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I've found and fixed the problem. Not at all what I thought above and its been wrong for 15+ years ! It was the plumbing equivalent to connecting the neutral wire to the wrong RCD/RCBO. eg the live for a circuit connected to one RCD and the neutral connected to another. We have a thermal store with two DHW outputs. One output has a secondary loop on it feeding remote outlets like the kitchen tap. The plumber had connected the kitchen tap supply to the wrong output on the store. This meant the secondary loop was drawing hot water from one outlet on the store and returning it to the other. On many systems that might not be a problem but there are heat exchanger, pumps and flow sensors involved. Anyway I've just spent the day cutting and soldering 28mm copper pipe to swap the kitchen supply to the correct circuit on the store. My better half is upstairs testing out one of the showers as I write. Haven't heard any screams yet. The secondary loop pump is also a lot quieter as it no longer has to push water the wrong way through a mixer. Surprised it hadn't gone on strike years ago.

Roof going on today and dormer built. Another 3 days and they’ll be done. Follow on trades start on Wednesday.

Yes it’s an LH702PD Heb Home that we’ve made some amendments to increasing the floor area by 35m2 It’s a warm roof. The OSB is used as sheathing to close the panel. I think sarking and sheathing are much the same thing. We’ll batten this then deck with 18mm plywood. The difference between this and their SIP panels is ours has those big space joists in the roof whereas the SIP builds use roof cassettes I think they call them. One question that did arise today is how to fit the windows. The architect wants them flush with the kit which creates quite a big external reveal with our board on board cladding that then needs to be closed up. Both joiners on-site said this was a mistake and causes a lot of problems trying to fit them in their experience. Their view is you want it more flush with the cladding. While this is a kit it’s more a hybrid as there’s been a bit of stick building on-site too.

Welcome. There's a job for you. If you go straight up the M6 junction 33 I'll be waiting there for you. You'll be as more busy than you've ever been

Hello everyone. I preemptively posted a while back asking for a little help and those that replied were super helpful, so thank you. Now though it’s time to say a proper hello. So, hello! My wife and I (plus our 7 month old) are in the initial stages of building our own place. We’re incredibly lucky in that my parents have enough space in their garden for us to potentially build our dream place. I’ll definitely have more questions regarding that in future (shared access, shared sweage treatment etc). I’ve spent a lot of time researching and reading up on here, and it seems the best option for us would be a TF supplier - specifically MBC and their insulated slab too. The plot is within a conservation area, which I’m well aware can cause a plethora of issues. We do currently have planning permission to turn their three car garage into a single dwelling, so we’re hoping this can play somewhat into precedence for a new dwelling on the land. Trees are an issue, but thankfully we have a potential design that navigates them and their root protection areas. We have a version 2 design from our architect which I will post up in the applicable thread soon. Looking forward to learning more and chatting to you knowledgable experts!

Dont worry about that. Not your problem. Nothing in life is perfect, but that is way too far out. Make them sort it out. I doubt the builder would put up with that at his own house. You don't have to get nasty. Just simply say that you can't put up with that much of mistake, and ask him if he would be happy to put up with that at his house. They have done it to save having any work to do around the manhole cover. Lazy gits. Builders like that, give all builders a bad reputation.

