scottishjohn

is the barn floor only damp at that side of barn or is it over entire area? do you know what sort of foundations and how thick the concrete floor is ? if its an equestrian barn -does that mean it does not have a complete concrete floor inside and only concrete at edges was it built as such or a converted farm building If that is the case it could becoming from the ground upwards which would suggest you will need a french drain all round the barn and probably in the floor ,quite deep ,and then hardcore and final surface on top of that to get it to be dry all the time more info needed

last year we hard serious attacks from ravens -to an extent where they were hurting themselves leaving traces of blood on the windows ,as well as pecked rubber seals one presumes they were fighting their reflections hoping they have got the message now that there are people living here and do not continue this year i tried to shoot the buggers ,but they know exactly the range of a shot gun and which tree to sit which is out of range and just craw at us when we appear

I take you are not electric only but have a fire or oil heating my grid voltage is very stable here all the time

I will take a referral --and see how it looks

then I am going to guess you do not have many wind farms close to you I can see 5 windfarms on the horizon from my front window -in the distance ,so its like watching kiddies windmills on a beach and another 2 big ones to be built within 20miles of me very soon --which i will also be able to see i will look into it though-providing it does not up set my current contract

I,ve heard of it and they will only take it when they want it and that will be from people where there is not an excess of wind energy for them to get so it will not happen for anyone in scotland --cos we export it every day

it shows there is plenty of wind or they would not have sited it there

can,t see that being a starter

at that price iwill be dead before its paid itself off going by what they say is the annual production looking at wind chart for my location it looks like a mean 6.5 mpersec over the year but some months are 8mpersec I know there are lots of days when you would not even attempt to open the bifold doors If you look at my blog you will see it is very exposed and lots of space to put it away and above the house the big 125kw turbine at the farm cost 640K 13 years ago but is returning him 125-150k a year so it paid for itself pretty quick

I am on the top of a hill and get lots of wind there is a 125kw big turbine on the farm just behind me so it is the right place was looking for any real world experience if anybody has any this winter i spent alot of time in cloud --so solar had no chance the original house was not built with a front door of any sort as it faces south west and the courtyard at the back had walls and doors to keep wind out

are there any reliable and sensibly priced wind turbines that are worth looking at I have solar but that don,t work in winter ,but i do get lots of wind as I am in exposed position about 350ft above the estuary Is it worth t considering something at 5-10kw any working examples would be good

stress over time on the fixings etc -so they dig it up and start again

only if i sold osme -wind men get money when the turbines are sitting doing nothing --thats the difference

wind power --who in their right mind would sign a contract that says they get paid if they turn them off I would love to have run a company where i got paid if I did not produce anything and if you work out how much pollution is caused making the things and the amount of c02 in the huge concrete bases and when they get replaced they need a new base --it just don,t stack up its about getting a quick return not what is best long term we have hydro scheme on the river Dee in s.w scotland -uses same water 3 times and was built in1937 still running now --that is the right way hydro and tidal barages but they do not get a [payback for a long time compared to wind or solar the desert in america is full of old wind turbine blades that they cannot recycle economically - so they just lie there --thats not net zero

I suspect the design life is to justify the high price they want per kilowatt as if they gave it a 50 year life the capitol rite off costs per year would be 50% CHEAPER

looking at it again I would go back up there when its raining the stain on ceiling will most likely caused by water -- not bee/wasp residue

the acorn thing would be an old wasp nest--some types do not make big nests -but lookd like they keep coming back they chew up wood or similar to make the nests

that will be because over time the back of the gabion could get cloggedwith silt -so he wants a drain at bottom to carry it away Isusepect any make of perforated land drai nwill do - make sure you surround it with pea gravel so it odes not clog a 3m retaing wall could hold a lot of water andturn into slurry which would take your wall away --that why he wants a seperate drain to stop this happening could also be the type of ground you are in do you have a concrete found for the gabion ? when i did mine ihad about 12" of rock rubble behind the gabion for the first m from the base to stop this happening Ialos have mine filledwith granite wste from the quarry -my ground is very free draining

are you in a hard water area ? with no softening treatment on the supply something else to consider -as it could scale up your boiler over time ask your heating engineer

I,m electric only heat pump and UFH Ishould aslo say the house is 400sqm floor area

put solar on the new house last year and now having had a winter can say that i didi it wrong i went for 13.6kw of panels--no problem but went for 17kw of batteries -iwa going to go for only 4 batteries in the stack --but when they found they could not fit 30 panels and had to fit only 26 the deal was i get another battery instead the bottom line is that when its all working on a sunny day then the batteries fill up quick but in winter get nothing with the intelligent octopus tariff they pay you same as they charge you for electic ,so once batteries are ful it goes back anyway at 27p a unit and the batteries then discharge between 16.00 and 20,00 hrs at 29p sounds good but it will never pay back the cost of to many batteries I am electric only so I am always importing in badmonths so better just to fill smaller batteries sooner and just take the 27p for the rest of it -the 3p extra form storage will never pay for the extra batteries the other thing that happens is it priorities filling batteries ,so like today I am paying out for import even though its charging batteries -yes iget 3p more when selling back -but not the point If doing it again yes all the panels the roof will hold .but do not go over the top on batteries ,unless you are dual fuel and then you would store and use it later

you sure you cannot change the design to reuse the muck on your site for landscaping etc ?

I had same problem and Ihave it claim it back for hmrc -with vat reclaim same as all the other stuff you will be buying zero rate will only apply if work being done by main contractor vat reclaim

I would not use CT! --just use the wate plugging cement even on damp surfaces

I had a similar but larger problem when trying to control the water leaks on my firepond there was pressure as well with my leaks in the 5 meter wall behind the pond and a constant flow it was a sika _plugging fast setting cement mix it up and you got 5mins to get it on -so small areas at a time and can be use under water if you press it hard onto the leak took me 2 days frigging about to gat all the leaks plugged but it worked mix it up till its like sloppy putty --then GO I even used it on my water course --old water supply made from stones just laid on each other problem was it was leaking too much from the stone culvert and coming outanywhere it like where it went through the wall and not where I wanted it contained in the stone work imagine a stone culvert coming to a dry stone dyke and trying to get all going where you wanted on the other side --then you will get the picture did not matter with original set up as all the leaks ended up in the open collector at other side of wall , but as i was piping it in 300m twin wall all the way down to firepond 8mm drop and 20m downhill to where it meets the wall above the firepond I did not want it to form another stream under the piping and end up with the wall collapsing as it had done in the past - not a problem then as it made its way into the stone culvert which heads off across my courtyard and down the 95m drop into the quarry that stone culvert I replaced with more 300mm twin wall problem sloved but alot of frigging about