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I will tell you a story about a new build not far from here. SSE came first and connected the power, making a road crossing and installing a bit of black ducting under the road probably about 75mm diameter. Next along came Scottish water, who fed their water pipe through the same black duct to save digging the road up. And you guessed it, when Open Reach came along, guess where the telephone cable went......

I do Diesel is 0.25 kg CO2/kWh Bio-Diesl 0.25 kg CO2/kWh Timber is 0.41 kg CO2/kWh Natural Gas is 0.18 kg CO2/kWh https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/co2-emission-fuels-d_1085.html Particulates are here, just got in and too tired to go though it. Worth noting that particulate emissions from vehicles and boilers are not the same, for many reasons. So the VW scandle is not applicable to bomestic boilers, or lare scale ones for that matter. https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/cat11/1708081027_170807_AQEG_Biomass_report.pdf a snippet A GJ is 278 kWh So Timber PM2.5 2.2g/kWh Oil PM2.5 0.0115g/kWh Gas PM2.5 0.0018g/kWh And people wonder why they are told they are dangerous. Even putting coal on you fire is an improvement. Stop thinking it is safe, it just isn't, even if you are rural.

We learnt how to keep our house cool this summer and thought we'd share what we've learnt in case its of use to others. We're in a timber frame building built to the Passivhaus standard but not certified. We don't have an ASHP, so no slab cooling for us but without a doubt our (not so secret) weapon are the external blinds. All our east and south facing windows (with the exception of 3 east facing windows - more on them later) have external blinds and as predicted by the PHPP these are the game changer. Our secret weapon is the little personal weather station (PWS) in the garden and with it's help this is how we've kept the house cool: In the evening when the outside temperature according to the PWS is below our target internal temperature of 21 degrees all doors and windows are opened and the MVHR ramped up. Overnight all the inward tilting windows are left open with the MVHR staying at a higher level and it stays like this until the PWS shows that the external temperature is rising towards our target 21 degrees - that happened at 07:50 this morning. As soon as the exterior temperature reaches our target then all doors and windows are closed and the MVHR is reduced to its lowest setting, we monitor the air quality with a couple of CO2 monitors as recommended by @Adrian Walker and increase the MVHR speed as required to keep good air quality. All sun facing windows have the blinds down, we have the mesh style blinds that don't block off the light but stop lots of UV. With this technique our hallway temperature has peaked in the early evening at around 21-22 degrees and the kitchen/dining room which has lots of east and south facing glazing has stayed below 24 degrees. As soon as we open up we get rid of most of that unwanted heat. The hallway starts in the mornings around 19-20 degrees. The reason I think the PWS is a secret weapon is as far as I'm concerned you need to accurately know the exterior temperature and when to let it in and when to keep it out. On a windy day, 26 degrees can feel cooler than 21 degrees but if you let that stuff in the house you're gonna regret it. If you don't have a PWS you'll probably be able to find one situated close to you on the Weather Underground website. Oh, and the 3 problem east facing windows without external blinds: 1 is the utility room. That has an internal blind and as it's the utility room the internal door to the rest of the house is kept closed. That room gets warm 25-27 degrees but the heat stays in that room which of course has an MVHR extract so the heat is slowly being pumped out of the house until it's door/window opening time then we throw the heat away with vigour. 2 is the ensuite which we deal with in exactly the same way as the utility. 3 is the main bedroom which has a great big window and curtains. The curtains remain closed while the sun is coming in that window but the doors are open so as that room warms up its heat is not being contained in that room. As the sun moves round and that window is no longer in direct sun the curtains are opened and a big old chunk of hot air falls out to be slowly extracted until window opening time. To me, its like the house taking a long overnight gulp of cold air and then holds its breath throughout the day until the temperature is 'just right' again.

