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Every stroke of the 'pen' has been considered for my current client, a plot on the highest elevation in their locality, which includes mitigation of the noise of water dripping from the window heads on to the metal that forms the window sills below; nothing worse than the 'Chinese torture' of a single drop of water hitting a window ledge like an annoying metronome. I've recommended installing sound-deadening 'killmat' to the underside of each of the sills before installation, to prevent such annoyance. Folk just don't know what their next (albeit preventable) enemy is going to be. That's where I come in lol. One look at the section for the above roof, and I would have said "feck, no!". Simpler to solve when it's on paper or a screen, where the drill and hammer are the left and right clicks of a mouse.

Had a look at installing a 6M Wilo Yonos Pico as a booster pump. It should, IMO, provide a modest boost in flow from 20.9LPM to 25LPM or slightly higher, might not seem a lot. but if your problem is getting a higher flow to a few cooler rads then it may be beneficial because the residual pump head now available to the rads should rise from 3.98M (398mb) to 5.7M (570mb), a 1.72M (43%) increase.

That may be a temporary situation with lots of people getting them, then changing their minds due to poor experience. Things will bed down and at some point there won't be many second hand ones without a lot of use.

You've also got the option of just buying a second hand unit too, which you don't usually get with a gas boiler. Or at least I wouldn't install a second gas boiler for any of my customers.

It's a mix that has added plasticiser, usually with a 10mm and below aggregate, it flows more freely than a standard mix into mesh etc and doesnt leave air pockets. It doesn't require vibrating or power floating as compacts itself to a fairly level finish. May need a bull float to get the final finish but nothing more.

Not really. Theoretically it should be easier than swapping out a gas boiler. Even connecting the flushing equipment is easier as you can do it off the isolators outside.

I've asked the question of why, my initial thought is they're worried that the eps profiles might suffer damage from the pressure of a more liquid flow. We can mitigate with shuttering if that is the only reason. I can't find any other real reason why it wouldn't be suitable, seems it has the same inherent strength as standard mix. No fascination just a desirability to do as much of the build as we can and, this allows us to manage the pour etc, instead of needing a full crew to lay it.

Ok lets look at some hard economics first, I'll assume this is your forever home. Ask your glazing manufacturer what their guarantee period is. Now in the past the adverts on tv said 10 years.. but now often in the fine print it's 10 for the frames and 7 - 8 for the glass. So you truck on with all your calcs.. but it could be that in 20 years time or a lot less your glazing is kaputt! So maybe it best to take the view that the least risk / long term value lies in insulating the things that are less likely to go wrong.. like the walls and roof. But what if you high end glass fails in year 9 .. it will be heavy.. lots of thermal stress and so on? You mention that you have some glazing at 0.73 W/m^2K. That is a very big ask.. is this a value for the glass or the window . doors as a whole? If so they are going to be very expensive. But you will be wasting money if you don't insulate the reveals properly. Someone is going to have to detail that and a builder is going to have to follow what is likely to be a detailed drawing. In doing stuff like this you'll also encounter what I call the half day problem. This is where you have to sequence the works to comply with a demanding detail. The operatives may only be required on site for a couple of hours and then have to get back in the van and go to another job.. all that needs to be paid for by you. Start with conceptually, windows an doors with an overall u value of 1.4 if in England and 1.2 if in Scotland. This will then allow a wider variety of suppliers. You are trying to refine the design too much at this stage.. you are leaving yourself no redundancy and this will come back to bite you in the arse cost wise.

I bet you were 😊

U Balkus only takes a static shot of the situation at one temperature. -5 outside (you can change this). Unless you live in Baffin Island this weather is unlightly. If you raise the external temperature to something positive you'll see the condensation risk disappears. As long as you don't have to raise it too high, say much above 7 to 8 deg your wall will be drying for more of the year than wetting and it'll be fine. Remember diffusion is only a tiny part of how water makes it way into the wall. Air leaks through bad airtightness are far more significant. Pay attention to external driven rain on old buildings too. Something like a Auto Brick oil will repel water without compromising the walls ability to dry out.

