Leaderboard

Waiting in line at the local BM. An organisation that hasn't changed from the 1990s when I first set foot in Lancashire. But I suspect it probably hasn't changed much since time began. A powerfully built but small white haired man get to the head of the queue. No neck, just muscle, shoulders the size of an American oarsman's coach. His frame must have been put together before steroids were invented. Several staff are chatting behind the counter - there's a queue, no, audience of at least 10. All builders (except me) Roofer: Riaaat mate ah want sum roofing felt: cuppla roles laaak BM You mean Vapour Control felt: how many rolls d'ya wunt? Noooo mert, ah want sum roofin felt, just'a culpa rolls laaak. The BM shop assistant, spotty, super-clean hair do, biro tattoos : 'Mum' and 'Hat', one on each forearm looks flummoxed. Well we've got [................... A series of trade names.............] Silence. Complete silence. 10 builders (and me) , Hearts almost stopped. The roofer eyes the sprog behind the counter, and cold as ice and says Maaate if yer wanna know why wimmin dunt ever cum in 'ere, it cos o' twats laaak thee mekkin me feel laak a reet prat. Ah been cummin' in ere since long afore yer dad wuz born orderin' fookin roofing felt. '..... Kin rooofin felt 'assss all. An if yer can mek me feel laak a reet prat, yer can do 't same fer wimmin. Nay wonder ya never see a wun in ere. The shop door opens, all eyes swivel (just like a pub entrance door) and in walks a large female, in dirty dungarees, severe hair cut with purple and red highlights, forearms the size of my thighs , most things pierced - the list would be too long - sporting a chunky paint-spattered watch. And clogs - proper Lancashire clogs. Two days later my tongue is still sore where I bit it .

It's a digression, but I think your logic is arse over tit with that statement. If someone lights a fire now and then youd still rather a lifetime of high and higher fuel bills Not me . I'd go passive in the wink of an eye. Then all the money your used to throwing at the energy companies can be thrown to your mortgage instead. It's a no-brained afaic. I hate the house we're in, as I'm paying to keep it warm and like @Onoff I can literally hear the meters going round whilst I continue to pump heat in to offset its draughty inefficient ways, but capital expenditure puts any sensible anti-measures in place. .

Actually the government COULD do a lot to reduce wood burning. For a start they could stop paying the RHI for wood burning devices. I have lost count how many domestic oil boilers I have seen removed, and replaced by pellet boilers, because of the salesmen pushing the RHI payments they will receive for doing so. And the salesmen make the problem worse by selling it as a "green" , renewable and environment friendly source of fuel. Even those just installing a WBS withour any RHI are doing so largely because they perceive it to be a "green" and environmentally friendly fuel. Also, virtually every school and sports facility here, now has a container sized building alongside it, housing a big pellet stove to heat the building. Even those in town where mains gas is probably available. These large scale projects have no doubt been installed under the guidance that they are environmentally friendly. THAT policy needs to be reversed.

This is mainly for @Crofter, depending on how Wee the new Hoose actually is - put here in case anyone else finds it. In England, detached buildings under 50sqm are exempt from having an EPC done. https://www.gov.uk/energy-performance-certificate-commercial-property/exemptions If it is also so in Scotland, that could save you a little money and hassle - if you are under 50sqm and so minded. I have one under 50sqm - the detached 48sqm cottage my dad was born in, which is now a rental. I have the EPC number up to 51, and the half of it which has been drylined since about 1984 (25mm eps) was ignored by the EPC man, but that is about the limit of what is achievable practically. When push comes to shove in 2026 I will rely on the exemption rather than make a "too expensive to upgrade it" argument. Ferdinand

I still think Government is set against widespread fuel efficient homes/cars as it risks losing revenue on a massive scale. Whoever invents small scale point of use hydrogen generation or similar from good old H2O is on borrowed time. Conspiracy theorists say it's already happened. Check out the Paul Pantone and Stanley Meyer stories.

