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I have similar on part of my roof. The tiles are on an age where they are likely going to be a bit more pourous. That in itself is not the end of the world. But a roof of this age (circa 1955) may have a bituminous underlay felt which may still be doing a little to catch wind driven water that comes in, or through the tiles due to porosity. Go up into the attic and see if you have felt or not. The main thing for now is to check your roof ventilation in the attic. If you are skint just now then add some extra vents to get it as windy as possible. Then plan / save up for retiling of the roof in the next couple of years.

And that is a big problem I have at my end as a practicing SE. I have written spreadsheets that have stiffness matrices ( the maths can be challenging) for example that I use for analysis of whacky stuff. These are benchmarked and tested against industry standard analysis software. Basically I write these and check, validate and so on. These are then sent to other SE's for checking. It also works the other way when I act as a checking SE. On a commercial level ( yes I know I'm captured) it make no sense to swap to libre whan I can get excel for a couple of hundred quid. The excel platform is also very powerfull in the text function / interface.. how it interacts with many cad packages for example. SE use a lot of Greek and other symbols.. we can't be mucking about with these as they are really important in their meaning. But to cut to the chase. I can see @SteamyTea has put a pile of work into this. Many BH folk will have excel say at work? So it would be great if @SteamyTea's spread sheet could be converted into something that your average punter can open at ease.

We’ve used both Gerband and the own brand PHS stuff including their spilt release tape for windows. Happy with both to be honest.

Ah, so you are looking for a temporary solution. Putting my SE hat on. I need to know what the span of the ceiling joists are, their size (width, depth and spacing) and a photo of the timbers so I can see what grade of timber would be appropriate to use as a basis for a design check. Often I would plump for what is now known as a C16 grade, equivalent to an older SC3 timber grade common in the 1970's say. Next I need to know just how much weight you are going to put up there. Now when we design this sort of stuff we first need to absolutely make sure it is not going to fall down. The next check is to see if the existing ceiling ties bend (deflect) too much. In your case you have no ceiling that could crack, thus deflection is not an issue. The last check is to make sure that the deflection is not too wild as this can pull the walls in.. for the techy as SE's we call this a second order effect / large rotational / displacement effects.. for example. It may be that what you have is ok to carry some extra weight as it's a temporary design? Now if it turns out that deflection is a major issue then to control that we can sister the timbers.. but I know from experience that we can often do this by sistering almost to the wall, the sistering often does not have to extend to the wall head support. Crucially often the sistered joists don't have to bear on the wall head! But what is important is that if you sister all the joists all on the same side the cumulative effect is to introduce twisting (a rolling effect) in the roof at ceiling level in your case. To avoid this we sister so they face each other in one bay, then miss one and so on. This technique is used in industrial mezzanine cold form steel floors as standard practice. Turning back to the forces. The bending force is maximum at the centre span and reduces to almost zero at the wall head. At the wall head the critical check is what we call the vertical shear check. It's likely that if you stop the sistering short of the wall then the existing ceiling joists will pass the shear check unless they have been notched at the wall head. To conclude. I would first see how much load you want to add, do you need to do anything? As a quick temporary solution.. sistering is probably the easiest, if you can stop them short of the wall head. If not then you can traingulate the roof starting like this. The way this works is an essay.. but before you do this you have to make sure the nails at the ridge and eaves are not rusty for example! What happens in your case is the ceiling joists get almost hung from the rafters.. this increases the axial load in the rafter and if your eaves nails are rusty or connections are ropey you have a problem.

I’m sure our geberit cisterns have a 90mm bend connector thingy which then pushes into a 110mm to 90mm reducer. Early in the process I’d planned a soil pipe through posijoists but realised it was just too difficult to actually fit so I replanned to avoid the need.

Like most Boilers, there are several hydraulic options, one of which is pump modulation based on boiler output, this option would not be the one I would recommend for a system with long pipe runs as the pump head then at low boiler modulation might not produce enough head to circulate sufficiently through the furthest away rads, resulting in boiler cycling, one of the options is a constant pressure Residual Head of 4M (400mb) which, because of the Boiler Hex loss and the rads/system loss will/can result in the pump running at 100% to maintain this required residual head. None of the selected options should cause the above problems.

I have got one in a garage separate from the main house and one in an outside loo, both 3kW Triton. They are fine for hand washing, and the occasional sink full for cleaning bigger things if you are prepared to wait. There is a diaphragm which I have had to replace because it no longer sealed properly, the replacement was ~£30 IIRC which I thought outrageous for what it was but at least was available. If you wanted a hot supply e.g. for regular washing up then the 7kW is the minimum viable size IMO but still not an adequate replacement for a proper hot supply from a cylinder.

Both the ods and xlsx file work fine in LibreOffice calc. Best thing to do is download and install a copy of libre office - https://www.libreoffice.org/ But beware, once you start using it instead of Excel, you may never go back 😁 Now need to do some interpretation.

