A Dickensian Christmas

We thought they'd gone quiet, but Knott came out of the woodwork (sorry!) the other day threatening us with debt collectors.  So, debtors' prison for us over Yuletide, then...

This is our response:

Many thanks for your email of 19 December 2011 regarding the above invoice.

Firstly, you quote from my email of 24 November requesting soft copies of the plans before dealing with the corrected invoice.  My apologies for a badly drafted email written in haste [I'd written that we'd pay the corrected invoice rather than deal with the corrected invoice]; written in haste in part, I may add, due to having to respond within seven days to an invoice that had already spent some days in the post.  Obviously, not having been sent your contractual terms at any point we were unaware of your payment terms.  May I also add that even when the replacement invoice was sent by email it was dated some days previously.

Putting that aside, we still maintain that the correct, i.e. appropriate, payment of the invoice was a partial payment to reflect the fact that you have only partially completed the feasibility stage.  Without wishing to repeat the points in our letter to [Knott] of 1 December the reasons we believe you have yet to complete the feasibility stage are:

      i.        You have failed to meet the brief.  Setting aside the more subjective points in our response to your plans, given that the brief could be summed up as ‘make best use of space and light given the restrictions of the plot’, to present a design including key rooms with no natural light clearly shows that it objectively fails to meet the brief.  Another iteration of the plans was, therefore, we felt appropriate as part of the feasibility stage.

     ii.        When we met [Knott] on 14 October 2011 he agreed to discuss and clarify the council’s response to our pre-application ([Planning Officer's] letter of 10 October) and that any design presented would reflect those discussions.  At the presentation of the outline plan you confirmed that that conversation had not taken place.  If you had it is our belief that some of the most troubling aspects of the design could have been avoided.

We are disappointed that you maintain that you have completed this stage of the design satisfactorily.  We had hoped that you could take a step back and recognise that you had only partially met the brief and that, therefore, a partial payment of your fee is appropriate.  Unless we hear from you by 2 January 2012 that you are happy to draw a line under this we will look to raise this as a complaint/dispute with RIBA and/or the ARB, as appropriate.

Yours sincerely...

Fighting talk!

Not a very good site diary, is it?

Haven't thought of a decent pseudonym, so our new architectural designer will just have to stay as the Architectural Designer.  If things don't go as badly tits up as they have with Knott then he'll get his credit at the end.  If there ever is an end.

But, several days after it happened, have to report a decent meeting with him.  He didn't laugh when we showed him our pans and cardboard model.  He thought some degree of iteration of the plans until the client is happy was standard practice.  He's happy to QA and improve upon our basic design, and didn't try the 'you mere mortals couldn't possibly even attempt what we do' line.  He's even sent through written terms, which Knott never did.  All for £3,500, which would have been a couple of redrawings from Knott's minions.

The only slightly shaky moment was when he showed us his portfolio including something Georgian that "wasn't a pastiche".  The only conclusion that we can draw is that he has a time machine...

Doing what I shouldn't have to do any more...

Yes, back designing houses, drawing plans, even building another model, this time using wooden blocks to give it structure (which of my children's playthings can I steal to use next?).  All the things that I shouldn't have to do having employed an architect...

We have a meeting with the other architectural designer and, rather than give him a blank sheet we want him to QA, improve upon, and draw properly, our scheme.  He may, very professionally, talk us out of that route, or even walk away.  We're prepared to buy him a coffee, though, down the pub, if that helps secure his services.

Meanwhile, on the knotty Knott issue, here's our self-explanatory and, we hope, business-like letter to him, CAD files having arrived:

We are writing in relation to the above invoice, dated 25 November 2011, though only emailed on 28 November.  Having considered the outputs of our meeting of 16 November 2011 we feel it appropriate to only pay half of this invoice for the following reasons:

 I.        When we met on 14 October 2011 we clarified the deliverables of each stage.  Our understanding was that the output of the first stage of the process would be a design that would meet the client’s brief to the client’s satisfaction.  We therefore assumed that it would therefore allow for some appropriate degree of iteration.

We have already written expressing our disappointment at how the proposed design fails to meet our specification, in particular ‘making best use of light and space’ given virtually no glazing on the southern elevation.  Therefore we feel that for you to unilaterally decide that this phase has been completed satisfactorily is inappropriate.  As consultants in different fields it would be unheard of in our professions to sign off work without allowing clients to input into the deliverables of each stage.

 II.        Secondly, when we met on 14 October, you undertook to discuss the council’s response to our pre-application (XX’s letter of 10 October) and that the design you would present would reflect that discussion.  At the presentation XX confirmed that this had not been done.  If you had it is our belief that some of the most troubling aspects of the design, the ability to let natural light into the heart of the house in particular, could have been avoided.

Please find enclosed a cheque for £1827.

Yours sincerely,

Serendipity or coincidence?

Oddly enough, Knott hasn't responded to our email asking for a corrected added up invoice and the CAD files of our project.

In our search for an alternative strategy and provider (the idea of getting another RIBA square-glasses type up to speed only to be presented with an arty picture of a bog-roll holder makes me weep) we've contacted the architectural designer who did a bungalow remodelling in the same village which we drive past when we go to site.

