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When I was an Estimator, it was clear that the build cost was mostly down to the design. 5 or 6 contractors would quote from drawings and bills of quantities and be within 10%. Moving to design and build projects, the range becomes 100%. Again this is down to the design skills of the contractor and/or their consultants. For clarity...we quote £1M and a competitor quotes £2M. 100% Why? Because one contractor knows where costs lie and can influence efficient design whereas another leaves it to a consultant. So you can surmise that main contractors will have minor cost differences on a given design, depending on overheads and efficiency. Of course there are savings for project managing/DIY but also risks. If a house is costing anything over £3k/m2 it is in your hands to accept of reduce it.

Hi, I have built a four bedroomed house that is energy efficient, has solar panels, batteries 18.5Kw/hr, UFH and MVHR. Recently had an ASHP installed in place of Bosch gas boiler.

First go at assembling it. Not all glued up yet. It still needs taking apart, sanding, priming and painting before reassembly. This is the first thing I've made by trusting the CAD dimensions. Normally I would cut part A and then cut part B to fit part A. This time I pretty much cut everything to the dimensions extracted from the CAD and crossed my fingers. Working OK so far. Mostly water resistant MDF so will need sealing well and a good paint job. The rounded corners were made by cutting a 75mm Diameter Poplar cylinder/dowel into four bits lengthwise. The top drawer is fake. The lower doors have soft close Blum hinges. .

The flood alarm bit has got me thinking. If it were mine I'd cobble together something that used WiFi or ethernet to push me a notification on my phone using the Pushover app. This has a very fast and reliable response - I set up an alert system for my elderly mother to call for help with it. If you wanted to go down that route there are some readymade varieties at the low end of the market (I don't know what would interface with loxone): https://cablematic.com/en/products/smart-wifi-water-leak-detector-compatible-with-google-home-alexa-and-ifttt-AN13600/ For a dumb relay output sensor that you could light some LED strip with this and a 12V PSU: https://cablematic.com/en/products/wiring-detector-water-leak-LB056/#extra_product_info

OMG nothing to offer but sympathy and commiserations, you poor things.

Architect here - you're quite right! We tend to use square meter rates to give an idea of cost scale. A lot of our clients aren't always aware that an 8 metre deep extension will significantly challenge their budget over a 4 metre extension!! We're experiencing some horrific numbers at the moment (SE). However I do think some cost consultants are over egging it. Being in the process of building our own self build we can see that generally they are 25 pc overcooked. Screeding rates were double. I clad our house myself and going by their rates I would have been earing 2-3k a week doing it!!!

IMHO and experience architects no very little about the cost of materials or using them. Costing a build based on it's area is crazy and should be taken with a large bucket of salt. It's a very complex calculation without actually building it, and includes location, building system, ground conditions, fabric area, volume, materials, finish, air tightness, insulation levels, etc.

Think you might be pushing at an open door here. Get a grouting quote but when you do make sure you ask that the grouting company include for at least a 25 year warranty, full site remediation and with any luck you may have a couple of trees with protection orders on them. Basically get the highest quote you can with the full bells and whistles.. your SE will help you craft the brief. Then say to insurance company.. hey lets work together and we can both save some money.. if you go along with it you'll get no grief from us.. just we may need an interim payment or two. Can your Dad move into a nice rented pad or go on a cruise off the money. Knock it down and rebuild with the support of your SE. The ash is an interesting one.. if it has a high sulphate content then it moves about and attacks the concrete.. sulphate damage.. grouting won't help.. you often need to get rid of it if under the founds and that is not easy especially if the building is bearing on it. Also you need ask if what is the neighbours founded on etc.. do they have or will they have in the future a similar problem. Ask insurers, will they cover for next door compromising our works or if we do work will we do something that will lead to problems next door? Who is going to pick up the tab if we cause a problem next door while doing the work? In the round it seems like your Dad could end up with a new cracking house (and quicker too) and the insurer could save money? The hard part will be getting this point over to them.