Sure! It never worked properly, as there's a leak inside the unit. This means any smells/moisture are just distributed around the house. I've been posting about it here, hijacking an old thread on the same topic, from about halfway down the first page. The ordeal still isn't quite over, I'm waiting for a collection date and refund at the moment (though the distributor has agreed to this). It's a shame, as I really liked the Flair and chose it after a lot of research, but I can't live with the cooking (and worse!) smells being blown into the bedrooms all the time. (I've been closing the vent into the main bedroom when we cook, the transfer is that strong.) If you decide to go for a Flair anyway then maybe yours will be fine, but I advise you to test it straight away. It's fairly easy to do -- just have someone waft a bag of ground coffee or squeeze the air out of a half-full bottle of shower gel near one of the extract valves, and see if the smell comes through one of the supply valves. I'd be very curious to know if anyone else has the same issue we have!

Mine is all fixed with sticks like sh*t (other glues are available) Why make nail holes that need to be filled before painting / staining? But if nails are your preferred fixing method they are not an issue as long as the nails remain in place, they are filling the hole they have made.

Hiya. Can open it a bit in excel 2024, but it is stripping out a lot of info I think? Tried again with an earlier version of excel but most of the cells are not referencing. The charts are blank. From what I can see you have put in a pile of effort into this. It's not a five minute job, it must have taken a huge effort to develop this. It looks like a good tool. It may be a "jock" problem at my end" but I doubt it. Ask around and see what others say.. you do know why the animal called the Haggis has it two left legs shorter.. it's so the can run round a hill and still stay level!

On all these, it shows pump at 100%. A correctly modulating boiler should modulate the pump too. As flow temp rises and dt falls, I'd expect to see additional modulation, including from the pump as the gas valve throttles back. Has this boiler been set at constant pump speed? If so, this might be fighting the boiler?

Ah you have opened up a topic that for the techy minded, can be a world of fun and no fun for most of the general population. Agree and generally true but.. and is likely in your case. Engineering bricks are selected from time to time for their strength, not just in compression but also for their ability to enhance the lateral strength of a wall, often when subject to wind. When combined with a higher strength mortar they can be a cost effective option. On most domestic applications a Class B is adequate strength wise. Class A's are so strong that often you find it's the other bits a round them that are weaker by a mile. But another thing about Engineering bricks is that they have a low water absorption. This matters particularly when we live in Ireland / Scotland as we want a brick that is not going to be attacked by frost, we call this the durability. @flanagaj my instinct tells me that a class B brick will be ok unless there is some reason not to use this. Just ask your SE as the bricks are protected by timber cladding to some extent as you well say. You also have DPC's etc. OK where would I consider using Class A Engineering brick? SE wise where I need to do something really bespoke and are looking for pure strength (compression and lateral strength) and want to spread point loads.. much like a big padstone. Can't recollect if I've ever done this.. as above due to the other elements often failing long before. But where I have done it is on refurbishments of old stone barns / stone tenement works etc. These often have no damp course. I usually use class B engineering brick as a few course of this acts as a DPC. In very wet places where there is a space constraint (often in foundation underpinning) I may use a class A, as you need less courses to act as a damp course. Now to circle back. On old buildings the walls can be often over the limit for what we call slender. In other words the ratio of it's height to thickness can be beyond the modern design codes. The last thing we want to do is to introduce a plastic DPC at the base of the wall as this creates a rocker bearing which can be very dangerous. By using an engineering brick as a DPC we get around this problem. There are thousands of traditional buildings all over the UK that use this method. You do, from time to time have to make a note on your drawings for building control so they know what you are doing and why.

Yep, £3k is more what I thought. To clarify, this wouldn't be my build, and whilst I might help pm it, my labouring days are behind me. My son-in-law is a grafter though, and can handle a digger, knock up muck, lay drainage, etc, etc. I'm just not sure how much of his week could be devoted to being hands-on without significantly compromising his income.

I really debated having this done as I didn't want it to stand out like a sore thumb against other houses in the road, but several roofers recommended it even when they didn't offer the service themselves. Not sure whether this has caused a problem, exposed a problem, or I'm just worrying unnecessarily! It looks great from the ground, but up close the tiles look very eroded. These tiles would be approx. 70 years old! Before: After: An original tile (I think?) - it says Marley Eternit on the rear. The surface texture seems very different, so perhaps this isn't the original tile after all - or perhaps it's been eroded over the years? I would be grateful for any experience! Thank you

