The good news is that we got planning permission for phase 2 which clads the outside of the house & roof with (yet more) insulation. The compromise was to:-

• Lower the Solar Hot Water panel (will still work efficiently)
• Flatten the PV on the flat roof (boo!)
• Use tiles instead of cedar down to the top of the ground floor window.

So its official - the “alien Feature” has gone (according to the planning officer) and we can now proceed.

Now we need to save up our cash to implement it.

Click on the picture to get a larger view.

The plans have been updated to replace the cedar with tiles; the solar hot water panel has been lowered and the PV panels have been flattened unfortnately resulting in less efficiency. This addresses the issue that the roofline resembles an industrial landscape, and the look of the building with the tiles will match the other houses in the close.

Celotex is 1.2m long and if the space is larger then 2 pieces are required. This clip show you how we did it.

Day 3 consisted of more insulation laying and plumbing work to accomodate rainwater harvesting and a more efficient hot water supply. In particular, a hot water supply to the wasking machine (which only has cold at the moment) via a special mixer tap. This will reduce the amount of electricity used for heating the water. The washing machine also receives rainwater.

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Lessons learnt:

Make sure you identify all the items that are stopping you from making progress in a particular area. In this case, there was a small amount of plumbing in the garage / utility room that needs to be removed before we can knock through from the hall to the new utility room which was overlooked. Not a major problem because we have not run out of work in the sitting room, but if we did finish before the plumber returns, we could be held up.

• Electrics & plumbing for the utility room, sitting room and extension.
• Insulation under the sitting room, utility room walls & ceiling.
• Changes required for the wood buring stove.
• Plumbing changes for future rain water harvesting.

So when planning the changes consider for each room whether it will be affected by

1. Insulation requirements.
2. Changes to heating such as including a wood burning stove.
3. Structural changes such as access to extension, new doors etc.
4. Plumbing changes.
5. Consideration for rainwater harvesting.

You end up with a table - each column representing a room, and each row being a service (electrics, plumbing etc). You then detail what changes are required by room for each service, and the row then becomes the start of a specification for the given specialist.

Take a look at the video to see what’s been done so far.

What’s Special about the Electrics ?

The new ring mains (one for the garage and another for the extension) are on a separate fuse box. Additionally there are additional sockets that can be used to plug in the appliances from the kitchen. i.e. the garage ring main can be separated in the future (eg battery backup) and used to supply critical appliances.

However, problems on the planning permission front. Take a look here