To me this is very sensible. I took this picture in a Spanish supermarket. It confirms that it is the law (royal decree) to use sensible heating and cooling. No heating allowed above 19C and no cooling below 27C. Everyone seems happy with it all year, although it helps when the natural temperature indoors is 23C in November, aided by chiller waste heat of course. In fact I suspect that the heating/ cooling is seldom used as I have never seen the temperature being 19 or 27. If I was in charge in UK I would apply this immediately and permanently. 19C is just fine. A good idea to make it public too.

thanks for this. I've been thinking about my double pump setup and whether I have 2 pumps at the same level so they 'share' the load or if I have them at different heights for a redundant solution? I think we were simply really unlucky on this one. an old cheap pump combined with many deluges of rain and no safety precautions in place. but, in saying that, I might opt for a double pump at the same level AND one at a higher level (our sump is about 2m deep so can accommodate this I think). then we'll need to have 3 pumps fail and be a LONG way from home for it to be an issue ever again. ps. will check out the Zoellar pumps. thanks for the tip.

Temperature is a funny thing. Our room stats are at 20 and that is what the rooms are. But 20, when it is grey, raining and blowing a hoolie outside feels cold, so on goes the stove. A big problem with most houses is no room by room control just a thermal radiator valve if you are lucky, so precise room control is poor and often some rooms are over heated.

Shelley do a flood sensor for under £30. It will be up in running in 2 minutes. Blue ABS pumps are good quality, we fitted them in Scottish Water.

Right ! This was always my fear ! I have 2 sumps with high water alarm for grey / sewage water . Hi water alarm is audible but also linked to my HA . I also have 2 on Zoellar pumps for rainwater . I tested lots of pumps ! They all failed for various reasons . Zoellar are easily the best . Not cheap . Flooding is the thing that cannot happen. . I bought from https://www.sumpsandpumpsdirect.co.uk Don’t cut corners on this - bolts ‘n’ braces and then some . My configuration would require 4 pumps to fail before any flooding would occur .

https://www.anchorpumps.com

https://www.pumpsukltd.com/water-pump-type/submersible-water-pumps.html

Ebara (Italian) are good pumps, we use one in the sewage pumping station at our previous house https://www.tradepumps.com/manufacturers/ebara-pumps/ebara-submersible-pumps

Grundfos Unilift submersible pump? Grundfos seem to make a decent pump. Not tried myself.

When we had steels put in for our garden room extension, the builder started replacing the sandstone with a grey mortar mix. I told 'em to hop it and leave it to me. 🙄 When we had our house built I made notes of the brick type (Ibstock Chailey), the sandstone (Purbeck from Suttle quarry) and the mortar mix, 1:2:4 white cement, lime, ginger sand.

No need to remove the render. Just EWI over the top.

Many years ago I had our semi-detached house repointed to match the original and using yellow sand and white cement we ended up with a creamy colour. In the picture, to the right of the downpipe, the neighbours was repointed using grey cement.

My house is small. I go out a lot.

I did a solid side of the building the other day, straight runs without any windows / doors, managed 80 linear metres in 3 hours, treating cut ends and laser levelling every couple of lifts. At £25 / h that's less than £1 a metre 😁

Except in a small house like mine. The humidity rises too high and if the extractor fan is on, the house gets cold quite quick. Having MVHR would sort that to a certain extent.

What about the waste? Skips everywhere full of offcuts. Not everyone is a thrifty self builder. Also what about the waste of human time. A terrible issue in construction. Men (it's almost always men) putting hours and hours into silly tasks when there's a better way. Lugging mineral wool batts up stairs, climbing up and down ladders hundreds of times per day. Measuring and cutting dozens and dozens of individual stud bays. All blown insulation here. 58 m3 of EPS beads installed in a day by 2 men in a truck and some hoses. Zero waste and mess. The only human suffering was a couple of hours of drilling with an SDS drill for the injection holes. With our wide cavity and OSB window bucks this could have easily been done via drilling OSB rather than concrete blocks. Similarly 50 odd m3 of cellulose done in an afternoon by 2 men and a lorry for the attic. One of the main reasons I choose this was that's it's almost impossible to end up with voids which with a trusses roof would be plentiful with mineral wool. One man feeding cellulose bales to the blower and one sitting on the hose.

