epsilonGreedy

Your comment only has relevance in another context. I was responding to @SteamyTea's assertion that he feels entitled to attack any opinion and it originator if the opinion has not been proven by the scientific method. If a growing number of humans adopt his principal the world will descend into a very dark place.

Would you have kicked the philosophers of ancient Greece for theorizing about the existence of the atom? 2500 years ago belief in the atom was just an opinion that could not be proven for 2500 years. What about the founders of the USA who created a Bill of Rights and a remarkable new constitution. Should they have been attacked for stating a non provable opinion?

Not sure about the first but NASA is a prime example. The IPCC reports from the 1990s provide the evidence of data tampering. Back then the IPCC published reports showing the medieval warm period, the mini ice age and the early 20th century warm period but in recent years they have been manipulated out of existence.

Your graphs fail to highlight the warm weather of the 1920s and 1930s or the cold period in the 1970s that triggered Ice Age alarmism at that time, so clearly another case of data tampering by climate change scientists.

Have you personally encountered any global warming?

Not really in the case of 4.2 timber wall plate along a 20ft wall. The wall plate and straps are there to stop the roof trying to lift off like a aircraft wing during storm force winds. A shallow pitch hipped roof creates more aerodynamic lift than a regular roof. Have you checked how the rafter ends are fixed to the wall plate? Re. a solution. As per others, jack the ridge up a bit and add some joists. The wall seems low, what ceiling height will result if the extra joists are fixed at wall plate height? If too low fix them higher as @joe90suggests, I'd suggest 1/3 of the way up towards ridge height. Your structural ring notion has some merit at the 4 corners where the hip rafters meet the wall plate. Google for "NHBC hip rafter dragon tie". This should find a page showing designs for fixing the hip rafters to eliminate outwards slipping movement.

Buy him a book on roof structure design for Christmas because there is a gap in his knowledge.

Contact your conveyancing surveyor and ask him to visit to explain how he missed such manifest structural deficiencies. What type of tiles do you have on the roof? I ask because with this information the weight of the roof can be estimated.

@patpGiven such a stressful situation you have to act in your own best interests and that is to delay or even torpedo the sale. Your priority is to maintain a warm and comfortable home for any convalescence in future months. A touring caravan over the two toughest winter months is fundamentally unsuitable for someone dealing with serious disease and would constitute a medical impediment to recovery. Time to tell the rest of the world to sod off and act selfishly even if that is not your normal self. If the situation is presented as a 3 month delay to the buyers they might decide to hang on rather than start a fresh purchase cycle. Try to demonstrate to the buyers that you have a feasible plan to move out by April into the new build even if part complete.

Not really a headache, it is a routine and assumed part of the task for a brickie to do this when laying courses near ground level after the installation of a beam & block floor. One tip on the vent spacing. Mark the position of door apertures to give the new brickie a chance to shuffle a vent left or right to avoid having one positioned in full view at a doorstep.

I want to quickly chill the surface of a few bricks before I attempt to scrape some glue dribbles off the brick surface. Is there product on the market that squirts a non marking liquid that will chill as it evaporates? The glue is D4 foam floor glue and recently I noticed my finger nail could scrap the glue off the brick more effectively now the ambient temperature is lower than the last experimental scrapping. My current plan is to freeze dry the glue and try to lift the dribbles off mm by mm with a pointed metal dental scraper. The brick face is textured, semi sandy and these bricks form an internal feature brick wall

Not seen one of these before. Would I drill a hole towards the lower edge of the problem wobble slate and secure this rivet to a batten below? I guess is this is covered by the roll top lead flashing apron there is less of a concern about a leak through the hole.

I am leaning towards this solution. I might amend @markc's advice for starting at the hip as follows: Start at the abutment and fix the eave row all the way to the lower end of the hip. Mark a reference line on the battens starting between two eave row slates upwards a point close to the end of the ridge/hip junction. Fix a triangle of slates up towards the ridge aligned to batten marks. As the triangle of fixed slates gets closer to the hip, loose fix a few slates to identify the problem cut slates and then fix any intermediate battens before the extending triangle of fixed slates covers the rafters the intermediate batten will be nailed to. If the height of the intermediate batten does not support a cut slate snugly tack a shim of code-3 or code-4 lead around the batten to raise its height.

I am keeping my options open for fitting a wood "mopstick" batten along the top of the hip rafter around which the roll top lead flashing will be formed. I could follow your advice if using conventional capping slates down the hip, even so the square sides of hip top lathe sit a few mm higher than the main battens that intersect with it. For the cut hip slates to sit level on the hip-top lathe I would need to route a generous radius along the edge.

