designs completed (almost)

We had a relatively uneventful summer on the house front. A few meetings with Dominic and thrashing out ideas on details that all have to be agreed, such as which side will the sewage pipes come down on, siting of the ground floor toilet, lay-out of the basement space etc etc. It was all rather protracted, but at long last we have designs that we can submit to neighbours for approval and a specification to put out to tender.
Chris and I went to the Big Green Show in Swindon one week-end and of course were inspired by the products to amend the plans, but Dominic says as long as all contractors bit against the same spec that is all right.
I think after the 60 odd pages he produced of specs, he probably needs a break from our project for a bit.
Currently I am gathering quotes for placing PV panels on the roof. I would much prefer PV tiles to panels, for the aesthetics, but they come in at about double the price of the panels, and we have a lot of roof that is available for electricity generation.
Quandary here: should we go for PV everywhere or put solar thermal on the bathroom roof? Probably will just go for the PVs everywhere, as would have dual installation costs. At the moment we will get a paid substantially for any additional electricity we generate beyond what we use. there is apparently going to be a similar scheme for solar thermal panels in 2012 to encourage people to adopt this but cant be applied retrospectively. Also the solar thermal cells are bulkier and so even less attractive than the PV cells.

Next tasks: find window & door manufacturer, probably go to Poland for this, find garden designer, so that builders can do some of the groundwork.

I think things are going to get busy from now on!!