SteamyTea

There are a few things that can be checked and adjusted to improve performance. First things first, what did your energy survey say about your heat loads?

Not so bad then. It usually takes 3 months for all the paperwork to be done.

As it took you so long to sell that place, does that mean you have to pay CGT on it?

Can you please expand on that?

Has every single one of them always been owned by non locals? Who sold these properties to the business people? Apparently we have the same 'problem' here. It is not so much the price of property, it is not excessive in absolute terms (about the same as Milton Keynes). What is the biggest problem is the majority of jobs in the tourist industry are minimum wage, and zero hour contracts.

With any modular or off site building method, you are taking a huge financial risk. There have a been a few people on here that have been caught out to the tune of several £10ks. Masonry is alright, but rather old fashion and not very airtight. Stick build on site would give you the greatest flexibility and your 'noise' fears are really down to the design, not the material. Both masonry and timber work do rely on having the right skills in your area. Furniture fits them better.

PVGIS is your friend here.

Stuff I have done has lasted more than 45 years so far. Generally it gets taken down before it fails. I hear good things about this sort of product. https://www.everbuild.co.uk/products/roofing/roof-repair/aquaseal-liquid-roof/ I have never applied it, but we had the shop roof done with some a couple of years ago and it is still holding up as far as I know.

Having been in the GRP business and had an interest in it for over 50 years, I have never heard of it. Did then give a product name?

Heat capacity is a really simple concept, confusion comes about because it get mangled beyond belief. Some of this mangling is actually physical i.e. we change the shape of a heated object, and other mangling is with words i.e. not knowing much about the subject. I like to stick with the physical, it is easy and, more importantly, you can put descriptive units to it. To start with, let us look at the two types of heat capacity. Specific Heat Capacity Specific Heat Capacity (cp, SHC) is based on the mass of the material and how much energy (J, joule) it takes to change the temperature by 1 K (kelvin). This make for very eas-3y to understand units, but can cause confusion because it is often assumed that the temperature, K, is the important part of the formula and has to be what governs the amount of energy that all materials can store. J.kg-1.K-1 Different materials have different SHCs and at first sight do not seem to make much sense. Air has a higher SHC than granite, and water can experience 3 different SHC in one day. Air = 1.012 kJ.kg-1.K-1 Granite = 7.10 kJ.kg-1.K-1 Timbers can be very confusing White Pine = 2.5 kJ.kg-1.K-1 Oak = 2 kJ.kg-1.K-1 Balsa = 2.9 kJ.kg-1.K-1 Water(steam 372K) = 2.03 kJ.kg-1.K-1 Water (liquid 298K) = 4.18 kJ.kg-1.K-1 Water(ice 263K) = 2.05 kJ.kg-1.K-1 The reason that water, and most materials for that matter, has 3 different SHC is because it changes phase and during that change, the energy absorbed or released can be huge. Volumetric Heat This is based on the volume and is usually the more useful unit (cv, cpv, VHC) to use and has the formula J.m-3.K-1 It is just the product of the SHC and material density (ρ, Rho, D). Density is the mass of a material by unit volume, kg.m-3 Taking typical London brick as an example. c = cp x ρ cpv(brick) = 0.84 [kJ.kg-1.K-1] x 1845 [kg.m-3] c = 1,550 kJ.m-3.K-1 As an ordinary London Brick is 0.215m x 0.103m x 0.065m and ignoring the mortar mix (cp = 0.96 kJ.kg-1.K-1, ρ = 2080 kg.m-3), an area of 1 m2 will take approximately 155 kJ to change in temperature by 1 K. Depending on the starting conditions i.e. the outside and inside air temperatures, the mean starting temperature of the brick, the thermal conductivity and the time taken to change, the thermal conditions change that 155 kJ number because of the thermal conduction losses. That is it really, the main things to remember, to save confusion, is that one must specify which heat capacity is being used i.e. by mass or volume, are any phase changes happening i.e. plaster drying out, and make sure the units are shown.

My parents had a holiday in Peru, they said the villages with Pushmi-pullyus in them smelt really badly.

Smaller pans can topple of the gas. Look about as good as a camping stove.

The fact it is not made any more says it all. It is hideous, and borderline dangerous. I suspect that the reason you cannot get it is because Electrolux took it of the market.

Could add a few degrees to the winter temperature as well.

They never come off, it is Cornish National Dress after all.

I like this sign of spring, though it is probably only temporary.

Catches the low winter sun better.

U = 1 / R U = 0.25 W.m-2.K-1

Just had a quick look at my energy monitor, yesterday I used 5 kWh, a week ago, it was 22 kWh. Down to the small storage heater, and in Moron Gardens, flowers are coming out, and the fields are being cropped for daffodils.

Why we should really use the joule as the unit for energy. There would be another advantage of using the SI derived unit in that you cannot be short sold energy. Take filling up a car, or buying timber. As they are volume based i.e. a litre or cubic yard, it is affected by temperature, you really do get less energy out of a litre of fuel in the summer at some pumps.

It has been a lot warmer this week, which is nice, but not so great for doing comparison testing. While my house stayed within half a degree (17.4°C instead of 17°C) the outside air temperature was 8.5°C warmer (8.3°C compared to -0.1°C) over the test period (20/01/2024 to 24/04/2024). But no matter, I still run the tests with just an air void and the void filled with a product called Fillite, which is hollow microspheres made from silica. Basically the same pattern was observed with the two samples performing in a similar manner. The temperature differences, within the samples, are different with the air void showing a mean ∆T of 1.1°C and the Fillite at 0.7°C. The slope of the trendlines was less, but not significantly so. The slope of the Air line is 0.1, which means that for every 1°C change in the temperature difference in the overall temperature, the sample only changed by 0.1°C The Fillite was 0.15, so better. The Clingfilm slope was 0.14, so almost as good as the Fillite. The Aluminium Foil was 0.2, so the best and twice as good as just an air gap. So there we have it, possibly. A bit of tin foil creates a greater temperature difference over the temperatures samples, even of the overall temperature differences do not see so different. A small change, of a small amount, equates to a very small change.

Why not use blown in cellulose.

@Garald has recently finished his renovation, he may know a trick or two.

Before getting bogged down in arithmetic and heat pump settings, do you know how much insulation is under your floor where the UFH is?

Welcome Ian Maybe a bit more context is needed, who has tasked you?, why have they tasked you, I have only worked on the periphery of the building industry as a supplier/installer. I found the majority of people in it a bit too 'laddish' and generally under educated.