We started the build as a Passive House but gas fired, we had the gas laid in and ran the track pipe (which is for sale in the market place now.) through a duct from the gas meter. I had looked at ASHP but felt gas was a safer bet, this was at the planning stage in 2017 - we wouldn't need a cylinder so the heat loss into the building, which @Jeremy Harris had shared with us all would not be a problem. I had a very good plumber / gas fitter so fitting the boiler would have been no problem and it should have been a smooth process with a combi boiler. Then I started to get much more concerned about the eco credentials of gas fired heating and decided to look at other options SUNAMP, PV, Willis, and battery but as SUNAMP was getting increasingly bad press and the Willis route would have hit our SAP score they got kicked into touch. So gas came back, but sadly our tame gas fitter was taken ill, and was unable to work, and we would have had to seek someone else so I took a look at ASHP again, plus the grant was now £7500 so we should be able to get it done for that! So in 2021 we started looking at MCS installers and that was like pulling teeth because none of them were very convincing and didn't listen to our design and insulation standards preferring to fall back on some sort of opaque arbitrary process to give us wild quotes for a straight install where a big chunk of the work was already done. The UFH is in and I had installed two 28mm pipes in the insulation from the utility room to the place we might install a heat pump just in case. So again I swithered a bit, and at that point the Umbrella schemes started to take off and it struck me that we might fit the ASHP ourselves if we could find a sound scheme to duck under. In the end after a lot of searching and a bunch of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) like exercises to compare the various offers we went with Cool Energy, although we had to wait almost a year for their smallest Heat Pump to get MCS accreditation. Its installed and commissioned now - still sorting out some teething issues, we have had our grant money and the all up cost with everything including the EMON heat meter system with all the bells and whistles has come in on the money with me doing all the plumbing, electrics and controls and them signing it all off.

Hold up the Zoot. When im squatting in there, you will only be allowed to visit by appointment. Don't get cheeky now.

Ahh thanks BigJ. It's THE most wonderful little space, the ammount of times Ive snoozed off almost as soon as I put a C4 ipad download doco on, with the stream noise outside. It's just running the gauntlet wrapped up for that 1st 1/2 hour freezing until it's just cosy enough.. that's the caveat. Older you get, the bigger a bugbear that is to face. But it takes just 40mins to get from 0 to 19*C. And your mood increaces in harmony, as you recall with your tent as a kid, the campfire etc. It really does have that diddy thrill factor of 'camping out' at the end of the garden. Even as a 55 yr old baldy barst, with terrible breath, athletes foot, bad back, appaling footrot, overpowering BO, piles, squiffy eyes, what else can I throw in the pot.. my limp, frightful flatulence, & my terrible drooling habit. You see I can do all that.. in my fkn cabin. Still wanna come stay? Zoot

What they really mean is we don't want to have a house that looks like this,(because there may be poor people inside). What a bunch of snobs they are. White uPvc looks just fine if appropriate care is taken of the proportions of the windows. It's amazingly durable if you get good stuff. I don't know what the aluminum adds really. That's ours below. White T+T Veka Softline 82. White uPvc fascia and soffit and black guttering and down pipes whilst we're at it.

