Jeremy Harris

I have also found that stranded isn't as easy to terminate with a standard (read cheap!) IDC punch down tool. I made up a couple of back to back socket leads as a part of a cable testing jig, when I made up some custom length patch leads (using stranded Cat 5e cable) and the tool tended to not always punch the wire down into the IDC properly and I had to revert to my old manual IDC tool, which wasn't really designed to fit the IDC connectors on Ethernet sockets.

Aluminium tape works fine. I ran lengths of it behind all our plastic pipe runs in the service void, so they show up on a pipe detector, and it seems to work OK when I've tested it with my el cheapo pipe/cable/stud locator.

Many years ago I was doing some trials in a Nimrod MR2. At the time, I'd just bought myself a "state of the art" personal organiser, a Psion 3c. I'd written a retarded weapon trajectory prediction programme using the version of Basic that was on the Psion, and this took in the basic trajectory parameters, parachute opening time, release height, speed and direction, wind speed and direction and release point. It calculated the weapon splash point, taking into account all the above, plus Coriolis effect. For the trial, I was sat next to the Tactical Navigator, operating some instrumentation kit and bomb bay cameras. For a laugh, for one release I challenged the Tac Nav to see who could predict the water entry splash point the quickest, him, using the Nimrod Tactical Computer, or me using a handheld Psion 3c. The Psion won hands down, and afterwards I worked out that it had a massively greater level of computing power than the Nimrod!

FWIW, my logic was that if an earth fault tripped out the whole workshop, then it wasn't going to be a significant problem, unlike in the house, where having half the house go out because of a single appliance earth leakage fault would be annoying. I could have gone for RCBOs instead of MCBs, but at the time I already had a box of MCBs available, so just used them. By chance they all match, too, and they match the 40 A DP RCBO. It's just the contactors that don't match, so might offend those who like to see a perfectly matching row of DIN rail devices in a box.......................

I also considered ICF back when we were trying to buy a plot where a house built in to the hillside would have been the only option that the planners would consider. I found back then that the cost difference between ICF and other forms of concrete construction (and the house we were then thinking of really had to be concrete, being partially earth sheltered) wasn't significant, both were much of a muchness. One thing I ran up against was the potential lack of internal heat capacity, because of the layer of low decrement delay insulation on the inner face of the external walls. The concrete core is effectively pretty well insulated from the house, and sits at a temperature that is, on average, around the mid-point of the temperature difference between the internal and external air temperatures. As such it cannot contribute anything useful to improving the internal thermal time constant, as there can never be any inward heat flow from the concrete core to the house when the outside temperature drops, because the concrete core can never get close to the house temperature. This was around the time when I started looking at how decrement delay and the internal thermal time constant was impacted by various construction methods, and back then, had we managed to persuade the chap to sell the land (we didn't) then we were going to go for externally insulated concrete, primarily to avoid the need to have an additional layer of relatively high heat capacity material internally to provide enough thermal buffering. Part of this was down to the site, though, as we had two and half walls, plus most of the roof, that would have had a fairly constant, all year around, temperature of around 8 deg C, which is an unusual condition and poses some challenges both in winter and summer in terms of internal temperature self-regulation.

The level of false information floating around about the foil on insulation board needs addressing. There isn't an issue with pouring concrete on foil faced insulation. Yes, the alkaline nature of the wet concrete might, possibly, cause some oxidation of the foil surface, but, as @jack has said, the foil isn't serving a useful function in this application anyway, other than at temporary protection for the insulation, so this is irrelevant. The foil, or often silver coloured paper, facing on some forms of rigid insulation is there for a few reasons. It makes the material easier to handle in the final stages of manufacture, transport and handling on site, and it provides a partially effective radiant barrier when exposed to an air gap, where it can reflect back some of the long wavelength IR and so help to reduce surface heating of the insulation from heat radiating on to it. This latter property can be useful in wall or roof construction, where reflecting back out excessive secondary solar radiation can help to improve the short decrement delay factor that all low heat capacity insulation materials have.

