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Its fairly common in my experience (mainly older properties in rural locations). Our house is an extended old stone house, so it may have been for ease of building, and hence the insulation. I have 3 fireplaces, all on external walls.

One or the other. Basically, if water’s getting to it you’re Donald Ducked anyways. Bump a thread when the time comes and we’ll ‘learn you good’

I've got 2 plumbed in plinth heaters that fire across my 8m doors from either side. They are connected to my radiator circuit so rarely used, but when they are on the heat they chuck out is pretty impressive. I only put them in as I was dubious on UFH performance so just ran the plumbing before I locked my floor in. Turns out I shouldn't have worried, but I'd bought em, plumbed em, made sense to just whack them in at that point. I've got 2 Smiths SS5.

Would you go SBR over say Ultra Pro Primer Nick? I'll be doing my floor tiling job in the near future so I'm interested as I'm about to order my supplies.

The latest French news on the topic is that 109 'electrification zone' candidates have just been approved, many in rural areas, some in towns & cities. They get financial, technical & other support until 2030 to implement local projects to phase out fossil fuels and boost electrification in any area(s) of the economy, from housing & transport to trade, industry & agriculture. Decommissioning some of the gas grid is a particular priority - apparently it's already happening in small areas of Bordeaux, Grenoble, Lyon, Metz, Nancy & Strasbourg. Full details are due in the coming months, with projects being launched at the end of the year. More in French: https://www.electrifions-la-france.gouv.fr/territoires-delectrification & https://www.banquedesterritoires.fr/les-territoires-delectrification-enfin-devoiles

Agreed. I thought "this is my thing , I can help", but it's too scatty. Start again please, pics in and out, and the available info on topography and ground make-up. No. A local SE will know the ground and the issues. Sometimes stitching or underpinning are the worst action you could take.... the SE will know.

Thickness is just anything more than 5-10mm, and if you want to go nuts just pack out all the voids with tile adhesive and lay that into the bed of adhesive for ‘concrete solid’. I am OCD and go belt and braces, but I’ve never had a single callback EVER and sleep very well at night.

Yes it would. But you will find out the vital piece of info: is there a dpm? If there isn't you know you need one on top. If there is, yet its still damp then you know you have to find another source. If the concrete is dense and hard then you will get very little damp coming up the infilled area, but it can be sealed in several ways. OK, don't want to spoil that then. However if you want to leave it expised then you have to live with the limitations. No, that's for wimps or developers. Most of us have a budget limit and presumably you like the house or wouldn't be there.

Congrats, Pics always welcome. As ever my advice is simple. Knock it down and rebuild.

Depending on how you source firewood I reckon it's anything up to 22p/kWh delivered energy to the room. At least double gas price is safe to say. If you really don't give a shite you can buy a tonne of coal for £440 for 8000kWh of energy in the shed. (It'll be less heat delivered by the time you in fumigate your self and the neighbours) It's about the same price as gas. An A2A ASHP unit with a COP of 3 is amazingly the same price too. TLDR. Bought firewood is expensive. Coal, gas and ASHP are about the same price.

I'd still have the joints as earlier, but I need to constrain the frame in and out which I feel [1] the bolted end rafters could do nicely. [1] based on my extensive inexperience 🙂

Really appreciate the additional info. The ply has been laid pretty well, it's about 3mm adrift of perfectly level over a span of 1500mm with no humps or voids, just slightly on the piss (I only discovered after laying it that my spirit level had been knocked out of adjustment) What thickness would you recommend on that basis? I worked out 35kg mortar to get to 15mm thickness over the area so if it can go thinner that would be great. Yes you are correct, stone resin. You're dead right about the contamination too, it looks like the aftermath of a Hollywood coke party underneath, I'll get scouring. It all had a couple of coats of SBR already as I was not very happy with the quality of the ply. It's supposedly marine but I am doubtful, I did stick an offcut in water for a week and it didn't delaminate so it is at least WBP. I was going to stick another coat on before mortar just as it's got a bit dusty and dirty I'll get to the shops in the morning, have CT1 handy already from installing the jackoboard but will pick up some adhesive. Thanks again

Yes. We went for indoor / outdoor rugs from Ikea because we don’t like thick chunky fluffy or fringed rugs. Prefer a plainer style. Didn’t want anything with any extra layers etc that would restrict the flow of heat from our UFH. Additional bonus is super hardwearing and can be washed easily, and inexpensive for big rugs. works perfectly for us other option is a thinner natural carpet and get it edged.