I did some reading on this and the NHBC or similar say the minimum seat for a slate on the top batten is 8mm. I think my average 15mm, the photos are bit deceiving. But anyhow good point I should be better, I was 30 slates into the job before I realised many of my slates are not cut square along the bottom edge and in the early stages of the job I was too focused on slate alignment along the bottom edge of adjacent slates. I will focus on maintaining a minimum top batten seat going forward. I cannot see that working. The pre drilled nail holes are about 200mm below the top of a slate hence a slate is fixed to the batten below and not the batten where the top of a slate rests. As a consequence of this the top half of each batten cannot be covered because the next row of slates up the pitch will need to be nailed into the uncovered top 50% of each batten,

I started at the abutment seen in the background because I thought it was important to commence with full width slates alternating with slate and a halves. Also the eave slate row worked out nicely where it met the the lower end of the hip rafter. The geometry and cuts of the next three rows was pleasing as well. The problem with a 30 degree pitch roof is that at the hips a few courses work out well using regular slates plus a few slate and a halves. Then progressively higher up the pitch the underlying bond pattern of the rows slides relative to the hip rafter then (guess) every 6 rows results in an unsupported wobbly slate. My hunch is that regardless of the ultimate implications at the abutment by giving priority to the hip slate cutting geometry, no left of right adjustment will allow all cut slates to reach their top batten along the hip. The more I think of it, the lower the pitch of the roof the more problem tiles. A difficult cutting angle for sure and fixing will be a problematic if I don't want to punch extra nail holes through the membrane. Below the green membrane I had already fixed lathes to the side of the hip rafter to ensure the main battens running across over the membrane are well supported below where these battens meet the hip rafter. Ooo now you talking, I like this idea though I will need to lift a few of the already fixed slates to ensure this extra intermediate batten can be nailed to 2 or 3 rafters below. Lucky I went for 300mm rafter centres in the end.

My first small trial roofing project with natural slate is going well but now part up a hip rafter I have a wobbly slate as shown in Photo-1. The geometry of the cut slate results in one problematic slate whose top does not reach the batten above, as a result it can flip upwards as demonstrated by the marker pen in the photo. The concern I have is that wind will get under the lower edge of the wobbly slate and lift it until the slate cracks or the fixing nails fail. Photo-2 illustrates one idea I have for a fix. The full slate under the spirit level would be trimmed by about 70mm vertically to the left of the level to free up some unoccupied batten along the top, then the wobbly cut slate would be replaced by a special wide slate-and-a-half that would be wide enough to reach the top batten and hence be supported to prevent the flip up risk. Photo-3 shows another solution. The ruler is positioned along the line of the roll top lead flashing that will be fitted over the length of the hip rafter. The weigh of the code-4 or code-5 lead flashing should weigh down the lower edge of the wobbly slate to prevent the flipping action. I am not so convinced the lead flashing will be snug enough to prevent the wobbly slate from rattling and failing eventually. Swmbo suggested a dab of mastic glue under the lower edge of the wobbly slate. I am looking for a proper solution because I have more hips in the main roof and expect the slate cutting geometry to result in further slates that lack support from a top batten. p.s. my slates are 500mm x 250mm

I suspect you should be more concerned about heat loss via convection and airflow in the air gap behind the plasterboard formed around the dabs of adhesive. Many years ago @ProDaveobserved the drafts he encounters at wall plug and switch openings when he replaces a fitting. Also what blocks are you using? Some thermo blocks air quite porous to air and water.

Not according to @ProDavewho describes this setup as a "plasterboard tent". Is your question in the context of a masonry brick & block build?

Nope. I hope to get 350mm of fluffy stuff up on the loft. A 30 degree pitch creates a constraint for insulation above 300mm because near the eave it can bunch up and throttle air flow.

That won't achieve much if a mid EPC B home looses 4 degrees of heat overall overnight and so the UFH slab leaches energy into the air above it. I will have 170mm of PIR below the screed or maybe a bit less PIR and 20mm of something more squashy as a base lay to even out the bumps. Is 25mm of perimeter insulation enough for you?

What design remedies are available for my scenario as outlined above?

I thought those blessed with Passiv house type thermal performance kept their ASHP ticking 24x7 and the UFH slab at a constant temp? What overnight temperature drop do you experience up to 6am in the winter?

That's true but I also imagine that the "off at night mentality" can be attributed to experiences of living in an EPC band C or worse home where the overnight loss of heat is appreciable with associated bills. For example in my future house if I achieve a so-so band B EPC score and elect to turn the ASHP off between 9pm and 5am then I assume the ground floor UFH slab will drop significantly particularly if it is a thin-crust anhydrate pour of say 50mm. The ASHP will then work hard between 5am and 10am to restore the temp of the slab, in this case extra DHW demand could tip the ASHP into frosting.

A very interesting post, I might follow this advice. Re. the freezing, is this claim based on the fact that the most likely scenario for a freezing ASHP is early morning when the outside temp is lower and the ASHP is working hard to reheat the hot water cylinder?