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Plaster boarding finished yesterday and plastering starts today.

The people that make these policies seem to think it is easy and cheap to make any property up to an EPC C and the only reason it is not happening is those lazy tight landlords cannot be bothered to spend just a little time and money to do it, so we will mandate that they have to do it. The reality is a huge amount of the UK housing stock is going to be very hard and very expensive to upgrade. And with no financial help to do so, many landlords which such property are evicting the tenants and selling, while they still can. This is just a symptom of "them" not understanding the problem and not knowing how to solve it. Some people reading this and my other recent posts on the subject might think I don't care about energy efficiency and the environment. I do. But I also understand the challenges ahead and know there is no quick easy cheap solution. It seem that "they" are finally realising that as well.

Absolutely. Certainly I find it sad that all new build developer houses are not being built to close to passive house standards, that is criminal. Whatever solution you come up with to a problem, it has to be achievable. Set an unrealistic goal,. which I believe is what we had before, and it will fail. Set a realistic goal and you stand a chance of achieving it. The older houses are the problem that nobody has the solution for yet. Pointless trying to put an ASHP in a Victorian semi unless you improve the building and there is no plan for that.

Remind me if this is a new build? A house you already own? old or new? In a self build new house with no mains gas I would say without a doubt UFH and ASHP. With a new build you have one chance to get the insulation right and make the heat demand low. Whatever system you fit, you will need UFH or radiators, so ignore that cost, that is constant regardless of heat source. So it literally boils down to the cost between an ASHP and an oil or LPG gas boiler. An ASHP is probably slightly more expensive but not a lot. The running costs will be about the same at the moment.

Can we agree that whoever pays someone has to or the planet burns. The challenge is lack of forethought / planning for the carbon neutral future - like most on here we are trying to build a highly insulated home for ourselves where we use the minimum amount of energy to sustain us. In doing that I guess we are going some way to doing our bit. Essentially our politicians have cocked up and either way we will all have to pay - I would just rather it wasn't my grandchildren.

we have a g2 listed BTL, cant even put in double glazing. whole thing is a farce.

Not at all "oh dear" A touch of reality. I have long said it is pointless telling us all to get an EV until the extra generation capacity is there to charge them, and preferably from green sources not just burning more fossil fuel to charge your "green" EV Same for heat pumps, we can't make them, install them and provide the power for them quick enough to all have one in such a short time. And a realisation that bringing old buildings up to modern building standards is not possible for an affordable sum. So at last, we might get a plan to go green in a proper thought out, progressive manner as fast as we can sensibly achieve without crippling the economy or pissing off the electorate. Such a realistic, achievable plan is far more likely to be taken on board and acted on by the public than some unachievable plan that stands no hope of being achieved. I am a lot more confident today that we might actually manage to go green in a sensible manner now. Well done for having the balls to make these changes.

I'm pretty sure that the only rule about positioning of CUs is that they need to be at an accessible height (switches at 1350-1450mm above the floor) in new builds, it's not retrospective though. Why does electrician B think that it's not permitted?

I would choose a system boiler and UVC any day over a combi boiler. Chalk and cheese, a UVC wins hands down for pressure, flow and consistency of hot water.

Energy storage is really a case of where we store it. Can easily store thermal energy in a cylinder of water or a few bricks in a storage heater, or even in a concrete slab. Storing gas involves disused salt caverns, highly automated processes and a lot of post processing of the raw material (gas), after it has already been processed from its place of origin. Electricity is, currently, very expensive to store, and takes a lot of land area, pumped storage especially.

Is this the freeze stat function running the pumps, if you go to the service menu, the one that has a spanner on the far right, then down to page 2/4 there is a operation settings, in that menu there is the freeze stat function, there should be an ambient temperature its set to, on the right side this can be set as high as 20C, it runs the pumps every few hours. If you turn the temperature right down till it just ** then see if the issue stops. It doesn't sound like that but its easy to test overnight.

I blame the poor way they are packed and the even poorer way builders merchant hiabs handle them.

You might have heard them say it, but that does not make it true.

What make and type? They look like the ones i used. As I started to unload them from the pallets, I noticed a LOT of broken tiles (many MUCH worse than your examples). So much so that I notified the supplier and told them if I do not have enough to complete the job due to breakages, then I would expect the broken on arrival tiles to be replaced. In my case I had 6 valleys to tile, and I adopted the practice on only use already broken tiles for the valley cuts. And I was then able to complete the job. Some may say I let them off the hook by being so obliging to do that.

Yes capacity is not the same as generation. Here in Ireland the move to renewables is years ahead of GB, admittedly for a smaller system, but also the political will is stronger and less NIMBYism about onshore wind. Northern Ireland is decoupled from the GB national Grid because the single all Island market was set up as part of the good Friday agreement. The Irish grid has a target of 75% renewables. No nuclear here so mostly wind. Currently at about 50% wind generation. Above that yes demand management is key to grid stability. There is still however thermal plant available to step in here when the wind doesn't blow. I've seen no evidence of storage moving ahead. It is not technically or financially possible for battery storage to take up the slack and replace GWs of thermal plant. As far as I have seen batteries are used for frequency stability and, very rarely, a few seconds of reserve. There would need to be a massive step change in technology and cost for batteries to play any significant role in energy supply when the wind doesn't blow. As you say, demand management will play an increasing role for instant response, but mostly it's gas turbines in the UK that step in when the wind doesn't blow. But that's ok I think because most of the time the wind does blow.

id reject those.

