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Grow some moss on the roof?

One thing I've kept meaning to do is to check the external and internal faces of the SageGlass units on a sunny day when in full tint. Well today's the day. Temperatures as of 1.15pm (Sun direct in line of glazing) External face temp of glass - 49.4C Internal face temp of glass - 24.6C External face of frame (Internorm Aluclad RAL 7016) - 50.1C Internal face of frame (timber) - 26.0C External wall temp alongside glazing (timber cladding) - 40.6C Internal wall temp alongside glazing - 24.1C Current room stat temp - 23.9C Seems the heat transfer through the fully tinted glass is no worse (possibly a fraction better) than through the window frame.

Apologies ref the video quality. This is an IP6* rated one by my bath: This (again a video, click to play) is just a switch held against the wall:

Still waiting on planning permission so no further! I'm now leaning towards a 2-3kw system with battery storage. I can get 3kw on the roof. I think with our low accupancy (we both travel for work), balanced storage makes more sense than absolute production.

Nobody wants pms for sake of looking at your brickwork. Post them on the thread!

Never was a member's username more appropriate

Having had 2 pre planning meetings, having waited 7 months for planning, (still no decision) I was asked to withdraw my application, NO chance, my consultant is now making progress with the head of planning, why would I even want to use the local building officer, when I have had excellent service from Meridien consult, its just not worth the risk. sorry regards, Stephen

Having a good photo record and detailed reports that have been accepted by a building control body has to be a real plus, with the current problem that's affecting private building control companies.

I’ve used Meridian - they will come and inspect and then ask for any remediation to be done and happy to accept photo evidence. The reports are very detailed too - I think each has 7-10 photos taken by the inspector in each which helps when there is any query or even if something did happen to them.

Room size and property style will also influence minimum ceiling height. When aiming to reproduce a heritage cottage style property 2.2m might be ok. A low ceiling in a large room will also be more noticeable. The default minimum is 2.4m on the ground floor for anything but budget low-cost homes and 2.3m or 2.2m upstairs. +2.6m starts to give a property an air of grandness. Given a ridge height limit you can steal some extra ceiling height by specifying roof trusses with a raised horizontal joist which introduces a foot or so of sloping ceiling in the bedrooms.

@Ferdinand If you blow up pic and look above parasol in corner where glass roof joins tiles you can just see lead diverter taking the water down into the gutter and away from the glass roof. We had normal gutters and downpipes and a huge roof and no problems with these diverters in place.

For not-really-climate but relevant alternative energy reads there's also The Switch by Chris Goodall. “How solar, storage and new tech means cheap power for all”. It's often forgotten that climate is not the only reason [¹] to get off fossil fuels, just the most urgent one. [¹] maybe not even the most important reason in the long term.

Other possible benefits, but it all depends on preference: If you have lots of light circuits e.g. a hallway or large living area, you can group them and have a smaller number of buttons to select scenes rather than needing a "sound desk console" of 12 dimmer dials (or whatever). Scenes can control table lamps and so on, which can easily be relocated without involving an electrician Opens the possibility of automations (e.g. turns all lights off at bedtime, auto lights on/off when away, bring up low level lighting when going to the loo in the middle of the night, etc...) Control from you phone or voice assistant if you're into that Easier support for colour changing and tunable white temperature, if you're into that. (the latter is definitely the new cool hotness) I'm dead set against using wireless light switches, but keep questioning that aversion. If I did use wireless I'd favour something using z-wave as then you can mix and match switches, dimmers, and "smart bulbs" from different manufacturers in a single system. And crucially, you're not locked in when you come to add one more switch or lamp in future. Fabario does seem a top contender for z-wave lighting kit. I'd personally steer clear of proprietary wireless systems, rako lutron loxone creston etc etc I'd strongly recommend avoiding anything that needs internet connection, and thus tend to avoid anything using WiFi as it's a reliability and latency nightmare and lighting is not something I'd leave at the whim of a cloud service to keep running.

Say you've a garage with power but no outside lighting. Fit a Quinetic light on the garage, powered from the garage. Fit the switch in the house by the back door looking down the garden...or next to the French doors or outside on the wall. Lying in the bath wishing you could dim the lights...fit an IP rated switch...also put one IN the shower cubicle. Got an existing switch and you wish you had another the other side of the room... Made a mistake in positioning the existing switch... List is endless.

Yes, I've used two types, one I'd recommend and one I wouldn't (hence why we've used two types). I first used the Byron/HomeEasy ones, and they were less than 100% reliable, even over a short distance. I changed to the Quinetic ones from TLC (https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Wiring_Accessories_Menu_Index/Quinetic/index.html ) and found they work very well indeed.

Academic papers, excellent, feel free to list them. I’m at the point where I agree with Greta, we need to take action now, so if you're unsure about climate warming you need to read up about it and start taking action. https://skepticalscience.com/97-consensus-study-hits-million-downloads.html

That's a shame. The opposite seems to be the case here this year, our garden is awash with bugs of all kinds, more than I've ever seen before. My wife had problems with aphids on her roses so bought some ladybirds earlier in the year, now we seem to have hundreds of them, there were ladybird larvae just about everywhere a couple of weeks ago. Whenever one of the outside lights comes on at night there is soon a big cloud of insects flying around it, followed a short time later by the bats, who seem to have learned to home in on the area around the outside lights (I'm convinced they've learned how to trigger the PIR sensors to make the light come on, too).

So there’s only two of us reading up about climate change?

@Patrick have a look at this, you can see the end of the ringbeam closest bit to you, if you look at the wire coil you can see a vertical bar poking up, this is the last pile in the row that is set back a good metre from the corner.

Get into Cable mode (mines older so it's called VWRAP, and you'll be sorted Yup if you drop it it will survive, less so your toes!

Yes, I agree, but was highlighting the problems of choosing the correct battery/storage size, and the importance of data logging.

The last entry was back in February when we put down some much needed flooring and we have made some progress on both the interior and exterior of the build. The first job was insulating the first floor. Two layers of 80mm quinn therm was then fitted between the rafters leaving a ventilation gap to the sarking/breathe membrane. A final layer of 25mm quinn therm layer on top with a service void. For the flat ceiling we used a couple of layers of frametherm 35 with an airtightness membrane and Quinn therm 25mm layer. We still have some work to do around the windows. Downstairs was a lot quicker. This already had frametherm fitted between the studs so the Quinn therm 25mm went on top. Now for the outside. We had been waiting for good weather for rendering the blockwork. The first step was rendering beads and mesh. Then a scratch coat coat was added. Then finally the rough casting. The rough casting will now be left and painted in July. The next step is getting the electrician and plumber to do first fix.

No site stripping needed house is raised 450mm above existing ground level to account for flood risk. We think we are sitting on a couple of metres of fill as I’ve done a test hole with the digger and didn’t like what I found. This is our site the lake sits at about 700mm below the grass level, so digging down any more than that normally leaves you with wet feet, the house is to be raised 450above the grass level in the pic, so above the 1 in 100 year flood risk even though if that lake was to rise more than 300mm half of the south of England would have long disappeared. Who are we to argue.

Very rarely see bats any longer around here, nor that many insects. The orchards and fields are often sprayed. When we used to drive after dark the front of the car was always covered with moths. It's no longer the case.