Shame: T+C Vibro were - for us - excellent. I would not inflict our contractor on anyone. Proximity - 13 meters.

yes this, they overcome the majority of the frame now sitting within the insulation which makes it hard to smash a 100mm conc screw through the lot.

what he is suggesting is to use a frame strap, so you don't have to drill through the frame. on upvc windows they clip into the edges of the frame (that face the brickwork) and then you screw then to the inner wall which would then be plaster boarded over. tbh i would go with concrete screws straight through the frame into the stonework and decent expanding foam. the fischer ones with the built in rawl plug are old hat nowdays. (im no upvc expert BTW) Window Fixing Clips / Door Fixing Strap (6pk)Schuring 70mm UPVC Window Systems | eBay

My architect once told me there was a house size threshold that once you go over, the quotes get exponentially higher... Purely because the contractors expect the client not to care too much about the details of costs and are more likely to be the type that will throw money at something until it sticks. And more likely to be demanding and a PITA, so it's priced accordingly. Not saying that's you, bit that's often the perception and prices reflect that. Also, you get to the point where you lose economies of scale. E.g. this build might need double brick crews, two ground work teams, a tower crane, onsite silo mixing, double the welfare facilities etc... So costs go up massively as your entering commercial build type costs. So I would be budgeting on the higher end of the estimate ranges, £3.5k would be cheap.