Fourth week are our house sale Around 20 viewings Four offers on the table I’m still waiting for someone to ask about Airtightness and levels of insulation All but two have been Doctors One being a conveyancing solicitor Not interested EPC etc The second is a form let joiner who has a chain of businesses I ran through the spec He simply wasn’t interested Is there anyone out there Other than us lot that cares about these things

I’ve just put an electric towel radiator in my bathroom. It’s 500w just for drying towels so I don’t have to put ashp on. It’s smart Wi-Fi one, it’s got a nice feature when’s its -2c outside it will turn on. That could be an option for you.

I’ve seen lots of people do this, loads on you tube and insta, lots do it badly and a few do it well. What i see the good ones doing. Build some additional accommodation so let’s say your having a double garage. Build this first, then drag the static over to it and join them together install a wood burner in the garage, with a washing machine and a small drying area, leave the door open to the static, or even cut the door out twice as wide, the warm air keeps the static cosy, little front room in the garage and sleeping only in the static. .

I would always go back to the EPC author and get them to correct any mistakes, because once you get in to the nitty gritty they tend to be rubbish in rubbish out, full of assumptions, from a 10 minute walk around, if your lucky.

Put an electric heater upstairs on the landing with the bedroom doors slightly open on the coldest days. Get one with a timer and thermostat, that should back fill the heating on the coldest days.

If the holes are at the top and your new holes are lower then no problem, or trim then to the required length so they lay with the others without kicking up

It’s not really effecting the sale We have four offers on the table Two over asking price My original point was no one has asked or cared enough to ask about EPC etc Your average per wouldn’t have a clue what A95 meant

Hmmmm maybe better for landlords but not, I suspect, better for tenants or the planet.

Every last bit of research I have done about this issue makes the same point. Here's Scott Brown (Kiwi carpenter) on the subject - well worth following

To be fair, I've probably hit lucky with the Branch Manager. He was at Jewsons, moved to Travis Perkins and every time he comes up trumps.

Interesting how things work out. The in built book case at the top of the stairs wasn’t supposed to be there. That whole void ought to have been a cupboard. However due to the various construction problems HH caused us we had to re-route the MVHR ductwork up through here plus there’s some extra steelwork above that doorway. The option was to just create a void with possibly an access panel on the bedroom wall. However I decided to box it in and use some of the void to create that inset book case. It will come half way up with space for a nice picture we have above it. The beam was also never supposed to be exposed but this was the beam that caused us a bit of trouble so we decided to leave it open as a reninder 😂 While it’s not a big bit of solid oak the glulams are actually quite nice in themselves. I’ll oil it etc to bring it out a bit. Had we not had these construction problems to deal with we might well have not done any of this. The other issue HH caused us is the first floor height is wrong so the ceiling downstairs above the kitchen is much lower than it should have been by 120mm! I managed to reduce that by 35mm by reducing the floor insulation from 210mm to 185mm and cutting the 45mm wall plate out, adding back in a 10mm cement board and lowering all the full height windows. What a palaver that was. It does mean we’ve still gained all that extra height upstairs so the bedroom ceiling height is 2.6m and exposed beam room 2.9m. It also means the ceiling heights in different parts of the house are all different which I keep telling everyone is characterful. 😂

You do if classified as a self build, you get the full grant.

So this got me thinking last night to see whether there was a good solution to installing these around door linings. I came up with the below approach. If fitting them to stud walls then the dimensions of the wall will be 95mm and therefore your rebates that you cut with the fine kerf will be straightforward. Block walls might be trickier. it all depends on how and who fits the trims to the stud work or blockwork.

Got a bit of tidying up to do this morning!

I hired a sit on float for a day Very easy to use once The concrete has set It brought it up like glass

That is very nice!

It's a Mira shower. I can't remember the model but it looks similar to the Atom on the website. Pressure is a smidgen over 3bar dynamic.

Anything to get votes. Anything at all at whatever cost. Meanwhile China is installing more wind turbines than the rest of the world and investing billions in electrification of transport and decarbonisation. How does China do it? Because China is a dictatorship that doesn't have a four year election cycle with politicians prostituting themselves for cheap votes. Democracy is destroying the planet. How strange a world we live in.

I think you can get special jumper nets to let things ventilate. Also freezing clothes regularly kills the eggs but needs to be for 2 weeks at a time (not 2 days as some sites say). Kirsty Allsop has a dedicated freezer space to rotate her woolies.

You say the tiles on the front are identical to those on the rear, but the ones on the front don't have a crack straight across, like this (copied from above): Would be really good to see a 'top shot' of that area. Camera, big stick...