1) Attract higher calibre, numerate / literate folks into the industry by paying good money and eliminating the bovine excrement. (having to compete with fly-by-nights; having to waste time chasing/qualifying leads and completing non value add tasks) You don't actually want this job to be a low paid job just right now. It should be very possible/common to make six figures aged 25 to get the people you need fully bought in. Drop the rates later once they're hooked. In this respect it's a good idea to let te folks willing to pay £10k pay £10k right now. 2) Kill the MCS stranglehold. That eliminates the fly-by-night grant chasers AND a good chunk of non value add tasks. You keep the requirements (e.g. the technical requirements with regards noise for permitted development) but make it the job of planners to enforce planning conditions (e.g. please prove it's adequately quiet, where here are the requirements lifted from the old MCS standards, and if you meet them them it's deemed fine, but you don't need to partake in the rest of the MCS charade) Relax a few planning conditions too. They're asking for units to be too small. It should be permissible to have both a heat pump and an air conditioner. There shouldn't be stupid restrictions on siting R290 propane units near to doorways whilst it's still ok to keep two 15 kg propane cylinders inside your house. Also 3) Look at communal ground arrays / hybrid arrays (substation gets a low temp air source heat pump on top that tops up a ground loop which nearby houses rent access to for £X per year and chuck a shoebox water:water heat pump in the kitchen to drawn from and feed the existing heating system; laying your LV cable reinforcement and FTTP at the same time as you lay the ground loop) 4) Quit subsidising new natural gas connections and subsidising marginal gas supply costs by moving the carbon taxes from electricity onto gas and moving the welfare taxes from electricity to central government and by requiring price transparency on the bills. (distribution and metering cost more than the electricity; historically) 5) Make use of / abuse advertising standards privileges / editorial accuracy requirements to kill the hydrogen nonsense; to kill the hit job articles; etc. 6) Take a chill pill. AC in cars is ubiquitous. Let people do AC in houses more easily. Don't mandate that in order to receive grant funding the heat pump must deliver heat AND hot water. Chop the available grant to £1k and apply the condition that it's a packaged/tested solution with a sCOP of 5 or above. It's pish easy to install A2A units in this ball park. They work. People will rave about them. Advertise the damn things on the side of city buses. I look at trolleybuses here in Vilnius (you know; those nuclear/solar/wind/hydro powered items of transportation that spank anything other than shoes and a bicycle on energy efficiency; have sweet fudge all reliance on Chinese batteries; and have been around in volume from Newcastle to San Francisco since the mid 20th century) advertising heat pumps and triple glazing to the general public and bang my head on the wall at the defeatist, stuck in the past, somebody else's duty to help me attitude that the UK has developed. Pictures of buses because they illustrate how chuffing dumb/immoral the folks who have the power to be benevolent dictators but choose to lick the backsides of Musk, Xi, Putin et al rather than getting on with doing anything are in the UK. See also PV diverters and house batteries. Dumbest not-even-zero-sum investment ever for UK plc.

I can reduce the boiler output with the d.0 setting. 12kW is clearly too much for CH at this time of year. Mike

The trouble with 50mm down , is that any stone going through a 50mm grating complies. So you might get 50 x 50 x150 for example. The process of grading would take equipment and time so will cost a lot. Perhaps just talk it through what you want and keep an eye on it. And shrug at some big lumps.

Fair point, and I reckon this is the reason why. I emailed KORE this morning, but not not heard back from them yet. KORE customer service have actually been very good. Some of the foundation was actually cut wrong, and after some head scratching on site KORE accepted the error and recut and couriered up new peices. Which was pretty good if a little stressful. I guess being 2 hours drive from Cavan helped. Two chaps from KORE also visited the site last week to show a prospect round, which I was quite happy about, as it gave us time to ask lots of questions and they were really helpful. We asked them about this perimeter and were advised to cut a horizontal line not too far down and remove the top part. KORE also advised to remove it before the concrete had set too much because then it is a bugger to remove. He was not wrong but darling wife had a birthday last weekend, when Sunday would have been the optimal day for the perimeter upstand to come off. Here's some pics. It was sunny all week, which nnever happens in Northern Ireland. Maybe the big church on the other side of the road did some miracle stuff. ... and here's that upstand...

Looks like the cycle is about 45-48 mins, so something like 30m burn 18min off. That looks very good to me. You could experiment with both faster and slower pump speeds to and see what happens. You might also try setting a higher "Flow Temperature Desired". This appears to be acting more like a "Maximum Flow Temperature". You might find the boiler fires up for longer because it takes longer to get to that maximum.

"As built" is rarely as good as "as designed". Sloppy detail, airtightness etc. make a spreadsheet analysis liable to inaccuracies.