Wow! You have put a lot of thinking into this.. Bit late here but will try and answer some of your points. I'll put my "BC /checking Engineer's" hat on to be pedantic.. the following is a bit of an outline on how I may do it and some of the things I look for. Well done on picking up on the snow and access load. You also have a snow drift load and "snow dumping coming off the higher roof, but due to the pitch and size of canopy that can be effectively ignored especially as it is what we call and "accidental" snow load case. You do also have wind load but on something this size it I think this can be neglected as you have good heavy tiles mitigating roof uplift. If this was a big commercial building, lightweight roof covering with the roof sitting just below the window cills I would check it to make sure it does not lift the cills.. could be embarrasing! Oh.. please excuse any typos. Have repeated your calcs in a slightly different way but made an allowance for the rafter self weight just to let you see how I may do it. I use kg as it's pretty close to kN that we use as normally units. Your tiles look pretty heavy, normal Marley concrete tiles are about 50 kg/ m ^2.. you must be using some nice clay ones, jealous here.. like a nice tile. I'm going to use Eurocode Design here as later this is compatible with the fixings then jump back to using the permissible stress codes of BS 5268.. as it's easier. I'll explain as I go along. Tile load on slope = 77 kg/ m^2.. for all this is the declared weight by the manufacture of the tiles.. it varies depending on how much head lap and that changes depending on the weather exposure and roof pitch.. who said life was a breeze? On plan load for @MortarThePoint= 77 / cos(46) = 110 kg/m^2 on plan. Add 10% for timber rafters, sarking etc. 1.1 * 110 = 121 kg... this is the "Permenant" load, using the BS codes this is called the Dead load. Now we have a roof access load. In both codes this is ~60 kg / m^2 for domestic applications but this is a load that is applied on plan. A slope load is the load running up the rafter.. like tiles. A plan load is more easily understood if you think about snow falling straight down or a few folk standing on a stair or a roof. You can only fit so many folk standing vertically and only so much snow can lie on a roof. This 60 kg/m^2 is the imposed load. Now we have two figures for the plan load. Permenant load = 110 kg.. lets convert now to kN roughly divide by 10 thus 10 / 10 = 1.1 kN Imposed load = 60 kg/m^2 lets convert now to kN roughly divide by 10 thus 60 / 10 = 0.6 kN Now we apply safety factors to these loads, the different kinds of loads get different safety factors. Using the simplistic Eurocode formula safety factors are 1.35 (Permenant loads) and 1.5 ( Imposed loads) the calculation follows. 1.35 * 1.1 + 1.5 *0.6 = 2.39 kN/m^2 on plan. Now as above take the effective span on plan of the rafter as being 1.375m (conservative) and as the rafter is simply supported at the ends the loads at the supports are calculated as follows: 2.39 * 1.375 / 2 = 1.64 kN/m. In other words the "DESIGN" load on the ledger is 1.64 kN per metre run of the ledger. The design load at the bottom of the rafter is the same neglecting the slight overhang. If you were checking this you would check the rafters, the hangers before checking the ledger. Just like you follow the money you follow the loads and check each bit as you go. That is really pedantic. To make it fly take the rafter span on slope in feet divide by two m and add one inch.. that will probably be fine as it is a canopy. Thus 2.4m = about 8 feet.. 8 / 2 = 4 + 1 = 5 inches. I would adopt a 120 x 45 C16 rafter @ 600 centres max for the rafters. Standard Simpson joist hangers will do fine at the top end of the rafter.. can show they will work but it will take all night to finish this post if I do. ----------------------------------------- Lets now look at the capacity of the fixings and work out how many we need. If you follow the method I have used above to calculate the loading. I start with the loads (characteristic loads) and apply safety factors to get the design load. We now check to make sure that the DESIGN load is less the design RESISTANCE. Not normally a shouty bloke (use of capitals) but for all it is really important so please forgive. Things like masonry fixings are very tempremental not least as we are often fixing into masonry that is variable.. brickies can have off days and so on. In the table that @MortarThePointhas uploaded you can see two columns. One characteristic and one design. Take the M12 fixing.. the number we are looking for is the design resistance of 1.62 kN in shear. Now here it can get really complicated as we are using the Eurocodes. You'll see there is also a figure for the approved resistance. This is the value that you would use if you did not use the safety factors on the loading calculation... permissible stress design codes. Lastly always take note of spacing and edge distances. Lets now work out how many fixings we need per metre based on an M12 bolt and see if we can practically install these. Design load is 1.64 kN/m. Design resistance is 1.62 kN per fixing. Suddenly you can see the loads are pretty small and that you only need one roughly one fixing per metre run of ledger. To be exact we would need: 1.62 / 1.64 = one fixing per 987 mm which is a funny number to deal with on site. Practically I would say one M12 fixing per rafter bay if they are at 600 centres. Now all looks great above but lots of BH folk start using the same idea for 3 - 4 m spanning floors and ledgers for trussed rafters.. you can quickly see how these fixing will stop working! --------------------- The ceiling tie serves to restrain the top of the posts. Just use the same fixings and spacing as the rafter ledger.. line them up so they look good. 70 x 45 C16 may be what you want.. if hanging plant pots / growing a vine of something go for 95 x 45 C16 / maybe C24 as it has generally less knows and looks less cheep. You coaul calculate the wind load in the roof but using the same fixing as for the ledger will be fine. ---------------------- The transfer beam along the top of the posts. Have run out of gas here a bit and it takes a bit of explanation.. you use the design loads to check the strength and the unfactored loads to check the deflection. With timber you need to calculate both the bending and hear deflection.. bit more work. Suffice to say that on that roof you could I think show that a 200 x 45 C24 timber would work or two 170 x 45 C16's. The single timber may look a bit "weedy" and not sturdy to the eye.. it's also about it looking balanced and visually pleasing. ----------- A 100 x 100 post around 2.4 m long will take a lot of vertical load, again can show another day how you check it. ------------- Simpson post bases.. they are good, last a while, just a little more expensive. -------------

Classic method is to leave 75mm gap from the underside of exg foundation and once the concrete has cured dry pack (to minimise shrinkage) to fill the final gap In good masonry, 1000mm width pins. Shore the sides of the excavation to prevent collapse making the excavation wider. In poor masonry or stone, down to 600mm or less width. May need additional shims to support very poor stone (although very poor walls should be strengthened or aren't suitable for underpinning) but most walls can easily arch over 600mm. Hand dig / access only ever will a fully shored excavation and with measure to mitigate against masonry falling in. ASUC members are who to go to.

I would live in the house for a while and insulate the place as much as possible then do a heat loss calculation. Then stick the PV in with a hybrid inverter to allow for battery storage.

