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Showing content with the highest reputation since 03/29/23 in Blog Comments

  1. 9 points
  2. I followed your @TerryE story a number of years ago and designed my system based on your posts. Thanks for all your detailed posts all those years ago. My system: Installed and running 4 years instead of 6 yours like yours Heated by the same 3kw wills heater during the night 100 sqm of polished concrete, 100mm deep and reinforced with fibres not a steel mesh. Self installed Wunda 16mm PERT-AL-PERT PIPE, manifold and pumpset - 5 heating loops with similar double back loop design. The pump is on a low nice quiet setting. I’ve no idea how to calculate how much water it pumps or the flow like you did nor do I feel I need to. It's working so I’ll leave it. I’ve a temp difference of circa 5 degrees after the system is up and running. It’s the basic temperature dials on the manifold so this isn’t digital or recorded like yours. Portable oil heater for the misses for when she thinks she’s cold. We’ve our temp between 20-21 degrees so lower than yours It was a major refurb, not a new build but we did a PHPP for the house which I can compare to. Main differences: I don’t have all the fancy temperature probes or data logging you have. We have temperature sensors but they aren’t recorded. I could fix this by purchasing a few but don’t really feel the need. I have an electrical meter on the wills so know exactly the energy going into the slab. I don’t run the pump after the wills is off to spread the heat like you nor do I do it for a few minutes on the hour. I did play around with this for a while at the start but it doesn’t make a massive difference. This slab is all one large open plan kitchen / dining / living / entrance hall area. You do notice the floor warmer in the hallway nearer the manifold but this is fine as the heat rises in this double height area to the upper unheated rooms. Things I’d change: I don’t have the fancy controls you have nor do I have the coding skills to develop it. It’s therefore a much cruder timed system. Note I’m based in Ireland, not the UK. For the first two years it was definitely cheaper to use a cheap wills than invest in an ASHP but the massive increase of the electrical unit rate has changed this. I've had the ducts fitted for years from outside to the wills heater so it’s an easy swap we’ll have to make soon. All loops are circa 90-100 meters long so I’d like to connect the ASHP directly to the slab avoiding a buffer too. Question: If I were to data log temperatures does anyone have any advice on what products to use that don’t require coding, are relatively cheap and what number would you advise getting and what to record? Do I go all out and record the flow and return temperatures for example? My biggest achievement: For the winter period 2021-2022 when everything was turned off in Spring the total units used was 3,347.1 when PHPP has a number of 3,349.0. Other years were higher or lower but that year was bang on!
    6 points
  3. I paid for the application in August 2023 to allow me to get on with getting the footings in for the extension (and have them inspected). I then spent 3 months maybe, doing the plans in the evenings. I finally submitted them in October. They came back after about 6 weeks and asked for some ammendments (that are included above) and finally got approval 19th December 2023.
    5 points
  4. Latest "from the mound" picture. (could have been taken back in August, but I forgot 🙂
    5 points
  5. aaaaaand relax. I even managed to get the EPDM on today a couple of mins before the heavens opened. The engineer is scheduled to come tomorrow to set the foundations out but may cry off due to the incoming rain. If so he says he will come on Sunday. Digger Tuesday if the warranty company get their shit together. Southbank1-210748-210804.mp4
    5 points
  6. I've had the same one for 45 years. Still think that I am a lucky chappy. 🤣
    4 points
  7. Roofs completed, gables built on one house and half way up the other. The roofers start on Monday after a delay in deliveries due to me changing the roof tiles. I had both the LABC and the warranty inspector out on Tuesday and they have passed the houses off with flying colours. 😀 The LABC inspector was there for about 7 minutes and the warranty inspector for about 2 hours. I now know all about the LABC guys divorce 😂 Onwards and downwards now. I can't wait to see the back of the scaffolding and regain access to the rear of the site for the landscaping before I say goodbye to the forklift. My next battle recommences with the DNO. It is now 19 months since i first applied for electric connection quotes and I feel that I am no nearer getting connected now than I was 19 months ago. Oh and I just had another council tax bill for a building that was demolished in July.
