Roger440

Late to the party as always, but im all ears! Mechanical relays and timers. No electronics. Ace. Good as this thread is, its lost me a little on the electronics side. Have you expanded on this anywhere on the forum? Building opposite at work has a massive solar array thats never been connected. And isnt going to be. Im hoping they take it as part of the works they are doing. That aside, its occured to me i have a forklift. It has batteries. Is this another money saving opportunity?

I did most of mine with a needle gun. Air powered, so quite light. A trelawney one. Had it years, great piece of kit and can just get away with a 1.5hp portable compressor. Damaged the surface of the bricks a bit, but the prying the plaster off was doing the same as they were very soft. As it was being replastered, not really a problem

No one seems to care about litium leaking into the environment. Id go so far as to say its going to be an environmental disaster many years from now. All the batteries from phones, laptops and other consumer electrical stuff just goes straight to landfill. Eventually thats going to end up in the ground and our water.

When you say "solid" do you mean no cabity, just a single wall? In which case, proceed with caustion as its likely to have no DPC, so your airtightness may create a host of other problems. My main issue with them is noise. Some will say its not a lot of noise, minimal in some cases. But its noise all the same. Plus of course, and discussed here before, all the other buggers in the village with log burners filling up the valley with smoke. Which would then get pulled in!

Im with you 100% Knowing what i know now, id never fit a treatment plant over a septic tank given a free choice. Ive got a vortex. Which we fitted. The reality is it needs maintenance, uses electricity and makes noise. They all will to some extent. Septic tank is passive. Just sits there. Can you not fix the baffle, and renew the drainage field?

The early signs od damp would definitely concern. me. Its pretty much the only reason the salets would be coming through. Id take a guess and say the wall itself will be damp were you to check.

I have used limestone tiles. Pointed up with lime mortar. Without time on your sude i would view the limecrete as a "safer" option. Concrete might be ok, but might not be. Limecrete will give you the best chance. It is more expensive though.

The real problem is that the timber rots. But you cant see that until its too late. If i was buying a house with that done to a conventional roof, id by budgeting for a new one.

Hmmm. Bit of a contradiction? Worked fine, but have salts and discolouration. My conclusion i think would be different from yours on the fine bit.

I think you need to establish whats going on with the walls as well before making decisions. As ive posted before, i started with the issue of wet walls, properly wet, enough to rot the socket back boxes. House (well front part) is mid 1800's, no DPC, brick. humidity usually around 90% There were issues. The 2 obvious ones were high external ground level on the gable end, and an uncapped chimney. They were easily fixed. Externally, below the render, it was pointed in cement. Removed and redone with lime. Externally things improved. Following a visit by the river, was the push i needed to strip of the gypsum plaster. Having done that, again the wall dried but it remained damp above the floor. Floor was concrete on a plastic dpm. After some months and things improving no further, i decided time for a lime floor. So up it came. The effect was, frankly more pronounced that i could have hoped for. In the end i had no floor for a few months. Dried out completely. The walls and the soil. Ended up like a dust bowl! So why am i rambling on? Because, for me, it was obvious that the concrete slab was the issue that was driving the moisture to the walls. Which couldnt lose the moisture effectively. As you say, lots of conflicting info. Im working on what i see with my own eyes. The lime floor, on foamed glass, has been down since early Jan. No issues to date. Humidity spiked when the floor went in but now down to 50% No signs of damp in the walls. Granted its maybe a bit early to be 100% confident. But im reasonably confident. The real issue with making the decision is that to really understand whats going on means living with it for a while. For me that was no issue, but that doesnt work for most. Plus every case will be different. Some will get away with a concrete floor. Some wont. In my case it was pretty clear. But, why would you take the risk of concrete, other than cost? One advantage of the glass/lime was less excavation next to walls with bugger all foundation as the glass is also doing job of the sub base. Total depth from top of floor to soil, 225mm. Of course, if the house was damp even "as built" then of course rectifying later inappropiate materials isnt going to fix it anyway! No easy answers! Unless you are really keen and retrofit a dpc to the walls. Though thats probably only sensible if its brick with straight course. Old building walls id guess is stone?

There have been a couple or three very recent threads on exactly this. Id recommend you read them.

Correct. Just money "for chums".

Wood fibre lime plaster straight onto the brickwork Though i will caveat that by saying, the decision was ultimately driven by the fact that flooding is a risk. So things like woodfibre boards had to be ruled out as "if" it were to get wet, there might be a need for remedial works. Part of my self imposed remit was "operatin 4". Ie, withing 4 hours of the last drop of water going out the door, id be on the sofa with a cup of tea! That requires an arrangement that will be unaffected by a couple of hours of water at a depth of no more than 1 inch. It does, however, mean that heat loss through the exposed wall will always be significant. Without factoring in flooding, i would have probably use one of the direct onto the wall solutions based on my research. The challenge with all of this, is there are so many variables, and you probably wont know if you chose the wrong route until a few years later. But as mentioned earlier, i nearly bought a barn conversion that had been done with a cavity which wasnt without its problems. Though i will never know how bad they were. But it made me wary.

