Leaderboard

I bet you can..... "I was having a quiet pint with the wife, this chap comes in, .........It was the freshest move I've ever seen,like he was floating on air. I dunno what came over us, I just got up and danced with him. I've never seen anything like it in my life"

So the roof is now totally finished- was a beast of a job and having finished the ridge I felt as though I had been riding a particularly fat horse all week. Physically tough doing it without help and using just a ladder, but I'm impressed with the corrugated steel and would happily use it in future. I would seriously consider it for wall cladding as well, as it was much quicker and not any more expensive compared to my larch. I had made a start on the larch wall cladding a few months back, fixing the first layer of boards on the gables. I'm now comfortably past the half way point with the cladding, with only the seaward walk not yet started. It's been a process of trial and error to find ways of getting each board in place ensuring that it more or less plumb and with equal gaps either side. Part of this learning process has been judging what kind of tolerance to work to. The boards are highly variable, from less than 95mm width to over 100mm, sometimes tapering at one or both ends, and often with a bit of a curve to them. So my first idea of using a long spirit level and a wooden block as a spacer wasn't going to work. The first layer was done quite carefully with markings on the battens; temporary nails on these marks located each board whilst I used the coil nailer to fix it in place. For the top layer, I didn't want to use that method as it would leave nail holes in visible parts of the cladding. So the best method for fixing the long boards of the gables seems to be to put small marker nails on the reverse side of each board, spaced to match the gap that is being covered. It's obviously a lot of prep time, but I can do that inside the house during bad weather (it is February in Skye after all), and then when the weather allows I can literally just shove the boards up against the wall and they will be in the right place. Unfortunately my progress is now going to be rapidly curtailed as I become the stay at home Dad- SWMBO has gone back to work, so my day now revolves around the couple of hours nap time that let me sprint down to the house site, baby monitor in my pocket, and feverishly nail some boards on. Next project: self build baby pen...

There were a couple of years of planning, while we were talking about generalities , that I tended to overlook the number of German and Austrian products I looked at. And then @Bitpipe wrote that post about Megabad, and someone ( @Stones ?) asked me to do a bit of translation - as did someone else. How nice, I thought, they like German stuff. Me on the other hand, I wanted to buy locally - put money into local businesses and suppliers, use British products. Got to be cheaper. Well, here's a little list; Piling company: uses a 20 year old piling rig (Zeppelin) made in Austria, powered by an 8 liter Magirus Deutz "Best in the business" says the rig driver Doors and Windows: Gaulhofer - Austrian Thresholds : Purenit - Austrian Brickslot drains: ACO - German Build: Durisol: German design, ICF 40 years old, locally produced Bathroom kit: Geberit Washing Machine: Bosch Hand tools and workroom kit: Bosch. I am proud to own a DeWalt nailer though. Build Standard: passivhaus That's most of our budget spent abroad. I suppose some of these companies might have parent companies elsewhere It occurred to me today that I might as well hang the German and Austrian flags on our HERAS. That'd go down well on our lane - really really well.

Was a pretty calm day down here, wind got up a bit this morning, so popped over to North Coast to have a look. Nothing exceptional, Mount's Bay was very calm and the sun was out. Not even the Boy. My daddy left home when I was three And he didn't leave much to ma and me Just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze. Now, I don't blame him cause he run and hid But the meanest thing that he ever did Was before he left, he went and named me "Sue." Well, he must o' thought that is quite a joke And it got a lot of laughs from a' lots of folk, It seems I had to fight my whole life through. Some gal would giggle and I'd get red And some guy'd laugh and I'd bust his head, I tell ya, life ain't easy for a boy named "Sue." Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean, My fist got hard and my wits got keen, I'd roam from town to town to hide my shame. But I made a vow to the moon and stars That I'd search the honky-tonks and bars And kill that man who gave me that awful name. Well, it was Gatlinburg in mid-July And I just hit town and my throat was dry, I thought I'd stop and have myself a brew. At an old saloon on a street of mud, There at a table, dealing stud, Sat the dirty, mangy dog that named me "Sue." Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dad From a worn-out picture that my mother'd had, And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye. He was big and bent and gray and old, And I looked at him and my blood ran cold And I said: "My name is 'Sue!' How do you do! Now your gonna die!!" Well, I hit him hard right between the eyes And he went down, but to my surprise, He come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear. But I busted a chair right across his teeth And we crashed through the wall and into the street Kicking and a' gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer. I tell ya, I've fought tougher men But I really can't remember when, He kicked like a mule and he bit like a crocodile. I heard him laugh and then I heard him cuss, He went for his gun and I pulled mine first, He stood there lookin' at me and I saw him smile. And he said: "Son, this world is rough And if a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough And I knew I wouldn't be there to help ya along. So I give ya that name and I said goodbye I knew you'd have to get tough or die And it's the name that helped to make you strong." He said: "Now you just fought one hell of a fight And I know you hate me, and you got the right To kill me now, and I wouldn't blame you if you do. But ya ought to thank me, before I die, For the gravel in ya guts and the spit in ya eye Cause I'm the son-of-a-bitch that named you "Sue.'" I got all choked up and I threw down my gun And I called him my pa, and he called me his son, And I came away with a different point of view. And I think about him, now and then, Every time I try and every time I win, And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna name him Bill or George! Anything but Sue! I still hate that name!

