epsilonGreedy

Which is the point I have been trying to make for months if not years. The problem is there is a collusion between climate change activist organizations like the BBC and the wind industry to fool the general public into thinking we are making more progress with renewables than is the case. I am fed up with BBC journalists claiming that a new windfarm will supply all the electricity for a city like Edinburgh when the truth is that on a few days each year when there is half a gale blowing across Scotland the new wind farm will briefly provide the city with all its electricity. This is another trap people fall into. Perhaps there is a glossy brochure from a wind turbine manufacturer that claims their latest mega turbine operates at 50% capacity at a choice spot in the north sea, however the renewables industry has been operating long enough for it to be assessed on what it delivers today. Today those figures are something like 27% availability for onshore and 38% offshore. On any day or week the actual figure can drop to 5% or 10% as the current crisis illustrates. When Mrs Jones of Trawsfynydd lights her candle in the middle of a blackout this winter is offers no comfort to tell her "don't worry dear, in 30 years times when all the existing turbines have been replaced availability to have climbed to 50%.

Today a Government Minster claims... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58620167 About as reassuring as that other haggard 10 Downing Street phrase "the Prime Minister has every confidence in the Minister of". Is it time to start a thread on candle prices?

Thanks guys, as I suspected the real story is crafty suppliers trying to sell me what they have in stock today.

Do some of the smaller suppliers lack the infrastructure to read smart meters? I ask because when I get quotes from the smaller outfits they often state manual meter readings will be required.

I have had some odd conversations roofing suppliers this morning who all claim that 1.5m rolls of roofing membrane are not a regular stock item. They say pro roofers do not like using 1.5m wide rolls because they are too difficult to handle in wind. Is this true or are they steering me to 1m wide rolls because of a supply shortage with 1.5m rools?

Well spotted, at the moment the sloping truss is "hanging" there because the top block is missing. Currently it is supported by metal cup (sic) hanger attached to the side of the doubled truss under the end of the ridge. You are right, if I follow Plan-A as per the diagram I will need to run that sloping truss through a gap in the final course when laid. With my Plan-B I will need to slip a length of wall plate under it as I finish off the internal wall at a lower height. I want to do this before the roof is loaded with the weight of the natural slate covering. I expect the wooden roof structure will bow a few mill under the extra weight and so the sloping truss will contribute to the over all support. Err just going outside to check there is a vertical timber in that truss above the partition wall. Ok Back. No there is not. I need a Plan-C. The horizontal gap between the double truss and the partition wall by the right hand-drawn arrow is about 120mm. The ceiling level horizontal element of the sloping truss is slender probably 75mm x 38mm with no vertical timber immediately above. Hmm not good. That could be stressed too much if it sits tightly on top of the partition wall before the weight of the roof cover is added. Thinking, thinking... Plan-C. Ignore the official drawing, finish the partition wall with a wooden wall plate at a matching height to the external wall. Fix the independent ceiling joists over the toilet before the roof is felted because with a 30 degree slope it will be a pain to fix these to the external wall plate from the inside once the roof is covered. Augment the sloping truss with an extra vertical timber 122mm x 38mm aligned above the partition wall. Before bedding down the partition wall wallplate ensure the sloping truss floats just above wall plate without the roof covering weight, route wallplate if necessary. Fix the slates to bring the roof up to final full weight. Observe the remaining floating gap under the sloping truss for a few months. When everything has settled and the wooden roof structure has fully sagged, knock a few opposing wooden wedges between the sloping truss and partition wallplate so that the partition wall contributes 20kg to 30kg of support to the hip end of the roof. Roof weight calc: The average slate weight is 1.7kg. Roof area is 16m2 Slates per m2 is 19.5 Therefore total roof weight is 19.5 x 1.7kg x 16m2 = 0.53 ton + 50kg lead ridge. Assume 1/3 of roof weight is in the hip end and 1/3 of the hip weight sits outboard of the wallplate thus canter-levers another 1/3 of the hip weight. I therefore I conclude the central weight of the hip that needs support is 60kg to 100kg. So not much to worry about ( the jack rafters are now at 300mm centres ).

