Jeremy Harris

We hit an outside air temperature of 28.6 deg C early this afternoon, with the house room temperature peaking at 22.8 deg C. Today only the MVHR cooling came on, whereas yesterday the UF cooling came on for a couple of hours in the mid afternoon, even though the outside air temperature was a bit lower than today, 27.4 deg C. The slab was still cool (19.2 deg C) this morning, so that helped absorb a fair bit of today's heat. By 17:00 the slab was up to 19.8 deg C, so if it's hot again tomorrow then I expect the UF cooling will kick in again. Last year during a hot spell the UF cooling took the slab down to about 18 deg C, but that was before we had the solar reflective film fitted to the outside of the windows. The film is amazingly effective, with the inner pane of the glazing staying at close to room temperature, even under full sun.

Would you believe it! British Gas have been on the phone again, yesterday lunchtime with a "silent call" from their 08000 725230 number, same again today except I answered the call, as I did on Wednesday. Same conversation as recounted above. They don't seem to have done as they said they would and permanently marked us as not wanting a Smart Meter. Time to switch suppliers, I think, as I can't be done with being hassled like this by nuisance calls.

I think one thing that the planners seem to overlook, when imposing conditions relating to the "local vernacular", is that older walls were built with whatever materials were locally available at that time, with skills that were available locally. Trying to replicate those walls today may or may not make sense. By far the most common old "garden" walls around here are made of chalk cob, essentially rammed ground chalk, finished with a lime render, and these walls were originally topped with thatch. Many are now topped with slate or tile, and there are lots of newer fake "cob" walls around, where conventional masonry has been roughly rendered and then painted to try and look a bit like an old chalk cob wall. They tend to stand out like sore thumbs, but the planners often seem to demand them all the same. Whether it makes sense to build chalk cob garden walls today I doubt. They need constant maintenance, are prone to collapse if the ground gets very wet (we lost quite a few of them locally, in the winter floods a few years ago) and were only originally built that way because it was cheap - the raw material is literally poking out of the ground all around here. I doubt that the people that built these old chalk cob walls would have made them that way if they had access to cheap bricks and mortar.

Around here it's common to have walls built with a mix of brick and flint, in a diamond or box pattern. Even some new builds have walls like this. I hate to think of the hassle it must be for the brickies............. It also seems to be a local feature for walls to have a thatched, slate, or sometimes tile, pitched capping, with the eaves extending out a fair way, to keep rain off the vertical faces a bit. If I get a chance later I'll try and take some photos.

We did this, on top of the 4ft stone-faced block wall that forms our North boundary, the one with the big retaining wall. We used those bolt-down 75mm post holders, secured to the top of the blocks with 4 thunderbolts. If doing it again I think I'd have had the concrete-in post holders built in to the wall, with the sockets on top, really just to make it look a bit neater.

I've ripped out an ordinary, "red lead" primed UB that was around 40 years old and there was no sign of rust on it. The flip side is that I've also seen a thick bit of angle iron used to support brickwork over a fireplace opening corrode away to nothing after maybe 20 years or so. I'd guess that if the steel is enclosed in the fabric of the building, and not subject to condensation or other moisture, then it probably needs nothing more than a coat of paint.

Welding galvanised steel can be done, but the fumes are toxic, so it has to be done with care, and the galvanising has to be ground off where the welds will go. I hate welding galvanised, personally, as it's pretty evil. There's also the problem that you lose the corrosion protection for the welded on section and around the weld. You can use something like Galvafroid cold galvanising paint to protect the steel, though, in my experience it works well. I think my first choice would be be to see if there was any way of bolting on an extension. Drilling some bolt holes would be a fair bit simpler than grinding, welding and then adding corrosion protection, if it's practical to do this.

The ground temperature in the UK is around 8 deg C all year around, once you get down below the top metre or so. In the past, underground larders were pretty commonplace in large houses, so perhaps we should think about recycling that old idea.

Just an observation from yesterday. The North side of our house has a temperature sensor, that is shielded from any breeze and far enough away from the wall to indicate the outside air temperature fairly accurately. Yesterday, it was reading over 24 deg C by early afternoon, and stayed at that sort of temperature until early evening. I've no doubt that it will be warmer today and tomorrow, if the forecast is accurate. From this I don't think you can rely on the North side of a house being particularly cool in warm weather, so would suspect that some form of cooling might be needed even for an external larder.