As a general point, I think we do have to 'build a solution' and help pay for it. Some of us have gone off to university, studied this stuff, been asked for help, offered the best advice available, explained how it all works, highlighted that it is not a 'no cost' option. And then been totally ignored. Happens on here, well in special places, in a mythical Welsh valley anyway. Some people have to have their autonomy removed for their own, and others, safety, and the rest of us have to accept that we need to pay for it. So if we have to hand over an extra 15 quid a month to help out, so be it, it will make the country a better place. I suspect that mould may become a serious issue this winter as people cut back on energy usage, and misunderstand the difference between controlled ventilation and a thermally leaky home. Killer fungi: The health threat that’s creeping up on us They kill more people than malaria, and the death toll is set to rise. But we are only just starting to understand the devious ways fungi can infect us LIFE 10 August 2016 By Tim Vernimmen Ron Kurniawan SOME are tasty, others are a nuisance. That’s probably how most of us think of fungi. Few people would consider them to be killers. But perhaps we should. Fungi are on the march. New varieties are emerging and infecting everything from crops to amphibians. Some of this is down to the ease of international travel, which is spreading hardy spores to new locations. Then there’s our disruption of natural environments, which creates opportunities for fungi to evolve. Now, some researchers are worried we could be about to reap the spores we’ve sown: might we have unleashed a killer? Neil Gow, a medical mycologist at the University of Aberdeen, UK, was co-organiser of a conference held at London’s Royal Society earlier this year to assess the growing fungal threat in areas from animal welfare to food security to ecosystem stability. He’s keen not to overstate the threat to human health – but not to downplay it either. “I don’t think a fungal pandemic is imminent: as far as we know, humanity has never been struck by one,” he says. That is not to say fungi don’t kill people. “More people die from invasive fungal infections than from malaria, a disease we hear much more about.” Even now, about a dozen fungal species kill in total around 1.5 million people every year. Fungal disease is a significant contributor to AIDS deaths, for example – and yet the threat is often overlooked. “Fungal and bacterial infections may give similar symptoms, leading to misdiagnosis,” says Gow. “So in many cases, patients with fungal infections are initially treated for bacterial infections instead.” Meet the mushroom man who wants the world to take fungi seriously – in a good way Stuart Isett Meet the mushroom man who wants the world to take fungi seriously – in a good way Fungi comprise a whole kingdom of organisms in their own right, separate from plants and animals, and far less studied. This hugely diverse group of up to 5 million species includes mushrooms, yeasts, moulds and crop-destroying rusts and smuts. Most of the time, we happily coexist even with the killer varieties – you may be inhaling them right now, or they may be living in or on your body. But occasionally they turn rogue. Take Candida albicans, which causes most fungal infections in humans. Candida cannot survive without living on us or other animals. “There’s no evidence that it’s doing us any good, but it usually doesn’t harm us either,” says Gow, who studies Candida. Yet sometimes the unassuming resident gets a bit too comfortable and multiplies so fast that it causes the infection commonly known as thrush. “More people die from invasive fungal infections than from malaria“ How and why this happens is the focus of intense research. Usually, our white blood cells and other defences do a good job of keeping the fungus under control. “But anything that tips the odds the other way,” says Gow, “such as low numbers of white blood cells or antibiotics that wipe out other microflora, may cause a local outbreak.” This can be very aggravating – just ask one of the 100 million women worldwide who suffer at least four episodes of vaginal thrush a year. Most people recover without complications, because the fungus seldom thrives in the blood. “The bloodstream of a healthy human is quite robust to infections,” says Gow. But Candida does overcome the defences of hundreds of thousands of people each year to enter their blood – and at least half of them die. How can this be? “In a way, fungal infections are the disease of the diseased,” says Gow. “People who are