Like I said earlier just done £900 on oil (no gas). That's without leccy. About £2K a year here. With my boy at uni i.e more space and his room spare I often half consider putting a scaffold over the whole place then redoing the roof then re-jigging the dormer to temporarily include a kitchen and living room. Then gut downstairs in one hit. Blitz the exterior and go 3G / EWI. It's only having to do a day job and the lack of £££ stopping me!

I'm not saying I want to use a wood burner and live in a draughty house. I built the house I'm in now last year 150mm cav, double glazing, gsh no wood burning! Was easy to build, bills are low ish and mortgage lenders will readily lend on it when I decide to sell. It's perfectly logical really and just depends how much you value your time. You have a good understanding of the mechanical aspects from your trade so you might enjoy the concept of passive. I wasn't knocking anyone who does it at all but just admitting it's beyond me and my efforts are better spent elsewhere. I think @joe90 is about where I'd want to be next time I build one for myself.

What about a rotating one on the roof (or at a low level) as part of a weathercock for new Builds? Could have a modern version of the Sisyphus myth with @Onoff making his bathroom in cut-out sheeting .

It's a good idea, but living in a sheltered valley means the whole valley tends to fill with smoke, from the inversion layer** at the top of the valley downwards. This means that over a period of hours the smoke descends from the inversion layer down to the base of the valley. This pattern is only disturbed if either the inversion layer dissipates or the wind speed and direction increase/change so that the valley is blown clear of smoke. The photos of Launceston, Tasmania, that head one of the papers I cited earlier shows this effect: You can see the line of the inversion layer in the right hand photo, with relatively clear air above it (you can see the distant mountains) and also see that the smoke initially rises, hits the inversion layer, starts to cool and then sinks to gradually fill the valley from the top down. Any upwards pointing snorkel arrangement would initially make things worse, and to be effective would need to poke out above the top of the inversion layer, several hundred feet up, perhaps. As another illustration of an inversion layer over the UK, here's a photo I took when flying back to Dover from a trip to France, where you can see the "dirty" faintly yellow, air trapped by the inversion over London in the far distance (around 80 or so miles away from where I was over the Channel when taking this photo). London sits in a bowl-shaped depression, so tends to be prone to having local inversion layers over the top of it, one thing that contributed to the very bad smogs of the 1950's : ** An inversion layer forms when a layer of warmer air overlies a region of colder air. In the specific case of hollows in the ground, like valleys, what tends to happen is that the ground in the valley radiates heat to a clear sky overnight, so the ground temperature, and surrounding air, get very cold (the "frost hollow" effect). Meanwhile, the air above stays warmer, often because there will be a gentle flow of warm air above the inversion, in the UK often as a consequence of Oceanic air movement coming from the West. Normally, air gets colder as you go higher, according to a rule called the adiabatic lapse rate. In rough terms, the dry adiabatic lapse rate here tends to be around 2 deg C per 1000ft, which means that normally warm smoke will continue to rise, even though it is cooling down. The rate of cooling of the smoke only needs to be slightly lower that the adiabatic lapse rate to ensure that it carries on rising. As soon as warm smoke hits warmer air above it stops rising, and continues to cool, so starts to sink towards the ground, where it cools faster as it encounters cooler air lower down for the second time.

Before I did my latest but one we did an Osb pathway / platform to the boiler under the top layer to help gas engineers, and insulated the pipes up there. Also what is your current insulation level? Under 100mm ( or if you reduce it) and you can probably get it done free. Guess where the rockwool under the floor of the LBB came from.

i think this is the reason you didn't have problems, modern houses do need to be relatively airtight and are relying on trickle vents for ventilation as well as the gaps in vcl various trades make and don't bother fixing.

@Onoff It sounds like you would be better off in our caravan. This last week has been a bit testing. Well below 0 every night, barely up to 0 in the day, and a strong northerly wind. Oh and a bit of snow to add to the interest. With the WBS and some electric heating we can keep it warm, but it goes cold very quick when you turn the heating off. I have been working on an old 1920's bungalow for a week or so now. It has no insulation in the walls or under the floor. About 2" in the loft. It's been very cold in there while the plumber has been upgrading the central heating, but soon warms up when you pump 20Kw of heat into it. The owner does not seem at all bothered by that.