    3 points
  8. 1 ready for UFH 1 to go. UFH going in on the first plot tomorrow and Sunday 🙄🙄 No church this week.
    3 points
  9. After some snow and heavy rain, I can see my design in action, physics doing what physics does. This is the 1st pond that has now overflowed with run off. This level has raised about 400mm. Although not finished. This has now overflowed into a gulley / pipe, that when it's finished will be concreted and form a better overflow outlet. The last pic is the new pond and the darker green shade in the water is the overflow water entering the pond. The new pond rose around 150mm so around 1500l.
    2 points
  10. 89sqm. it will be less than that when we get the VAT return
    2 points
  11. Why can’t you fit the kore in place , shuffle it until you are happy then fix 4x2 strip at corners screwed down to keep it in place. if the blocks are put in place first you are at the mercy of the bricklayer’s accuracy.
    2 points
  12. Having lost family members during our build and having been made redundant myself and turned 60 last year, I know how you are all feeling. You'll get through it, and the build is a great way of re-focusing. Keep going
    2 points
  13. If you have any more floors like this to do, then there are other possible constructions that will be more user- friendly. On the bright side. The land was free and you've got PP. You are willing to learn. The concrete hadn't gone in. Sharing more on here will help, but make your blog less interesting.
    2 points
  14. First time DIY self building and my fault to be honest. Hubby knows how to build, but not really how to read plans, he's used to be told, do this, do that and then do the other. Plans are down to me and I've been so busy at work that I didn't stop long enough to even think. Not again, I've spent this time going over everything again to check, double check and then do it again. This wall was also supposed to be under-pinned, but when we took out the floor as per the plans the walls turned out to not be attached to the existing foundation and after one fell down it became clear that this bit of the build needed to be done from scratch. This also necessitated involving the LPA as the existing plans were for single skin and EWI not a cavity wall, which is why there wasn't enough bearing space. The other option given us by SE was to put in secondary foundation inside what we had poured, but then that had to be attached with horizontal rebar and vertical mesh as well as the existing mesh. So, knocking down the cavity wall up to damp proof was a much easier option. The shear links are attached with metal ties, bit like cable ties, but metal in the middle of each mesh, so that side is 100mm so shear links are also 100mm. There are also 'foam' expansion sheets around the wall at 20mm thick to allow for any movement of the slab / mesh. Barn conversions are definitely much more tricky than new builds.
    2 points
  15. I have been logging temperature data from a dozen probes across the system: hall temp, the outs and returns from the slab, the willis, etc. ever since we started using the CH system after we moved in in late 2017. I have started an exercise to mine this data in order to calibrate a simple heating model which gives a reasonable fit to actual house performance. Take an example, the current heating algo computes the predicted heating time, and when the external temperature is low, this is invariably more than 7 hours, so this first 7 hours is dumped in during the E7 off-peak window , with any remaining heat only added if the internal hall temperature fall below a preset (~22°C). This sometimes doesn't happen if the hall was slightly warmer than average at the midnight rollover. So I have a bunch of days where the external temp was ~5 °C and the house was only heated from 0-7 UTC. I can average these out to get a typical house response curve for this initial condition. Ditto when the external temp was ~10°C, say, though in this case I need to group by actual heat input. as the CH system is on for less than 7 hrs. Also in warmer periods, the unheated slab still typically hovers at about half a degree cooler than the hall; this is because the ground is at ~10 °C below the slab, so there are still heat losses to ground, this set of reading can give me an estimate of these. Anyway, I'll crank the numbers over this next week or so, and the next post here will be on what I've found. One quick spoiler: my actual overall heat losses are about 50% more than what the simple JSH approach predicts. So the as-built house is only low energy rather than true passive-class: we need ~20-25 kWh daily top-up in the peak winter months instead of 10 kWh or so, but this is still many factors less than a typical 2018 house of our size.