vulnerable after an accident or invasive surgery, or whose immune system has been weakened or suppressed after an organ or stem cell transplant, may be unable to fend off a fungal attack. Candida is very opportunistic.” To work out a way to help the immune system nip Candida in the bud, Gow and his colleagues are investigating how the fungus interacts with our white blood cells. “It’s a titanic struggle on a microscopic scale,” he says. Candida uses camouflage and can shed tiny bits of cell wall to avoid being caught. Even when it does end up inside a white blood cell, it’s not game over. “The fungus can evade digestion by reducing the acidity inside the cell compartment where it’s held, and it even scavenges some of the cell’s food,” says Gow – “which is why it’s often able to keep growing until the white blood cell bursts open.” Another potentially deadly fungus, Cryptococcus, can cause meningitis by lurking in a white blood cell until it crosses the usually impenetrable blood-brain barrier. It then forces the cell to eject it. A handful of fungi kill some 1.5 million people each year. They include Candida (above), Cryptococcus (below) and Aspergillus DAVID SCHARF/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Cryptococcus E. GUEHO/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Unlike Candida, Cryptococcus is not a fungus native to us – instead, it usually grows on rotting plant material in the soil. “Though most of us have been exposed to it by the age of 6, the chance that a particular Cryptococcus cell has encountered a human before is absolutely minuscule,” says Robin May at the University of Birmingham, UK. Yet Cryptococcus has recently achieved something once considered almost impossible: it has infected and killed previously healthy people. First discovered in Vancouver, Canada, over a decade ago, a particular strain of Cryptococcus, C. gattii, spread across the Pacific Northwest of the US, killing hundreds along the way. How does a fungus living on plant matter manage to survive inside a healthy human body? By accident, argues May. “There is obviously very little evolutionary pressure on Cryptococcus to find a way to survive in humans,” says May. However, the fungus is preyed upon by amoebas in the soil, and their mode of attack is quite similar to that of white blood cells. That might give the fungus a head start. This means it can occasionally thrive inside the body, harming its host in the process. Like Gow, May doesn’t think a fungal pandemic is just around the corner. “Fungi have very complex life cycles, and they tend to grow and evolve much slower than bacteria or viruses do.” The fact that fungi don’t depend on us for their survival cuts both ways, though. “It means that they probably aren’t trying very hard to conquer us. But also that they couldn’t care less if we were all to die.” When fungi are on our side: Fungal products won’t win prizes for glamour but will be greener Given that there has only been a single outbreak of C. gattii, it’s difficult to establish what led to it. May surmises that the strain had been around for some time, and that a very hot and dry summer may have contributed to its spread. “The fungus likes humid soils, so perhaps the drought stimulated it to produce more spores, or simply provided conditions that helped them to blow around more,” he says. However, we don’t have clear evidence for this and May notes that the summers of the past decade have all been fairly wet. This raises the question of whether other deadly new fungal strains might emerge as climate change takes hold. That is difficult to answer because the impact on weather patterns is likely to be very variable, says May. “But you might expect, for example, that Britain, which is a bit too cold for many fungi right now, may see an influx of fungus when temperatures rise.” Another concern is that although the warmth of our body protects us from many fungal infections, a warmer world may undo that by helping fungi to adapt. “But I currently know of no studies showing that fungi from warm soils infect warm-blooded animals more easily,” says May. Aspergillus EYE OF SCIENCE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY In any case, Cryptococcus copes just fine with being at 37 °C. Another fungus, called Aspergillus, can live in the heart of compost heaps at temperatures of 60 °C. Aspergillus spores are absolutely everywhere, says Jacques Meis of the Canisius Wilhelmina Hospital in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. “Every breath you take, they’re infecting you.” Garden-variety killer In the early 1990s, Meis was a parasitologist