Got any tales to tell, good or bad?

Ours is nearly finished, no real problems just hassle from neighbours.

We have a site/project manager [sounds like grand designs!] he's my father-in-law and he's kept everything on

track.

Weather has been really good although we started off in the snow in February.

Picture of house, its now has all windows in and the scaffold has gone, the other picture is of the kitchen/diner area.

V nice. Great use of velux to open up that area even more! You not fancy bi folds in that kitchen area?

Oh and one other thing! Black gutter, White fascia/ soffit/ barge. Had same dilemma on my current build!

Hi wrightyson,

guttering is brown and the fascia and soffit are cream, they are actually the same colour as the windows.

You can see better from the photo of the rear and here's another angle of the kitchen/diner space.

We just couldn't run to the extra costs involved with bi-fold unfortunately.

Bought this barn in September last year and started work properly with my builder mate in November.

We're nearly there (I need to go and take some more pictures now all the glass is in). Just finishing decorating upstairs and starting the floor tiling downstairs next week. Moving in in September, although it wont be 100% finished, as we've sold our house and the purchasers want us out before term time starts. And Mrs Stoner had Stoner Jr MkII last Sunday to ad to the mix 🙂

I work on site 4 days a week and my mate and another guy have been full time. We've had no major surprises and look to be coming in just under budget at about £85psf and in less than 12 months which was the time we set our selves. Really pleased with how it's turning out. Will post some more pics when it's done.

We were luckily able to retain the roof that was done in 95 and just need to do a few repairs to it.

Refurb is a bit slower than new build as you have to work around the existing fabric and adapt all the time. We effectively build a new shell inside the old one.

Nice height in there mtbmaff. And thats a big ol house. How many sq ft?

We have a double height in the driftway (where the old doors were). Lets see if I have a pic

So what was the hassle with the neighbours?

We've been really lucky and the neighbours are all very cool. In fact both of them are doing their own building works so everyone's helping out.

Nice barn. Did you have to get bat surveys before you worked on the roof?

monsta – yes, I'm now legally allowed to f*** with bats 😉

As part of our mitigation proposals we have built a 30 sqm bat loft in one part of the roof, installed 4x bat boxes externally (for as much use as they will be! 🙄 ), and I even built some bat dormitories in the loft for the little blighters! (the OSB "pockets" on the rafters here:

Fortunately I have a very sensible ecologist to work with, and I factored the £5k cost of the bat surveys and licence application process into the land value price I bid.

I was quite proud of my Reasoned Statement that I put together – but then I work in the economics of property so am familiar with planning guidance, strategic policies etc. I can see some people finding that part of the licence application really difficult to do. Maybe I should put mine online some time as there are very few examples to study.

one of the four bat boxes up in the top right hand corner, 4 Schwegler 1FF at £50 each! 🙄

Anybody building a house at the moment

I can only offer you an extension. Wooden house so wooden extension with lots of glazing and bifold doors. Chaos at the moment living in a building site as the ground floor's nearly all open plan. Everything from downstairs is crammed into bedrooms upstairs and we can't access or find anything we need. We also had a couple of Velux windows put into the loft so I've now got a bolt hole up there with views stretching from Dartmoor down over the River Dart Estuary. Another two weeks (minimum) of chaos to go, then I have to paint the whole of the exterior of the house. Here's a view from a week or two ago looking back in……

looks like it will be an awesome room there slugwash.

Our main downstairs room is 45' x 15' of open plan living too.

What will be bearing the loads once the accros are out? Pillars, RSJs or short walls?

the view across our kitchen/diner/kid's pit

Love big kitchens!! We spend most of our time in our current smallish one when friends come over! By the way mtbmaff who couldn't be arsed with grouting that block beam floor? 🙂
oh yeah and to ask the ever asked question how do I post a photo of my current development??

4 Schwegler 1FF at £50 each!

I can't believe how bat property prices have gone through the roof ……..£50 for a Schwegler 1FF FFS 😕

BTW coming on nicely Stoner – and thanks for thinking of our furry friends 8)

Too many aspirational working class pipistrelles getting unaffordable loans if you ask me! 🙄

I love beam and block as a construction method.

Put a floor in an old stock shed which will be my "garage/shed" using it.

4.4m beams are about as heavy as two lads can lift though IMO!

And, No, I wont be grouting this one either!