It'd be hard to find anything tougher than lorry siding, I think. I was at a commercial vehicle show years ago, and on one of the stands there was a company demonstrating how tough their siding was, by handing out Stanley knives to people and asking them to have a go at slashing through it. Apparently they'd developed this super tough stuff to try and stop illegal immigrants from slashing through siding to climb into trucks.

The consultation was public, I can't recall now where I first heard about it; I have a suspicion it may have been something from somewhere like the NSBRC at Swindon.

It's not likely that the ducks would be bothered by it, but fish, crustaceans and plants in the stream probably would. Painting it on the leaves works OK; you might even get away with carefully using a small hand sprayer, one that you can control so that it doesn't over-spray beyond the target. Most commercial available glyphosates already contain a surfactant (a bit like detergent) to make the stuff wet the surfaces of leaves more easily, and that tends to reduce the over-spray problem if the spray pressure is kept low, as it makes it easier for droplets to coalesce. The idea is to only put the stuff where it's needed, and prevent any spray drift that might contaminate the stream.

The problem with glyphosate is that it is persistent in streams and kills aquatic plants, so it must not be sprayed adjacent to watercourses, or in any area where run off could reach a water course quickly. Glyphosate is broken down in soil pretty quickly (around 48 hours or so) so is generally fine for weed control away from watercourses. It's only when the stuff can get into the water before it's broken down that it causes a potential problem. You can adapt the technique used to kill Japanese Knotweed with glyphosate, I think. It's not at all quick, but it is reasonably safe. It means getting some syringes and injecting glyphosate directly into the stems of the weeds. If the plants have interconnected root systems, as Japanese Knotweed often does, then with luck the effect of the glyphosate can be greater than just the treated stems; there's a fair chance that the rootstock will be killed.

You can get exactly the same electricity usage information by just fitting a simple wireless energy monitor, in fact we have one that British Gas handed out free a few years ago when we switched to them. Smart Meters have no advantages for consumers, in fact the limited evidence so far suggests they are causing significant billing problems, for a host of reasons. Also, as Ferdinand rightly says, they are insecure and give utility companies a lot of potential control over your supply (the latter being why they are so enthusiastic about them). There's also a major problem at the moment in that there is a lack of proper compatibility between meters from different suppliers. Change energy supplier and you may well find that your Smart Meter stops working as a Smart Meter, and reverts back to being a dumb meter. If I was at all cynical, I'd say that this may well be a deliberate move to try and encourage customers to stay with a particular supplier, rather than look around for the best deal each year or so.

Interestingly, I've just had a call from British Gas. It went like this: British Gas (BG): Your meter is due for replacement and we would like to make an appointment to change it, please. Me: No problem, I can be in anytime, but the meter was only replaced a few years ago, so why does it need replacing again? BG: It's a part of our nation wide meter change programme, which we are rolling out in your area now. Me: Does this mean that I have to have the meter changed? BG: Yes, your area is part of our current programme. Me: Is this new meter a Smart Meter? BG: Yes Me: I don't want a Smart Meter. BG: That's alright, I'll just take your details and mark you as having opted out. Me: Are you still going to change my meter? BG: No, it's not due for replacement yet. The initial contact was a bit more than confusing, it was deliberately worded to make it seem as if this was a routine meter change. If I didn't know that having a Smart Meter is voluntary, then one would have been fitted. I would hazard a guess that a fair number of people are going to be duped into having these things fitted.

FWIW I did provide input to the SAP consultation, from the perspective of a self-builder. To me, as the person responsible for the provision of data to the assessor it doesn't seem to make a jot of difference how I actually provide that data to the assessor. The data remains the same whether I send the assessor a stack of figures or an FSAP file. Both require the same level of understanding of the regs and the way SAP works. In fact, in my case, I sat down and wrote a spreadsheet to do the SAP calcs, before I found that I could get a free copy of FSAP. The key motivation for me was "why pay someone to do something that you're perfectly competent to do yourself?" That's pretty much been my guiding principle from the start.

I did look at using Colorcoat Urban, but didn't get very far with them because the integrated thin film solar panel company went bust (they made self-adhesive flexible PV that fitted neatly to the roofing sheets. There was a very helpful lady at Tata, who was very good at getting information, as I recall. If she's left and they haven't replaced her then it doesn't surprise me that they're not able to be as helpful. Is the membrane at item 5 above vapour permeable? It needs to be, I think. The membrane at item 3 needs to be the VCL. Other than that it looks OK. I did get as far as confirming with Tata that fixing to OSB with a breather membrane was fine. They also offered a short course on installing the sheets, but having looked at the fixings I think it's a pretty simple system to get to grips with.