Bizarrely, our surveyor, when I emailed to ask him not to pass anything further to Knott, recommended the same man, totally off his own bat.

Read all about our new relationship here...  Mills & Boon with a design and access statement...

Cheeky bastards... or just innumerate?

Invoice from Knott just turned up in the post - unbelievable client relationship management.

£2,900 for "Feasibility Outline Study", plus £145 expenses (they're in the same village!), sub-total £3,190 plus 20% VAT makes £3,828.

Do the maths - go on, do it...

Response to us

Thought you may like to see Knott's response (in bold) to the section I posted the other day:


Since we met earlier this week we’ve had some time to consider the design you presented. Although we said that we would dedicate some time to costings before responding substantively, we have come to the conclusion that the design as presented is ill-conceived and not heading in the right direction for us, and we therefore require rethought plans.


Our main concerns are two-fold. Firstly, we required the design to make “the best use of light and space”. Our primary reason for coming to you was that off-the-shelf providers did not seem to be able to cater for a long, narrow plot, orientated as it is. A key challenge, therefore, was how best to get light into the heart of the house.  However, you have presented a two-storey house with virtually no glazing in the south elevation, indeed less than the bungalow it is replacing. The south elevation is overlooking the neighbouring property so glazing options are severly restricted we have indicated high level slot windows where possible and additional rooflights could be incorporated as desired. 


We stated that we wished to build an energy efficient house – we do not believe this can be achieved most successfully with so few windows in the south aspect to allow for solar gain. Also, two rooms – the study and open plan landing - are utterly devoid of natural light. The new layout cater for this, please note that the brief did not specify the design/location of the study area and the initial scheme allowed for a glazed partitioned study space very similar in style to our own studio meeting room allowing for the sense of light and space. 


Most of all, we were surprised that you have kept the garage on the south side of the property. We could understand this if the rationale was to provide a long sloping roof into which rooflights could be placed providing light, but without overlooking neighbours (a strategy we would be happy with), but this clearly is not the thinking. The reasoning behind this was largely based on rooflines, bulk and massing as a response to the site context to respect the neighbouring property and thus be more likely acceptable in planning terms. The updated plan shows the plan ‘flipped’ horizontally however this does not really assist with light as the southern wall at ground floor will be in very close proximity to the boundary.


Overall, we feel the layout of the house as currently drawn would not meet our requirements and is a worsening, rather than improvement, from the draft floorplan we gave you as part of our briefing pack in July. This is a great disappointment. The draft floor plan was used as a guide in our designs, however since the time of the sketch planning feedback has overridden a number of the components you had allowed for- most critically the integral garage and window (and thus location) of bedroom 2. Our design had to take this into account and address your brief as closely as possible whilst keeping the planning comments and site restraints in mind.


Secondly, and perhaps the style of the drawing is to blame, but the design appears too similar to the 1970s brick-built houses common locally with an offset vertical stretch of tiles instead of your metal sheet. Unless you can provide an alternative means of presenting the design, this looks bland and boring and is not a design we would wish to invest in. We appreciate the Council may have a conservative approach to style and design of the new dwelling but two Council officers have verbally confirmed that a more contemporary design, if good quality, may be possible. We do wonder whether you have taken the overall context of XXXX Lane into account as the current design seems to just deliver a two-storey version, slightly updated, of the current bungalow. The contemporary perception of the scheme as built will rely on the high quality nature of the detailing- i.e. metal cladding, dark grey metal window frames, neat hidden guttering and sharp edged through-coloured render will in no way give the appearance of a ‘standard’ house. we appreciate that at this early stage it is difficult to full appreciate the drawings in this way. The are of course more ways in which we could be creative by way of oversized glazed openings etc however we have held back from this due to budget.


They also indicate that they regard the current phase of work as complete and now require paying.  Any further iterations will be charged and, just to introduce a sense of blackmail, they've produced a revised floorplan (worse than before in some ways, an improvement in others) but won't do elevations until they've seen a cheque.  And it seems clear that it'll take more than one iteration to get the plans where we want them...

We did try to clarify the deliverables at each phase of the project, but when we were told outline plans would be the deliverable here I must admit  assumed the words "to the clients' satisfaction" were taken as read.  As a consultant I'd never invoice until the client is happy, or at least until a reasonable number of iterations had been gone through.  Is this typical for architects?

Response to Knott

Here is the opening of our response to Knott, with the south elevation as proposed below.  Is it just us, or does it look like a prison?  Are we just being picky?

Since we met earlier this week we’ve had some time to consider the design you presented.  Although we said that we would dedicate some time to costings before responding substantively, we have come to the conclusion that the design as presented is ill-conceived and not heading in the right direction for us, and we therefore require rethought plans.  

Our main concerns are two-fold.  Firstly, we required the design to make “the best use of light and space”.  Our primary reason for coming to you was that off-the-shelf providers did not seem to be able to cater for a long, narrow plot, orientated as it is.  A key challenge, therefore, was how best to get light into the heart of the house.

However, you have presented a two-storey house with virtually no glazing in the south elevation, indeed less than the bungalow it is replacing. We stated that we wished to build an energy efficient house – we do not believe this can be achieved most successfully with so few windows in the south aspect to allow for solar gain.  Also, two rooms – the study and open plan landing - are utterly devoid of natural light.  Most of all, we were surprised that you have kept the garage on the south side of the property.  We could understand this if the rationale was to provide a long sloping roof into which rooflights could be placed providing light, but without overlooking neighbours (a strategy we would be happy with), but this clearly is not the thinking.

