jack

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.

Yes, nearly always. It's really frustrating.

I'm interested in nutrition science and these issues arise again and again (they even link into the ACC/AGW debate - cow-generated methane, the impact of monocrops, factory farming, carbon sequestration in grasslands, etc). The latest one was just last week where I repeatedly heard on the news that eating any red meat results in a 20% increase in bowel cancer risk. The number of uncorrected-for (and likely uncorrectable-for) confounding factors in the actual study were mind-boggling, but still the media reported it as if this was something extremely serious that we should all be taking into account. The actual risks, even taking the report at face value and ignoring its shortcomings? 0.5% risk rises to 0.6% risk if you eat meat. Utterly swamped by the error bars, or just going for a ten minute walk every day, but still reported as a scientific fact about which we should all be terrified.

I take what you're saying, but I don't think "pure science" has ever existed. Science has always been driven by politics, religion, bias, genius, madness and just about every other human concept. I don't think today is that different, although I do think that the sheer volume of, and access to, media has made it very easy for all sides to muddy the waters further.

Perhaps, but that's far from being all Patrick Moore has said and done. By any reasonable definition of the word, he is controversial. As for trusting him, he's as biased as any climate researcher, if by "biased" you mean funded by those with an agenda.

I remember a year sometime in (I think) the late 80s where things like recycling and energy use suddenly became a big issue. There were all sorts of one-off TV shows about it. It felt like we'd all turned a corner - everyone was an environmentalist now, and everyone wanted to do their bit. It definitely feels like that idea has faded under the intensity of consumerism that's come to dominate since then.

With my mod hat on, and speaking to all posters, can we please stick to playing the ball and not the human? Inflammatory statements and accusations are unhelpful.

Greenpeace may well be lying, sure. It was still incorrect to say that he was "the" founder of Greenpeace. As for this: The change in his position is obviously starker given his history with Greenpeace, but I think the real controversy is not just that he's changed his mind, but that he's taken a stance with which the majority of climate (and other) scientists disagree. So my opinion remains:

I remember one of the episodes that had a lovely house but for some reason I didn't find very interesting. It was an older couple of ladies (possibly in a relationship with each other) building a small, angular wooden house on Skye. Lovely design and location. Builder was a local guy who did a great job. Everything came in under budget and ahead of time. The only drama they could even try to manufacture was around the air test, because the builder had never had one of his builds tested in this way. It passed with flying colours and that was it. I can see why they try to emphasise any issues that arise (and virtually every build has them).

Not only is he not "the" founder of Greenpeace, despite what he says he isn't even "a" founder of Greenpeace. He's actually an extremely controversial figure, and it's worth do some careful reading about him before relying too much on anything he says.

But I asked nicely!