The ties work in tension as part of the truss but it is the truss that needs to be checked. The compression in the principal rafters and struts, as well as the tension in the king post, would be considered as a whole. It's up to you but you seem decided not to seek professional advice. I don't think anyone else on this forum could or would be able to provide any additional reassurance on your plan.

Thank you very helpful. Ive spoken with the Architect who has managed to drop the house by 1M. My effort to compromise on the dormer they so want and I hate, ive looked at the catslide dormer which is of the 17c I believe, so its not the housing development eyesore which perched on a stylish farmhouse design. it kind of works well as it looks like the roof has been lifted rather than hideously plonked on. Going to try to get away with just the side extension only so it will be the ensuite only affected. Fingers crossed!!

Aye. My plan at the moment is to try to get the bales up on a single dry day, then protect them with tarps and/or vapour-permeable membrane. As long as I size, dress, notch and dip the bales that need it, and keep them organised, raising the walls should go quickly - and I've got a few helpers I can call on ^^. It's OK if the side of the bales can get wet, as long as they can also dry out - but water from above is death.

We had some rough ground; made it rougher with a 20 ton excavator moving some of it around / installing a heat pump ground loop etc; and needed to tidy it up. 1) Cultivate / till it (nearest tractor will do) 2) Now what...raking this area by hand requires Olympian endurance... You will need: 4x 3 metre / 10 foot long 2x4s 3x 1 metre-ish / 3 foot-ish long 2x4s 2x logs as extra weight 2x pipes (for corner marking) 2x ratchet straps (spares useful...) 1x small car And it works bloody amazing for levelling and compacting *just right* for putting grass back. The mk1 attempt (6 metre wide rake on a Ford Focus) was a little ambitious. The mk2 attempt (without logs) did fudge all. The mk3 (four logs) was too much of a handbrake. The mk4. you see...just right. I would guess 100-150 kg. Smooths it AND is flat/heavy enough to kick all the field stones and tree roots etc up and out onto the surface. Ready to absolutely not throw in the back of your wife's car like it's a glorified wheelbarrow and spend the journey home wondering how long it'll take to remove all the insects. 😇 Ratchet straps (free end wrapped around the frame once and clamped with a piece of wood; hook end on the car to avoid flying metal bits if it breaks) are the perfect strength for being able to pull this along without being too deadly to car or tree when you get ambitious and chop down to 2 metre width do this bits between the trees... Next month expect a post about moles. 😂

Lots of the ideas in this thread revolve around sight lines. For good reason. Lining up sight lines doesn't necessarily cost anything but can really change the feel of a place. It's one of the things that makes a bespoke design different to an off the shelf one. My own build was done to a tight budget (about £20k for 50m², plus groundworks/services). Here's some of the decisions I made to keep the budget in check whilst retaining what I think is a pretty nice finish: -My favourite tip is to avoid small windows. Consolidate all your glazing in to a few huge windows. Non opening if possible. You will get a much lower cost/m² with much better thermal properties. It's an absolute win-win. I was really surprised by how cheap a huge non opening 3G window was. -I'm also a big fan of bamboo flooring. I'm not up to date with prices but about five years ago it was half the price of decent oak, and much sturdier. -you don't need solid oak skirtings and door linings. I went with MDF which was a fraction of the cost and also much easier to fit. Need to screw the skirting to the wall, or messed up amitre? Just fill and paint afterwards. - larch and corrugated steel make very cost effective finishing materials, quick and easy to work with. - it's not necessary to spend big money on kitchens and bathrooms. I've seen people spend more on a kitchen tap than my whole bathroom cost. I went secondhand for all my kitchen appliances, but bought good brand names (Bosch and Siemens). They've outlasted the cheap brand new stuff I bought in my other house.

This is worth a read as well

The following video will hopefully give you a good overview of the considerations when specifying windows and doors - plenty of good tips and pointers. What to Consider when Specifying Windows and Doors - Self-Build and Renovation Videos By Architectural Doors and Windows (scottishselfbuild.com)

From British Gypsum for partitions, screws are 300mm centres (200mm centres at external angles). For ceiling systems, the screws are located at 230mm centres within the field of the board and 150mm centres at board ends.

600mm centres you need dwangs, 400mm you don't need dwangs.

Think I went 400mm centres for the batten to the SIP. Fixing the plasterboard to the battens is just standard fixing spacings for plasterboard - can't remember but a quick Google will yield the answer.

https://www.propertytribes.com/epc-changes-binned-breaking-news-t-127661041.html

"The order: 4200x150x50 C24. The delivery: 4800x150x50 C16." A similar thing happened to me. 'Never mind; bring it back and we'll sort it'. Got it all off the roof-rack. Bloke comes round with a stamp, blanks out C16 and stamps C24: Sorted. The explanation, which one has to believe, of course, is that sometimes supply prices are so close that they buy graded (but not stamped) C24 and stamp as C16 or C24 according to the buyer's request. Alternatively they could of course stamp it all C24 and sell it to you for the C16 price!

I usually persuade my wife to get out and open the gate.