working on malaria when a prominent Dutch haematologist sought his help. “We can now treat blood diseases with bone marrow transplants or cycles of chemotherapy, but then patients literally die of garden-variety fungal infections,” he told Meis. Keeping Aspergillus at bay is a constant challenge. “The fungus and its spores are really small and often very water-repellent, so they take off with the slightest air current and find their way through all but the finest air filters,” says Meis. They are also extremely hardy – the spores can survive acidity, dehydration, freezing and high heat. No wonder they’re the most common eukaryote on the planet. Eukaryotes – which include fungi but not bacteria or viruses – are organisms in which the cells contain a nucleus. The fact that we, too, are eukaryotes makes it difficult to combat fungal pathogens. “Some of the most effective medicines against fungal infections, such as amphotericin B, are quite toxic to our cells as well,” says Meis. So they are often combined with or replaced by another class of antifungal drugs, collectively known as azoles. “The azoles block an enzyme that most fungi need to maintain their cell membrane,” he says. Watch this: Fungi break acceleration record to escape dung You would expect fungi to develop resistance to these drugs in people receiving repeated or long-term treatment. But lately, Meis has seen an increasing number of patients coming down with a resistant strain right away. “We found this very odd at first,” he says. “But then it dawned on us that in the past decades, azoles have become very popular products.” They are now used to prevent fungal growth on crops, produce and flowers, and are an ingredient in many paints and coatings. Aspergillus isn’t the target of these azoles, but it is constantly exposed to them. “There is no doubt that some of these applications are contributing to azole resistance in the clinic,” says Meis. “Because Aspergillus is quite literally all over the place and exchanges genes very quickly, resistance can spread across the world incredibly fast.” Meis doesn’t expect companies to stop producing azoles or farmers to stop using them. “I’m afraid the fact that Aspergillus targets only patients who are already weak will likely undercut any arguments in favour of reduced azole use,” he says, “except if we can figure out which products are causing the biggest problems and why.” One deadly fungal strain has found a way into the human brain Koh Okamoto, Shuji Hatakeyama et al. EDMOND BYRNES AND JOSEPH HEITMAN, Duke University Deadly fungal disease is often not viewed with the seriousness it deserves because it mainly affects people that were “on the way out anyway”, says medical mycologist David Denning at the University of Manchester, UK, But that argument is very problematic, he says. “The Cryptococcus gattii outbreak shows that there is always a risk that a fungus will one day find a way to infect healthy people as well.” In any case, it isn’t true that weakened patients who contract a fungal disease are already bound to die of some other cause, says Denning: our ability to keep severely ill people alive is constantly improving. However, this means the number of people vulnerable to fungal disease will go on rising unless we tackle the problem. “It would be a terrible shame if this progress and all we’ve invested in it were offset by fungal infections.” Yet that is what is happening, especially in the fight against HIV. Antiretroviral cocktails are now highly effective, but many people with HIV live in poor countries where it can be difficult for them to take the drugs as prescribed. A lapse in treatment can cause their white-blood-cell count to drop, at which point any fungus they’re exposed to may turn invasive. “About half of all AIDS deaths are the result of fungal infections,” says Denning, “yet they’re hardly addressed.” There are multiple reasons why the problem is going untackled. “Diagnosis of fungal disease isn’t straightforward – it is as good as impossible without access to a medical lab – and treatment with amphotericin B is intravenous and risky,” says Denning. But the task isn’t impossible, and cracking it could be a big step towards achieving the UN’s target of reducing annual AIDS-related deaths to below 500,000 by 2020. “If we could treat 60 per cent of the HIV patients annually overcome by an invasive fungus, we could save at least 300,000 lives a year – typically 35-year olds, economically active, with husbands or wives and children who need them,” he says. “These people aren’t on the way out. They are ill, and they need our help.”