Hi everyone. Thought I ought to return to this, my blog, & give an update on my progress re. this 'o-so-small' a job of hemp insulation to just 2 outside facing walls, details as described at the outset in my initial blog . . & then a few more questions to you guys if I may !! I indeed proceeded to apply to B.C. who in their own time looked at the intended job & merely listened without objections as I suggested "It'll be difficult to meet U-value regs, given that the wall/s insulation 'build-up' is somewhat governed by need to avoid condensation issues/risks", &, he didn't question or refer me to U-value requirements in any way & seemed to go happily on his way -It being an 1897 terrace in a conservation area they seem keen to support such heritage work in our town. And this brings me to ask for your views re. my layers of build-up: From outside to in, its:- 230mm solid old red-brick; 60mm Pavatex WF (already afixed as seen in pic. above in this blog); Going forward now, I'm applying 45ish mm hemp-lime plaster, though have become concerned that with this much depth & weight it might all fall off before its set! - SO . . I've decided to create a simple timber 40mm deep 'partition wall', screwing it onto the WF (thru to the outer bricks), then apply the hemp'coarse stuff' into all the battened sections of the partition,thus providing a greater surface area too for the plaster to stick to. Then addition of 15mm wood wool boards fixed on to the partition; lime-plaster skim finish. . . . I think this is the most likely way for success - any comments appreciated. Also I've been on Ubakus, to get some kind of condensation analysis. (Can't afford a WUFI). Take a look at the attachment on here - but note:- I've had to substitute materials listed 'in Ubacus' to an extent, for those materials I'm actually going to use - but is an interesting outcome - it shows a serious condensation risk. By further playing with the addition of a VCL - Pro Clima Intello+ (see it greyed out in the current pic.) by 'turning this item back-on' the analysis then shows NO raindrops, ie no condensation !! So . .this suggests I ought add such a VCL into the 'build-up' - expensive but presumably worthwhile adding in a VCL as long as I can get it air tight (always difficult) . . any comments re. all this would be most helpful. Many thanks.

Ahhh... relief. I'm not the only one!! You're the only one on here. I've mentioned this on BuildHub before, my folk's place example etc. And the only replies were kinda a collective "yes storage heaters are meant to do that (IE belt out heat) at 3:38 am". Prior to this explanation though, as I had no other notion other than with my folk's rads doing this insanity at 3:55, it seemed completely logical to me, that their old brown/ beige storage heaters, were long gone/ knackered/ & acting up by kicking off at 3am (further evidence I was further convinced, of their being barely warm at 9pm too). So then, at the advice on here, & because I was concerned my 84/88 yr old folks needed to update their rads to be wrm at 9pm.. I persuaded them to spend £3k on two new ones. Once up & running, I noticed the new ones were belting hot at 4:11 am.. & barely warm at 9pm. I asked WTF on here etc.. & got the "yes they're meant to do that- they're working correctly" reply I mentioned earlier in this post. So, the old rads weren't knackered at all. The new ones perform exactly the same. My old folks scrimp & save for every £1 eating macaroni cheese 3x a week in their tiny house.. & I felt absolutely terrible. A huge lesson learnt that was. -- Honestly such a relief to read your post here, as you sound as if you understand what I describe. Furthermore found the same inherrant insanity with them, as I did/ still do. Thanks Zoot

The national rules also say that local topography has to be taken into account. Your builder is likely having a laugh with you, are you in Scotland? Ok how do you fix this, or mitigate? Starting point is.. where do you live in the country? Also, how is your house orientated, can you post some elevations of your house so we can take a guess on how the wind might be hitting it. Is the house built on a slope? the shape of the surrounding ground and any nearby buildings can also impact. This is a bit of detective work.. you try and rule stuff out first. This problem may be confined to one elevation? Once you get a handle on that then it may be a case of just adding an extra flashing on one side.. minimise disruption.

Zoot. I am very jealous of your cabin overlooking the water. If i ever become homeless, i am going to squat in there. Live in the cabin. Go for a walk for your mental health, every day, and collect wood. Keep your little wood burner ticking over 24 hours a day, and when you are too warm, (even in the winter) open the window. Sit in your armchair, and write a great book. (We all have One good book in us). When you are too hot, it will make you sleepy. Just let yourself drift off, regardless of time of day. Sounds way more fun than living in your house fella.

Most commonly used to describe new-builds where they have lots of insulation but also lots of airgaps that effectively outside air bypasses the insulation and sits behind the plasterboard of the room. (Plasterboard sealing off much of the airflow into the room so you don't necessarily feel the drafts but you do feel the cold). So the plasterboard acts as well as a tent does. All the insulation and brick is effectively bypassed and useless from a heating point of view. In your case, used to describe what seems likely that outside air is getting directly behind the plasterboard/PIR upstairs effectively preventing any heat build up in the stone walls. Thick stone walls would normally build heat given enough time - 2ft solid walls if heated right should be a more comfortable/stable environment than victorian brick solid walls. I've lived in a number of houses with brick solid walls and they are cold when the heating is off but warm up fairly easily when the heating is on.

