Technical

A Guide to Your Self-Build Home

Building your own home is an exciting and rewarding process, offering the chance to create a space tailored to your needs and lifestyle. However, “self-build” doesn’t necessarily mean physically constructing the house yourself. Instead, it involves managing the process, making key decisions, and employing professionals and contractors to carry out the work. One of the…

Planning Applications In Areas With Housing Shortfalls

Thinking Buildings have recently been commissioned to assist with developing a planning application for a residential site which is outside, but on the edge of, a village settlement boundary. Ordinarily, this would be sufficient to deter most from submitting an application, but with increasing pressure to build more houses, the balance is tilting in favour…

Just Building One House? You Still Need To Know About CIL!

The Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) is a development tax introduced in England and Wales in 2010 to support local authorities in funding the necessary infrastructure for new developments in their areas. Local governments can impose this charge on most types of new development, allowing them to secure funds for essential services that will benefit the…

What Our Clients Need To Know About The Building Safety Act

The Building Safety Act 2022 represents one of the most significant overhauls of construction regulations in recent memory, introducing stricter rules to enhance safety standards across the built environment. If you’re planning a building project, you may have come across the role of the Principal Designer, a term that might sound familiar from the Construction…

Building Your Dream Home In The Countryside

For many, the idea of building a new home in the countryside is a dream that seems out of reach. However, the little known Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPFF) offers a possibility that few might have considered achievable. This provision allows for the construction of new isolated homes in the countryside under special circumstances, offering…

The Right Time for Heat Pumps?

The Passivhaus Trust have recently released best practice guidance on ‘The right time for heat pumps: decarbonising home heating in a staged retrofit’. Their document discusses the how and when to make the switch from gas boilers to heat pumps in order to avoid unintended consequences, such as increased running costs or a reduction in thermal comfort.…

Integrated Photo Voltaic Panels

Here’s an interesting idea. Building integrated Photo Voltaic panels. What’s that I hear you ask? When it comes to fixing solar panels to a roof, it’s all about making sure they stay put, while also being mindful of the roof’s structure. For sloped roofs, which are the most common, roof hooks or brackets are securely…

Low and zero carbon technologies – what does this mean and what are the options?

Carbon-neutral and Net-zero Carbon are two similar terms. In both cases, parties are working to reduce and balance of their carbon footprint. However, Carbon-neutral refers to balancing out the total amount of carbon emissions, while Net-zero Carbon means no Carbon emission from any activity. Most of the industries and governments become Carbon neutral through the…

What is a Mechanical Ventilation With Heat Recovery System (MVHR)?

Put simply, MVHR (Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery) provides fresh filtered air into a building whilst retaining most of the energy that has already been used in heating the air and building. This is different to most natural ventilation scenarios where stale hot air (from kitchens and bathrooms) is simply exhausted outside along with the…

Triple Glazed Windows: Are they the future?

In the ever-evolving world of architecture and sustainable living, the quest for energy efficiency has led to innovations in building materials, with windows becoming more important in the pursuit of greener, more sustainable homes. Walls, floors and roofs have come a long way, so for windows, the next step is triple glazing. The transition from…