Actually there is ample evidence to suggest that a room by room analysis is not at all accurate. See this report https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/606834/Report_on_compliance_with_MCS_installation_standards_v32.pdf and in particular this graph My distinct feeling is that whole house sizing based on experimental measurement may be a much more accurate than trying to do the fabric calculations. Of course I believe the physics of the calculations, but there are quite a few real uncertainties and, if my personal experience is anything to go by, surveyors ignore too many important factors.

They do one called Sadolin Wet Wood Decking Stain ("Apply to wet or dry wood") but I've not used it. I use Sadolin on our windows. The best combination seems to be Sadolin Classic for the colour then coats of Sadolin Extra Clear on top to give max life.

I have loads of pictures so will add them once the kit is up to show some of the specific details. I even bought a spangly new GoPro and upgraded the firmware specifically for doing timelapse. I could have insisted but I could see by their body language they weren’t keen so didn’t push it.

They weren’t keen in being video’d neither the garage guys nor the kit guys as that was my plan. It’s understandable for reasons I won’t go into here! I asked that question myself ref the breather membrane. They have tried it apparently but it’s too easy to damage it so they prefer to do at the end. It will need to dry out. Most of the walls are actually pretty dry. The focus for the next couple of weeks is to get the plywood decking on the roof, rooflights in then roofs on.

From bitter experience, I'm very wary of the potential for self-serving results of the various stages. The Desktop Based Assessments are a gateway for 'recommendation' and thus more business. It's now likely I will need a Archaeological DBA (along with ecological, heritage, environmental, inside leg measurements, dietary predilections etc.) and I'll be very cautious about who I engage. The cheapest may make recommendations for further work, whereas a more pragmatic (honest) outcome might initially cost more, but not open a can of worms. A phone call and discussion prior to engagement is essential. I didn't know this when I started. Bonne chance

Yep. It’s all in the garage ready to go on

The original's don't look like they were stooled, the two originals we have left at the back of the house certainly aren't, they're just lengths of stone. I was planning on having a slight fall to the front and a drip groove built into the formwork though.

dont butcher the frames use straps, can plug and screw then.

IMO you deffo need a good planning consultant. He will really need to sell the carbon negative (even better) to the local old gits on the parish P.C. and the council planning dept. I feel that if you dont sell it really well, public consultation etc, (Free tea and cake at the local villiage hall) to get a lot of local support, the council will just ignore your good intensions.

Im having my 200 tonnes of bricks crushed to 50 mm down but will be buying in 75 mm recycled material to place below it at £12 Tonne. This gives a better base for drives and paths but it can be a bit of an ankle breaker hence topping it up with crushed bricks.

Hello, and welcome. We all look forward to your questions.

Oh bugger, no idea why auto correct put covid instead of solid 🤯 (We have edited it now - but still amusing and we can put it back if you wish. Admin)

A phone call with the planning number is usually enough

100mm. i used the screwfix ones, they come with a star drive impact driver bit too match the screws. then 6mm sds drill bit with a 100mm drill length.

When it comes to fitting windows and door frames, length of fixing is just enough to get into solid material as the fixings are in shear (albeit with some bending but that really complicates any calc)…. (Im not mentioning big gaps between frame and surrounding or that complicates things even more). Only when fixings are in tension is minimum depth critical for pull-out resistance.

There was the grand designs house by the thames built on effectively a captive float, and the whole house floated up when it flooded. Stilts sounds a lot simpler and cheaper, just determine the highest likely flood level ever and make it higher. All timber construction would give you a carbon neutral design, look at all that natural carbon already removed from the atmosphere by growing the trees that you are now safely storing to keep the carbon locked up. Build it as a passive house with ASHP etc and lots of PV panels to generate more power than you use. Planting more trees would probably score you brownie points as well. I think this is definitely one where you need a good planning consultant.

I'd go for at least 100mm rather than 75mm boards in the floor. There's almost no difference in the price. 150mm while you're at it if you can. You never regret putting in too much insulation.