Agreed. This forum is excellent. A lot of very knowledgeable people. Unlike myself. Your comments about moisture transmission make sense. If you were attaching it to the walls. But you are not doing that. Surely, what you are now doing, is to all intents, no different to traditional cavity construction. Where the inner leaf is usually brick or block. And on newer construction, with celotax nailed to the inner leaf. So no meaningful moisture transmission possible. Im not convinced you are gaining much with woodfibre other than extra cost? Mind you, ive not really looked at from that angle as its not a route i went down. Hopefully someone will come along and point out why im wrong?

Whats the theory behind woodfibre rather than celotex etc, given that its isolated from the main building? Surely thats just more expensive? What constitutes "extreme" regarding the weather? Rain?

I quite like the look of it as it is. Pointing in lime i presume? One of things for me with a cavity is that its is, as you say, just a rainscreen. That does mean, however, the wall is detached from the house and it will always be a cold wall, so will encourage damp and moss growth etc. Though i cant say i had any practocal experience of that. I did look at a converted barn a decade or so ago. That had been done with a cavity. There were obvious signes of damp near most of the windows, i guess because at the point the cavity is bridged at this point? Didnt buy it so never found out. I spent hours reading, then used some common sense. If i was doing it again, id do exactly what ive done, so no mistakes to share. Which im pleased about.

Saveasteading is right, there has been lots of debate on this. He even seems to be coming round! Have a read of the 2 recent threads. Im firmly in "no cavity camp", assuming of course that wind driven rain isnt an issue. Which i guess its not, especially as, i assume you are putting the render back on the outside? Following the renovations on my house, the views of what one might call hardcore lime purists, so no modern materials that restrict moisture movement, do appear, im my case to have worked 100%. How damp is it? Im not sure id have layed concrete. Thats likely to drive the damp to the walls. Depending on how much there is? Have you looked here at their internal wall systems. https://www.lime.org.uk/ I found there periodpropert forum very useful specifically for "old stuff".

Thanks. Interesting setup. Ref the interest, doesnt really apply, as if i didnt spend that money, it would only be because im not buying that particular property. Buying an equivalent property with a connection, would, inevitably, cost more.

I know it doesnt include the capital cost. Rather depends on over what period you want to amortise them too. For someone like scottishjohn where the DNO want £20k to connect anyway, then its starts to look more sensible. I cant imagine it would ever make sense if you actually have a grid connection. I looked at it as i was looking at a property with no connection and no realistic praability of one. Certainly not for £20k! I assume you set up feeds into the grid too? How long do you anticipate your batteries lasting?

This is why i bought a diesel genset.

I strongly suggest reviewing the stormdry for its ability to allow water to pass OUT of the wall. The test results show a decent reduction in ability compared to untreated. There are better products on the market for a breathability perspective. Whatever you use, it IS a permaent solution. Its not like you can remove it afterwards! Dont forget, if you add any one layer of something non permeable, then doing any others is waste of time. Whatever buildup you install either in or outside, will only perform to layer with the least ability to breathe. That includes your pointing.

Yes, all of that. Update. Array was 6.8Kw. But you can have a bigger one if you want Lithium batteries. 30kwh Decent perkins genset too ui f i remember correctly?. He quoted the 15000i on this page but with a 6.8kw array. Mainly as i would have a releatively power hungry workshop. For a big house the 10000i is normally enough. https://www.energy-solutions.co.uk/products/easygrid Just need to add waste heat recovery from genset exhaust for the best possible result. The guy was really helpful. As he said, its like being connected to the grid from an end user perspective.

Just today i got a ball park cost for a turn key off grid system. Enough for a house and a workshop. £40K + VAT. That included everything required except installation. No user input apart from keeping fuel in the tank. What i found interesting was although a significant capital cost, was that that the cost per KWH was very low. In their best example, 9p per kwh. Ok, its PR and best case, but given current prices, and the near certainty they can only go one way, in your position may be worthy of consideration. Especially if its going to cost £15-20k for a grid connection. Who will then charge you 30p per Kwh for ever + price increases.. They quoted me the 15000 version, which is overkill for a house, so would expect a slightly lower cost. https://www.energy-solutions.co.uk/guides/off-grid-guide.pdf You just have to get past a diesel genset being part of the solution......................

No, no no! As per Simons post you are decoupling the wall from the "house" with all the issues that "might" bring.

I didnt quite want to put it like that, but pretty much, yes. Niether architects no building inspectors have to live with the consequences and subsequent costs. You do. Assuming you stay there long enough. Go and have a look at a few older ones that have been converted. I did. I wont buy one. Essentially having to undo work done to do again and pay the premium for a "done" conversion. People have been buggering up old houses with cement and gypsum for decades. Thats not debateable, its fact. Mostly builders, building inspectors and a bit of architect help too. The industry is rife with people with no understanding of moisture. Do a search on some of Jeremys post on condensation issues with SIPS for example. Im not expert, just an enthusiastic ametuer. But i know what i see. I also try to use logic. That helps too.