I like that site. The Covid effect will make trend spotting difficult for a few years. The drop in nuclear generation was showing up in the data up to 2019 even before the recent batch of unscheduled permanent and temporary shutdowns.

Floor bounce is another consideration plus the equipment needed to move long/heavy concrete floor beams.

I am thinking of deviating slightly from my technical drawings but before doing so I am wondering if noise attenuation over the top of an internal block wall is the motivation for the current drawn design. In the diagram below the internal block wall, between entrance hall and the downstairs toilet, is half a block higher than the main external wall wallplate. I intend to build the wall only up to the wall plate height of the external walls which will make it simpler to add some ceiling joists across the 1m width of the toilet. These joists are needed because this section of the ceiling is under the hip end and hence missing the truss joists to fix plasterboard to. If the internal dividing wall is topped off with some wooden wall plate then the ceiling joists can be laid across both the external wall and internal wall wallplates between the two arrows and anchored with some metal framing clips. Am I missing any good reason for building the internal wall just above ceiling plasterboard height, possible noise attenuation?

This thread prompted me to do a bit more reading. Previously I predicted blackouts in the mid 2020's, but now this coming winter is starting to look a bit iffy. https://www.ft.com/content/7c31ca15-aa4f-4a32-bb90-ebc1341ed374 The UK also in effect operates a “just-in-time” approach to gas supplies. The UK and parts of continental Europe are more reliant on wind turbines for electricity generation, but remarkably still weather in recent weeks has slashed wind’s contribution to the grid. That has largely been backfilled by natural gas, boosting demand for the fuel. “It’s far from inconceivable that we could have a problem in the event of a very cold winter.” I think it is time to boost my own onsite gas storage facility from 4 x 47kg gas bottles to 6 bottles.

The Beast of Bodmin is a long way from home. Atleast you are not looking at cloven hooves.

We have already done that, currently coal is generating 3% of our electricity. Do we have much more coal capacity to fire up beyond the current 1GW? You say offshore wind is more dependable which is true however the availability capacity of offshore wind is still well below 50%. For most of the past month wind power has contributed 10% of its BBC Headline installed capacity. I think the consumer price outlook is very turbulent until the latter end of the decade. Hinkley C will, fingers crossed, start contributing 3.2GW from 2026 and a further doubling of wind capacity will make a meaningful dent in the UK gas consumption.

I thought you were just teasing him. There ((2 x 2 x 2) - 1) mis-capitalizations of mwH and kwh. I have only used half them so far, much fun ahead.

The existing easements with other neighbours should not preclude a technology upgrade, hopefully their Deeds define the septic tank in general terms and would allow the landowner to swap out the installation with a replacement providing it provides the same service to the other properties. Although easements are not shared across properties they can be written with clauses that cascade down a chain of land splits as say a developer sells of each property and retains the remaining land briefly until the next house sells. Deeds and easements can last for 100's of years hence a highly prescriptive maintenance schedule in the Deeds would be problematic. You could try to separately bind the named householders into a maintenance contract for a fixed term. There is also the concept of an "easement by contract" which effectually creates the benefit of an easement defined in Deeds by proxy though a contract. This is a niche subject and cannot arise from a contract that defines a shared benefit because an easement is a specific grant from one property to another. I reckon you need pro guidance on this one and in my experience the cost of sorting out a dispute arising from neighbours interpreting infrastructure rights differently will be more expensive than legal clarity from the outset.

You are right about the price, I would save £150 even with their top-end 165 gsm Vent Pro. Trouble is even roofing super store has this on a 1 month lead time.