I have mentioned before the supplied controller with my LG heat pump is well beyond the ability of most folk over the age of 20 to understand. I chose to control mine from a normal boiler time clock that most people understand. I had to get quite inventive to mimic a "call for heat" input for the HW to the heat pump to control that from a simple time switch.

I was planning on using 100mm screws for our windows. The only time I've used longer is for our internal wall insulation where they needed to go through battens, insulation and then into the wall.

+1, I managed to source the proper controller fir my heat pump and found it soo complicated, luckily our Jeremy had the same, and despite him being a wizard at all things complicated and programmable he also found it very difficult to fathom 🤯

I thought we discussed before, the treated chlorinated mains water just means you can be pretty sure there is nothing nasty entering your HW tank. Assuming it is an unvented cylinder then nothing else can enter, so once the clean water is there, it does not matter if the effect of the chlorine diminishes. It has no further function.

100mm long screws (some companies make them 102mm) have a few drill bits different lengths. 6mm and 6.5mm to overcome problems, blunting or breakages

There's a cascade, chlorine breakdowns / reacts to another form, it's effective for a period of time, then there is another step. All in, I think five stages of decay, exponential and highly dependent on temperature and organic content in the water. We prefer water to get to the customer with 24hrs, any longer and you can't guarantee that there's enough active chlorine left to be effective. But in reality 48-72hours is not unusual.

Hello to all at the forum. I trained as a painter & decorator and went on to join a property maintenance team which I enjoyed for the next 20+ years until I was diagnosed with cancer 11 years ago then again in lockdown but I have survived twice . I mostly mess around with my house finding things that don't really need doing but it keeps me busy.

Welcome to the FORUM for people like us... except I am no fan, as in I love to see it done but don't enjoy doing it, of painting, decorating and tiling so great to have your wisdom aboard.

Personally I wouldn’t Even the larger companies are relaxing these clauses due to labour and material issues

I am officially cream crackered. Just finished for the night putting 50m of Heras fencing. 70m tomorrow. Glulams all on today and roof joists. Roofing tomorrow mostly. Dormer and rest of interal panel work Friday.

1) ignore. 2) If he persists ask the CARPENTER what tests he did to "test for dead" and safe isolation practice of the circuit BEFORE he removed the fan and if he isolated at the consumer unit, what lock off device did he use to prevent it being re energised. Ask for his electrical qualifications, details of test equipment used, and a copy of the calibration certificate for his tester. And ask to see a copy of HIS Public liability insurance policy. That should shut him up.

There is usually a relatively small bracket to the wall, taking a lot of vertical, load, trying to twist the bracket off the wall. I've only fitted them once, on a steel building. As you say, planning ahead is important. We put vertical steels behind each bracket. In timber frame it would be similar.

Since this project is a PH new build, I'm keen to design out potential issues at the very beginning. PHPP and the consultant pointed to overheating risks, hence the desire for shading. I like the concept of a brise soleil due to its passive nature - no moving parts like blinds - and am awaiting some quotes. They may well be pricey and I'm not sure how a TF supplier will view them since they add a potentially considerable load that varies with wind strength/direction, angle and spacing of fins. More head scratching to do.

In this thread starting at page 4

nope. at least not that i'm aware of! the majority of our lintels are wood (mostly Kerto iirc). it was all designed and calculated by the TF company

depending on if you want to bother about cold bridging, a better way is to insulate then conc over

Heating method is not really what should be the focus. Its insulating the fabric of the building. This means Ground floor, walls and roof. This really cannot easily be done while the building is habited. The floors need to come up, insulation, dpc and screeded. Not cheap, not easy. pre- cavity wall properties that are suitable for external insulation are the low hanging fruit. Council housing etc. The rest are hard to do and £££. Doest matter how hot or what type of boiler/pump used, if the heatloss is too great your never going to win. Just boosting the heat temp to keep up with the heat loss is pointless.

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.”

