you need someone technical to point you in the right direction, then you need to research every different build type, until you find what fits your project. 
 

you don’t need to know the details of what shower you will have, but you should know that you are either going to use gas, or oil or electricity. 
 

I think I would stop work until you are up to speed with things incase you end up having to re do any work you have started. 
 

what sort of stage are you at.