 
Overall, we feel the layout of the house as currently drawn would not meet our requirements and is a worsening, rather than improvement, from the draft floorplan we gave you as part of our briefing pack in July.  This is a great disappointment. 

Secondly, and perhaps the style of the drawing is to blame, but the design appears too similar to the 1970s brick-built houses common locally with an offset vertical stretch of tiles instead of your metal sheet.  Unless you can provide an alternative means of presenting the design, this looks bland and boring and is not a design we would wish to invest in.  We appreciate the Council may have a conservative approach to style and design of the new dwelling but two Council officers have verbally confirmed that a more contemporary design, if good quality, may be possible.  We do wonder whether you have taken the overall context of XXXXX Lane into account as the current design seems to just deliver a two storey version, slightly updated, of the current bungalow.

On a more positive note, despite initial reservations, we are happy with the concept of dropping the front third of the house to decrease the apparent massing when viewed from the road.

And then we went on with particular, specific issues, some of which did appear to be basic architectural howlers, like positioning the stairs so all the cold air from outside rushes straight to the upper floor when it could be simply reversed.  Then again, many Victorian houses have just the same fault and they invented just about everything and painted the world pink (hello to all our readers in the Empire).

We still think we've got the right architect (possibly because we don't want to start again?), but the next few weeks will prove us right or wrong...

Quite honestly, don't know where to start

Had our meeting with Knott during the week.  Instant coffee.  Big A3 folder full of pictures of other people's houses.  Then drawings of ours...

The main hang-up during the meeting was he was proposing to give us a house with the front third dropped into the ground by a metre or so (imagine a standard house with the gable end at the front, slice the front third and wedge in into the ground).  The rationale being it would give a big house, but one that doesn't look that big from the front, massing in the context of the streetscene being a big issue with the Council.

This was innovative and took a bit of thinking about before coming to terms with.  It was one of those 'oh I see, that's clever; I'd never though of that' moments that we were looking for.

Trouble is, those moments stopped there.

We left the meeting agreeing to cost up what had been produced but, instead, the more we looked at it the more we were surprised, shocked, and appalled at everything else.  Given we had tasked them with 'making best use of light and space' (isn't this, essentially, longhand for 'good architecture'?) they had not just given us a house with four bedrooms at each corner (we were looking for more than just conventional, but it's not a hanging offence), but given us rooms with no natural light, and with the sum total glazing on the south elevation of two slit windows.  Unbelievable.

Seriously, I may try to rework the spaghetti of cables to get the scanner to work and post the south elevation.

We've been working on a written response for the last few days.  I'd like to give them another chance to get it right, but this is so far wide of the mark that we're beginning to wonder...

Greetings from the second front

Whilst the main battle - coming up with plans that will satisfy client and Council - bubbles away in the background in the (we hope) capable hands of Knott and his team - we've been hard at work opening up the second front of getting the property ready to let out in the short/medium term.  Walls painted, shower installed, secondhand cooker bought to replace the one we sold on eBay.  New carpets went in yesterday, letting agents coming around tomorrow.

Given the fact that our least friendly planning officer is the most likely to be assigned our case we may as well hunker down for a long fight and get some rental income in whilst we're at it.

And on the subject of planning, we ran into one of the neighbours a few days back, although not one we've consulted on access issues or offered to buy a back garden from.  We told her our plans, both short- and long-term (can't see the point in being disingenuous given she'd be consulted on any plans).  "You can't do much with the site," she said, looking at the bungalow.  As soon as I used the words 'two-storey' and 'demolish and rebuild' I felt like I just told some Polish peasant in the summer of 1938 that we'd had a lovely holiday and we're thinking of coming back next year to invade.  Probably be the talk of the road by now...

Rooflines & windows

Been a week now since our meeting with Knott - so much for this being a diary of the build from planning to snagging, more of a recent retrospective.

Anyway, we had a good meeting, with most of the mental horsepower devoted to thinking what kind of roof and side windows could keep both Council and client happy.  I think we may be going for a flat roof or something creatively asymmetric, and a notch on the south face to let light in at the sides, a sort of reverse bay with no forward-facing window.  I'd like to see it on paper before I comment - all I know is that given seven years of professional training plus years of experience I'm hoping they come up with something I haven't thought of.

Meanwhile, following our legal advice to mothball the project, the bungalow is being prepared for going on the lettings market - today is all about getting bathroom taps off that appear to have been cemented on forty-five years ago.  Not really what I originally intended to be blogging about...

Vague and unhelpful

Like Hailey's comet, you wait for ages then it turns out to be crap.  After almost two months we've had our response from the Council, a single vague and unhelpful page of A4 with classics such as "on this side of [name of road] is a line of single storey dwellings... no.[x] to the rear is two storey, nos. [y & z] are more one and a half storey.  Dwellings on the opposite side of the road are more mixed in height and scale."  (My italics).