I thought I would put a post together for those that are looking for windows, replacement or new build. As someone who deals with final order placing / final quote discussions. One of the things that crosses my desk on regular basis, is that the "other supplier" is more cost effective. Which leads me to ask myself "more cost effective against what" are you comparing apples for apples? When I ask people to compare, what we generally explain is to look at the following (see below) if they are not willing to supply a copy of the quote without prices. Product - is the product similar. For example are you comparing a Timber Aluminium cladded window with a Timber Aluminium cladded window? Glazing - Is the glazing on offer from both suppliers comparable? Is it double glazed v's triple glazed for example or is it float glass v's toughened or laminate? Check that doors have toughened/laminated glazing Check that windows within 300mm of a door have toughened/laminated glazing Check that windows below 800mm from the finish floor have toughened/laminated glazing Check that windows that are 1400mm in height or above for toughened/laminated glazing. Most suppliers will start to consider toughened / laminated from 1400mm onwards, some will still be float glass. Check triple glazed glass units. Some suppliers will only toughen the inner and outer panes and leave the middle pane as float glass, others will toughen all 3 panes (I recommend all 3 panes as toughened) when required. Why? quick example is from experience, a customer in the north west of Scotland had the middle pane as float glass in french doors, the doors are recessed with wall on either side. It effectively became a wind tunnel. What happened is during high winds, the door sashes had that much wind pressure constantnly, that the door sash was pushed away from the frame slightly and a rattle effect occurred (only thing I could think would cause this to happen). As a result the middle pane (float glass) shattered. This required the whole sash to be replaced, as the glass was glued into the frame on that particular product. Timber - Is the timber comparable, are both using spruce/larch/oak/pine etc.? Are any of the products finger jointed as standard (which is more cost effective versus fixed timber, but not as aesphetically pleasing). Is the timber cut from from one section of wood or is it individually glue laminated timber? Ug values - A 0.5Ug can be quoted by suppliers but the costs vary dramatically. One of the reasons for this can be the glass make up and the gas that is being used. Some quotes won't tell the gas being used but it's safe to assume that if it's 48mm glazing it is Argon. Pay attention to the spacer distance also, not for cost but if the spacer is above 18mm, convection can occur of the gas filling (gas moves around in the unit). Hinging - Are the hinges concealed or are they exposed? Door Hinging - Pay close attention as suppliers will have quoted standard framing on doors, others may have increased the widths of the jambs to increase the space available at the hinging for plastering behind. RAL Colours externally - are the quoted RAL colours the same? Internal colours - have they quoted the same? Some will offer the standard colours such as a clear lacquer, others will have them painted - does this have any impact on price comparison. Sizes - have any of the units been split, due to not being able to achieve the size required? Some suppliers will not be able to do large sizes, others will be. Look out for compromises. Don't always look at the end figure and immediately reject a quote as being to high, compared to the others. Most suppliers will have the supply price first, then additional items such as window cills, compriband, membrane, installation etc. which are optional to the quote and not necessarily required but may be included in the total cost at the end. Most self builders like to take on the mantra of doing the whole build, others would like to leave this to the supplier or builder and or source their own materials if supply only. What is being offered with the installation service, are the installation options / costs comparible to each other? Who takes responsibility for the windows upon arrival? Generally speaking most suppliers who are installing, should be taken responsibility from the moment the windows leave the factory, to the moment the windows/doors have been installed, sign off. If supply only, the responsibilitygenerally passes to the client once the offload commences. So it is important to document the windows before offload, during offload and once offloaded. The manufacturer will normally have documentation / pictures before departing the factory, it makes life easier on whether a claim with the haulage company or whether a claim with the supplier is required (both should go to the supplier who should deal with it). Warranty - how long is the warranty, what does it cover? Last but not least, is the quote comparible? Have the suppliers referenced things the same way or are have the drawings been scaled and then referenced by the supplier (this happens a lot when no window schedule exists)? A lot of architects don't create window schedules for some reason (one the major parts of a build and most costly aspects) and problems of missing windows can be encountered, due to the elevations not always showing "hidden" windows which can be seen on floor plans. Some suppliers can miss this, which then impacts that quote. Hopefully some people find this useful, of not apologies for the long read