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Challenging for steam buffs like me who like to move the logs down to the house by train - what will I do with all my spare time?

A wouldn't be that blase about it, there are the small matters of water drainage and tanking that have to be carefully considered. @Red Kite is living the basement dream at the moment and has lots of insightful information here

My brother used to supply seasoned firewood as a sideline to his landscaping business, gave him an income stream in the winter, when landscaping work tends to go a bit flat. He converted a Dutch barn on the farm for seasoning cut logs, used to stack them up on a floor made from pallets, to get air circulating underneath. He charged a premium for dried (usually 18 months to 2 years old) hardwood logs and made a reasonable income for a few years. The problem he found was that there were always suppliers undercutting him by selling what were claimed to be "dry" logs, but which were really cut a few months earlier. Lots of people just buy on price, and seem not to care about getting a clean burn and a decent heat output. There are, sadly, a lot of ignorant people who will burn anything, and who don't give a damn about the consequences. This isn't helped by the way bags of wet logs are sold at places like our nearest filling station. Some look like they were only felled a few days earlier.

I too have a WBS, cut some trees down yesterday that blew over In storm dorris or whatever, they will be stacked fir 24months to dry out. The problem is regulating stupid people!

Oh dear I couldn’t live with that either. I would need it pushed against the wall to create more usable floor space and then potentially turned halfway up if there wasn’t the headroom to go straight up. They do look steep IMO currently. Is something curved possible? So something like this (shape not design)

The emissions from those is insignificant compared to vehicle emissions in built up areas.

It turns out that the father in law of the chap who is dismantling it fancies leather electric recliners. So good home found. Thanks all.

It sounds like you've got a solution now but for future reference the Simpson Strong-Tie I-Joist Hole Support can be used to allow huge holes (250mm width x full web height) to be cut to within 50mm of the joist support: They're around £25/pr (you need one for each side) so whilst not cheap they can be extremely handy if you don't have alternative options.

Always aim high for 50% off. If you don't ask you won't get.

☘️ Take a leaf out of the RHS latest project - house plants and make your chairs spring into life?

That looks like the detail we have. The bottom bar is aluminium and fixed to the two jambs so they won't spread. Ours all came with another piece of wood attached to the bottoms as well, I think for extra strength during transit, that was removed on installation.

That looks like a low threshold. It will be screwed up from underneath into each jamb.

I cut studding with a 4 1/2" slitting disc and take the burr off / polish the end with a flap disc. No nut used. Wot he said...TART!

Here you go geezer.

We’ll put you on the ‘like’ list then. Whilst the house already has a name we’ve taken to calling it Marmite House for the reaction it’s caused ? Those stainless vents were cheap as chips. I wish I could say the same about everything else!

I am another that thinks a wood burner in the sparsely populated Highlands makes sense. We are in a shallow valley that pretty much faces the prevailing wind so there is almost always air flowing up the valley, and the population density downwind of us is very low. But on the few occasions there is no wind, I don't light the stove to avoid filling the valley with smoke. All we burn is either from our own land as part of an ongoing gradual thinning of the trees, or local windfall collected from close to the house. I don't ever buy wood and can't imagine ever doing so.

Also, once you are under the floor, and, or, above the ceiling, i would go from 40mm to 50mm then into the 110mm. You will prob be ok with short runs, but i would still go to 50mm

Here you go @gc100

Just a 250 void under the BB

This is a valley and we are not in this situation. We live very close to the coast the prevailing wind blowing the smoke would mean that it would not reach another house for 30kms+, across the sea. Even then very sparely populated areas. We are in an unusual situation and that's my point, some wood burning stoves are acceptable, like ours, as nobody (with the exception of us!) will ever be affected by the smoke. If I was building an airtight house with MHVR I would not build in a valley as you have no control over the air (except using really good filters). I agree that this is unfair as smog is horrible even in Portree (which is in a valley) and if I had MVHR I would be just as annoyed as you. But what could I do. I incorporated a stove in the centre and focal point of the house design because it worked with our surroundings i.e. free access to sustainable wood and no ill affects on others.

@nod didn't have a basement like you. Just screw up into the blocks if you can't use any proprietary fixing strap/band

You look chuffed.

I did exactly that I totally missed putting a grain for the down stars loo Quick fix lift a 3 mtr line of blocks and pick up the manhole outside the back door NO CHNCE To high had to run the full length of the house Glued everything made sure the pipe was well supported and adde a chamber just outside the house Works a treat

No problem with passing on a personal recommendation, IMHO.