Well, it’s been quite a while since my last blog post but we’ve not been idle but I do admit to having been slack in updating the blog. At the end of the last blog we had a superstructure and the roofer was about to begin his journey up the scaffolding. This is where that tale begins….. ’Twas a sunny November morning when all was quiet that a white van man arrived at our site to felt, batten and slate our sloping roofs. And he wasted no time at all in cracking on with it after the site orientation was complete. With his dad along to help with the battening it didn’t take long for the membrane (or ‘felt’ if you’re a roofer) and battens and counter battens to be done. After discussions with our BCO it was decided that we would fully fill our rafters and use a breathable membrane (Proctor Roofshield) attached to the roof trusses and then 25mm x 50mm counter battens and then slate battens which gave us 50mm ventilation. This allows us to not need soffit vents (or indeed soffits) which fitted in to the design of the house better and also meant we don’t have to worry about creepy crawlies living in the soffits. We started with the southern elevation so that the solar PV array could be installed and the roofer (Chris) fitted the first few rows of slates and some flashing leaving it ready for the solar team to arrive before moving on to the northern elevation So while Chris was busy working on the north side of the house the solar installers arrived and fitted our GSE trays. Once done they started to fit the panels. But it was then discovered that the company who did the ordering ordered the wrong size GSE trays and the panels wouldn’t fit. So the solar installers took all the trays down and left site after wasting a day’s work. Meanwhile the flat roofers attended site to single-ply membrane our flat roofs and balcony. A great bunch of guys from a company recommended to me by Chris so I had every confidence of them doing a great job, and they didn’t disappoint. DPM, PIR, OSB then single-ply membrane. First roof which will have a wildflower green roof being overlooked by our bedroom balcony Second roof above our utility room which links the house to the garage which will have a sedum roof They will return a little later on in the blog to install the green roofs. Meanwhile the solar installers returned after the correctly sized GSE trays had been delivered and managed to fit it all in a day. We think it looks brilliant. 28 x 375W LG panels, each with Solaredge optimisers as we have lots of trees around us. And when they’d finished each panel was giving out 1V and was confirmed each was working by being shown the 14V on each string in the loft. Job done for now until we get electrics first fix done and they can come back and fit the inverter. The only real issue we had with the solar is that the panels were resting on the slates making them lift up in places. I created a thread about them (https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/24530-slate-tiles-lifted/) and after much discussion and deliberation I decided to simply use black CT1 to stick them down which worked nicely. A bit of a bodge but you can’t tell from the ground and a lot less disruption to timelines than other solutions. While all of that was going on Chris was busy slating the northern elevation and it was all coming along nicely. During that I had another discussion with the BCO about vent pipes. I asked if I could have one by the STP but she was adamant that I had to have one through the roof. When I mentioned I didn’t want a pipe sticking out the top of the roof she said that they do slate vents. A quick google search revealed what she was talking about and I purchased the item and it was installed. Looks fab and from the ground you can barely notice it which is just what I wanted. And now the solar PV install was finished he could move on to the southern elevation. But while he was doing that the flat roofers came back and installed our green roofs. The wildflower material So that’s those finished although we were still waiting on a Velux roof light for one of the roofs which was delayed but the flat roofers came back to install that for me and finish off that roof a bit later. They also installed our patio paving slabs which we think look ace. So, back to Chris and he’d now finished the main house roof slating and it finished off around the PV panels nicely. He did make a start on the garage roof but as we were still waiting on Velux windows he couldn’t finish that so he left site and would return once the Velux’s were delivered. During that period our windows and doors arrived! We used Norrsken for these and went for alu-clad triple glazed windows and sliders. The majority of our windows are fixed and we had quite a small profile for the frame which means more glass. The installers, Elite Installations Nationwide (https://www.eliteinstalls.co.uk) were brilliant and Jim and his team were a joy to have on site. They brought their spider crane with them which made lifting our windows up to the first floor a breeze for them. We decided to be bold and went for a red front door. We love it. As the window install was done the week of Christmas the installers couldn’t finish them all in time before the Christmas break so we wished them a safe trip back to York and would see them in the new year. Happy new year!! (Belated). With the new year came the return of Jim and his team to finish off all our windows and doors. Once they were installed it made the house feel so much more like a house. Closing the front door had a feel of shutting out the outside world and we were (almost) water tight at last. We also eventually received our Velux roof light and sloping and vertical windows. So the flat roof was finally completed and so was the garage roof. So we are very nicely watertight at this point. All that’s left now is the time-lapse video for this period of time. Sadly our camera only shows the south side of the building so we only get footage for stuff that happens on that side but it still makes for an interesting watch and I hope you enjoy it. Until next time.