As a Beverley lad, born and bred, I've enjoyed many a night out in Hull (and Scunthorpe)! Wouldn't go there sober mind...?

Ever tried it? . It's a nightmare to cut, even with a grinder. Let me finish this, grab some Piri Piri for the thick cut pork loins, and we'll have a go. ?

Plasticizer / old cable? A philosopher once said.....

I have about 10 day's worth of data now, but we haven't had any cold weather, if anything it's been pretty mild, so I think it's best if I keep the loggers going for at least another week or so, just to try and get as wide a range of outside temperature variations as I can. Looking at the temperature displays on the loggers, the floor surface rarely seems to be more than 0.5 deg C above the room temperature, and the room temperature seems to be fairly steady, between about 20.5 and 21 deg C. I've not noticed the heat pump running for the past week, but it's possible that it may have come on earlier in the morning, before I get over here, for a short time. I'll know for sure in a week or so, as the log will have the heat pump flow temperature, which will show when it's run and for how long. If we get a spell of cold weather in the nest few days then I'll stop the loggers in a week or so and post the data here.

At our old house I spent a fair bit of time faffing about measuring flow and return temperatures and the flue gas temp at the terminal, to try and determine if there was a "sweet spot" in terms of efficiency. It turned out that if the return temperature was above 55 deg C the boiler flue gas temp was sky high, and it was definitely not condensing. As the return temp dropped there was a big jump in efficiency at around 50 deg C, and a corresponding big drop in flue gas temperature. From then on, reducing the return (not flow, but they are clearly related) temperature further gave a fairly linear improvement in efficiency, until I reached the point where there wasn't enough heat output to keep the house warm. Our boiler was over-sized, because I didn't size it, the installers did, and they refused point-blank to take account of the added insulation I'd fitted (350mm in the loft, plus ~50mm bonded graphite bead EPS in the walls) or the fairly decent (for the time) 28mm DG. It means that all the radiators are too big now, and the boiler has too high a capacity, but the one advantage is that I can run at a 48 deg C flow and about 43 to 44 deg C return with the boiler in fully condensing mode. It makes a worthwhile difference; probably knocks about 10 to 15% off the gas bill. As Nick says, for low temperature UFH you need something for the boiler (or heat pump) to work into, so that the boiler (or heat pump) can run efficiently and without going into short-cycle protection mode. A buffer is pretty much essential with a boiler, I think, as otherwise it's going to try and modulate down as low as it can, still chuck out too much heat and then it'll turn off and wait of the short-cycle delay before firing up again and doing the same. This won't be efficient, as it takes a few minutes of running for a boiler to stabilise and start running efficiently, so the greater the number of times it fires in a day the worse the efficiency. Ideally you want it to fire and stay on for a fair time, then turn off and stay off for a long time, whilst the heating draws stored heat from the buffer. @TerryE is going for a system of using the slab as a buffer, which should work with the low flow temperature from a heat pump, but won't really work with the higher flow temp from a boiler, I think.

Fwiw, I'd 100% recommend ceilings first. 1) cables 2) plumbing 3) foam gap filling 4) ceilings 5) perimeter track on floor and ceiling plumb and square ( a laser is your friend ) 6) insulate if / where required and board walls putting either full osb sheets as cladding or pattresses where rads etc are going. Are you going metal as your not A1 with woodwork?

Did he die in the bath?

I like Jeremy's idea of discharging into the lake, if you can get permission for that. It would solve a whole host of problems and be a simple reliable solution. If doing that, I would install an air blower type treatment plant. When I was researching for mine a couple of years ago now (so others may have come to the market since) I found the three best ones were the Vortex, the Biopure and the one I fitted, the Conder. These all had very similar levels of cleanliness of the effluent and were way ahead of any others that I found at the time.

I thought that and I've just gone down the route of ordering PiR from Seconds and Co as they had an offer on - £24 for 123/128mm which is 20% better than any of the merchants or online guys could do and it's cosmetic seconds only. May well put 50mm of EPS under it too instead of sand blinding as its cheap as chips ...

Our water, electricity and telephone all had to come from the other side of the road. As luck would have it, Scottish water gave the cheapest price to make the road crossing, and I was only having (and paying for) the road up once. Now that was handy, because water goes deepest, 900mm down up here. So when the sub sub contractors (SW contracted it out and they subcontracted it to someone else) had the trench open for the water, while they were connecting it, I back filled the trench partially and laid in ducts for the telephone and mains cables. In fact I had the phone cable so I pulled that one through the duct and just left a draw string in place for the electricity supply later. The vertical separation from the water to the electricity was enough, and by putting telephone one side of the trench and mains supply the other, achieved enough separation between those. All done in a couple of hours, trench closed and everyone happy. I won't tell you how all 3 in my present house came to be in one 65mm duct under the road!!!

Ducting is your friend assuming you've got the usual electric, water and 'phone going in... From the previous discussions, dig it 750mm deep x 300mm wide and lob the water duct in. Back fill to 450mm and chuck power on the left and telco on the right and back fill the trench. Job done, and Robert's your granddads son...

Awesome work! Based on past behaviour, are you out looking for a new plot to start the next build yet?