Yes, I bought one, and am planning to use it to make an air quality monitor. The snag is that might need a fair bit of trial and error to accurately detect harmful stuff, rather than harmless stuff, as all it does is count the number of particles of a particular size over time. The harmful stuff tends to be the toxic particles that are 2.5µ or less in diameter, but there are some types of pollen that may be down around 2µ, and they might cause false alerts. The smoke gets through the F7 filter on the MVHR, or at least the smell does. It may be that the filter is taking out a fair proportion of the particulates, as it should be about 80% to 90% effective at filtering out particulates in the ~1µ range. I'm not sure how much of the harmful PM2.5 stuff is down below 1µ, though, as the definition often used is 0µ to 2.5µ for PM2.5s. There is now a PM1 category, though, for particulates that are below 1µ in diameter, so newer sensors should be able to categorise PM1, PM2.5 and PM10 particle numbers, rather than just the PM2.5 and PM10 categories that the sensor I have can measure.

Ok . Best ask them exactly . I took photos at every stage so I could always prove I did it . Wether I did it well or not is another question . I guess someone on here with a self build mortgage can answer better ...

I agree, 30mm would almost certainly not be noticed by a BCO. The existing staircase looks as if it might fit OK if against the wall, so one option might be to just wait until the house is signed off and then move the staircase over and adapt the landing to suit.

Personal recommendation is always the best option with any building service Book well in advance as good company’s are always busy and will be happy to share previous jobs with you Happy Custer’s = Low stress

I have a mate who has a basement company but I don’t know if sharing his details would breach forum rules. If the mods ok it,I’ll pm you his details. He’s in South London,btw.

And also I made the first log store Unfortunately purchased the timber My wife spent hours de nailing pallets and made the second From scrap pallets and felt that was over from the first one

I’m sort of between arguments here While I would never burn unseasoned timber All felled on site for the foreseeable future Many burn all sorts of rubbish Some of the guys onsite break up pallets to take home I would imagine they would make lots of smoke and burn for a short time

Ask the neighbour? I installed a huge extract fan in the wall of the sailing club that vented into a gap between it and the house next door. The strip of land was owned by the house, not the club but the house owner agreed to the vent being there and for me to access their land to fit it.

But that is purely a exception for loft conversions (which this isn't), so i think that its the full 2m over the whole width of the stair. See page 7 and 8 below https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/443181/BR_PDF_AD_K_2013.pdf

Can you not just ring your BCO and ask him?, the fan would protrude less than 30mm, less than your roof overhang/facia/guttering (I guess?). This would be the simplest solution. If you have to go through ceiling void, fan set 1m from wall in ceiling (over toilet) and run flexi through joists to outside (more work than solution 1).

Electric Meter with CU in the garage would be ok but remember the CU now needs to be at 1400mm or so and you can’t hide them at high level.

Something like this would give you more open space I’ve just lashed it together on Pears Stairs btw so don’t get too critical ..!!

ha, I was about to post about the floor void!. If using i joists there IS a limit on hole size and location near the ends.

I may have missed something but are you not installing mvhr ?

I think @PeterW is wondering whether the flow and return are switched at the TMV (or, the flow is backwards in the supply loop). You pretty much have to push the heated water into the valve from my experience...

Control the energy, control the masses. If it wasn't all about control the powers that be would have pushed for super insulated, energy efficient housing stock, supported retrofit schemes etc. I honestly believe that.

Our build company provided a guarantee that the house would be 0.6 ACH at 50 Pa or less ( they actually achieved 0.43 ACH @ 50 Pa when the house was tested). The final payment of 20% of the total contract price was dependent on them meeting this requirement. I'd be inclined to try and get a builder to contract to meet the spec you want, TBH, just to save pain and grief down the line.

The concern with coal and wood burning isn't so much the CO2, but the harmful particulates. There's plenty of evidence to show just how harmful they are relative to vehicle emissions. I recall comparing the particulate emissions from wood stoves to that from diesel cars some time ago. Can't remember the exact numbers right now, but one wood burning stove is roughly equivalent to having several diesel cars parked on your drive with their engines idling, in terms of particulate emissions.

@Christine Walker have you actually done a simple triangle to know it's 42.5deg? Must be the camera angle but looks steeper.

Spotted this a few weeks back- we now exist!

I would want that replacing. Just on principle even if it’s fine. Unless it was sold as seconds.

yeh you need a post instillation EPC done and before you claim the rhi you have to make a decleration that you havent altered anything, also worth considering that even if you made no changes to the fabric of the building simply changing the heating from oil to ASHP the "space heating kWh as 13,640" will reduce as ASHP is more efficient than oil so you dont need the same amount of energy in to provide your heating requirements, i went from storage heaters/ immersion to ASHP and my figure dropped from 18,992 to 13,819 for an 80m2 property, with no fabric changes, so your alterations to the fabric coupled to the ASHP being more efficient could make the RHI payment relativey small

I used some stone that came out of a floor I dug up and a render finish.

As an aside, Tesla have done another update, which has actually made the voice commands work reasonably well. Some are a wee bit American, though. For example, the voice command "my butt is cold" turns on the driver's side seat heater...

Still adding insulation ? Cabin_11_08_2019 3_29_46am.mp4