Loving this guys. We're currently considering a extension to the front and side of a 1930's bungalow and knocking a load of internal walls out to make it all open plan, and bedrooms in the loft, the roof line is all hipped ends etc, so it's proving challenging to get our heads around it all.

Keep the piccies coming

Keep the piccies coming

Well, if you insist! 😉

Meet the Monster:

This is my treat, a Jaspi Biotriplex combined wood pellet and log boiler. Weighs half a tonne and was a bit of an operation getting it in – having to change heights twice.

Goes with this 700L thermal store:

Installed under the Mechanical Heat Recovery Ventilation system
[img]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_t5w43Q6t-Qs/TDq8XavJu3I/AAAAAAAAL4o/iGP_a0Mr6JE/s288/p1000557.jpg[/img]

Stoner, that is a stunning looking barn, my father-in-law will would love to be renovating it, I'll show him

later today. He has done a few conversions himself and he has an eye for detail.

Size wise ours is 3000 sq ft, build cost is £250k, plot was gifted to us by in-laws [part of their garden].

When you initially start with your blank piece of paper, you want the build to be eco friendly and self sufficient

energy wise, but we soon found those plans naive and the costs of doing the right thing are beyond your budgets.

We were going down the ground source heating/solar panel route but costs and red tape put paid to that.

Just went for underfloor heating/ wood burners and loads of insulation.

Neighbour problems are just NIMBYs and unfortunately we have a few local councillors on our door step who

have tried to influence the council planning department. What they never realised is that my wife works in that

office, not that we've done anything underhand,its just good to be able control the situation.

Started build on 1st Feb and hope to finish Oct time.

Have enjoyed it so far, but I haven't been involved in any physical building, just working to pay for it!

Regards

Matt.

Hi there again,

wrightyson, regarding the block and beam floor, underfloor heating now on top and screeding taking place this

week.

paulosaxo, get yourself a Wikey digital angle gauge, we've found it invaluable.

Stoner keep those pics coming, its fantastic, STWs own grand designs 😉

I had a few pointers off here and did a lot of research myself and just could not find any good reason to go for heat source pumps – they really make very little sense in new builds since you're still pegged to electricity costs for your heating even if at a factor of 3 or 4 to one on a good day. The cost per kWh of installed ground source was daft too.

Biomass made so much more sense and with the large thermal store that will be connected up to a solar water heater too it will make for a simple, long lasting, easily serviceable and cheap system for a good time to come. The cost is pretty high at about 10k for the heating system, compared to say, 2-3k for an equivalent oil fired system but the on going fuel savings together with the RHI receipts make it work financially.

Its amazing the impact of insulation though. My neighbour's renovation will only add insulation to one wall and his v approx heat loss calcs are going to be somewhere between 30 and 40kWh, whereas ours, with over 65 m3 of insulation is closer to 15kWh. Its great having a heritage house, but modern insulation specs.

Underfloor heating is great stuff on new floors though!

8-9 months is a great build time. Fortunately I bought the site with planning permission. It was the bats that put of bidders so I got it for a bargin because Id done the research with an ecologist first.

BTW this is a great site by an enthusiastic vendor who has done a lot of comparison calcs:

http://www.cosi.co.uk/Logs%20for%20sale.htm

Lots of interesting photos/project/property prawn here!

Heat recovery! Fair play stoner! Been using thy in our industrial developments for a while! Take it you've got a local supplier to provide fuel for that beast! Looks like something straight off the starship enterprise! Very high quality development! Take it you're in the trade in someway?? And how do you put photos on! I want to share with my space ship build ha ha

Heat recovery in a draughty barn conversion isnt a brilliant scheme – its more because I didnt want to put trickle vents on all my nice new joinery and you need to demonstrate vent handling for regs. But to the extent it does work it will provide some savings from vent heat loss, and comfort handling of air around what is a 600 m3 building.

My neighbour is going pellet too, so between us we can arrange bulk deliveries. I reckon I can store a couple of tons, he's going for 5tons I think!

Not trade, just an inquisitive kind of guy and always wanted to build my own house to my designs (save for the fact that its a barn conversion)

To post pics you need to host them at an online album site, I use Picasa, others use flickr etc. Then paste the address of the hosted image in the [/img ] tags – or use the button in the middle above the post reply box.

Will have a crack later! Cheers.