jack

If you only need a small digger, some have retractable tracks that make them narrow enough to squeeze through doorways. We had one onsite yesterday digging a 40m long, 400mm deep trench, including getting through 100mm of compacted concrete crush along at least half the length in some places. There were also lots of large rocks in places, which took time to dig out. It took about five hours, with me wheelbarrowing away the spoil. A larger digger would have been better and faster, but unless you're moving a lot of earth around, this might be enough.

Sorry @iSelfBuild, I suspect I and another mod have accidentally deleted different duplicates of your wooden nail posting at roughly the same time, leaving you with no post at all! Please post again and I'll delete this message.

I installed a fair amount of redundant CAT 6 cable, but given my time again I'd add even more. I'd also include more ducts between important areas (eg, TV room) and our central wiring point.

Have you asked her what the point is in having a fire you literally can't light? Take a look at that Grand Designs episode in Bath. That was a well-insulated, but not to PassivHaus standard, German prefab. They tried to talk the owner out of a woodburner but she wouldn't be convinced. Lit it once, never lit it again. You say it's in the budget, but if you never use it, you've still effectively thrown thousands of quid away. Why not spend that money on a heating system? I also don't get the general obsession people have with burning stuff in their houses (I didn't get it even before the health and environmental risks were known). I think it's often a hangover of living in cold drafty houses, where standing in front of a fire or woodburner is the only way to get properly warm. That feeling of never properly being warm won't happen in your house. The desire to stand in front of a hot woodburner just goes away when the whole house is a nice temperature. As for heating with post heaters only, we have PH level insulation and airtightness, but not a lot of solar gain. I turned off the heating in the hot spell a couple of weeks ago, and the slab has slowly cooled down. It reached 18 deg C the other day and the house was definitely feeling a little frostier than desirable. Much of the perceived coldness was due to the cold floor - it's much more comfortable if you put shoes on. I wouldn't be without UFH now I've lived with it.

My first thought is that you don't want to spend money on a heating system, but you want to install a wood burner? How much will that cost to supply and install, including sealed air system, flue, heat-proofing etc? You say you won't use it much. In a house with passivhaus levels of insulation and airtightness, I suspect you'll use it once and then never light it again. They're also hugely unhealthy for you and your neighbours. Definite yes to low temp UFH in the bathrooms. We were talked out of bathroom heating and it was a mistake. Tiles at around 19-20 deg C are quite cold on the feet. I don't know how much warmer tiles would be with just a radiator. Maybe fine - others will share their experiences. Do keep thinking about overheating (I know it was discussed on your other thread). It may be something as simple as placing ducts and wiring for a ducted aircon system for the bedrooms, which you can retrofit if you find you need it. At the moment you have an estimated 4% above 25 deg C. That's 350 hours per year, which is actually quite a lot (bearing in mind you'll be spending a lot more time above, say, 22-23 deg C, which is still subjectively very warm in a PH environment). Is this before you account for brise soleil etc?

I agree with every word of the first response in this thread. We didn't want the "line of stools" approach, so the dining table side of the island is cupboards and shelves along two thirds of its length. The remaining third is completely open on both sides (and closed on the end by a vertical support), so four people can sit comfortable facing each other without banging their knees. There are double power points underneath this section that can't be seen, but are easy to get to from both sides - good for plugging in a phone or a laptop (on the table side), or a kitchen mixer. We have the hob on the island and the sink against the wall behind and slightly offset so both can comfortable be used without standing back to back. It's planned so that you walk into the kitchen from one side with plates etc, scrape into the bins in the cupboard on the left of the sink, rinse if needed, then load into the dishwasher immediately to the right of the sink. Cups, glasses and crockery can all be put away from the dishwasher without any movement other than bending and pivoting. We've lived in the house for over three years, but it took us over two years to find stools we didn't hate that were the right height for the space under the island. Since getting them, we hardly ever sit at the dining table any more. It just seems more social to sit up at the island. In fact, we had a couple of friends over last night for supper. We all sat at the island with drinks and nibbles while dinner was being made, then it just seemed natural to stay where we were rather than moving everything over to the table. Obviously we're limited to doing this when there are only four people eating, but that often works out just fine. You do need to be scrupulous about not letting junk accumulate (we don't really manage it), but to be fair this is going to be a problem with all horizontal surfaces in a kitchen.

Of course it could have. In the automotive would, smaller, less powerful cars would have helped, but there were easy wins across all industries and scenarios that just weren't taken up.

I think he's taking about sheet wood insulation products like the one @ProDave used.

I'd put is slightly differently and say that if people had listened and acted 20 years ago when the concerns started being raised, we'd all be completely used to it now and the impact on the world economy would have been absorbed and dealt with. But now, the amount that needs to be done is much greater. With the world economy already in a parlous state (despite record share indices and employment rates), doing what actually needs to be done risks shocking us into another great depression. If that's what you're saying, then I have some sympathy. But I also think the world economy is headed for the toilet at some point in the next 1-10 years anyway, and if this isn't the trigger, something else will be. I also don't share your pessimism about the models. You also seem to believe that the concept of consensus among scientists rests on a single study (I assume Cook et al.), but that was only one study from 2013. The claim for consensus is at least a decade older than that and is based on many more studies of varying types. I don't generally rely on Wikipedia for anything other than factual information, but these pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveys_of_scientists'_views_on_climate_change seem to list loads of studies, all of which show at least some degree of scientific consensus. Where the real questions lie is in what impact AGW will have in the coming decades. Even though there's consensus that AGW is real and some sort of threat, there's a range of estimates about how that threat will manifest itself. And of course, we could have some sort of mega-eruption that releases huge amounts of CO2 that swamps anything we've done. We could also have some sort of asteroid strike or eruption that releases tons of particles into the air, causing global cooling. But neither of these possibilities is predictable or can even be assumed will happen in the coming decades or even centuries.