Anyway, apart from everything she doesn't like integral garages, the overall size, and windows in the south elevation on the grounds that would restrict the future redevelopment of the bungalow to the south.  But a) if we were not to put in any south-facing windows then it would free them up to put in as many windows as they wanted.  And b) all those windows that would be overlooking our solid unbroken brickwork would be, for them, north-facing which would probably be only bathrooms.

We've restricted our north-facing windows because of the bedroom windows across the way which are already there.  Now we have to restrict our south-facing windows because of the windows that aren't there, but might be there one day, but we know will only be bathrooms.

See what Knott makes of this.

Inching forward again

The woman from the Council carried out her site visit on Friday.  I surprised her by being on site.  She didn't surprise me by not having read any of the papers, so my being there proved marginally useful.

In a foolish effort to be proactive I've booked a meeting with the architect for the 14th in the hope and expectation we'll have a written response by then.

Stop your sniggering at the back... 

One step back, err... no steps forward

Message left on the answerphone from the Council that our pre-application has now been allocated and the officer will try to 'get around to it' in the next couple of weeks and see the site.  This is despite the fact that two other planning officers are already slightly familiar with our site.  Frustrating.

Also cancelled next month's service isolations for the time being and have a man in from a letting agency later in the week to see its letting potential versus how much we'd need to throw at it to make it habitable.  

All quiet on the self-building front

Hmm...

Things getting somewhat bogged down as summer moves into autumn.  Legal advice, for a variety of reasons outside the scope of these posts, is to mothball the project for the foreseeable future, although our inclination is to at least get plans drawn up if not demolish.

Ofgem have confirmed that, whilst we can put solar PVs on the current bungalow, we cannot refit them to any replacement dwelling on still qualify for the FITs.  So that the 'making money whilst mothballing' plan sunk.

And the Council have gone over their 28-day deadline for responding to our pre-application and failed to give me an indication of when they might respond.

Off later to try to turn the apple harvest into cider.  Could have a lot of vinegar come Christmas...

Turn your back for a moment and... nothing happens

Back from a fortnight's holiday having set a number of plates spinning in the hope of finding some answers on our return.

Firstly, the pre-application to the Council designed to identify the sticking points in our desired outline design.  Still in a pile of post apparently, not even allocated a number on the system.  I was told that the Council has to respond within 28 days of receipt, but it may be later than that.  When I asked what happens if the service standard of 28 days isn't met, what sanction is there to guarantee service levels as promised, I may as well have tried to discuss absolute versus relative systems of morality...

Nothing's appeared from Ty-afal as regards seeing one of their airtight, heating-free houses.  Thought given we'd dragged the managing director over from Wales (slight exaggeration - he was in Oxford anyway) he may have followed up with an e-mail.  But no...

And the Energy Savings Trust's promise to clarify the issue over solar PV panels and whether they can be commissioned, de-commissioned, and then re-commissioned on a new house at the same address hasn't happened (they're bombarding me with e-mail surveys for me to tell them how well they did, though, like some rampant floppy-eared puppy, eager to please despite having pee'd on your carpet), so I've written direct to Ofgem, even though Ofgem state up front they don't deal with consumer queries.

Back to usual, then.

Optimistic or merely hopeful?

Two good meetings yesterday, firstly with Ty-afal, then with Knott the architect.  Ty-afal's build technique sounded convincing with timber frame made airtight and layers of insulation applied, underfloor heating set directly into the slab and no heating upstairs because its not needed (!), but I hope when we were talking a ballpark figure of £1k per square metre that was a total build price.  The goalposts got shifted by counsel against SIPs (which I was getting, and still am, quite keen on) on the grounds that nobody knows how they're going to perform over time.  We've asked for a visit to a Ty-afal-built house which should be a future date for the diary.

Knott has his own views on SIPs and timber frame, whilst not being particularly pro- or anti- (apart from sound travelling too easily around timber frame houses) he couldn't see why we wouldn't want to lay a great big slab of concrete down and build out of block with insulation applied to the outside. 

We went through our briefing pack whilst the Girl drew and coloured and the Boy fidgeted.  We discussed some of the key requirements, issues over massing, and the fact that the budget we quoted wouldn't stretch to what we're proposing.  I'm not sure whether we got the message across that we don't just want to be able to call the house 'architect designed', but that it should be obvious when you drive up to it and walk into it.  We want something that's better and different from the norm.  So when Knott at one stage tested how we felt if we had a design with four bedrooms, one at each corner, on the top floor rather than the double height space and galleried games area that I'd sketched I felt like saying that I didn't really need an architect to deliver that.

Next step is for me to put my plans into the Council as a pre-application to inform Knott's thinking.  At the moment I'm yet to see the difference between seven years professional training and a £30 software package, but I'm keeping an open mind.  The good lady wife remains optimistic, whereas I merely remain hopeful - I think there's a subtle difference.

That doesn't sound very sustainable...

For reasons that I won't go into, but revolve around tax and the early encashment of investments, it may be prudent to put the build on ice for the foreseeable future.  With that scenario in mind I called the Energy Savings Trust as I have a plan B of putting solar PV on the roof of the existing house, gaining the existing high rate of feed in tariff (FIT), removing and storing them panels when it's demolished, then putting them on the new house when it's eventually built.

