marshian

My opinion is EPC’s are a rough guide but in general they aren’t really worth the paper they are written on (if they are issued in paper still) I live on a small estate roughly 66 houses all 3 & 4 bed - the ratings vary from E to C When I talked to an assessor about getting one done (prep work for a BUS grant if I went down the ASHP route rather than replace my gas boiler) I was specific about asking if improvements I have made would result in a better rating - it was I might scrape a C but without solar no chance of a B I’ve replaced my gas boiler

Okay better than my scribbles floor plan (upstairs) Main loft area runs right to left and has the dividing wall between bedrooms at one end and and stairwell under the other end Floor plan (downstairs) All walls upstairs are basically repeated down stairs (and go right down to the concrete slab under the suspended ground floor where I spent a long time insulating between the joists in the crawl space)

OK roof trusses Boarded Loft area I want to raise up is the centre section 6.9 m length by 2.1 m width with 13 trusses roughly 60 cm spacing (two at each end are closer) Walls underneath I’m working on because the house is a weird T shape and every time I draw it out it looks wrong and the walls don’t fit right

I get that heating the water to a higher temp on E7 maximises the energy used on cheaper rate but heating to a higher temp also maximises the losses so higher levels of waste I'd be looking at it differently How much of the water do you use daily ie is tank same size as previous and did you run out of water in the day The risk of legionaires is very small if you use all the water daily As far as legionaires goes I do a hot cycle once a week to coincide with "her bath night" Rest of the time I'd be heating the water to a temp that meant the tank lasted all day under normal circumstances I only heat HW (114 Litre vented tank to 48 - 52 deg max) and that lasts the two of us all day (showers morning and evening) Having temp logging on the top and bottom of the tank the accelerated heat loss is very obvious when I heat HW to higher temperature

Very kind/generous of you sir but it's no good for me.........

Just trying to help - I'm still on Windows 8.1 and that doesn't like newer hardware

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&q=Z971ac

We had friends stay a couple of weekends back (they have a mains pressurised system - we have gravity and a pump on the shower) they commented how good the shower was 😉 I did raise the cold water tank a year or so back because we were borderline negative head and needing a more expensive pump that can cope

We had a local sparrowhawk or kestral do us a small favour last year - swept in grabbed a young one straight off the patio and then flew out - I know that one wasn't ringed either. The other youngster flew into a patio door and that was its last attempt at flight - also saved me a pellet

You are allowed to shoot them in order to protect crops Obviously if they are ringed you might have a problem one round us is ringed but he clearly hasn't found his way home - he's also bloody smart for a pigeon........

Any update @richo106?

I guess depends on the speed you run it thro the PIR - I didn't investigate it any further than ouch £400 that's not gonna be a cheap bit of kit for a single usage If I was doing a complete house suspended floor and warm roof I might have considered it

I'm trying to keep it simple because I am!!!

It's not the nicest material to work with - I think If I invested in a hot knife/wire cutting system it might have been better but using a sharp fine saw to cut 56m2 of 75mm PIR sheeting into individual joist filling slabs wasn't much fun

I'm sure you are right but my brain can't grasp that. What my brain can deal with is that the skimpy roof trusses are well supported by the wall structure underneath so any load is spread across a wide area

Thank you but I've discounted that as an option - you really do need T&G boards to make that even half decent and I would like to reuse the existing board that aren't

Having insulated the suspended ground floor with PIR from the crawl space below I really don't want to have to deal with PIR again Cutting it down so it fits thro the loft hatch fills me with dread........... I considered removing some roof tiles and battens so I could post it thro in full sheet size to avoid cutting it and then making good but removed it from my thought process........ I do like the walk way idea for access but I need a storage area even if it's capacity is limited

Was an option - last year when I was thinking about it - got as far as costing it out and got to £500 without any insulation cost - it's good but it's expensive and I'm not sure it's going to be any lighter

Considered it but felt it was probably not the best place to put any load

Oh and a picture might help - this one side of the loft from when I was moving the Cold water tank to a location that wasn’t overhanging the loft hatch It’s the same length behind me and there are two legs of the roof going out left and right House is a T shape so a lot of the roof structure is bloody hard to negotiate

Bit of background - 33 years ago we bought the current house - it was built in 1982 and insulated to 1980 stds - Loft had 25mm of blown fibreglass loft insulation in the 75mm truss depth When I looked up in the loft it was clear that it was getting blown around - so some of it I replaced with roll style loft insulation in 75 mm and other areas I boarded out to stop the existing insulation moving around. I had an abundant supply of free euro pallet sized 22mm chipboard so it was easy to do piecemeal and they went up thro the loft hatch easily. I got power sockets and lighting up there as well as a decent loft ladder because I've moved the cold water store and CH header tank to make better use of the space (Well and to stop my back hitting the framework every damn time I went into the loft because it overhung the loft hatch) That's how it stayed for many years - a few areas of the loft got extra insulation laid across the roof trusses another 100mm so at best in some areas I have 175mm in other areas it's just 75mm - so pretty poor by modern stds I considered getting rid of the boarding but having the central area boarded out gives me good access to most of the loft without sicking my feet where they shouldn't and whilst it's only really got a few empty suitcases, Xmas decorations and a few sailing bits finding homes for them out of the loft would be difficult. I'd really like to increase the depth of insulation in the boarded out area and replace the loft hatch with a modern one with better seals and now the weather is starting to turn this is my opportunity to plan and execute I want to re-use the existing boarding where I can because it's already up there I had considered 8 x 2 Joists but they works out at 9 kgs per metre and that sort of weight plus the boards already used is going to build up quite fast - then there is the cost of wood these days........ I looked at loft legs but meh......... sorry they just look flimsy and well I'm not convinced. I'm not a lard arse but I wouldn't trust them Then I saw another thread on here where I-Joists were being used on a build - a couple of quick searches and it seems 220mm I-Joists are 3kg per metre They'd be a heck of a lot easier to man handle up thro the house and the loft hatch and it would get me much closer to the 300mm insulation depth I'd like to get to. All the internal walls of the house are thermalite blockwork and ground floor is replicated on the first floor so the roof trusses are very well supported but I don't want to put too much additional weight up there. If I-Joists are prohibitive cost wise I could probably cut sheet OSB down and tile batten and my my own Daft Idea or does it have some merit?

It's actually quite a long border Suffolk literally surrounds my town and the next town from me Norfolk almost surrounds it - it's like no-one wanted either which is probably true!!!

@Alan Ambrose I was hoping it would

Amen to that - general knowledge base is poor and the general view is the UK doesn't need or want the benefits of DHWP / X plan - it's S or Y plan and that's your choice........... I my case I specified DHWP and "X plan" and I got a weather compensated S plan because the Gas engineer didn't know what X plan was - I should have got him to fit the boiler and commision it and done all the rest myself!!!

Really nice work and great joinery too. Well done I'd be bloody happy with that for £4K I think we spent 4K last time we refurbed our bathroom 7 years ago but it was all off the shelf stuff