I would say suggest that the RH bracket simply bends at the base, and the LH one potentially gives more resistance. But the LH one isn't fixed to much floor board or close enough to the newel, so will twist. Can you get down and observe while someone else pushes? Is there any way to get more structure under that bracket? And use a heavier gauge bracket?

Had my SolarEdge dc coupled battery for a week and temporary immersun dhw divert until SolarEdge unit becomes available. Only 2 kWh import, which is taking up some of the reaction time for the battery I think. Screen shot shows you everything. I’m happy!

The chap who owns the firm who fitted my system is currently signing off all the new Lidl’s that are having PV fitted. He’s all over the country.

You would think commercial premises would be ideal candidates for solar PV. They operate mostly in the daytime so would be better placed to self use the PV generation than domestic users. One of the reasons I have heard for not doing so, is most don't own the premises, they rent or lease them. the landlord is not going to fund PV, it is of no benefit to him, and the tenant (business) is no more likely to fund it than a tenant in a rental house. And I bet the idiot DNO's make it difficult. they probably insist on expensive network upgrades even though it is clear most would be self used. And a 3.68kW PV system would not be of much use to the average supermarket.

MCS give this as formula with a worked example. Looking at the system volume. Example: A 12kW nominal inverter controlled heat pump unit (at 7oC ambient and 35oC water flow) can provide an output of 4kW at maximum turn down (minimum output) at an ambient of 12oC and weather compensated flow temperature of 30oC. What is the minimum water content to ensure cycling does not exceed six starts per hour? Assume acceptable temperature drop of fluid is 5oC and the fluid has a SHC of 4 [kJ/oC kg] because it has antifreeze in it (normally 4.18[kJ/oC kg]) Total heat energy required: 4 [kW = kJ/s x 60/6] [minutes/number] x 60 [secs/min] = 2,400 [kJ] Mass of water required [kg] = 2400 [kJ]/(4 [kJ/oC kg] x 5 [oC] = 120 [kg] Assume 1 kg of water = 1 litre, therefore 120 litres required.

6x2 is fine !!! Spans are nothing ..!

There have been many reports and studies about adding charcoal to soil to improve it. Jury is out still. Much depends on the condition of the soil in the first place. My view is that there is a lot more to soil fertility than just the base elements. So enzymes/proteins mix, mechanical properties, ion/electron exchange etc. If soil science was simple, we would have cracked it by now. One thing that adding charcoal does well is help water retention (useful for some plants, deadly for others). But there are probably better, cheaper, and more environmentally better ways of doing this than combustion. https://energy-surprises.blogspot.com/2012/05/how-green-is-my-charcoal-barbecue.html If you want to help restore the planet, just leave it, or a bit of it, alone.

My technique is to think of where any individual raindrop will go. Every one should have an easier route away from your wall then towards it. Not Every raindrop obv, but a sample.

A structural engineer would know! What did yours say? 😂

Just ordered €2k of materials from Latzel... thanks all for the recommendations

@patp octopus are renowned for taking time to connect to 3 phase meters, and as Joe says, use your readings to estimate your bill or post here and we can estimate for you.

Maybe, but only if you know in hindsight that they are not turning up with them. You pay them a four figure sum to connect you expect them to do the job property - this is down to sheer incompetence.

I would begin by installing a water hardner to up the PH. My old house has acidic water from a spring and it destroyed the whole copper pipe system and the water tasted metallic. The limestone prewash made a huge difference.