I found the easy to use 3D model that Pear Stairs use great. You just put in your dimensions and stair type and they send you a link to a rotatable 3D model of your staircase. Helps a lot when trying to visualise how a particular design will look. We used Pear Stairs, and would recommend them, as their service was excellent and they weren't particularly expensive, either: https://www.pearstairs.co.uk/staircreator/

I must get around to updating that blog soon! I've been too tied up fitting out the "perfect workshop", something that I'm sure will be impossible to achieve.............. What I can say is that airtightness deterioration with a timber lined construction, be it SIPs or some other form of completely insulation filled design, like our MBC twin stud, is not an issue at all. For example, have a lot of boat building experience with using the PU adhesive that is used to bond SIPs splines to the panels, and it simply doesn't degrade or debond, even under very harsh conditions. Somewhere I have some test samples of different types of wood bonded with the stuff that have been outside for years, and I'm sure one of them is a bit of OSB3. Last time I checked none had debonded at all, even when left wet, all that happens is that excess adhesive exposed to sunlight starts to degrade as the UV breaks down the molecular bond in the surface layer. Even then the bond strength doesn't seem affected. Frankly, airtightness is a red herring in this context, anyway, as what is far more critical is vapour permeability. The inner surface of any form of well-insulated construction needs to have a low vapour permeability, and there should be a gradation in vapour permeability, such that it is greater on the outer layers of the construction than it is in the inside layer. OSB is faily vapour permeable, so a SIPs build with OSB panel skins (which is the standard material used) will have a vapour permeable inner skin. This means there needs to be a vapour control layer internally, to prevent the migration of water vapour from the high concentration inside the warm house to the low concentration outside on a very cold day. Failure to prevent this vapour flow may lead to interstitial condensation, where the water vapour concentration reaches a temperature point inside the structure where it can condense to liquid water. Once condensed, it needs a lot of thermal energy to cause the water to phase change back to vapour so that it can migrate out, and in an insulated structure it may well be hard to get enough thermal energy into the structure to allow this to happen. Essentially this is what caught out a well-know major house builder in the 1970's, when they introduced timber frame construction in England, without fully understanding the interstitial condensation risk. They ended up with frames that were rotting out at the base within ten years or so, IIRC. So, in essence, it doesn't really matter if the SIPs panels move a bit, as any form of construction will with changes in temperature, as the VCL should have either enough elasticity, or be subject to such small temperature variations, that airtightness will be maintained, anyway. As an aside, a friend built a block and brick house a few years ago, around the time that permeability testing was first introduced. When I went to look at his build he'd failed two air tests, and they were struggling to find where the leakage was. It turned out that 90% of it was coming through the concrete block walls - they were surprisingly porous. The fix was easy, just parge coat the inside of all the external walls. Once this was done the house passed the air test easily.

@PeterW, it nearly caught me out! I have two radial socket runs either side of the workshop, plus another radial run to an outdoor double gang socket for garden stuff. These are each on 20 A MCBs. I ran runs of 2.5mm² around for the sockets, in 20mm conduit, together with a run of 1mm² for the E stop loop. We then realised (the electrician and myself) that we'd need another 6A MCB to protect the E stop loop cable. We did debate just running it from the 6A lighting MCB, which would have been OK, as the contactor load is tiny (just a few mA), but I decided that I'd rather not have the power to the sockets go off if there was a lighting fault. By luck, there was a spare single module way in the box, so the E stop now has a dedicated MCB. When it came to wiring things up, the 20 A MCBs that protect each radial feed the DP contactor line connections, with the contactor neutral connection coming from the box neutral bus. The individual radial feeds are therefore each DP switched by the contactors and the MCBs protect both the cable and the contactor. This means that when the E stop is operated, all the power circuits are properly DP isolated. The exception is the single socket for the door power that runs from an MCB directly, not via the contactors. I used 25 A DP contactors, that are single module width. The box has a 40A DP B curve RCBO at the front (it's fed from a 6mm² length of SWA from the outdoor distribution box that has a 40A C curve DP RCBO at the feed end). The reason for choosing a C curve on the remote feed end was really just to provide adequate protection for the 6mm² SWA without nuisance tripping. I wanted to be reasonably sure that the workshop end RCBO would trip first if there was a current overload fault condition.