My queries were simple, 'yes' or 'no' ones:

• can you get FITs by fitting solar PV to a vacant residential property?
• can I still get the original rate of FIT if I refit the panels to a property at the same address having demolished and rebuilt

Carly (let's name her) was one of those people who find it hard to deal with questions in the abstract, but when I gave her some modicum of background she cried 'Oh, I can't give you any tax advice!'.  No, I'm not asking you to, you asked me for context.  Please just answer the questions, yes or no...

Not sure I got any kind of answer to either question.  To the first one she just went off on a tangent, firstly wanting to send me general information about FITs (read it, please don't send more); then talking through the sense of putting panels on a vacant property given the energy sold back is deemed (yes, but if its vacant for two years out of twenty-five the return is still worth it if I can get the original rate).  I suppose by implication that meant that it was allowed.

As regards the second, trickier question, all she could tell me was that would be fine with an extension or renovation.  But it's not.  Oh, yes, Carly said, but if it were an extension or renovation...  Trust me, it won't be.  The assumption is, she said, that any new build would have a new solar PV array.  So, I said, I'm expected to throw away the two- or three-year old array and buy a new one - that doesn't sound very sustainable.

She's passing the query up the line where I'll get an email response within five days.  Given this may turn out to be a crucial answer in a few years time if I do have a fight about the FIT rate I asked for a proper written response and said I was happy to write in, setting out the exact question to ensure there are no misunderstandings.  Oh no, she said, we don't even send out brochures. 

So, given I can't write in with the exact query, I fear a slightly misdirected response to a slightly misunderstood query reliant on Carly's communication of it, probably from a do-not-reply email address.  At which point I'll have to repeat the query and they'll have to repeat the work.  All together now: that doesn't sound very sustainable.

Signed, (un)sealed, delivered

The briefing pack was delivered to Knott, the architect, on Thursday by hand, partly because we were passing, and partly because the example pictures cut out from magazines (general themes: white render, glazed gable ends) was too big for any envelope we had easily to hand.  (Check back in a year and see how much we've compromised, folks!):

Statement of Requirements

Planning considerations

We have already had pre-application discussions with the Council.  Part of those discussions was the exploration of whether putting more than one property on the site would be possible.  Following those discussions we have decided to restrict ourselves to replacing the current bungalow with a single replacement dwelling.

The Council have indicated that:

·         A two-storey replacement dwelling may be acceptable, although consideration will need to be taken of the ridge heights of neighbouring properties;

·         It may be possible to bring the building line forward slightly given the differing building lines of neighbouring properties;

·         They would not welcome an integral garage forward of the face of the house;

·         One of their key considerations would be whether neighbouring bungalows are overlooked at the rear.  Clearly, this is negated if the house only extends as far back as its neighbours; the further the house projects at the rear the more of an issue this could be.

In other words, any design should more-or-less use the current length of the footprint, with the possibility of about a further metre or so front and back.

Overall

We require a 5-bed, preferably two-, but possibly one-and-a-half-storey (if required by planning) house.  Our working budget, including fees and demolition costs, is £240k.

For planning purposes it would help if the plans showed only 4 bedrooms with an additional room that could be used as a bedroom.   The following rooms are essential except where marked as desirable:

Downstairs

·         Garage - single

·         Large open-plan kitchen/diner/family area at rear with full-width bi-fold doors to garden.  The space should also make best use of the available light.  There should be enough space for a six-seat dining table and a three seater sofa, as well as in the kitchen:

o   at least 10m of worktop, including 1 and ½ bowl sink, with storage below and above, part of which should be a breakfast bar/island unit with seating for 3-4 on stools

o   space for a 1000mm range cooker with extractor hood plus a dishwasher

·        Either a (preferably) separate living room, or an area of the open-plan space that could be closed off from noise and cooking smells.  There should be wood burner in both the living room and the open plan area, preferably the same wood burner accessible from both rooms (not sure if such a thing exists?!) 

·         Study (does not need to be large, at least 2m x 2m, but a separate room would be preferable to a dedicated space)

·         Cloakroom with toilet and basin, not necessarily bigger than this though if  possible space for hanging coats would be desirable

·         Utility room.  There should be enough ‘utility space’ for food storage/larder, laundry, and plant associated with the house – heat pump (see below), rainwater harvesting pump, underfloor heating controls, etc.  Whether that is delivered in a single space, or in separate spaces is an open question.  A laundry chute from upstairs to downstairs is also desirable, but we imagine that this would cause more problems (e.g. sound travelling from below) than it would solve.

Upstairs

·         Master bedroom with en suite or wet room (1700mm bath, shower, WC, basin), and a decent amount of storage.  Double, but does not necessarily need to unusually large.  We do not require a separate dressing area.  Also a balcony would be desirable so we envisage this at the rear of the property.

·         Bedroom 2; reasonable sized double with en suite (shower, WC, basin) and adequate storage

·         Bedroom 3, reasonable sized double with adequate storage

·         Bedroom 4, reasonable sized double with adequate storage

·         Family bathroom – 1700mm bath, walk-in shower, WC, basin

·        Playroom/games room and/or gym/exercise room – enough space to accommodate a Concept 2 indoor rower (length 3m) plus yoga/pilates comfortably.  (Assume this room could double as a fifth bedroom). This room would need to be enclosed because of the noise from the rowing machine. In which case there may be some difficulty calling it a fifth bedroom if for planning purposes we only wish to declare four bedrooms – if the room were off the master bedroom this would not be a problem

·         Sauna (desirable)

·         Airing cupboard, probably with hot water tank

·         Loft

Whilst hard to quantify or prescribe, we would also like the house to show some kind of ‘wow factor’ in the design to make the best use of light and space.