There seems to be a growing shortage of 1.5m wide roofing membrane with very little available from the top quality brand names such as Tyvek's supro plus. The 185 grams per m2 green roof shield used on most small development near me is not available in 1.5m and neither is Glidevale's VP400. I can get hold of Klober's Forte membrane at 1.5m wide, this is only 145 gsm but claims to have an extra 4th layer of grid reinforcement. Klober https://klober.co.uk/storage/download/klober-membrane-guide-2021-web.pdf The same supplier also offered Permavent Apex claiming all the big sites have gone over to Apex. I have a 185gsm sample and it is very strong but disconcertingly it is both vapour and air permeable and it is easy to suck air through the sample sheet. I suppose the mass house builders like using an air permeable membrane because a still wet fast build can be made weather tight and then continue to shed moisture through an air permeable roof membrane while the house dries out.

Yes indeed, if I was @LakesDylan or one of his neighbours I would want the details added as an amendment to the deeds of all parties. The important legal principal is that these rights (easements) are attached to the land.

Beyond things you cannot control like geology, trees, heavy plant access, historic discoveries and gradients, then I reckon the greatest variable is your attitude to risk. Many self builders try to insure their foundations by spending money on test digs, soil samples, engineer designed foundations, rebar and slip sheets. I had an easy site where I did the setting out, the trenches cost £500 to dig minus the garage and the concrete pour at 600mm x 600mm required about 38 m3 at £84 a cube. One semi retired builder recovering from a knee operation helped me on concrete pour day. Job done.

You can achieve a lot with "bagged" pointing, white cement and a mixed granular sized sand that colours the white mortar and produces a rough granular finish when rubbed. I only learned about mixed granular sand after my walls were up even so I am pleased with the finish using bagged pointing, white cement and a sand with a rich yellow colour. There are other details where you can spend money to age a property: Roof drainage gutter hoppers. External soil pipes. Cast aluminium gutters. Trad chimney pots. A couple of courses of grey bricks in a chimney flare. Low rise window cills rather than 150mm commodity modern estate cills or even white painted concrete cills cast onsite. No window recess or full brick window reveal rather than mainstream half brick reveals. Fat walls up to knee height. Brick corbels at gutter height. Contrasting brick colour two or tree courses above ground level. Fan light above the front door. Wisteria growing up the front wall.

Is this planning term specific to the Republic or Ireland?

I think @SteamyTea is correct. He is saying the raw stored energy in one litre of heating oil is 10.35 KwH and a diesel generator can convert that into electricity with a 40% efficiency. A discussion on a canal boat forum claimed that an Eberspacer hot air heater outputs 5kWh of heat with an hourly fuel burn rate of 0.82l. Clearly oil fired central heating boilers are the technology of the future ?

A BBC Dr Who fan could explain.

Sounds encouraging and yes Robinsons are much cheaper. PM will be sent.

I would like to encourage a little trickle air ventilation through the attic space via the eaves and I decided not to fit top of fascia vents under the eave support tray as I did not like the idea of drawing air into the attic via the bottom of the gutter. Just a personal hunch that I have not seen discussed elsewhere.

Before I close up my wooden box eaves I need to fix lengths (4m to 10m) of mesh along the small gap where the 20mm thick wooden soffit butts up against the facing bricks. My brickie did a good job, the wall is straight and the typical gap is small (< 3mm), however my heritage bricks have larger irregularities that would allow a nesting wasp to crawl up through in some places into the eave box. My proposed solution for this is to run a length of mesh along the inside of the eave at the soffit to brick joint. Soffit mesh is available in stainless steel and plastic. My inclination at the moment is to buy a trial 10m roll of 50mm wide stainless mesh because I think once it is fixed in position I will be able to shape the mesh further into some of the irregular dips in the facing bricks. These are the products I am looking at: Plastic = https://www.amazon.co.uk/Suregreen-Plastic-glazing-insects-entering/dp/B00H0KBE4E/ SS = https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stainless-Insect-Mesh-1-31mm-0-28mm/dp/B077XY88DP There are also plastic comb products available but these seem to be intended to fit a vertical gap under profiled tiles. Note to experts: Due to indecision on my part the soffit does not rest on the top course of facing bricks because I could not give the brickie a desired height for the wall so he went an extra course higher.