I fitted all the Cat 6 cabling in our build myself, having never done network cabling before. I only used Cat 6 as I happened to be given a few km of new, surplus, cable (a new building at work had been flood wired with tens of km of Cat 6, only to discover that it wasn't the low smoke and flame version specified, so it was all pulled out and left in a large pile..........). I wired it as 10/100, using just two pairs, and found it pretty easy, but to be honest I could have just used Cat 5e cable. The only advantage with the Cat 6 is that it's stiffer and tends not to kink when you're pulling it through joists etc. I needed to buy a punch down tool, to make the terminations at the sockets, but that wasn't expensive and was dead easy to use. I fitted modular box front plates that matched the sockets and switches (we used MK Logik everywhere) and then just fitted Cat 5e modules to them. In our case it was a last minute change, following a discussion on Ebuild, and was done after the electrician had completed the first fix. I think it took me less than half a day to fit around a dozen back boxes around the house and run all the cabling to them. After the electrician had completed second fix (after the plastering and after we'd finished the painting) I went around and terminated the cables to the connectors. It wasn't hard to do, just a matter of making sure the right colour goes in the right slot, and they are colour marked, which helps. It does help to put labels on the free ends to identify which cable goes where where they all come out to terminate to your switch or router. I forgot to do this, as I did the first fix in a rush, and made up a pair of test boxes to send signals down the wires to identify each cable (could have easily been avoided had I thought of labelling the cables!). There's no regulatory restrictions on DIY network cabling, and there are plenty of guides on the web to show how to do it. Our system is pretty simple, I just decided where the router and switch were going to go, fitted a bank of network sockets at that location, then ran cables from there out to practically every room in the house, to more than one location is some rooms. I chose spots where I thought cabled access would be useful, so at every TV point, at both my desk and my wife's desk and where I planned to locate the network printer. I added a few spares where I thought we might possibly need a future connection as well. The one thing I forgot about, and now regret, is that I didn't run a few outdoor network cables for CCTV. Wireless IP cameras don't work that well, I've found, as the signal struggles to get through the thick walls.

@PeterW, if you opt for a contactor and E stop system, then remember to add another 6A MCB in the CU for the control circuit. That way you can run the loop for the E stop control circuit in 1mm² with the cable adequately protected. You can run the E stop as a single run around the garage to each button, as they are normally closed, so opening any one in the loop will turn off the contactor. I added an illuminated DP switch to the E stop loop feed, just to be able to isolate all the sockets, except one that runs the garage door, as a quick way to just make sure all the power is off when I'm not using the workshop.

SIPs had a few problems, many of which have been gradually addressed by the manufacturers. Roof panels invariably needed internal joists, which added thermal bridges. A lot of the readily available panel sizes were aimed to "just" meet building regs (for the mass market developers) so weren't great for those looking for good thermal performance. The insulation used, like all foam products, has a low decrement delay value, so doesn't help in terms of building a house with a long internal thermal time constant and, probably the biggest issue, is the detailed design of the wall to floor junction, because both skins of a SIP need support and that means careful design to both avoid a nasty thermal bridge and, more importantly, address the potential for interstitial condensation at the sole plate, driven by external changes in humidity and temperature. There was an interesting exchange on this forum's predecessor, Ebuild, where Kingspan became involved, at first saying their standard detail was fine, then accepting that there was a potential sole plate thermal bridging and interstitial condensation issue, and agreeing that adding a peripheral skirt of external insulation could partially mitigate the issue. I take it that is the old thread on Ebuild you may have read, @RichS One option we explored in some detail, was to use a 140mm SIPs panel for the structure, then add external, relatively high decrement delay wood fibre insulation externally, to both improve the U value to a reasonable level (our target was less than 0.12 W/m².K for the walls, 0.1 W/m².K for the roof and a decrement delay factor of greater than 6 hours). A passive concrete slab foundation, with a raised EPS upstand to join the external wood fibre layer mitigated both the wall to floor thermal bridge and eliminated the interstitial condensation risk. Our problem was that we struggled to get the builder who was offering this system to provide a quote - they were hopeless and repeatedly gave quotes for a spec that was different to that we'd agreed in several meetings with them.

I reckon that showing them that it's genuinely up for sale, perhaps with something to show that you've had one sale fall though, hence the delay, might swing it. Good luck, and let's hope that, tomorrow being Friday, the enforcement officer is winding down for the weekend!

