scottishjohn

and don,t forget to give him the branches back maybe thats the solution to the robina - -if tennant is suddenly told your going to dump all the branches in his garden from the over hanging tree --maybe he will get hold of the landlord for you or maybe just inject it with round up with a hypo needle at night

heating to 47c -- better make sure the ASHP anti legionella function is working --which means it will have to raise it to a high regularly-so I see little advantage in an over large tank just more volume to have to put up to the high temp,unless you are using free PV for it most of the time and tank VERY well insulated

my Tf house was built with an open fire ,which I had to line only because i changed to closed in unit ,then to a baxi bermuda gas fire and back boiler -which has now gone and i,m ASHP I,ve been here 30 years so it was built with an external fyfe stone chimney , but if an open fire you just build a proper chimney

that would work but would use 6x2 for the vertical brace instead of 4x2,seems alot more to do than just using extended joists which would attach to end of rafters , the 30cm upstand would not be needed or the short secondary brace. you could knock the outer row of bricks of and put joist through at same height as now and extend rafter down to meet it,but if not wanting to move any of old joists then yes it should work as you show,probably you could replace the short brace with 15mm osb triangles

look at any design for a modern TF 1/2 storey house and it will be built as i am suggesting bottom cord which is the ceiling joist of ground floor then studs set in and attached to bottom to give upstairs walls of approx 5ft at the ridge or close to it there will be another cross beam -what you fix ceiling to ,which also gives it all the strength it needs to go fully vaulted you need a ridge beam that goes full length of building to attach rafters to each side of it

put it on your cad and see how much space there is in upstairs if you you use 1.7m as min height you could put you upstands in from wall as well if you extended old joists -so have your internal walls where they would make sense + get your triangulation ,even if you don,t change the roof height or angle you seemed worried about the walls moving -by using floor joists tied to roof there will be no side load at all so no stress on old brick work have you got planning or this yet ?

is this for a gas fire or a log burner --if log burner i would go ceramic --could be a lot hotter than you think especially when it catchs fire from all the resin inside it in years to come and ceramic life will be same as the house

hardie plank would be my choice -no maintainece and no rot

sounds like they should have been made same as main wall founds at perimeter now is not the time to skimp on foundations from your description i think i would be digging out and filling them with concrete if your brickie is worried --then you should be

is there a reason to only use 30cm studs to at wall --cos that low will reduce usable space upstairs If you have no planning restrictions i would suggest you think of making that taller -anything less than 1.3m at wall is really unusable -make it 1.6 m and you could build in storage behind the wall at same time ? just means roof will be flatter

its a pity you cannot extend the original joists out to your roof beams attach your 30cm vertical lifters to them as well -that would be mega strong --then you would have a proper triangle with all load going directly downwards and very simple to do - maybe time for new longer joists and use old ones somewhere on the job- and a nice overhang which could be closed in.

I like closed cell foam -but maybe simpler to use pir backed plaster board and stick it up other wise you going to need to attach some sort of hangers to attach your PB to maybe . areo gel is very expensive spray foam will also make it water proof and airtight so simplest is pir boards if no moisture problems check out insulation value of a 75mm foam backed plaster board

yep no point in changing it unless you do -the 10mm size is what will determine flow rate If indeed it is a flow issue due to pipe size. but its probably not -I had micro bore in a house to upstairs rads and they still worked -but the flow regulator on down stairs rads -you have a valve each end of rad -one is usually a thermostatic one -which turns off rad when room is correct temp the one on the other end is to balance flow through whole system water will go easiest way -so if you got those not set right you will get a mis match in flow rates in the whole system most houses the downstairs rad and more closed than upstairs to make the water go up to bedrooms you can try closing bottom rad flow valves and opening up bedroom ones as far as they will go and see when trying to balance system thermo vlaves should be turned as high as they can go -so they don,t start closing while you are fiddling ideally you need 2 thermo couples(thermometer on inlet and outlet pipe) on the rad and you want as big a temp drop across inlet to outlet as possible 20c would be perfect --but doubt you will get that -but if temp drop across bottom rads is same as bedroom ones and inlet temps are the same -then you got it as good as it can

no way lpg is at least 3 times as expensive -my lpg bill was £1600 a year and i saved £1000 overall -eg my electric bill went up by £600 and no lpg --you do the maths If you got so much wood why you not using that and nothing else?

might it be easier to just paint it before fitting ,as its not in direct contact with the weather? or maybe use MGO board (cement board) myabe if you heat the shed then you could get condensation between the osb and dpc ?

my guess is they just over specced things by a big margin would be interesting to run a sim on forth bridge and see just how much they over speced the things --good one for a uni student to do for a project

I tried that when I modified my workshop and fitted another bolton brady eurofold door same as the other two already fitted,which came with uprights and 6 x 3 I beam for top -complete kit which i then attached to the steel frame of the building just to be sure would not accept bolton bradys drawings building control insisted i get a structural engineers report --another £300 wasted just typical of planning + building control same as i was going to fit a sprinkler system ---all parts available -but to get it passed by BC ,even though I or a fire engineer fitted it I needed to spend £5k for a bit of paper from a fire engineer designer parts for system were half that price so it didn,t happen

when i finally get there --that was my idea as well -and then just brace any dodgy part blocks and corners/ door /window opening with bits of osb/ply screwed to the blocks

fancy not covering them up -good job it wasn,t winter cos if they froze -you could have had real problems as the water expands when ice that was one of the tests i did on these blocks i have -to see how much water they can hold and yes they hold a lot --but totally dry out in a day or so

so if you doing any sort of building in scotland ,then you need a building control warrant . they will want to see the plans which will give the steel sizes , and also the structural engineers calculations I am guessing from what you say you do not have one

I,ve got a couple here and they are lighter than std concrete blocks i,m an OAP and can lift them one handed heavy is not something i would call them ,neither are Isotex . the big advantage to my mind is you need minimal bracing compared to poly block system

as long as it dry it will just stick like shit to a blanket as soon as it leaves the gun it starts expanding no real liquid

I have seen closed cell used in stables etc to stop the mositure from heat of horses and corrosive piss fumes on under side of roof and to also glue the old roof together including sticking the slates in place on an "english" style roof -no sarking boards -just batons to nail slates to -first saw it 20 years ago --the old roof is still up and looking as good as it did then but never seen any holes in it from insects boring into to it

the main difference is closed cell is ,as it sounds a waterproof and air tight barrier they don,t cover the beams totally they leave bottom edge un coated --beams breathe there i don,t see sweating as a problem as you are closing off the damp under floor from the nice dry interior and the heating is on top of that -so sweating will not be a problem It has become a common product to use on the outside of a basement wall to give both insulation and the dpc rather than tanking OVERKILL--don,t agree -better insulation and draft stopping abilities is what we all strive for price up the alternatives and then decide

all I can comment on is switching from lpg to ASHP basically saved £1000 per year with no change to the house just swopping heat source LPG is most expensive heat source there is I am guessing you are using alot of logs for the fire in winter