Leaderboard

A tog is 0.1 m2K/W. In other words, the thermal resistance in togs is equal to ten times the temperature difference (in °C) between the two surfaces of a material, when the flow of heat is equal to one watt per square metre.

We are planning to lay bamboo flooring to our ground floor, using the Uniclic system. But I am quite confused re the thermal properties of their recommended underlay. My preference is for their 5.5mm Fibreboard https://www.bambooflooringcompany.com/fibreboard.html which has a thermal conductivity of 0.050W/mK. their other products are Silver Bam with a 0.9 tog and CushNWood with a tog rating of 1. Which of these gives the best thermal insulation? What does 1 tog relate to?? It would help if they used the same measurements. Any help with this will be appreciated.

For the same thickness of material 0.05 is twice as insulating as 0.1. as pdf27 says for UFH you do not want the floorcovering to be too insulating because you have to have the floor at a higher temperature to achieve the same output. On the TOG scale your 5.5mm Fibreboard is TOG = 1.1, so is slightly more insulating than the others. However the effect appears to be quite small, see page 11 here - http://www.johnguest.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/UFH-Tech-Doc-Z2105-387-0914WEB.pdf

Finally today after an 18 month wait the water company have done the 5 metre trench to connect us to the mains. They wouldnt let us do it - although we had done the other 100 odd metres to their satisfaction they insisted on their contractors for the last stretch - and on a 3 day closing order for the private drive which is also a bridleway. We all told them (including their own contractors) it would take less than a day but they wouldnt budge. In the event the whole thing was done in less than 2 hours. I am so happy to have mains water on site at long last feel like crying! Hoping they might get the UFH and boiler connected up today or tomorrow so we can get some heat going.

If you are not using collated,then I recommend you get silver coloured plasterboard screws because the black ones can give you tiny metal splinters

Can't use the same measurements, as then people would understand it!

That's good news. We had a 6 month wait, which seemed long enough! I had done the trench and pipework and after a month of waiting for them backfilled it on the grounds of safety - and when they came to "inspect" the pipework 6 months after I'd told them it was ready, my wife handed the guy a spade and said "help yourself" ? . He then decided that our pipework was excellent and he didn't need to inspect it after all ?.

The number one reason as to why sliders will leak or not function properly in my experience - is that they have not been laser levelled and therefor not square / plumb. If a slider is out by 3mm over an expanse of 3 metres plus, it can cause operational difficulties. This "can" have knock on effect in regards to water ingress, I'm not saying that is the issue it's just a possibility to be aware of. The picture above looks like the detail of sliding door systems provided to many manufacturers from Seigena, very good systems. We have experienced similar issues in the past from non Austrian suppliers and replaced the foam pads and sealed it better. In newer models, this is no longer present. A good way to determine where the water is actually penetrating, is the good old fashioned hose test.

Lets face it there's not much going to get through the meticulously applied 400 odd mm of lcynene in your walls!

Pretty sure @PeterStarck told me through their build they just occasionally had a 2kW heater going in the winter. But seriously you passiv types are missing a trick: http://www.c60design.co.uk/news/many-cats-take-heat-passive-house/ Interesting foot note on the use of iguanas for cooling...

+1. The reason it's a fibre washer is because the anode is sacrificial, so will need inspecting and replacing with some frequency. I'd try taking the anode out, filing the mating steel surface to get rid of any imperfections, dabbing a bit of hammerite on the then exposed metal and reinstall with a new fibre washer. Do NOT use any lubricant or jointing compound as the fibre washer will displace outwards when you rotate it and it tightens. . It needs to be clean and as dry as possible to seal.

@PeterStarck, it looks as if there may be a fibre washer under that anode, so it could be something as simple as just removing the anode, checking the fibre washer and refitting it after a bit of a clean. It may even be that the anode just needs to be tightened slightly, say 1/4 of a turn, to seal on to the washer properly. Failing that, removing it, wrapping PTFE tape around it and refitting it would almost certainly fix it.

Sometime officialdom bureaucracy just makes you feel like you are banging your head against a brick wall.

Good luck Lizzy! I have some plasters turning up tomorrow for quotes, so your story has made me extra vigilant! No consolation I am sure, but we are about 2yrs behind on this build. Every delay is a kick in the nuts, but I think when you reach the plastering stage, it's at this point that you will regret letting your standards go in years to come. Stand your ground with these cowboys. It'll only encourage them to carry on with their crap workmanship on other builds also. Good luck!

You. must get rid of them If there boarding is that rough there skiming won't be good It may likely be terrible like there boarding As already pointed out above Its pretty bad It's you that will be stuck looking at it Also your project manager is wrong stating that he only looks at the finished job He should have reacted in the same manner as my fellow posters Good luck Gary

Many years ago I had a summer job helping an electrician wire an office block in Staines. Finished the 4th floor and we had a double socket left over. Eventually worked out the plasterers had gone right over one of the boxes. Electrician asks me what I think is the best way to find it? I suggest we go down to the floor below to find the rough location then use his metal detector. No he said. Best way is just to jab holes all over the plaster until we find it, that way the plasterers will learn not to do it again.

Simple. the joint does not have to fix TO anything, it must just fix the two ends of plasterboard together. We had this in several places. simple solution. Fix one sheet. Cut an offcut of 4 by 1 or 6 by 1 that just fills the gap. Hold it in place and screw through the board that is already there. This then leaves the overhanging edge for the next board to screw into. It might not be what the professionals do, but it worked for me.

I'm a mechanical engineer for an industrial site (largest of its type in Europe) about 60(?) miles north west of you. I can't get away with asking the office cleaners if they think my calcs look ok or whether a weld procedure meets the necessary quality requirement. But I only did 3 years so what do I know? (And many of our good designers don't even have that)

SWMBO hates it when I do a dump run, because I usually come back with more than I had!