A LLH will not cure a BOILER problem which IMO this boiler clearly has. It reached Targettemp after 25 minutes yet it took another 20 minutes for its output to fall from 36kW (100%) to 23.4kW (65%) but reached a flow temp of 64.8C during this period. It then took another 50 minutes to fall from 23.4kW (65%) to 17.64kW (49%) and finally return to its Targettemp of 60C (59.9C) I would be very embarrassed to look someone in the eye and tell them this is normal operation. On 25 minutes (target temp reached) Flow 60.1 return 39.0 dT 21.10C Burner 100% 36.00kW Pump 100% 21.50LPM dT 24.00C Flowtemp 63.00C On 30 minutes Flow 63.2 return 42.8 dT 20.4C Burner 95% 34.2.00kW Pump 100% 21.50LPM dT 22.80C Flowtemp 65.6C On 35 minutes Flow 64.8 return 46.4 dT 18.4C Burner 85% 23.40kW Pump 100% 21.50LPM dT 20.4C Flowtemp 66.8C On 45 minutes Flow 64.8 return 50.2 dT 14.6C Burner 65% 23.40kW Pump 100% 21.50LPM dT 15.60C Flowtemp 65.8C On 55 minutes Flow 61.9 return 50.7 dT 11.2C Burner 49% 17.64kW Pump 100% 21.50LPM dT 11.76C Flowtemp 62.46C big time gap now as I stopped measuring till it settled to actual target temp of 60'c On 1h35mins Flow 59.9 return 47.8 dT 12.1C Burner 49% 17.64kW Pump 100% 21.50LPM dT 11.76C Flowtemp 59.56C

On the ground floor we have a few inches of airtight paint beneath the wet plaster covering the join between wall and floor. On the first floor we have membrane (aka Tony tray) around hollowcore slabs and plastered into the wall above and below. So far so good for airtightness. 🤞 But soon the fixing skirting boards will be fixed. With nails. This will of course make lots of nail holes through the (airtight) plaster into the blockwork. Is this going to have a significant impact on airtightess? And if so, is there a better way to fix the skirting?

One of the reasons why it may be worth skipping all these to start with and just set to manual. Come back to more complicated stuff once it's shown that the building can indeed be warmed. I'm not familiar with Valliant so can't really help zoot with specifics on the controller.

I think 3k/m2 is more realistic to budget for if you want reasonable quality and aren't doing that much yourself. How much can you derisk the project? Did you PM last time and did you go over budget last time and by much? Could/would you use the same builder/trades?

ON is actually called Manual, see upthread. When you are trying to set up the setback schedule the controller mode has to be set to Normal. If it is set to Eco the HP will be off during the setback periods. Yes it is complicated, the phone app is better but there are things you can't adjust with it and this is one of them. To make things worse there are two other things called Eco, one is the power level used to heat the hot water cylinder, I can't remember the other...

@Gus Potter Seem to remember that JohnMo had a similar problem, must be Scotch Software. This, it is saved as an .xlsx file. Compare U-Values and ACH.xlsx

Hi Steamy. Having a bit of trouble opening your spreadsheet. Have tried it in Excel 2024 using the "all files option" Says the file is corrupt. Tried it in Excel 2013 version using the all files option, says it's protected with a password so won't open.

Firstly, using the timer is not wrong as such, it comes down to HOW you use it. In your particular building, using the timer to stop the heatpump working for long periods is the issue. It's ok to use the timer to set a modest setback, ie, 2C. So most of the time you run at say 18C but overnight set it to 16C. But using the timer to say you want 20C for 2 hours and then 10C for the rest of the time just won't deliver the result you expect. This partly due to the way the heatpump works and partly due to your building. I would guess that most people with heatpumps do use the timer. I can't tell you how to do it but it will be possible through the menus. You want to have a setback to setting the timer makes sense. In my mind, first step is to get your warmer, second step is to optimise things so your system works in the most efficient and comfortable way for you. First step can be done by just setting to ON*, second step might need the timer to do but in a way theres no point learning to use the timer if you can't get warmer with the thing just set to ON. * I do think the thermostat needs sorting first.

Doable, but I think compromise would be required on materials, air tightness, insulation levels given the minimal involvement

I don't know the vailant controller but it likely you have the following options- Permantly ON with a fixed but adjustable flow temp. This allows you to set what ever temperature you want for the water leaving the heat pump. The heat pump will run continuously producing water at the temp you set. As an example you could set the heat pump to heat the water to 35 degrees and it would produce water at this temp 24/7. Timed heating blocks with adjustable room temps for each timed block. This sounds like how you've been using it with a heating block in the morning and a second block in the evening. In between these blocks your heating is off during the day and overnighf. Add a timed heating block between the morning and evening blocks and between the evening and morning blocks but set the temperature 2 degrees lower than that set in your morning and evening blocks. This will leave your system heating 24/7 but with a 2 degree set back during the day and overnight. This leaving the system ON with set back You don't need a thermostatic valve to keep your bedroom cool as you can likely use one of the valves currently on the radiator. If your system was set up correctly there should be a valve either end of the radiator. One should have a cap that stops you easily adjusting it and this was used to balance the flow through each radiator.....you shouldn't alter this valve. The other valve should have a knob on it that allows you to open and close it. Close this fully then open it a quarter of a turn and see how warm the room gets at night. Open the valve to get the rad warmer or close it to cool the rad but only change it by 1/8 turn at a time. Most people would want the room heated but cool enough to sleep so tweak it to suit what you want.