A raging convection flow and a cold nose...
Entry posted by curlewhouse
3600 views
It has been a cold few weeks here at Todcroft, with -13c at one point, which saw us flee from the caravan when all water, toilet and even the LPG froze and no longer worked. So we set up in the house even though we only have temporary polythene windows.
But this bad weather (to be expected of course) combined with lack of windows and just (triple glazed 
) polythene in place of glass, has meant running fan heaters pretty much 24/7 to even keep slightly warm, though that's a misnomer as your never actually "warm" just ever so slightly less cold....... we just got our resulting £500 electricity bill!
Even with three 2kW fans running, you need thermal underwear, a couple of fleece jumpers and often a warm hat on! To be honest, I've felt quite bad for my wife at times, and there have been tears when sometimes it seems as if there is no end in sight, exacerbated by the attitude of the building warranty people just throwing barrier after barrier in our way to stop us making progress. I work out doors, and grew up in the Northumberland countryside, so am pretty hardened to the cold, but even I have found it very cold and pretty miserable. But, even without us mentioning how bad it has been, we've been offered spare bedrooms by several friends and neighbours, and one work colleague even offered us their entire house over Christmas as they would be away! There really are some lovely people out there.
We invested in an electric blanket, which is great - though now you don't want to get out of bed into the cold . Your body is warm, but your head and nose is frozen!
Anyway one of the many issues our BCO/Warranty Inspector has with SIPs is that he is convinced they shrink massively. One of the numerous enquiries he made me do with the different companies for him was to find out the shrinkage (yes, I know, I too pointed out to him that OSB has, as the name would suggest "oriented" strands, which by going in different directions, largely mitigate against this when compared to standard timber) from Kingspan - as around this time I'd had enough and told him that as a BCO he was more likely to get a comprehensive answer than I was when he kept making me go back time after time to the suppliers, challenging their methods and suitability of the materials (even the BBA markings on each SIPs panel were not enough for him to believe them to be an "approved" building material in his view!) . So he contacted Kingspan who gave him a figure (I forget now, but it was absolutely tiny). So he spoke to our mason and made him leave a whopping great gap around the entire house between the stonework and the fascia/soffit to allow for the SIPs shrinking. Now on one level I get his thinking, that if the soffit was hard against the stone, then if the SIPs did shrink to any appreciable degree, it would presumably force the soffit out of place or crack it. But this massive gap all the way around makes for fantastic and constant convection from the air bricks at the bottom, and none of us are convinced the shrinkage will be anything like he fears, if it happens at all. Yes, the cavity definitely needs to be ventilated to stay dry, but this big a gap all round will set up a constant and quite massive convective flow in my mind - and we are trying to build a low energy house! OK, so the cold air will be rising against the outer OSB, behind which is all the SIPS insulation, but it's still going to be a constant and high flow situation (I used some smoke on the one still day we've had and there is a clear constant convection going on, even with the tiny amount of heat we have inside right now) drawing heat off.
So my thought is to use foam or similar compressive material to close most of this gap up. Though I think I'll insert something like wire mesh in places to allow some air flow still for obvious reasons, but I think it surely doesn't need to be a raging flow 24/7 around the entire perimeter. The trouble is, if I were to ask the warranty guy what material he'd recommend, he'll either insist we allow the place to lose heat and do nothing, leaving this gap all around, or he'll make me contact the SIPs manufacturer/foam manufacturer/builder et al to "ask if its a suitable material to use with SIPs" (as that's the answer I get to everything from him if I ask - making me seem a pest as I keep having to go back to these companies and pass on his often silly questions).
On a more positive note, we now have some movement on the windows. Being unable to afford the likes of Internorm or their ilk, we've had to look at the usual mass double glazing suppliers. In the end we chose one of the 3 big national firms, and all seemed OK. They took our deposit, the salesman wasn't pushy, and all seemed fine. Then no one came to measure up. Eventually, after me chasing them, someone came 3 weeks later to measure up - and promptly refused! The stonework is all done with the exception of the sides and tops of the first floor windows. But that's OK as the inner is SIPS, where the windows will be mounted of course, and so the sizes are already set. So he said he'd get the ground floor ones going for now so at least we'd have those in. Then when he got back to the office changed his mind and they simply refused to continue until the whole thing was complete, and only then would he come back and measure, and even then, we'd have to wait "6 to 8" weeks for them to install. So this takes us into possibly April with no windows - and them holding our deposit meantime! I pointed out that how come I myself had managed to fit a far more complicated (cabrio type) window on the first floor already but they were saying they couldn't even start making them, least of all fit them?) So we were stuck, we'd signed the contract, they had our money and were going to do nothing more for weeks despite us literally freezing in here. Then there was a break.
We got a letter from them saying as a new build our house was "unsuitable for their product" - now since they'd already strung us along well over a month, I rang and challenged this asking why waste so much of our time. Turns out it referred only to the French doors and they were sending us a new contract for only the windows. But, they'd sent us a letter nullifying the whole contract. Meantime, on visiting a retired builder friends house and admiring his windows I discovered they were made and fitted by a local firm, and I was surprised when he told me the very reasonable price given the clear quality. So I got them to come out, and their attitude could not be more different. So I used the other firms (Anglian) cancellation letter, wrote to them telling them we accepted thier cancelation of the contract (as I'd feared they'd try and keep our deposit if we cancelled) and please refund our deposit, which they have agreed to.
So for less money we are getting a better U value, triple glazing (yes, for less than Anglian were charging us for double glazing) and they are fitting the French doors this Monday and measuring up for the rest on Wednesday, and on realising how cold we are promised us that it will be 4 weeks at the very latest! Plus I've seen the quality and it is excellent. (this is actually my friends house on their web site https://hawthornswindows.co.uk/portfolio/view/ ) We can't wait to be warm!
![20180107_154336[1].jpg](https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/uploads/monthly_2018_01/20180107_154336%5B1%5D.jpg.cb82e6cbacfb045ca73939d3ced3c8a8.jpg)
![20180107_154348[1].jpg](https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/uploads/monthly_2018_01/20180107_154348%5B1%5D.jpg.97f0b218a720dd9980e312ce4e9c2996.jpg)
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