If before the system was supposed to be on all the time and was set to 17C and yet the rads were turning on/off while you could see your own breath then the system wasn't doing what it should. The rads should have been warm continuously. When I was skimming history I saw some talk about the thermometer but not the full context. Where was this located on the old system? On the new? (Thermometer if not separate is likely the controller with the LCD screen for the system). To work properly in your property it really needs to be located in the coldest room. My previous flat had storage heaters, they drove me insane and why I desperately searched for a flat with gas/central heating when I bought this place (unusual in modern flats). People on here claim modern ones work much better so long as you know how to set them up but I suspect most people don't and so suffer the behaviour you describe.

Me back on track.. Yes now I understand the analogy of the tent. I think. Do I? No hang on.. I don't think I do. Tent. Right so I put up a tent. It has 4 sides, and is cold in the middle. But the middle has to warmer than the outside. Fk. Panic. Are the 4 thin tent walls (sat upon the ground in a perimeter rectangle) the point here.. or the area within the tent-? Nope. I don't understand the tent analogy. I can't cope with these boxes of text. I need people doing jazz hands or something that I can see like a 4 year old!! Zoot

You roof leaks. My thoughts are, that your well regarded builders have made you a house with an indoor irrigation system. That's a pile of shite. Get them to come back and remove this optional extra, end of. I was referring to them being further out, not further up. They are defo way too far 'in' as shown in your first pics. Sorry, but it looks (and preforms) like shite. No dice.

Do I notice any difference in comfort (with the replacement Monobloc, for the old Split system). Hard to say. Apologies you are dealing with rather a simpleton here Rick. I can obviously notice the rads can get warmer. But now, I only have them on for 2x AM & PM blocks of 2 hours. Wheras before, the rads came on/ off basically during the day. So to answer your Q: erm, I think I'd have to say kinda even stevens. Tbh I find all heating system infuriatingly complicated, that I can't understand why the rad is sometimes on, then a bit later it's off. You mentioned before, about TRV's, as if you expected them to be on my rads. But I don't have any on my rads. When I had them on a property before, I found them infuriatingly impossible to understand. One minute the rad is on flatout, & I was too hot, then half an hour later the rad wasn't seemingly on (but it was within the block time the heaters were meant to be on) & the room was pretty cold again. My parents place, is THE most unfathomably infuriatingly impossible to understand heating situation. I stay few days, & so they put the storage heater on for me. Medium settings on both dials, nothing daft. At 3am O wake in a sweat, the room gallopingly hot.. & the damn thing's almost flat out hot. At 3am. At the very time you DON'T want a radiator on. Then at 9pm, it's barely warm at all. Just when you DO want the radiator on. The installer mentioned something about setback time. And my head explodes. Setback time, TRV's, I mean jesusH. I just want to be able to put a rad on from 6-8pm, medium hot. Any rad. Any system. But I'm just not allowed to. It's fkn nuts. And so at my folk's house, 1st thing I do, in midwinter as I get there.. is go upstairs & switch the storage heater off. So I can sleep without being woken up in a sauna at 4:23am. Sorry I digress yet again. TRV's & thermostats separate from them.. & my head explodes. I just can't deal with these stupid UK heating systems. So tbh I'm best off with a hottie & a leccyB under my butt seeing my breath at home here!! Thanks, Zoot

Zoot has got some mass, and that should store some heat, and block some heat loss. althought might have a shite U value it would still do the above. It ain't because the heat is gone before it gets there.

Might cause dead rot, dry rot, cold rot, snot rot, or whatever bloody else. Zoot the hoot (no offense fella) will be dead by then from the fecking cold. Just because you have some shite old stone crumbly walls or whatever, does not stop you heating a house up. The bloody heat escaping is what stops the bloody walls eventually heating up. If you build 4 outside walls 1m thick, and light a bloody great fire in the middle of the room. You might still not get the walls to heat up if you forgot to put a bloody roof on. Zoots house is freezing cold, because no matter how much heat he pumps in, The place leaks like a sieve. Block up a load of those escape routes, and retain the heat within the building. The heat never reaches the stone cold walls, because it's all gone before it gets there.