Professional Architects in Witham

We will prepare a file note detailing key elements about the site or building and any influencing factors, it will also detail the discussions we will have had about your requirements, how you intend to use the space, your thoughts on architectural styles and your likes and dislikes. We will then prepare a fee proposal detailing what we would expect our fees to be for the project as discussed, broken down into various stages of our work. It will also describe what is and what is not included within this fee and also what we would expect other fees and costs would be, such as Structural Engineers fees and planning application fees etc. These will then be emailed to you for your consideration along with any other helpful documents or regulatory information.

Yes, the UK Passivhaus Trust organize open days each year, as does the International Passive House Association. Details will be available on their websites. There are also many case studies on both their websites.

The performance of the Passivhaus project is calculated using an Excel Spreadsheet, called Passivhaus Planning Package (PHPP). It is a very large, complicated spreadsheet, built over many years of research and reassessment. This is the principal tool for a Certified Passivhaus Designer. Because of the many years of fine tuning, and the amount of information required as well as the way the tool uses the data, it is proven to be a very accurate tool to calculate the performance of a potential building with completed buildings often reporting a better performance than predicted.

Certain specific developments do not require Planning Permission but do require a formal Prior Notification submission to the Local Authority to check the details are Permitted development. In most cases Prior Notifications have less restrictions and require less consultations than a Planning Application. There are several different types of Prior Notification but are mainly relevant to Commercial and Agricultural situations rather than Domestic.

We normally advise clients to allow approximately 8 to 13 weeks, for a straightforward application. The Planning Officer may ask for an extension of time, especially if the Planning Officer has requested an amendment and a statutory consultee requires more time to comment further.