Welcome, we too built a house to exceed the passive house performance level but didn't bother with certification. I can sympathise with the planning problems; my direct experience is that planning committees can be a law unto themselves, often making decisions that the poor old planning officer has to struggle to justify, as the committee had no reasonable basis for making such a decision. Someone on here (sorry, can't recall who) had a planning committee refuse an application, against the planning officers report, and the planning officer then had a quiet word and told the applicant to appeal, as there was no valid reason that he could give for refusal, even though that was the committee decision! As a bit of light relief, and insight as to how these committees work, I was seconded on to our old Parish Council and sat on the planning sub-committee. We had an application from a local farmer to move a public footpath and relocate his farm entrance (they were co-located), so that he could get his big forage harvester in from the road more easily. It was a no-brainer, as the proposed new entrance was a lot safer, better visibility up and down the road and lined up with another footpath on the other side of the road. One planning committee member was vehemently opposed, and when questioned hard about his objection revealed that he disliked the farmer as he had once been told off for walking his dog across the farmer's land without a lead on..................

Don't you just love the perverse nature of our planning laws? We've had promises from central government to try and simplify and streamline the planning process, but it seems that nothing changes. Daft and illogical rules are applied willy nilly. It's quite clear that some can effectively "buy" planning permission for anything, whereas others won't get approval no matter what, just because their face doesn't fit. Whilst I have some admiration for those that cock a snook at the illogical way planning works, like that chap with his garage and shipping container, I can't help thinking that local authorities and applicants could save a great deal of money if we had a clear and unambiguous planning system, completely free from personal and political prejudice. Trouble is, there are far too many vested interests in maintaining the system as it is, so that it can be exploited by those that know how to do so, and who make a living from doing just that..................

Good point, I felt mine was vulnerable, so ended up building a cupboard around it, to provide a better degree of physical protection. I would have changed it for a metal one, if I was legally allowed to do so, but really couldn't justify paying for half a day of electrician's time just for something that was really me being a bit over-cautious. IIRC, BC weren't the slightest bit interested in the garage wiring at all, either. Even the very fussy interim chap I had, the one that moaned about just about everything else, never even looked at the garage. Any idea why metal CUs aren't mandatory for non-domestic use? If anything, it seems a bit counter-intuitive to not mandate them across the board when they made the change. Perhaps it was solely related to night time fire risk in houses, and the sort of logic within the IEE and other bodies that make up the regulatory group led to the conclusion that there was not so much need to protect non-domestic premises from the alleged CU fire risk. I still think they would have done a far better job to mandate better quality terminals, at that's where, in my view, the biggest problems are. I changed a pull switch in the old house a few months ago, and the terminal screws were so stiff in their threads that it was hard to tell when they were tight. One fooled me into thinking it was secure, but when I did a pull test on the wire to make sure it was OK I found that it was still loose. I bet crap like this is the real reason for the problems that were found with a few fires, along with badly designed gate-type terminals, that don't block off the opening when the gate is tightened, but with no cable in it. The relay bases I used in the heating control box were like that, and were a real pain, especially as I couldn't see the position of the gate when trying to put the wires in.

Even if the regs allow a plastic CU in a garage (and I believe they do - but I don't have a copy of the latest amendment 17th Ed to check) I think it probably makes sense to fit a metal one. Garages tend to collect more flammable stuff than elsewhere, at least mine does, so anything that reduces the risk of fire, even only slightly, would seem to make sense. If I were fitting a new CU in my garage now, then I think I'd go for a metal one, just to be on the safe side, even though I think the risk from a fire starting in a properly installed CU, with tight and secure connections, is probably pretty tiny.

I would guess that it doesn't meet PD, as it's in front of the house, hence the enforcement officer's involvement. I think the main problem is that when a house is complete, in terms of being inhabited and council tax being paid, then the planners assume that the build is officially completed, so there is no longer any justification for build-related stuff on site. I'm not sure that there is a way around this problem, short of appealing to the better nature of the planning person. Enforcement action usually takes a long time, and I think you can appeal against it to, to drag it out further, and the enforcement officer will know this, and that may give you some bargaining power. Perhaps proving to them that you're actively trying to sell it and have had a sale fall through, might swing things enough to give you a bit more time?