Increasing the threat level doesn't surprise me, I don't think there was any realistic alternative. As I mentioned above, this IED doesn't seem to have been the sort of crude , fairly low yield and unreliable, device that we've seen used by Islamic extremists here in the UK before. It has all the hallmarks of being a fairly sophisticated IED, not something that some loner has assembled in his shed. Making compact high explosives with the power of this device, and more importantly, making a reliable and effective detonator and initiation system, is not that easy. Also, developing such an effective home-made device would almost certainly need some trials, to test each element in the device, and it would not be easy to do such trials here, without being detected. That implies connections with others, to acquire the detailed knowledge and materials, others that have already done the development work, and tested and proved all the component parts, most probably in another country. In turn, that suggests that those same others may well be planning other attacks. Whether or not deploying troops on guard duty is an effective countermeasure I'm not at all sure, although in this case it is an automatic part of raising the threat level to critical, I believe. I would hazard a guess that putting troops on the streets is primarily a way of reassuring the public that the threat is being taken seriously and that the government are taking action. I doubt that military guards would deter a suicide bomber, given the constraints of their rules of engagement in such a scenario (they will be more constrained than armed police officers, I'm certain).

Is there any ridge ventilation, to let hot air out? I'd guess that if there isn't, then trying to find a way to allow hot air to escape from the very top of the loft space might be the best way to reduce the problem. The other thing is to try and improve the insulation around the ducts and MVHR unit that are in the loft. Ideally they need the same sort of insulation effectiveness as the ceiling.

I'm just a bit peeved that I didn't need to turn our meter box into a Faraday cage, to stop these daft things working, after all....................

Much the same for me, and there was no "third party" involved in specifying anything at all, so the continued reference to a "third party" is confusing. No one other than me had all the specs for the house, the only bit of independent data was the air test certificate. I was the only person that could have supplied the data to anyone, so I can't see why it makes any difference whether I provide that data as a list of figures or a completed FSAP file.

The under-tile vents (and ridge tile vents, if fitted) are just there to keep the void between the tiles and the membrane ventilated, and won't really ventilate the loft space. I may have misread the earlier post, but from this quote: I thought you meant that there is a vapour control layer under the roof, which is not the best place for it. The VCL should be on the warm side of the insulation, and the void in the cold side of the insulation should be ventilated. I'm a bit confused by what you actually have.

Looked at from the mindset of a twisted individual whose belief's include outrage at young girls who are immodestly (in his eyes) dressed, then the target makes perfect sense. When it comes to preventative action, then I think that technically we're already doing as much as is reasonably practical to find people who are making IEDs. We have 50 years of experience of doing this, and, having seen a little of the data correlation techniques, I'm convinced it's pretty good. This incident is unusual, because the device seems to have been pretty sophisticated, which implies access to both reliable information and the materials needed to make the device. In the past, extremist IED used here in the UK have been pretty poorly designed and made, and nowhere near as sophisticated as, for example, many of the IRA devices. The fact that the perpetrator has been identified quickly, seems to indicate that he may well have been known. The obvious question then is how did he obtain the knowledge and material to make the IED?

I'm guessing here that the loft space can get very hot in warm weather, because the roof isn't insulated and the loft isn't ventilated, and that also means it can get very cold in winter, What was the logic behind putting the VCL outside the ceiling insulation? It sounds a bit risky to me, as that means that vapour can enter the loft space from the house and then be subject to wide changes in temperature. Was a condensation risk analysis undertaken to see if the loft space could get below the local dew point? Normally, I would expect the VCL to be inside the insulation, with the "cold roof" section well ventilated. If the loft space is well ventilated, then, with all the ducts and the MVHR unit well-insulated, I'd have thought that this problem probably wouldn't occur. I strongly suspect that the loft space is getting very hot indeed, and that may well be the root cause. I was working in the loft space above my garage yesterday, and it was like an oven up there, as that has no roof insulation but a pretty good layer of ceiling insulation. The heat was enough to give me a stonking headache last night.

@ADLIan, I understand that, but where would an assessor get data from in a case like mine? AFAIK, no one else has ever had all the data, so the only source was me. Should an assessor assume that I wasn't a valid source of design and as-built data and refuse to undertake an assessment? How do assessors validate their data sources? Are builder/architects/architectural designers put through some form of audit process to ensure that they are providing valid data? How can a self-builder, building a one-off house they've designed expect to undergo such a validation process if there is one?