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I have joined the electric revolution. Just picked up my Model X. So smooth, absolutely lovely. I had to put it in "chill" mode as they are scarily fast.

You can take a static reading anywhere, just make sure no one has an outlet open when you do. The static pressure will be more or less equal everywhere if the pipe run from the main is fairly level, as I suspect it is knowing your location.

Doesn't help - you'll get about a litre of water for every litre of diesel burned too, and bottled gas is slightly worse for the same amount of heat delivered. Essentially all the oil and gas derivatives are made of a mixture of hydrogen and carbon (natural gas has 4 hydrogen molecules and 1 carbon, while diesel has about 32 hydrogen molecules and 15 carbon molecules). The heat is given off by combining the carbon and hydrogen atoms with oxygen from the air, forming carbon dioxide and water. Pretty much the only thing you can burn without a lot of water in the exhaust is coal and similar smokeless fuels. The actual calculation is: LPG gives about 46 MJ/kg (12.8 kWh/kg) - that's lower calorific value so assumes the water from the combustion process will stay as vapour. That means 78kg of gas is needed per 1,000 kWh. They're either C3H8 (propane) or C4H10 (butane) - 10% or 8% hydrogen by weight respectively. That means the 78kg of gas will contain about 7kg of hydrogen gas. Water is H2O - so 2kg of hydrogen gives 18kg of water. So 1,000 kWh will mean about 60kg of water being released into the house. Unless well ventilated, it will all end up condensing out on cold surfaces.

A mix of industrial dehumidifiers and heaters may be what you need here to keep moisture levels low and heat high. If the front door is only sheeted, consider getting a couple of sheets of 100mm insulation from the merchants and make a solid insulation “plug” with it as that will help retain heat

I think it's 042 as well. Nothing is correct in 738, one is correct but wrongly placed in 780 - therefore the first or second digit is zero. 206 has two digits correct but wrongly placed. We already know that the first or second digit is zero, so the first digit must be zero. One of 2 or 6 makes up one of the remaining digits, with the other not being present. 682 has one digit correct and correctly placed. Since the first digit must be a zero, the correct digit must be a 2 as the third digit. 614 has one digit correct but wrongly placed. The missing digit must be a 6 or a 4, and we know from (2) that there is no 6 present.

Yes well i am fortunate to live where burning wood bothers nobody as there are no neighbours within a mile, also living in a house with virtually no insulation. But the kitchen is always to hot when the wood burner is on and thats every day from november and we have to open the door to the hall to let out the heat otherwise its just to much. The rising heat through the floorboards heats the bedroom above so all in all its liveable. Yes its as basic and barbaric as they come but at the moment thats the life we lead. The clearview pioneer 400 was the best £1000 i could have spent on a stove and i am still after many years delighted with it. I have recommended it to various people and they are also incredibly happy with it. I could not even consider what my electric bill would be without it. There i said it.......

Good to see that you are over your self deprocating of this morning. How about this one. https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/f170h/white-knight-f170h-freestanding-freezer

The 40l per day (at 35C 100% rh) commercial dehumidifier I mentioned says it uses 1.3A at 220/240v or approx 350W. Surprisingly low. Your fan heaters to get it warm will be the main issue. Good job it s well insulated :-).

I just bought the Monument one from Screwfix. Been fine. They do a Rothenberger for another fiver.

Not at all, for some reason midges only start to appear further North. I used to have to travel up to Loch Goil, around 2 1/2 hours North of Portpatrick, a fair bit, and midges were certainly an issue there. There seems to be a line, roughly from Glasgow to Edinburgh, that defines the Southern boundary of midge territory, I think. Portpatrick is pretty far South, about the same latitude as Newcastle and only about 20 miles from Belfast, plus it's on a coastal peninsula, so strongly affected by the surrounding sea, which keeps the area warmer than you'd expect. There's a botanical garden just down the coast at Port Logan, and look at what's growing there will give an idea of the local climate: http://www.rbge.org.uk/the-gardens/logan

When was the concrete poured? We only have 10cm across most of our slab and it still took 10 months to dry out properly (Nov -> Aug). Before that if you laid a square of polythene on the dry slab for a week or so, then you'd see the colour change as the residual moisture came to the surface. So, I was thinking also about this. 600 tonnes of concrete = maybe 100 tonnes of water to be evaporated off. Let's guess 100 tonnes of water, this will take 2,200 × 1000 × 100 / 3600 = 61,000 kWh latent heat (loss) of evaporation. Even if it was half that, this is still a lot of heat energy. If the structure is damp, then cranking up the temperature will mean that more dampness will evaporate off and the internal RH will just stick near 100%. So I'd concentrate on getting it properly dry before trying to warm it up too much. As @PeterW says, a couple of industrial dehumidifiers running around the clock will condense out this water and return the latent heat back into the structure.