Build & materials

We envisage the house being of either timber frame, or SIPs construction, with blockwork & render walls, or part-brick, part-blockwork & render if required by the planners.

Other building materials we wish to incorporate:

·         TATA Colourcoat Urban roof & soffit details

·         aluminium clad timber double-glazed windows/doors to garden (Sunfold Systems doors or similar)

·         slate or tile flooring in kitchen

·         bamboo flooring elsewhere downstairs, in bathrooms, and possibly in other upstairs rooms as well

·         Lindab guttering & downpipes or similar

Heating & power; and environmental impact & green technologies

The environmental impact of the house is an important consideration for us, particularly regarding long-term running costs and we are prepared to invest in proven and reasonably established technologies to achieve this.  The house should aim to achieve an EPC rating of A, but we are not necessarily trying to achieve PassivHaus levels unless obviously affordable.

However, first and foremost, the house should be well insulated and air-tight.

Secondly, the house should have at least a 4kW solar PV array.  We are also considering solar water heating, but we are not wholly convinced by its return on investment.  However, given an unobstructed and almost perfectly south facing roof, solar water heating should be included in the design.

We have investigated the possibility of installing a ground source heat pump.  Although the advice we have been given is that installation of a ground source heat pump would not be unreasonable in our circumstances, given the proximity of a gas supply (and therefore probable exclusion from RHI payments) we remain unconvinced and the design should assume gas central heating.

We have also inherited a considerable amount of wood and therefore a wood burner is a requirement for both open plan space and living room.  If it is possible to use one wood burner for both rooms without negating the point of a closed-off living room, so much the better.  If possible, the wood burner should be integrated into the heating system of the house, e.g. by pre-heating water before it goes to the boiler, but the house should not be reliant on the wood burner for heat or domestic hot water.

The primary heating source for the house should be underfloor heating downstairs, with either underfloor heating or radiators upstairs.

Another requirement is a rainwater harvesting system, suggested tank size c.4000-6000 litres.

Bigging up the Indians

One of the myriad of barcodes I clicked on at the self-build centre at Swindon was for Tata Colorcoat Urban steel cladding.  All hail Tata for sending through samples of two large slivers of panel so that you can see how they fix together, plus samples of all the colours.  We're a little bit sold on it.  Not sure British Steel would have had customer service as good.  Not sure they would have had anything so innovative...

Meanwhile, our briefing for the architect is nearing finalisation.  I've had an email back from them saying that they expect to get a concept of a house together in a few weeks.  I really don't think it's that big a job - the site sets some of the constraints, the Council others, the budget more.  Work within that; plans within a few weeks, surely?

I said they're happy (or they say they're happy) for me to send them my plans.  It took me a while to spot, but having been using an American architectural software package I'd labeled the floors first and second - doh!  I've also sent the plans off to two manufacturers of structural insulated panels (SIPs) to see what kind of ballpark a SIPs house would be in, cost-wise.  A bit naughty, but I'm inclined to send them to the Council as a pre-application enquiry as well.

My thinking has moved on from timber frame to SIPs, although we've finally arranged a meeting with the Ty-Afal man.  Maybe I've been taken in by the numerous videos on Youtube of houses going up in a week.  I watched some with a family friend who builds mansions for footballers up north who wasn't convinced that they were as structural as the name suggests.  I know the theory - they work like I-beams, stronger than the equivalent in wood, etc., etc., but I'm slightly wary myself.  Be interesting to hear what the architects have to say about it all.

No way to react...

...to losing your tenant in your rented property, and therefore a significant element of your income stream: appoint the most expensive architect in the county.  He might not be, but anybody who goes off on a six-day site visit to the Cayman Islands probably is.

However, we've tried to rein things in by stating that we only want him to produce drawings to get us through planning & building regs applications, and to build from.  We're not looking to him to manage either the applications or build itself.  We're also drawing up a detailed spec, portfolio of images of architectural styles, plus my amateur plans which he was gracious enough to agree would be a good way to help get us all on to the same page as quickly as possible - although he's probably secretly cursing amateurs who think they can replace seven years training with a £30 software package...

Package to be sent this week, meeting next.

What's so difficult about this house-building thing?

Here's one I made earlier...

Seriously, though, having been treated as non-existent by two companies that claim to start with a blank sheet of paper and join the design and build together, and not wanting to spend several thousand pounds and weeks on getting an architect simply on to the same page as us, I've taken up pen and paper and begun sketching a possible house for the site as a starter for discussion. 

That led to a rather complicated arrangement of double-height reception space combined with a balcony off the master suite (you know it'll all go when I see the figures, don't you?) which I had to prove to myself in three dimensions.  Hence, Lego!

Looks very much like I'll be taking the sketches, though possibly not the model, to Knott for further development.  I'm sticking with the colour scheme, though...

What is it with timber frame companies?