In 2008 we were in Germany and admired the quality of their new-build houses. Why had they got no heating on, in sub-zero temperatures? And yet back in the UK we couldn't keep warm with the boiler and stove on full? That was the start of our first kick up the butt, to get on and build. We built a timber frame low energy house on the site of a 1950's bungalow in Rugby, Warks. Then a one acre site came up for sale with a single dwelling on. We knocked that down and built three brick and block low energy houses. Then 2014 we saw a plot in the Stroud valleys, close to the railway station, with a southerly aspect and couldn't not buy it. We built an ICF house and moved in 2017 and here we are. We always install MVHR, best air-tightness, best insulation - Passiv Haus principles but without the certification. Still we itch for another project and so here we are . . .

This is to help stop the gable falling over (because the roof trusses get installed so the gable wall can be strapped back to the roof trusses as it goes up). So it's done for a good reason.

Very common I’m afraid. Could be difference in moistures content for some reason, then it will even itself out. More likely they have used a different mix of mortar, in which case the difference might become less noticeable over time. I would be more concerned about what’s going on at the bottom of that wall. Is that the DPC sticking out?!

Not a lot to say. I am old, and retired from farming around the world last year - Northumberland, Australia, Black Isle and Portugal in that order over 50 years. And yes, I did once own Hazza Farm. Now living in Orkney and interested in gardening and fishing in that order, and only for food in both cases.

Hello! I thought I would do a little intro before I start asking a million of questions on here! We are a couple that have bought a couple of barns in the Kent Countryside in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Green Belt. The barns are in a couple of acres of land and we have a plan to build ourselves a home in one of them. I am useless at DIY so we will be doing minimal work ourselves, looking forward to getting gleaning some knowledge from all of you pros and slightly petrified at the task/cost ahead!

We've internorm 310s throughout the house and are very, very happy with them. We got 3 quotes, they came out in the middle. (£22k, 34k, and £40k). Definitely get quotes for your build as companies price in different ways, and some can't do certain dimensions or styles others can. E.g. internorm were the only ones that could do 2400mm tall patio doors and a 2200mm tilt and turn window.

This is why we need to know the losses that need to be made-up for with the UFH. If a company has spec'd a 5.8kW boiler I'd hope it wasn't expected to do a 100% duty cycle. But anything over 10% would be painfully expensive. I'm going to get a reputation here and ask if air-to-air has been considered. COP 5 is commonly achieved.

You may find this useful?

I've seen a massive fluctuation in quotes for the exact same windows. Some 50% higher than others. It's crazy.

the problem with using someone else's prices is that it seems that companies quote differently for different people. if you read enough window costing threads on here you'll see this pattern. for some Rationel will be cheap but for other expensive. others will find Internorm are stupidly expensive but others' quotes are more reasonable. I think the best thing to do is to get quotes from various suppliers and then choose the best price/performance/style point for you. we did just that and it soon became apparent which would could dismiss and which were moved to our shortlist. also, visit the suppliers at shows to see the quality of the windows. some we just discounted out of hand as we didn't think the quality was all that but others we thought we'd happily pay a premium for that sort of quality and also pay more for great customer service (can't really put a price on that!) in the end we went with Norrsken who were brilliant. good quality windows/sliders and a reasonable price and excellent customer service. they also fit them so we had one company do it all. I'm not surprised Alu-clad windows have gone up in price though when you think of how much timber has increased in price recently.

My sixteen Rationel Auraplus triple ordered at the start of 2022 were £630 / m2 installed.

Can't help you with the spreadsheet but in 2020 Rationel Auraplus triple were about £380 per m2 for me. I have seen some articles about prices having gone up 30% since then and more.

Just stumbled upon these forums whilst looking to convert my old gas stove into a bio ethanol burner. Hoping to get MORE diy tips and advice.

Nice to meet you all. I am currently renovating my house and building an extension. I was completely new to building and learned a lot so far but eager to learn more and share my experiences.

Hi Looking forward to reading / learning about projects and ideas. Just purchased cabin type house in Scotland, projects include solar hybrid system, outside insulation / cladding. Some form of heating and poly’ tunnel.

@Andehh your airtightness is your friend here - and you need to do the test just after the windows go in and before they start on boarding out and covering all the holes up. You may even want to do 2 tests - you can rig your own blower door too using an old car fan or even hire a test rig and then go looking for all the gaps - easily spotted and you will pay dividends when the actual test is done with this approach. If you have a block skin inner you may also benefit from a parge coat of sand & cement or bonding applied with a broom to seal up all the gaps in blockwork. It’s a few hours job but not expensive and well worth the effort as finding the gaps will be nigh on impossible when you’ve got the boards up and skimmed

The easiest way for the bulk of it, is SAW it to length with a large panel saw while it is still rolled up and bagged. then when you unwrap it, you have rolls of your chosen width to suit your joist / rafter spacing. You only then need to cut to length. The Knauf Frametherm sort is a lot less itchy and irritating than most mineral wolo insulation.