BotusBuild Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 Hello fellow self-builders! Having lived in the South East (nr Reading) for over 30 years in various cookie-cutter boxes of varying quality, after a 2 year hunt we have found a building plot on which we are going to build what we intend to be our "forever house". We are currently in the purchase of the land stage, so fingers are still crossed as we wait for all the legal and financial stuff to conclude, hopefully next month. The plot comes with OPP for an eco-designed house (architects were ARCO2 in Bodmin) which we intend to make minor tweaks to as we apply for DPP and Building Regs approval to proceed. Our intention is to perform as much of the labouring ourselves, both being practical minded, in order to be able to spend more on the materials. Personally, when younger, I helped my parents build a major extension to one property and renovate two others, I have renovated and rebuilt two classic cars, and undertaken re-wiring and re-plumbing in our current property - I'm reasonably confident in doing the work. On the Quality/Time/Cost triad, Time is the one that will be most variable :-) I'll probably be using these forums to seek input on the steps and order of tasks for project planning purposes (if anyone has a good starting template I would be very interested!), to discuss various material choices (e.g. raft v strip foundation, ICF v timber frame etc.), and delve into the variety of construction experience that exists here, so on the basis that there are no stupid questions ..... :-) Cheers Stuart 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSharp01 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 Welcome to THE forum for self builders? Sounds like a fun project looking forward to hearing more and pitching in where I can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newhome Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 Welcome! Sounds like a great project and there is a wealth of expertise to be found from the forum members. Looking forward to seeing how things progress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToughButterCup Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 Welcome. Hope you have a keen sense of humour..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 Welcome, this forum has given me sooo much quality information from people that have actually done their build, much better than theory. I am a retired builder but have learnt so much in the last few years, ask away and looking forward to hearing your plans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 How's Reading South East? I mean "Welcome!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weebles Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 Welcome ? We are building not far from Reading. Happy to share our experience so far. Good luck with the land purchase and look forward to hearing more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 (edited) Welcome. 2 hours ago, Onoff said: How's Reading South East? I mean "Welcome!" Come on. It's Christmas. It's Henley South-West, not Reading South-East. ? F Edited December 18, 2018 by Ferdinand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 Might be in the South West, as the only Botus I know is Botus Fleming (went out with a girl from there around 45 years ago now...). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cambs Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 15 minutes ago, JSHarris said: Might be in the South West, as the only Botus I know is Botus Fleming (went out with a girl from there around 45 years ago now...). I must admit, I wondered where it was too...unusual place name. Architects in Bodmin, so looks like you’re right. 7 hours ago, BotusBuild said: The plot comes with OPP for an eco-designed house (architects were ARCO2 in Bodmin) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jack Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 Welcome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted December 19, 2018 Share Posted December 19, 2018 (edited) 5 hours ago, JSHarris said: Might be in the South West, as the only Botus I know is Botus Fleming (went out with a girl from there around 45 years ago now...). Given that the architect is from Bodmin, that may be a true statement. I love the idea of the " Quality/Time/Cost triad" - a comparison with bloodthirsty gangsters seems quite appropriate. F Edited December 19, 2018 by Ferdinand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BotusBuild Posted May 10, 2019 Author Share Posted May 10, 2019 We finally completed the land purchase on April 12th, and to confirm, yes, it is Botus Fleming just North of Saltash in Cornwall (the South West!) ? The main delay was due to irregularities between the site defined in the approved plans and the plans that were on the Title Transfer, and also the sellers solicitor being a stickler (much to the sellers discomfort!). But as Time is my variable ... ? we promptly went on a two week holiday to celebrate our silver wedding anniversary, and now the planning changes and building reg signoff is the next task. Now switching to other forums ? Stuart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 (edited) 45 minutes ago, BotusBuild said: Botus Fleming Can smell Devon from there. Do you have a definition of Eco, or sustainable, or low energy? (reply to old post) On 18/12/2018 at 14:56, Onoff said: How's Reading South East? Same way that Swindon is South West, only 230 miles from me. Edited May 10, 2019 by SteamyTea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BotusBuild Posted May 10, 2019 Author Share Posted May 10, 2019 @SteamyTea, my personal aim is to make the house as well insulated as I can without going all "PassivHaus", and using other technologies (solar PV, solar thermal etc..) to aim to reduce utility bills to sub-£400 per annum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 1 minute ago, BotusBuild said: solar PV, solar thermal etc.. Have a look at our Ed's sums on this: https://edavies.me.uk/2012/11/pv-dhw/ The prices may need updating, but the physics is good. Insulation is an odd one down here, we have relatively stable temperatures. The one to look at is airtightness and heat recovery. Start designing it in from the start. One of the big issues is solar gain. When the sun does come out, even in winter, it can quite quickly warm a place up. That extra input is hard to hold onto as the wind soon takes the energy away again. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 @BotusBuild, same as me, loads if insulation, attention to detail (air tightness) orientation, MVHR and ASHP. What’s your preference build make up (timber frame, block, brick sips etc) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BotusBuild Posted May 10, 2019 Author Share Posted May 10, 2019 MVHR is definitely in the plans, and at the moment ICF with rebar as ground floor has to sink into ground Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 1 hour ago, BotusBuild said: @SteamyTea, my personal aim is to make the house as well insulated as I can without going all "PassivHaus", and using other technologies (solar PV, solar thermal etc..) to aim to reduce utility bills to sub-£400 per annum. Is the £400 including or excluding water and sewerage..? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 44 minutes ago, PeterW said: Is the £400 including or excluding Or meter rental for that matter. Water is very expensive in the SW. Actually sewage is. Look at reducing rainwater runoff, you get charged for this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 Not too hard to get energy bills down to zero. We're running at around minus £500 a year for all bills except Council Tax and insurance. Annual house running cost, including Council Tax, insurance, water, sewage treatment, electricity, window cleaning and garden maintenance comes to about £1,600, most of that being Council Tax (Council Tax is current about £2100 here). That includes most of the "fuel" for my car, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NSS Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 3 hours ago, JSHarris said: Not too hard to get energy bills down to zero. We're running at around minus £500 a year for all bills except Council Tax and insurance. Annual house running cost, including Council Tax, insurance, water, sewage treatment, electricity, window cleaning and garden maintenance comes to about £1,600, most of that being Council Tax (Council Tax is current about £2100 here). That includes most of the "fuel" for my car, too. Out of interest, how much do you get from FiT payments? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 50 minutes ago, NSS said: Out of interest, how much do you get from FiT payments? The combination of FiT and export generation to the grid (we export around 50% of all the energy we generate, now) gives an income of around £1000 p.a. Unfortunately, we missed the really high FiT payments, so we get less per kWh than the retail price, but it's still useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NSS Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 10 minutes ago, JSHarris said: The combination of FiT and export generation to the grid (we export around 50% of all the energy we generate, now) gives an income of around £1000 p.a. Unfortunately, we missed the really high FiT payments, so we get less per kWh than the retail price, but it's still useful. That's still almost 4 times what we get for ours, and anyone building exactly the same house as yours now would of course get nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 Just now, NSS said: That's still almost 4 times what we get for ours, and anyone building exactly the same house as yours now would of course get nothing. Not sure that's true, as the plan is to pay for export at the mean wholesale price, I believe. Certainly that was being discussed a couple of months ago, though as usual it seems that our government is way behind the curve. We had a system in place like this for microgeneration before the FiT was introduced, so that microgenerators could be paid for their contribution to the grid at a fair price. The fair price was around the mean daytime wholesale price, which today would be around 4.5p/kWh, which is what we get paid for export. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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