Planning the build
During the initial planning process I only intended to build a well insulated extension to our existing chalet bungalow. I designed a scheme where the roof would come off the bungalow, and with an extension to one side would add an extra floor on top and re roof. The whole house would be timber clad to cover over the poor quality and mixed brickwork on the ground floor and give a cohesive appearance so it wouldn’t look a mess. This was going to double the useable space inside the house without increasing the footprint too much.
Planning permission was granted and I set about further costings and detailed design. Building control and the structural engineer were happy that the existing foundations were ok to take the extra floor as it was going to be a light weight structure and we were all set to go.
It was at this stage that I decided that due to the compromises in the layout caused by reusing the existing ground floor, massive compromise with the thermal performance of reusing half a 1950’s built house with little insulation and of course the extra 20% I would be spending on VAT I decided to change plan and get permission to knock the house down and rebuild. To keep things simple with planning I decided to keep the outside appearance of the new build almost exactly the same, and rework the internal layout with minor adjustments to the windows. I put in for planning and without too much drama got permission for my replacement dwelling. The council gave me a condition for 10% renewables, which no one in planning seemed to actually understand. 10% of what? I wasn’t too worried as I had already planned to build a house far in excess of building regs with at least some solar pv on the roof which I was sure would surpass the condition.
My original scheme that I had planning for had already followed the basic guidelines of window placement for passive houses, but I was aware I had far too much glazing to the west which would be taking in views over adjacent fields. I was not willing to loose these views with my new build to meet the passive house criteria so needed to look at approaches to mitigate any overheating risks, especially in the early autumn when the sun is quite low, but can still be quite strong.