It looks like this is, on reflection, just an infill roof, like a small canopy that is constrained by substantial walls either side. Are we over thinking this? Vertical loads could be roof access, at a push, maybe snow dump coming off the higher roof. But the canopy looks like it has a good slope. I would go back and look at what is Architecturally pleasing, like your proposed joints earlier.

I don't think there'll need to be a ban ultimately. Most people don't care less what makes the wheels turn so long as it works and it's not too dear. The shift to EVs will only accelerate as good used models get cheaper and petrol stations close due lack of custom.

Interesting - with Coanda Effect too. And, by the look of it, lugs for a cone filter.

Fitted loads, hydronic and electric, but I do have to tell the clients they clog up with dust and are a maintenance item. They do the job well, just a bit of a noise / draught annoyance imho.

Actually the house is under 10 years old. I suspect it's more down to the way it's used, and whether the logs are properly seasoned. My point, however, was that it's clearly not needed to heat the property, or else the windows would presumably be shut tight, so the crap coming out of it is in any case unnecessary. You may be able to make log burners that are relatively clean, but you can't guarantee the owner will use it in the way it's designed to be.

The thickness of the bed is based on how well you laid the ply, in a nutshell. The stone you refer to, is probably 'stone-resin', is that correct? Either way, the biggest issues with this type of install is failing to clean (decontaminate) the underside of the tray; most of these are either covered in mould release agents (or remnants of), or are dust-covered from the underside being ground flat prior to dispatch. Both of those will stop anything sticking well to the underside, so needs addressing. I recommend using some tile adhesive on a cotton cloth and using it like Ajax to 'scour' the underside. This will clean the tray and leave it ready to stick the adhesive to excellently. I would mix this to a consistency similar to clotted cream, and if you're a novice then I would use a "standard" or "extended" set adhesive vs rapid, as this will give you an additional hour or more to feck about with it. Rapid will start to cure more or less as it hits the ply. I use Ultra tile adhesive, but Bal or Mapei are all very good gear; much of a muchness I am sure. You need to SBR (PVA on steroids) the plywood before installing the tray btw, so the tile adhesive sticks to that like shit to a blanket. You should do this around an hour before fitting the tray. The 2 or 3 sides of the tray that are abutting the walls should be filled up with clear CT1, NOT SILICONE, and that will complete the install for a trouble-free life.

Thank you - that interests me. How thick a bed would you use if you are using flexible tile adhesive? Any recommendations for which one? Do you use quick setting or normal, and how wet do you mix? The base is 18mm ply on raised joists. LOL sorry that is a lot of questions but I've not heard of that before.

There's rads there already I think. One thing that doesn't get mentioned much is plinth heaters. You could get the cosy toes feeling without all the pipes etc. Has anyone used one?

Fit 50mm XPS tile backer boards for insulation, and you will get a free DPM and a floor that no longer feels stone cold. You cannot use UFH to dry out or combat damp! Using a good quality liquid DPM (aka black jack) will stop the damp with ease, subject to you removing the 60mm of screed, applying the liquid DPM, and relaying 'whatever' back over it.

I would never use mortar, and have only ever used flexible tile adhesive. FYI I have been 'at this' for over 30 years, and have done more wet-rooms than I can remember. Not ONCE have I used mortar for this and I cannot fathom why they are still suggesting you do so in 2026! Mortar was used "during the war".

Yep, 60mm wouldn't bother, get a pretty radiator.

Limited to the vertical forces really as I thought I would use something like a Simpson String Tie ABR to resist the otherwise unconstrained lateral motion in and out of the U-shaped brickwork. That would be in location B below. In location A I was thinking to have an bolt through an oversized hole and into the brickwork to stablise things during construction. It occurs to me that I could attach a piece of 2x2 to the wall that rides in a slot on the end of the beam. A more modern equivalent would be something like the BTALU90 but not bolted to the beam, just to the wall. That way it wouldn't constrain the beam or posts vertically which I don't want to do due to the shrinkage (admitted small along the grain). It way just be simpler to bolt the end rafters that go along the surface of the wall to the wall and their birds mouths would stop the frame tipping outwards. Some form of slip fixing through the rafter down into the beam could then constrain it from tipping inwards towards the door. Alternatively, I could bolt some wood behind the beam to constrain it, though that would be quite obvious. An advantage of having the final rafters bolted to the brickwork is that they won't move much relative to the brickwork so will limit the movement the lead flashings experience.