G and J

Hang on. I just watched the vid displayed on the above link. The blocks are shaped so they sit 50mm down from the top of the beam. Couldn’t I use these on a downstairs bnb floor and fill the 50mm with insulation?

Hmmmmm, in that case I’ve an excuse for another Makita toy, I mean tool, honest!

I meant to visit. 34 years ago I knew I’d leave this house in a box. Now I realise that isn’t true. Our new pad will be the forever home, but I’m more worldly now, so I won’t say I’ll leave there in a box, it might be in a care home’s van. 😉

In our current house I carefully provisioned for high flow rates. Quite a lot of 22mm copper. Sadly as a result some hot taps take ages to get hot water. Sigh. One tries one’s best. Next time a radial system. Defo.

Ok I know this is miles off topic but… one of my concerns is that I’m a picky bugger. If being in our new house is going to be that good I really am not going to want to stay anywhere else.

As a special treat, just for you, it’s when Just Eat delivers whatever you order lol (and that’s another novelty I’m looking forward to - being in town so we can have take away deliveries!)

We live in a reasonably well insulated wind tunnel. We built it in ‘91 and exceeded the then insulation standards. We’ve three woodburners and yes, we are often still f cold. So I couldn’t agree with you more. The variation in temperature over time and within rooms is huge. It will be a shock to sit in a much more constant temperature. And I’m the bloody cook, so it’s my bloody kitchen lol

Ummmm, yeah but no but yeah but…, We are building a sort of three bedroom pad but we only need one bedroom for us (a bit of L’Oréal going on here perhaps!). Being serious I will be running pipes and wires to other fancoil locations in case needed, including drains in case we zone them off to run cooler. The MVHR unit is next to the downstairs bedroom so that flow and return can be sized to do both. There will be space above the unit for retro fit of carbon filter too.

Exactly where I want us to be. I investigated these units more for cooling than heating, and I was dissuaded on the grounds that they won’t have a significant effect on our internal air temperature because of the low relative volume of air going through the MVHR system. We are, however, aiming at a long way short of PH standard insulation, not much better than building regs in fact, (though we are putting great efforts into being airtight). I can understand that if part O means we see fewer ‘glazed cathedrals’ type grand designs, or at least lots of high spec anti solar glazing, that the cooling needed would be moderate in a very well insulated house. But ours, despite the modest of glazing, might need more cooling. Won’t know till we’re there. We’re going for an ASHP that can be converted to cooling, so we can gently (above dew point) cool the downstairs UFH, with a fan coil in our bedroom all on a single zone. I still wonder about cooling the MVHR airstream too though….

We're in Suffolk...the firm we're thinking of employ their own installers/surveyors etc as well as make windows....has the attraction of it being in their hands and if the worst happens they have capability to fix pretty quickly.....or that's the theory 🤞

Brilliant, thank you Nick. I think you may have mentioned that when I visited but I failed to retain - sorry!

This (sort of thing) is on your MVHR supply main duct I assume. DO you find it effective?

Eureka!! I've come up with the perfect solution to my needing brick slips that I can’t buy to match our chosen plinth bricks without subjecting our neighbours to hours of deafening brick cutting or choking them and myself on the dust. Please would everyone on build hub order some brick samples. Each sample card comes with some lovely little brick slips to save postage costs! Perfect! What could possibly go wrong? 😕

We haven't, mostly because we are attracted to what is a local (long standing) firm taking on the whole job, including manufacture, and should cash flow deem it necessary (!) more than one hit at fitting. From a quick look at the seniors site, they look very similar, but couldn't see anything about installation?

Have you let the neighbours (definitely those who will be formerly consulted) that the application is in? Better you do it than them just received a notice. We let the whole street know, as the build will affect their access (e.g road closing in March for electric to go underground). It could be argued that this isn't necessary but living in a small community everybody will look at the planning notice when posted, and will have an opinion of some sort. I hope you do get some letters of support. We were happy to get some neutral, and in the scheme of things the objections we got we were either aware of in advance or they were non material in planning terms, so although it's hard try not to take it personally. Wishing you every success

There’s been quite a lot of discussion on here about the ‘bounce’ of longer beam spans. We can’t use a crane, and we don’t want bounce, so we’re putting a sort of mini foundation down the centre of our house to keep the spans to under 12’ and the beams two man liftable. Is this called a sleeper foundation?

Thinks….. is there a solar pv equivalent to Cool Energy for heat pumps? I buy the bits from them, get them installed, said company commissions and het presto, I’m mcs’d.

At the moment we are looking at smart systems stuff: alitherm 800 windows, designer (ooh er Mrs!) front door and Visioglide patio doors all from a local company. Some fixed windows and the opening ones will be top hung. Still tons of work to be done on that, with the next job being to finalise the opening sizes for the timber frame company (another local-ish bunch). The big advantage is that once the timber frame is up they’ll come along and measure, then a 8 to 10 weeks later they fit them. Any breakages or mistakes they fix, pronto.

So it’s simply mcs rules. Hmmmmm. Taking the tails from the panels into the loft to allow reconfiguration to me seemed such a patently good idea, but I guess it allows users to meddle, perhaps the source of their rules. The more I read about mcs the less enamoured I am. The reactionary in me feels like spreadsheeting a diy instal and comparing the saving (and the little bit of engineering freedom) to the estimated export payments over, say, 15 years. Then I think about all the other things I’m going to try and do myself…. Sigh.

Bet your neighbours loved you lol

Sounds good but is that actually practical to do? Maybe with a high power tile cutter?

Oh good. Ergovents are back on the shopping list then. There’s only the two of us and I rarely bother to wash anyway (I am a boy, after all), so I won’t be causing boosting too often.

Then you are off my Christmas card list.

Lined chimneys don’t benefit from ventilation. Sadly.

In a cottage in Norfolk I installed a fan in the kitchen flue which we had to have running to stop smoke being drawn down when we first lit the lounge fire. It was usually ok once the fire and thence chimney git going nice and warm, presumably because the warm gases simply rose up past the other chimney pots. Oddly, a tiny whiff of woodsmoke I find comforting. Any more than that is nasty.