Ask him about Poisson Distribution. Can calculate 'time to failure' and 'time between failure'. This distribution is used quite frequently in reliability analysis. It can be considered an extension of the binomial distribution when n is infinite. It can be used to approximate the binomial distribution when n > 20 and p < 0.05. If events are Poisson distributed, they occur at a constant average rate and the number of events occurring in any time interval are independent of the number of events occurring in any other time interval. For example, the number of failures in a given time would be given by: http://reliabilityanalytics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/poisson_f_of_t.png where x is the number of failures and a is the expected number of failures. For the purpose of reliability analysis, this becomes: where x is the number of failures and a is the expected number of failures. For the purpose of reliability analysis, this becomes: http://reliabilityanalytics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/poisson_f_of_t2.png where: λ = failure rate t = length of time being considered x = number of failures The reliability function, R(t), or the probability of zero failures in time t is given by: http://reliabilityanalytics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/poisson_to_exponential.png or the exponential distribution. In the case of redundant equipments, the R(t) might be desired in terms of the probability of r or fewer failures in time t. For that case http://reliabilityanalytics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/poisson_reliability_cumulative.png

I live alone. I did have a lodger once, and once I had beaten her into submission, the annual usage was around 5 MWh, lat year I think I got it down to around 4 MWh. So far this year (228 days) I havve used 1892 kWh, which is better than I imagined. I also don't live in the cold, and now I have removated my back door, I should save a bit there (had a 6mm gap and the bottom and the seal had totally failled. I do try and think about what I am doing, so no use of a tumble dryer, I use a clothes line, not much oven usage, induction hob, cook twice as much paster and sauce as I need, then either 2 minutes mircrowave or eat it cold. I wish my car usage was the same, last week I used arround 270 kWh of deisel to travel 320 miles. Cost 50 quid. At least this month I am not travelling the 600 extra miles to see my Mother every weekend.

If your over three floors All your doors to the hallway stairs etc need to be fire doors Two story can be just normal doors Unless you have an attached garage with a door into the house That will need to be fire rated

Isn’t this that should come up in the review of the plans with your BCO?

Liebherr due to be delivered tomorrow! 😃 ...But you couldn't script it: Having successfully nursed the old Neff with my own control system to keep the goodies cool since last week, tonight I get a notification that I put in place to advise me when the temperature has exceeded 7oC A quick investigation showed the 32A MCB for the kitchen ring had tripped. First thought was that the Neff compressor was finally toast. But my power logger showed it was off at the time. What was odd (to me at first) was 2 minutes of 2.5kW above base load, just before the trip event. Son then joins in with the sleuthing and points out that he had put the dishwasher on earlier. 😬 So now we need a new dishwasher 😵 Of course all the kitchen appliances were bought new when we built the house 24 years ago. How they make them have such an identical lifespan is impressive. Two freezers to go next week then.

Thats the route i toook with out current house, and if the next one comes off, will likely do the same again. You did, however, miss off air tightness. On anything this old, it will be an air leakage catastrophe!

I've not done too much on ours yet. I'm finishing off the last of our screeding this weekend where I have left taller perimeter up-stands around the external walls so I can continue the PIR up the walls at a later date, or I can just cut them down again if I decide not to. Right now, I plan to use the "warm batten" method where you stick PIR direct to the wall, tape up to reduce air flow, and screw battens through it, I then plan to in-fill those battens with additional PIR, taping again, before cross battening for a service void and then PB. Cross battening isn't required, but I prefer it so all services can be ran on the warm side. I could also install an airtight membrane before cross battening as a belt and braces approach. I've come to the conclusion that there are no hard and fast rules. Many anecdotal tales of people dot and dabbing insulating plasterboard to walls, without any reported problems, many people also saying that's a terrible idea. I've taken the stance that; 1) air-tightness is important, warm, moist air cannot be allowed to move between the thermal envelope and the colder wall. Specific attention needs to be paid at junctions such as floor joists pocketed into walls etc. 2) Too much insulation could be a bad thing. Solid brick walls still need some way to let moisture escape, it is likely to get in some how (driving rain, leaking gutters etc etc) it can no longer dry to the inside so some heat needs to continue to pass through to push that moisture back to the outside. This of course assumes the outer face is pointed well using lime, and isn't rendered with sand/cement etc. It's a pretty marmite subject so I'm sure someone will be along with a different view soon

We had good architect for our new build and a great builder. Builder told me he never builds off plans, he always builds off the last bit he's built 🙂 What he meant was he never trusts even himself so allways measures before buying anything.