Potton came good in the end, in the sense they actually sent something through at 10.04am on Monday, which is only 59 hours and four minutes after their promised deadline.  However, what they sent through was a couple of floor plans of a long, thin house rather than what we asked for which was some evidence of having succeeded on a similar plot.

As floor plans go it was okay, I guess, but I was struggling to spot any eureka moments.  At the Swindon session on Saturday David Hinton poured some measure of scorn on fireplaces that are stuck on to the outside of houses and therefore do as good a job of heating the village as the house.  And what have Potton drawn?  Yes, a big fireplace out in the street.  Bits like that suggest they're good at designing houses for sales directors in Vauxhall Insignias but that we're probably not on the same page.

They haven't even responded to my chase for what we do want.

Meanwhile we've stumbled across Tyafal (http://www.tyafal.co.uk/), a timber frame company with more eco-awareness and a website of houses which are nearer our thinking.  Had a nice chat with a bloke in a car who would call me later Monday.  Nothing.  Then an email to say we'd speak Tuesday.  Err... nada.

What is it with these people?

Swindon

Apart from the drive through torrential rain on the M4, spent a pleasant Saturday at the National Self-Build and Renovation Centre in Swindon at their Eco Workshop on feed-in-tariffs and renewable heat incentives.

As expected, it's changed my thinking.  For a start, one of the most impressive speakers, David Hilton, suggested that if you have a gas supply it would be perverse not to use it.  I later spoke to him and he explained that RHI probably won't cover you if you have access to a gas supply, so one argument for a ground source heat pump goes for a Burton.  I don't think this was the sole reason for his stance - I think he was saying the research shows its the lowest impact fuel source, but I'm still attracted by the idea of severing dependence on fuel that somebody else sets the price of.

I also found out that if we had a heat pump we wouldn't need a gas boiler as they can produce water at up to 55 Celsius, but we'd probably have to dig trenches in the entire garden.  A few holes, okay, but the entire garden looking like the frontline c.1917?  And if we try to squeeze to much heat from it it could freeze your garden.  I think the moral is ground source heat pumps are a fine solution to a challenge, but don't make up a challenge if you don't have one.

Better to make use of the almost infinite supply of wood on site, and I'm now thinking what's the best wood burner that could pre-heat water for a gas boiler when it's on, but doesn't cause problems when it's not.  It also, I think, diminishes the risks of having different people supply different bits (I asked the panel about the risks of mixing n' matching but I think they hedged).  Still, we have a site meeting with EcoEnergy this week, so we'll see how my thinking's swayed after that.

Solar PV was on everybody's lips (to the extent that practically no mention was made of wind turbines - I think a similar session three years ago would have majored on them), to the degree that I caught the end of the session by the man from Glow-worm gamely answering question on PV.  Glow-worm have nothing to do with PV.  Unlike not using gas if you have it, the unanimous view is that the economics of solar PV means that if you can use it, do so.

Another of the more thought-provoking speakers, Bob Harris, twice Builder of the Year and now university lecturer, put it to me that it would be better to store the output of PV than sell back to the grid.  His suggestion was to use it to heat water.  I'm still trying to get my head around that one as I can see a lot of water being heated in summer when I don't need it.  He also recommended

My postman's going to hate me as I got very carried away with their laser-click-a-barcode-request-a-brochure machines.  But a few items not related to the workshop stood out as worthy of further investigation:

• Colourcoat Urban roofing by Tata (http://www.colorcoat-online.com/en/products/exterior_products/colorcoat_urban) - looks good (from a distance) and was pushing the 'affordable alternative' line
• Roto roof windows (http://www.roto.co.uk/index.htm) - like Velux, but hinged a third of the way up

Oh, and Potton?  Not a word.

Note to self - utilities

Rather than rehash the note I've just written to self regarding utilities, here it is verbatim.  The only thing to add was that the woman who picked up the phone at Scottish & Southern was able to deal with the whole thing herself without bouncing me from department to department (refreshing).  Ditto Anglian Water, but that was easy as there's nothing for them to do.  BT and Open Reach appear to be gearing up for a game to catch the hot potato, but maybe that's just me being paranoid...

Gas

·         Spoke to Scottish & Southern 15/7 (number as per bill).

·         Isolation provisionally booked for 12pm to 6pm 13 October 2011, but need to call 0845 0261998 two weeks before to confirm

·         Costs unknown, but National Grid can advise on 0845 6066766 

Electricity

·         Spoke to Scottish & Southern, 15/7.

·         Isolation booked for 12pm to 6pm 13 October 2011

·         Costs dependent on condition of meter (?!), if there is a charge will be advised on the day.

·         A temporary supply can be provided for the duration of the build, but cost will be £1k to £2.5k depending on whether it’s buried or overhead and other factors.  Slightly confused whether need to contact them 4 weeks or 10-15 weeks beforehand to arrange temporary supply.

·         Conversion of temporary supply to permanent is another £1.5k.

·         Contact is 0845 2340040 or ukpowernetwork.co.uk

Water

·         Spoke to Anglian Water, 15/7, (01522 341922).

·         As meter is in the road outside just turn water off at the meter – pipework other side of meter is owner’s responsibility.