@AliG part of your problem is likely to be that the building is still drying out. Unless the walls and slab were completed over a year ago 600 tonnes of concrete means that there will be a hell of a lot of excess water that still needs to evaporate from the structure of your building. I agree with @Nickfromwales that you need to crank the heat up although I personally wouldn't recommend paraffin heaters as they release approx 1 litre of moisture vapour for every 1 litre of fuel burned. With a building like yours is at the moment you could create a bad problem with condensation.

Sitting here in the lounge with my feet off the floor and tucked up under me on the sofa just feeling the draughts swirling around. When I look at the outside of the house; air bricks into the void under the suspended timber floor, chipboard flooring and a bit of thin underlay carpet it really reinforces there are better insulated SHEDS! And don't start me on the dormer! 4" stud walls with hit and miss fluffy insulation - 100mm max in floors and ceiling. The wifes going to soon start wearing her fake fur onesie to bed! Furries?

Hi Alex I did look at Metal Solutions, again very helpful. The costs for sheet material were Copper £66.36, Stainless Steel £51.51, Aluminium £26.79 per sqm. I would have loved to use one of the above materials but due to budget and simplicity I went for Tata. Next time.......

I think that you could describe a lot of us as a bit anal when it comes to the quality of our work and also what we expect of trades that do work for us. It is also a matter of pride that what we do is of the best quality and complies with the current regulations. In my mind, this is nothing about quality and everything about petty bureaucracy and kick-backs. Take this indemnity crap. 14 years ago, I replaced 4 windows with very good quality and (at the time) high thermal-spec Velux. There's isn't any debate about the quality of the installation and the buyer has absolutely no problems, but I have to pay £169 for the policy and another £60 for my solicitor arranging it, for an indemnity against something that won't realistically occur. The alternative is that I risk a delay to my exchange timescale. As I said, CRAP.

On the upside, when you have a collection of certificates, including the one for my central heating (no, not that one Nick) which clearly doesn't compy with the regs, when i modify it, no one will ever know. Just produce the cert. The reality is, it will be far more compliant when ive finished with it. Likewise, i "could" install my soakaway and claim it was there all along. What was signed off by the BCO is clearly non-compliant. But signed off as part of the extension. Clearly he never looked at it, at any point! Clearly from the Stevie Wonder school of building inspection.

I've heard of several tales recently where sellers have had to rush around spending money to get proof that the house they are selling is compliant with the building regs that applied at the time it was built. It's one reason I ripped out all my workshop wiring at the old house a couple of weeks ago and refitted the single socket, light switch and pendant light that was in there when we bought the house. I've also carefully collected together all the paperwork on things like the new windows and doors we had fitted years ago, the new gas boiler and all it's annual service chits, the paperwork for the new flat roof we had fitted a couple of years ago, and the couple of wiring jobs where I have a chit, ready to sell the house. I've also heard that there's now a pretty good chance that a lender will want to see an up to date electrical installation cert, as the house wiring is over 25 years old, so I'm arranging to get one of those as well, just in case. I've already tested every circuit so with luck the official EIC will be quick and easy. The last thing I want is last minute hassle with the sale because a lender throws up objections!

You have yo adjust your mindset. Forget wanting to keep the stove in overnight, and forget a long burn. If your house needs 15 KWh per day, then a s,all 3KW stove running at full tilt, nice and hot for a few hours, then let it go out, will do that. and being a well inulated house it won't cool down much until you do the same next day, or whenever it has cooled down to need some more heat input. I think people talk of a stove overheating a well insulated house must be trying to run the thing for too long. There is certainly no need to run it long and definitely no need o keep it going overnight.

If anyone needs to do this, I found this company- http://www.steel-fire-paint.co.uk You give them the size of each beam and they come back ad tell you how thick the paint needs to be and then how much paint you need to buy. A really excellent service, ordering from them and the builder will do the painting on a per hour rate. Should save a good 6-7000.

Yes - the planning permission was for two houses so I actually built two, and sold the other