I'm another one of the view that the D&A Statement is probably one of the most useful documents you can provide with a planning application. Many people seem to have a problem visualising things from plans, for example, so a D&A gives the opportunity to include details that might not be that clear otherwise. There's a copy of ours, together with all our other planning application drawings etc, here, if it's of any help: http://unidoc.wiltshire.gov.uk/UniDoc/Document/Search/DSA,500894 The D&A is listed there as the last pdf file in the "plans" section, for some reason.

I used to be a CSSC (used to be called the Civil Service Sports and Social Club) member for several years, mainly because having "shares" in it allowed access to the badminton courts and swimming pool at work. Also, when I first joined, the "social" bit allowed establishments to get a "grant" towards the cost of things like the Christmas Party. The social thing got dropped some time ago, because some establishments (like Farnborough, I believe) used the social "grant" funding to run a lunchtime bar at work. The law, or goivernment policy, put a stop to that, so I think that was around the time that the "social" bit was dropped. When I changed locations, to an establishment where there were no on-site sports facilities, I dropped the monthly "share" subscription. They've offered discounts to members for a fair time, I believe, and used to publish a booklet every year detailing them all (there were literally hundreds, some quite local). They operated the discount scheme in conjunction with those run by the services, so very often members would get the same discount as service people. TBH, most of the discounts weren't really worth having, as the limitations often meant you could get a better deal elsewhere. The ones that were useful were almost always those negotiated with local suppliers, often in conjunction with the service discounts. I bought car parts from one local factor for years, solely because the discount meant they were always cheaper than elsewhere, but this was in pre-internet days, when choices were far more limited.

I've been digging around @ProDave and have found this online form that may help you: http://www.royalmail.com/personal/receiving-mail/update-your-address

I'm not sure. There is an online form somewhere for requesting changes to the PAF, as the Royal Mail sell the data as a product, so are keen to try and keep it up to date. Perhaps a dig around on the PAF web site may find something: http://www.royalmail.com/business/services/marketing/data-optimisation/paf

I'm sure you're right, Dave, but there is also a seasonal difference, too. Our house was airtight and sealed up for about two weeks over the Christmas period, with no ventilation or heating at all, and no one in the house. As a consequence, it gradually came up in temperature inside, due to a bit of solar gain and very little heat loss. By the time we started first fix, the house was comfortable to work in without heating. I took a fan heater over there but we found we didn't need it, but then we did have two 400 W halogen work lights running, plus at least two people working hard inside, during the whole of January and February, and a part of March. Another factor may have been that our insulation was pumped in slightly warm. The act of pumping cellulose does warm it up a bit, so the walls were filled with 300mm, and roof 400mm, of pre-warmed insulation that has a pretty high mass heat capacity. (a lot higher than brick or concrete block). There are many tonnes of this stuff in our house, and we closed it up for the Christmas break not long after the insulation was pumped in and the air test was completed. My guess is that this may well have helped raise the internal temperature a bit, too.

I think that one problem is that lots of companies buy access to the official PAF that the Royal Mail operates. They may or may not update this very frequently, and they may or may not buy access to the version that includes company names and addresses as well as domestic addresses. To make matters worse, it seems that a lot of companies (and it seems the finance sector are the main culprits, from what I can see) then alter the PAF base dataset by adding their own linked data for particularly names or addresses. The classic example is an address that may have a debt registered to it from some previous owner, or, as happened to my other half a few years ago, an error led to her name being mistaken for someone with a similar name and she had a lot of hassle for a time with her bank and our mortgage lender. In a perfect world, everyone would use just one address database, the PAF, and it would always be kept up to date, but somehow I can't see that ever happening.

It was a useful exercise, though, @PeterStarck. One difference that may be relevant is that the rubber used in aircraft tyres is very different to the EPDM used in tank bladders and membranes. It seems that nitrogen does delay the oxidation of aircraft tyre rubber compounds a fair bit, and that often oxidation of tyres is a significant cause of the need for replacement, rather than wear, especially on aircraft that are operated on low duty cycles. From what I can gather, EPDM doesn't oxidise very readily at all, which may be why it's not common to fill accumulators with nitrogen.