I replaced an asbestos fibrous cement mains by digging it up every 90M, making a hole big enough to work in. We then feed 100M long 25mm plastic pipe with a wooden shaped plug in the end into each 90M section. A small dribble of water in the pipe reduced the friction enough and kept the wooden plug afloat enough so it could be pushed by hand down the full 90m. The ID of the asbestos pipe was 65mm and there were joints every few metres. There were 5 90M sections and it took 2 people 2 days. There had been several bursts over the years so the pipe route was known.

It would have a bit daft for all 5 of the barns to buy a house without having a legal agreement in place for the water supply from the borehole so hopefully something is in place. Regardless of the situation with the farmer I’d be speaking with the other homeowners about drilling your own borehole and plant and splitting the cost between the houses. It wouldn’t be that expensive and you have more surety of supply. It’ll make the houses easier to sell too. If one of the houses has bacteria and the others don’t then it’s not the borehole causing that.

You mean big flat steel plates? I have only heard them called "road plates" not boards. I would have let them carry on and let THEM deal with how cars can cross.......

If moss is a problem fitting copper strips at the ridge is an option, but I've never needed to do that, or clean a roof or get one "coated". I do recall hearing of cowboys on consumer programs that cold call and pressure sell you cleaning and coating work you probably don't need. I recall seeing one outfit clambering about on a roof waving a pressure washer about damaging tiles.

Greetings! Apologies for the crass title but I am still a kid at heart. ? After a brief delay due to Covid-19 the carpenters were able to attend site and erect our timber frame. Thanks to the accuracy I insisted on and ensured for the coursing blocks the sole plates were a doddle and were done in no time at all although we did have a bit of rain and I had to get the puddle pump out! We used Flight Timber for our timber frame and they have their own lorries with cranes built in and so each stage of the build was delivered by the lorry and then craned in to place. Here’s the ground floor panels arriving. It took them just 2 days to finish all the ground floor external and internal wall panels. The speed of it all is very impressive. Then the posi-joists arrived These took a few days to do but thanks to the 8mm designed deflection and 300mm centres they are rock solid even across the 6.2m spans. It’ll be a bit of a nightmare trying to run MVHR, electrics and plumbing but we won’t have any bounce on the floors! Plus when the sun shines through it creates some lovely lighting effects Next we had a weeks delay as Flight didn’t have any chipboard flooring in stock as they were let down by their suppliers. This was a frustrating delay but with the current material shortages not one that I should really grumble about too much. It was eventually delivered and the chippies got on with laying it and the first floor panel starter plates. And then it was on to the first floor wall panels. These took 2 days to do as well and so within a couple of weeks of starting we had both floors done ready for the attic trusses They were also a couple of days delayed due to Covid-19 but arrive they did They didn’t take long at all to go up and I love the symmetry of them Then it was another week or so getting the roof finished and building the vaulted ceiling in our entrance hall etc and then they were done! It was 18 days on-site from start to finish. Amazing to see. I took some time-lapse footage and you can see the video below: And so we have a superstructure! The roofer is not far behind so my next blog will be about the roof slates and Solar PV array. Thanks for reading and until next time…

About 3 months ago... Gigaclear cabled the road where my self build is nearing completion. Great, I thought, an easy solution for a fast broadband connection. The friendly crew (probably cos I let them use my site toilet) even asked me where they should install the POT (point of termination) box for easiest route to my preferred entry into the house. Now... I tried & failed to sign up as a Gigaclear customer! My address isn't on their online database, not much of a surprise as it's a new build, so I phoned their new customer team & explained the situation. They firstly insisted my property doesn't exist so it couldn't have a POT. So I emailed them a photo of the POT with a plan showing the house location. They now acknowledge it exists but won't connect me as it's not on their installation plan. When will it be added to their plan? In 2024 when it next get updated...then they'll be happy to connect me! So for now it'll be a 4G router with unlimited data plan as I refuse to pay for an antiquated copper wire phone line.

Poisson Distribution is what chip shops and Grimsby are for. I fear I may have missed the point...