    2 points
  16. Update….beam and insulated block time. I didn’t know what time they were coming so I went alone and planned to wait there and unload them when they arrived and go and catch up on paid work. The weather wasn’t good so I opted to stay and move the beams around on my Tod. Not a bad day in the end but I was ready for a pint when I got home. Today was a bit slow. The insulated blocks fly in but the cuts take a while. Hopefully we will have one house completed tomorrow. A76C3DCA-8293-4180-BEC6-3F803568637B.MOV
    2 points
  17. Brickwork tomorrow / Weds depending on when everything arrives on site. Wellies are at the ready.
    2 points
  18. I do like a Demo video. This one was put together by my daughter. Last one I promise. Today we move on to excavations. 4a4c26f5-54e6-439f-8e26-4670eb6b9664.mp4
    2 points
  19. Nearly done and it’s raining. Just in time for 10 loads away on Monday. That’ll keep the dust down.
    2 points
  20. I just love a hash 4af3a3b61d25366b7b1efa7923eea289.mp4.2618557127cdcfbcb915c3701917b219 Bit extreme, I would have just redecorated.
    2 points
  21. with a little help from his friend. 😉 IMG_0405.mov
    2 points
  22. ICF arrived today 😁
    2 points
  23. 10mm polycarbonate, I used 6M long polycrub use 7M Bends no problem the pain is connecting the joint strips
    2 points
  24. Thought I'd round this off with a bit of info on running costs. The last few days have been fairly Windy in the static, and the heating has been used a lot. I bought a plug in WiFi energy meter to have a look at the power usage. Below is the screen shot. It seems to use between 5 and 45 watts in standby. The unit was in standby when this screenshot was taken. And using 7.03W. I'm quite happy. We run the unit to set temp of 20 Deg and leave the internal doors open In the static to try to get the rest of the van warm. Appreciate anyone's thoughts on this.
    2 points
  25. I can support the looking after yourself comment above. I’ve been doing 12 hour plus days on-site 6 days a week since March. I’ve also been training since December for the Cateran Yomp in two weeks (54 mile walk in 24 hours) I am knackered. However good effort in getting going. Well done.
    1 point
  26. Excellent start. Well done. That sentence stuck out for me. That idea - future proof - was one of our design key ideas. Little did I know at the time that I in a couple of years time, I was going to have two new hips: both done in 6 months. The dual-use bedroom / office built next to the accessible wetroom has made a huge difference. It has (Ithink) speeded up my recovery a good deal. For example, stepping over the bath rim (as would be required in our last house) would have been painful or impossible. And certainly riskier. I think of us as being fairly hard-core selfbuilders. Nowhere near as much so as you are though. For example Keep fit and take enough rest, eh? Almost impossible, I know, but I didn't, and suffered at least a year's delay.
    1 point
  27. Just had to get rid of some of the skew.
    1 point
  28. That is a beautiful looking home you built yourself. Well done 😀
    1 point
  29. I really like it. I love the Huf Haus look. My wife’s uncle built a Huf Haus 10 years ago and it looks as new and fresh now as it did when it was built. He is a very accomplished architect (retired) so could have designed his own house but didn’t.
    1 point
  30. During a kitchen / diner knock-through refurb, the customer asked me, "What do you think of the tiles Nick?". I said "If you like them, what the feck has it got to do with me?". It's your house, and your design, done the way you like it, and you're the one paying for it. Pointless asking what people 'think', I'd just say to ask 'the massive' here for constructive criticism; so you get feedback to hopefully illuminate any non-obvious faux-pas. Good choice with the Nudura, how far are you going with the upgrade to the rest of the original build fabric though?
    1 point
  31. Personally I think you’ve lost some of the character of the old house. I’m also not convinced with the flat roof parapet. It looks a bit unwieldy and out of place.
    1 point
  32. yes. the SEG80s. https://www.hallmarkblinds.co.uk/assets/trojan80-spec-sheets.pdf thank you. we like it to and it casts lovely shadow patterns as the sun moves round.
