Dreadnaught

What conclusion can we reasonably foresee? Are we expecting Polly to say something like: "Oh yes, I see what you mean now and the error of my ways. I will resign from my role at this company forthwith and cease the promotion of pseudo science"? I suspect that we have heard all that Polly has to say on this subject, shallow as her contribution has been, and we are in to repetition and the necessity of evasion. Or am I mistaken?

There are also gypsum moulded ones like these examples, but I am surprised by how fearsomely expensive they are:

In our local authority, there is a duty planning officer, a service intended to handle questions about how to navigate the planning system and to deal with the most minor planning questions. Its a free service. I spoke to them twice about the best planning strategy for my plot. On both calls (you can book a call or attend in person), to my delight as the conversation progressed the chatty duty planning officer freely volunteered an opinion about my proposal, which I had emailed in ahead of time, and even followed it up with an email afterwards confirming what she had said. As a consequence, I had received much of what I needed for free, and much more quickly (within a couple of days) than by going the route of a formal pre-app consultation (which I am led to believe have much longer lead times and are much more involved).

I am interested in the huge Agar Grove development of Passive House dwellings in Camden, London. I wonder, is anyone else interested in or connected with it? I will be keeping an eye on it. For those interested, more details here: https://www.hawkinsbrown.com/projects/agar-grove

Good point @ProDave. Oh actually, this should be in the Building Regulations forum, not Planning Permission. Could a mod move it?

A PYC tweet today: https://www.ukgbc.org/news/government-confirms-local-authorities-can-set-energy-standards-beyond-part-l-in-nppf/ My summary: The Government yesterday published its revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). Government said as part of the consultation: "local authorities are not restricted in their ability to require energy efficiency standards above Building Regulations". This implies local authorities can can set energy standards beyond Part L now, but just didn't realise it. I would love for a UK local authority to mandate something close to the Passive House standard.

I am interested to know whether this would add anything to using a WebKit Content Blocker (as I use). WebKit content blocking is fast, uses a compiled rules-based blocking engine (which can include the prevention of loading the offending content, and much more besides). My guess is that when using a MacOS or iOS device (iPhone or iPad) and using an up-to-date WebKit blocker with Safari, using Pi-Hole would neither offer superior blocking nor be faster. I am happy to be contradicted. (More details here about WebKit content blocking here: https://webkit.org/blog/3476/content-blockers-first-look/.)

With this somewhat enthusiastic dissection, we can now assess the internal qualities of the wall construction ?

Hi Russell, with your level of practical knowledge, I think that I for one would benefit hugely from reading your blog, particularly as you are doing almost everything yourself. And don't spare us the nitty gritty detail. And an occasional photo across your lovely lake would be a cherry on the cake.

Could the tubes be blinded, labelled only A and B with only Nick knowing which is which?

Welcome! Looks like you have lovely country views. And good luck with the start.

@Onoff @newhome, that's very kind of you. Thank you. However, I first need to work out a design for an apparatus that could conceivably work. That's quite a challenge for me as I have no engineering experience. I am starting from zero.

Yes, that looks like a promising idea. Thank you. Will research that.

Thanks to you all. To add: The purpose of this motorised sun shade is decorative and to reduce solar gain. But I am not interested in other solutions to reduce solar gain; my purpose here is to ask about how to build this motorised sun shade I am not keen on roller blinds. I am after a horizontal panel the slides over the skylight, powered by a motor and, I assume, sitting on rails This will likely be a DIY job reusing bits-and-pieces from other applications.

From a cursory reading of the Wikipedia page on Aragonite (a term with which I was not familiar), it is clear that Aragonite is a solid crystalline form of calcium carbonate. Its a solid mineral, a form of stone, not a compound in solution. I conclude therefore that the use of the word, Aragonite, above by Polly seems to be a misuse of the term for purposes associated with commercial marketing. To me, this whole thing looks like an example of pseudo science.

Congratulations on this step in your publications journey!

Calling the ingenious engineers on BuildHub! I have a vision for a motorised sun shade for my skylights: The skylights are completely flat, about 900mm x 2000mm, and will sit on a flat roof above my living room The sun shade will be a sheet of thin metal (or other suitable substance) bigger than the skylight through which is cut a pleasingly random pattern of holes to allow dappled light effect beneath The sheet of metal itself would be suspended horizontally perhaps an inch or two above the glass of the skylight without touching Importantly, the sheet would be mounted on motorised wheels so could retracted at will to allow the light to pour in I wonder, what off-the-shelf parts could be cobbled together to make this? My own first guess was the parts used for motorised sliding gates but I suspect there are better ideas. What do you think?

EPS insulation everywhere. I would worry about summer over heating. Its perhaps not necessarily the right place to mention this but the decrement delay of EPS is inferior to, for example, blown cellulose, making it harder to design a building that will remain cool in summer throughout the day. Of course, the passive-house standard only requires a crude limitation of over heating (<10 of hours over 25ºC per year), which is too high in my opinion, and the standard is silent on the subject of decrement delay as it is agnostic in regard to any building material or system. Otherwise it looks like an impressive system.

At its closest the new house is is 5030mm from the chestnut tree. In all, about 2/3 of the new house's foundations are outside the root-protection zone. Cannot post a site plan to a public forum quite yet. Should be able to do so in a few weeks time.

@jack good idea. But the neighbour/vendor is particularly concerned about light pollution. They have a raised patio at the house end of the garden, directly looking towards my plot and, despite it being in the middle of the city, the site is pleasingly dark at night. Thus any window directly pointing at them is to be avoided. Very good point. The roof lights need to be well designed to be a benefit and not a curse. I hope I am up to it.

@PeterW, thanks, I would dearly love to do that. Unfortunately, I am no-dig over a large part of the site because of the roots of a chestnut tree just outside the plot boundary. As a consequence, and because of clay about 3m down, the foundations will be: screw piles and ring beam over a 150 mm void to passive-house floor cassettes. At least that's the current idea. I have changed my mind a few times already. Although its no-dig, I think that no-dig does not mean no digging at all. I think 200mm might be permissible in the context of preparing the site. If anyone else has experience of this, I would be very interested to hear.

By window I mean a normal window in a wall, rather than the roof. It is because the plot is a garden plot and is overlooked by neighbours (one of whom has an effective veto on the design as he is the vendor). To compensate for the lack of windows in the walls I am planning multiple sky lights in the flat roof.

Original poster (OP) here. Wow, thank you all for your contributions! I have read through them twice. The consensus is clear: go for height. And I am inspired to try and do something imaginative with the ceiling/roof, not just a flat-roofed box.

@vivienz when I was speaking to PYC about scaffolding, they mentioned that they can erect a single story without scaffolding if needed, using a fork lift or something similar, and could place other safety features, such as crash mats and air safety mattresses, to protect any workers working at height without scaffolding. Hope you can find a similar solution. Great photos!

https://www.ecoledlight.co.uk/product-ranges/?