I'll tell you what's a nice sensation: coming into the house in the middle of summer after walking the dog on a baking hot day, taking your shoes off and walking on a concrete floor at around 19-20 degrees C. It's the sort of cool you get when you walk into a cave or a cathedral.

But if it's all so unpredictable and impossible to model, what's the basis for your confidence that nearly every climate scientist has it wrong? To me, the possibility that they're all acting in concert to milk the climate change gravy train just beggars belief. Note: I don't doubt that there's an entire class of people who make money out of climate change who would otherwise be unemployable, but as I said above, the scientists for the most part don't fall into this group.

Most things I've read suggest MVHR is only really effective below around 3 ACH, and ideally I think you'd want to aim for 1 ACH. There are some cheap wins for SAP points. Assuming it works with your layout, shower waste water heat recovery adds a few points for probably well under £1000 supplied and fitted.

All the time, although the designer wasn't an architect in this case. I think it was the guy who build his own home on the Isle of Wight a few seasons earlier. Either way, I don't think any architect in the UK would suggest you could build a huge 6 bedroom (all with ensuite) home with pool, gym, music room, massive games room (etc, etc, etc) with loads of expensive and experimental finishes, acres of Swiss (I think?) triple glazing, all built into a hill, with no prior building experience and doing literally no work yourself, and managing all of this for what looks like well under £1000/m2. That's just bonkers. Of course.

We discussed this episode of GD a while ago. There was something very much not right about the way this family reacted to the father's near-death experience. From memory, the build and move was meant to be a new start that would give them some freedom and lower their stress levels, but instead it massively increased their stress during the build while committing him to a lifetime of stressful work to pay for it all. Very sad episode I thought. They could have built something small and beautiful for half the cost, and it would have given them a better life experience imo. The other thing I remember is how insane the cost estimates were, even for GD. Going from memory, I think they'd planned to build this for something like £500k, including the pool and surrounding area. This was with them doing absolutely nothing, and included acres of expensive glazing, and highly labour-intensive finishes such as the external stone-work and experimental oiled paper (?) panels. My wife and I both laughed out loud when they suggested this cost. I think it was £1.3m or £1.4m in the end.

We've had a Wilo running our UFH for three years, summer and winter. Hasn't missed a beat and is completely silent.

Or you plan a space and ask the pump guy to use it, he says yes, then the moment your back is turned he just dumps it where the truck was parked while pumping.

I think just having screed rather than chipboard will probably be where the main improvement comes. There's a lot more mass, which should reduce the noise somewhat. Is there already caberdeck there? If not, I'd be trying to decouple that from the joists with something resilient. Another important thing for sound reduction is airtightness. I'm convinced we get a lot of sound transmission through the service cavities on external walls, but I admit not being sure of exactly what path it would be taking between floors.

We have a double layer of plasterboard on our downstairs ceilings with some (admittedly poorly installed) mineral wool batts above. I find noise transmission - especially impact-type - to be very bad.

So are the scientists conspiring to make sure all these non-scientists continue to get paid? I'm trying hard, but I just can't follow your logic in any of this.

No, I don't find these adjustments at all odd. This is critical science - possibly one of the biggest global challenges we've faced. It's hugely difficult and complex. With that context, I can't understand why it strikes you as odd that scientists continue to work to improve the quality of the data for the models they're using. As others have said, some of the adjustments result in less temperature increase. I only had time to read this one (need to finish something this morning before heading out for a bit). In summary: One guy claims that data wasn't handled properly, but admits there was "no data tampering, no data changing, nothing malicious". He believes his boss had his "thumb on the scale", but only in relation to "documentation, scientific choices and release of datasets". He states that his boss rushed to get a study published before major international negotiations. If you were in the boss's shoes, why would do anything but rush to try and get out your report in time for it to be be considered as part of such an important set of discussions? A subsequent independent study looking at the same corrections came to the same conclusions using different methods. The data involved was only in relation to ship-based measurements of ocean temperatures. On balance, I can't see anything in this article that supports some sort of conspiracy among scientists to corrupt any significant proportion of the data upon which the consensus position on ACC relies.

I assume part of the problem is not only the much higher risk of a burst, but the more severe consequences at that height. 2.5m means an awful lot of concrete to find its way out of a burst.

To the extent that I can follow your arguments, I don't find them convincing. Edited to add: If I understand you, you're now saying that even faced with incontrovertible proof that the worst of what was feared has come to pass, the existing raft of counter-opinion will prevent action being taken. First, the counter-opinion is in the minority. If things start moving in the direction of the worst, then it will shrink further, thereby increasing the chance of action. Second, even if it doesn't, then there's still a majority who will see the problem and realise they need to act. Third, the sceptics currently say that there's no ACC. How does handing BBC 4 over to them improve the chances of being able to act in the event things turn out to be at the bad end of what's feared? Surely they'll just foment a larger population of sceptics who'll be less likely to act? Perhaps this isn't your argument, but that's my best guess at understanding what you're saying.

The details are still being worked out, and the models are being improved all the time, but there's very strong consensus in the international scientific community on climate change. The voices against this mainstream position are few, and most of their arguments are easily debunked. With this context, why would the BBC give alternative climate change arguments debating time? I say that as someone who's sceptical of science reporting in general (as mentioned above in relation to nutritional science). Surely if there's a genuine scientific discussion needed, the BBC is the last place you'd expect to see it aired?

Welcome to BuildHub! Starting with a photo is always going to win you friends around here.

Mod hat on again: there have been repeated warnings on this thread about playing the person rather than the ball. The last post has been hidden for again failing to do this. This thread will be locked if people can't communicate civilly.