    1 point
  33. Thanks all. Will discuss with new SE. Have an immediate problem with sale of old house though, easements rejected by buyer to water & broadband . We'll get there in the end but may have to re-advertize all over again. At least that gives time to submit fresh planning application!
    1 point
  34. I bear good news. Hornbeam are low water demand trees. At 7m you only need 1.1m depth of foundations. Your SE should have known this. Or perhaps they based the design on simplicity rather than materials required. Foundations can be stepped. Now is the time to brief your new SE with whether you prefer the screw method or conventional. Guessing £2k to £3k difference but I have not analysed it. More difference if you can use foundations at 1.1 ish for a lot of it.
    1 point
  35. Just a thought.. have not really examined all the detail but.. what about this line of thought.. You have a confined site, trees, it is in a bit of a hole, probable ground water and neighbours close by that could be "touchy". Good news is you have refusal at 2.6 m so lets say that is where we have something we can work off. But we need to know more about the ground water.. and how fast it will flow will you do trench fill. Could we do a test and use a sump pump? I would explore doing a trench fill 1.0 - 1.4 m in from the boundary. You look at the stand up time of the excavation, you are working in a safer zone (further away from the boundary and loads beyond the boundary / unexpected things that are more difficult to control) as not to close to the boundary so if things start to move you have more time to recover as opposed to getting complex by working right on the boundary. Also for example it takes you further away from the trees, primary roots etc and you have a "soft zone" to run all services around the outside. What you then do is cantilever your structural slab out to the boundary / where it needs to go and put the superstructure on the edge of the cantilever. We do this a lot when we are fitting a commercial building into a gap site. I have no objection to using screw piles myself but they are not so good at carrying sideways.. wind loads.. a good circular pile has more lateral bearing area against the soil. But I would alway look at the simple stupid first even if just to rule out.. like trench fill and a cantilever slab. Is this worth exploring for you?
    1 point
  36. Can you show us that statement please? I'm hoping for your sake that this is a misunderstanding. It is unfortunately common for a ground report to summarise the worst part. They aren't designers. Then the SE works to that. I made my living partly from finding such overdesigns. These shrubs are zero risk. How far away is the hornbeam? It says on a drawing "clear trees", so that seems to be wrong.
    1 point
  37. Bringing us back on topic? Like herding cats no
    1 point
  38. These piles would be encased in concrete at the top, then very tight within the clay beneath. Rust needs oxygen, so these should last a very long time.
    1 point
  39. Interesting. Please keep us informed how this proceeds. In summary, the screw system will cost a fair bit more but reduce hassle? Please remember that, from your SE information, the foundations will not be 2.5m deep everywhere, some being distant from the trees. It reduces to 1.3m, and you will still be digging at least 0.5 out to concrete around the screws. It's up to you of course. Make sure you get a fixed price for the screws and the SE knows your plans....I am guessing that SE will add reinforcement to the concrete, and the groundworker will have to hand dig around the screws....but I look forward to hearing more. One more concern. How long have the trees that were in the way, been gone? It takes a year or so for the ground to adapt to the reduced water demand.
    1 point
  40. https://www.screwpile.ie/housing This page has some residential links. From memory when I looked at their Facebook (before I quit it) the screw piles were to bolster a concrete ring beam. I toyed with the idea of a screwpile only foundation. I liked the lack of concrete and speed and novelty. I quickly ran back to concrete when I saw the cost and our ground didn't need any special treatment. Rain . LOL. Very occasionally it doesn't rain is probably a better way to put it. It depends on site value I guess but if you had to put 2.6m concrete "walls" into the ground it would seem a missed opportunity not to put a floor in too. A sump and pump and you're done, even just as storage area/plant area. A contractor built me a 4.6m X 17.7m X 2.7m deep slurry pit in 2020 for €17.5k.