Telephone

·         Spoke to BT who directed me to Open Reach, 15/7, (0800 9177381).

·         Open Reach advised that I have to tell BT (the service provider) to shut down the line, and then arrange with Open Reach to recover the cable.  BT will then deal provision of materials for a new line (i.e. ducting).

·         [Slightly at odds with previous build where we only dealt with Open Reach.]

Are we speaking the same language?

Have been chasing up demolition quotes and investigating the murky world of asbestos surveys which most firms want, some think they need (although I'm not sure its a legal requirement for a domestic property from the HSE website), and some can live without by looking the other way (hopefully not when they've just come across the stuff, though).

I've had one quote from a company which will demolish without a survey: "Quotation to provide plant, labour and disposal associated with the demolition and clearance of the bungalow including foundations and concrete driveway..."

So I email back to ask whether this is a quote regardless of whether they come across asbestos, or on the basis of my understanding that there is no asbestos in which case they down tools and renegotiate the price if they do find any.  They come back to me with the slightly cryptic one-liner: "The quotation is for a survey only".  Some clarification needed there, I think.

They did, however, point out the need to get the ball rolling on service isolations asap, which will be today's specialist subject.

In other news, today is the day that Potton deliver their sketches and examples.  Watch out for the irritated posts in the next day or so when nothing appears...

How to create an artificial deadline

One of the things I found in the previous self-build is that you have to become an expert in a certain previously unknown field (rainwater harvesting, structural insulated panels, underfloor heating, whatever) extremely rapidly, make decisions, and then move on to the next problem.  Meanwhile blokes down the pub who have time to dwell on single issues will inevitably go 'Why didn't you consider...' at which point you have to grit your teeth, accept that not everything was on your radar, and hope that what you ended up with is still one of the better solution.

Well, today's expert subject has been renewable energy.  I'm not totally unaware of the issues having looked at solar PV for our current house, but was put off by both price and commitment for something that would go on the roof when we weren't even out of the ground.  We had whole house ventilation on the radar as well, and I've since wondered why we didn't go for a heat pump, although space requirements would have kicked that into the long grass.  However, we did try to make the place as well-insulated as possible, even if we didn't make our own energy.  I'm also aware that there are government incentives and payments but if you sat me down and gave me an exam on the subject I don't think I could give you chapter and verse.

In order to decide what it is I'm looking for I decided up front that the following are self-evident:

• Spending money to make the place as energy efficient is money well spent
• Getting paid money to generate energy sounds like a good thing
• We need to dig some big holes in the ground in any case, so things requiring big holes in the ground aren't that much of a problem

There's a lot of information, facts, opinions, pseudo-facts, and verbiage out there.  Wading through it has made me want to turn to my tax return to rest my brain.  One thing I have found out (I think) is everybody quotes a 2.7kWp (kilowatt peak, i.e. the kilowattage produced at 100% efficiency) solar PV array as being suitable for a house and would cost c.£12k to install.  However, blogs like http://robertkyriakides.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/problems-of-pv-feed-in-tariffs/ suggest that they're only 10% efficient on average (probably better now) due to us not living in the Sahara.  Given we use abut 12 kilowatts a day my reckoning is that we could do with a 10kWp array to gives us juice throughout the day and get some kind of return.

I'm also getting indications that having solar PV may restrict the suppliers and tariffs available to get electricity when you're not producing enough yourself (aka 'the night'), so you can't get the best deal there.  Not something DECC flag up very well.

However, a big solar PV array would command economies of scale in the supply & fit (probably still £40k!), and would power a ground source heat pump feeding underfloor heating throughout.  A wood burner is a given, so one that heats additional water is a must.  My research also tells me that the feed-in-tariffs for the solar PV drop for systems installed after 1 April 2012, but nobody seems to be saying by how much, which suggests a deadline for having a roof to fit the PVs to.  Somewhat artificial, its true, but I think still do-able.

However, we may be timing it quite well from the point of view of Renewable Heat Premium Payments with a possibility of £1250 or so to help with the installation of the heat pump, and then payments for using it thereafter.

Given that there are synergies between the elements we're looking at I've been on the look-out for companies that offer a design, supply, and fit service for the whole caboodle.  I've got Eco-Living, Eco Energy, and Nu Heat on the radar as those that tick most, if not all, the boxes.  If anybody out there has recommendations on companies that cover all those bases drop me a comment whilst this is still my specialist subject.  Will keep you posted.

Even the simple bits are never simple

Whilst being stuck in the mire of indecision over which direction to go in, I though I'd prod myself into action by getting some demolition quotes.  I though that's be easy - doesn't matter what's going to go on the site, whatever it is will need to have what's there at the moment removed.

So I send out emails to four or five local companies - partly an attempt to make sure that I've given everybody all the information they need, but mainly my Finnish reluctance to talk to people.  One bloke rings back, bizarrely living a few hundred metre from the site - hopefully he's seen it by now.  Another calls asking whether we've had the building surveyed for asbestos and plaster.

So now I've got to pay to have holes poked in the place in order to knock it down?  I'm quite happy with the idea of 'we found asbestos in it, so we've added x to the bill', but I sort of thought demolition companies took that in their stride.  Just wear a mask and gloves and get on with it for God's sake.  Hardly the attitude that won us the war...