folks, sorry for reviving such an old thread, but just wondering is there anything people who have built recently add to this list ? thanks
We had solar and also a large multi fuel stove installed that heats the rads aswell.The solar gives us hot water day and night and even a medium size fire from the stove heats all the rads.We also had our attic spaces spray foamed had sound absorbing board installed in our build to reduce noise transfer from one room to another and from one floor to the other floors.On the entertainment front we had alot of co-ax, cat6 and hdmi cabling installed at all the TV points around the house.I went with hard wired as Im not a fan of wifi as its too easy to be hacked into these days.We had our garage wired with its own seperate consumer board,it also has 4 co ax cables,6 cat 6 cables,and some spare 6 core alarm cables too,we also have a mains water supply to the garage too.All the hard wiring at build stage means that no walls have to be chased or stud walls opened up to run new cables in the future,lots of spares there from the word go..
Our security cameras are all up at soffit level so this gives a discrete yet effective level of security and the cameras are linked to our alarm system too.Smart phone is also linked to the system so we can remote view the entire house and gardens for anywhere in the world.
All our external and internal lighting is LED so this means low energy bills and windows are tripple glazed so this also gives a nice warm feeling in the house,even just from body heat alone and people being in the house.
Our gardens were designed and landscaped after the building company had built the house and finished as builders leave the soil in a bad state and they tend to leave materials buried in the soil,so this is not good for creating new gardens for a new build.Bad idea to try and create new gardens in soil that has all sorts of rubbish in it,and plants and flowers will also struggle to take in all the rubbish soil.So we had it all dug out and alot of new topsoil,grit and manure trucked in to create the gardens.
We also installed a 9000 litre underground rainwater harvesting system,again for futureproofing and this means we wont be giving alot of money away for mains water in years to come when water charges go sky high.