    1 point
  41. https://www.screwpile.ie/ These guys are in Cork. I have no experience of them however. I think screw piles were actually invented here. If you do end up with a 2.6m dig I would consider a basement. Otherwise in good weather you should be able to dig trenches that deep and simply fill them with concrete to ground level. It'll cost more in concrete but it'll be quick. I don't know what the engineering term for this is. Be careful of trenches collapsing. Typical reading on here has suggested that going direct to a basement company's engineer or a piling companies in house in engineer can save a small fortune as they are much more au fair with the specifics than a general SE.
    1 point
  42. So diy or change. In case an explanation of basics helps.. There will be a load coming down your structural walls, measured in kN/m. Say it was 50kN/m and the ground capacity is 100kN/m2, then you make the concrete foooting 0.5m wide. But if the capacity is 50kn/m2, then you need a base of 1m width. The floor is separate and can sit on much weaker ground. If your project is several stories high, with very big rooms, then the wall loadings will be very high, and it would become technical and expensive. Are you sure the se wants to dig out the whole area.? What woild go back in? Plesse be aware that we don't know your circumstances and haven't seen your se report or drawings. Btw, piles will push through the soft clay very easily.
    1 point
  43. It's worth getting a few quotes for piling, they varied widely for our job. We ended up with a company owned by a structural engineer, so they threw the calculations in for free and were the most reasonable. There were no vibration issues. Lots of mucky spoil to dispose of tho', so cost that in.
    1 point
  44. What about drilled piles? Thought they weren't too bad for vibration. https://www.self-build.co.uk/piled-foundations-explained/
    1 point
  45. To be cautious, I would also go with the piles assuming that the 2.6m wasn't just a single lump of something / wait for Tanners to catch up (bug them a bit) / do my planning re-application in the meantime. The latter should just be a case of filing the same docs with a prominent one page note explaining the history. You should be able to download and check the old docs and file them again yourself in an hour or so. Check with your planning officer that nothing has changed and ask nicely for the LPA to process the re-application quickly? Probably other things for you to be getting on with anyway - services?
    1 point
  46. I don't know the detail of course, but I think the design is cautious. 100kN/m2 is perfectly normal and takes standard footings. 70kN/m2 is not great but should be ok. Making footings wider spreads the load and is preferable to taking the whole area out. So I would be proposing standard trench footings at 1.3m. 70kN/m2 is also fine for a floor slab...nobody will fall through, otherwise it wouldn't be safe to walk in the garden. Therefore the ground between footings can stay in place. Yes have a chat with the BCO. What would be necessary is close inspection of the excavation as it proceeds, perhaps tending higher or lower as the ground is exposed. Perhaps the SE is avoiding the uncertainty, which some clients would prefer.
    1 point
  47. The thing that stands out to me is the 'refusal at 2.6m' - which suggests something hard and amply load bearing (and therefore helpful). You're using Tanners (as lots of people on BH do and given that they're based in Ireland)?
    1 point
  48. Looks like a great project - here is how we started:
    1 point
  49. I'm a huge fan of A2A since getting a couple of mini splits in my outbuilding. I've been meaning to thank you for your blog post because I started looking into the possibility of using A2A to heat our garage extension right after reading your post back in August. The clincher was the ensuing heatwave which made the room-in-roof unbearably hot. A Solar PV array has since gone up there and now the magic combo - Sun shines, room gets hot stays cool, is a dream come true. If it averages out at around the 7W you were metering, then that's nearly 25% of the total energy use this month. Seems a little high. But then again if it does the magic work of keeping everything up at 20oC for les than 25p a day then it's very hard to complain. I'm seeing consumption of around 2.5kWh per day for keeping around 60m2 cosy but I leave it on 24/7 so similar to yours at around 0.1kW/h Your system seems to be in what my Daikin units call "auto" mode. This switches between heating and cooling to achieve the desired set-point. Mine additionally has discrete cooling and heating modes which means the units turn off once the set-point is reached. This allows a little bit of under/overshoot but saves a small amount of energy. It also widens the available range for the set-point.
    1 point
  50. Who makes that and can you grab live data in it into a file.
    1 point
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