sgt_woulds

Shifting spoil at 7pm last night I cut down the cheap cotton work trousers they sometimes sell in Lidl / Aldi just below the knee pad pockets. They work quite well as pirate pants; all the extra rips and tears just add to the ventilation potential and I still have all my pockets and a hammer loop and knee pads. Cut upwards behind the knee for extra relief. Drives the girls mad... Straw hat with built in solar power fan Work boots was the worst bit. Last time I was in Hungary I found a shop selling steel toe sandals but didn't have enough pocket money. I'm deffo buying them the next time I visit!

That's right. It tends to be stronger in pine / spruce /cedar woods due to the high resin and terpene content, and yes, it does smell nice! But it also drops of quickly to background levals after cutting and airing. Even quicker with LVL due to the production process. Thinking about your list of 'desirable' VoC, we can add historic smells, like the aroma of freshly laid Tarmac. Of course, we don't experience it that much these days in Pot Hole Britain, I doubt if Gen Z even knows what smell like! Creosote? I'm pretty sure that Brut aftershave could fall into this catagory too! Personally I prefer the 'old car smell' (pre-war) to the new car smell, but I'll never be lucky enough to have either on my (non-resin) driveway...

They still outgas VOC, albeit at slightly lower levels than 50 years ago. In France & Belgium they have mandatory VOC warnings on furniture containing PUR and strictly enforce VOC emission limits. Ditto for construction materials. All has to go through mandatory VOC testing (28 day testing). We have had some dealings with this as a supplier of LVL and woodfibre to a major flat pack furniture company. (Even natural wood emits VOC, the difference is that it tails off below safe after a very short period). They couldn't sell furniture already supplied to the UK into Belgium until they had swapped the facing materials and foam padding, (our LVL/woodfibre was fine though 🙂). I personally would not have a resin based floor in a well sealed house unless it met the Belgium standards.

Without NIMBYism, we would all be living in modernist monstrocities and concrete landscapes: no St Pancras Station, no protected view corridors that ensure that ensure that St Pauls is not smothered by high rises, no greenbelt, no ancient woodland. The environs we grow up in are as important as the culture, and a big part of what it means to be British. I don't think we'd sing a song about the the wonderful 'White Container Ports of Dover...'

From the perspective of a sassenach, the Scottish government seems to do a better job of providing for their citizens in a manner that makes the majority content. We look slightly enviously at some of the more joined up thinking that seems to prevail north of the wall. Most of the issues there seem to stem from deciscions further South... I'm not a fan of Adam Smith - even for his time (when there was a greater sense of civic and brotherly duty in all classes of men), he overstated how well self-interest promotes the common good. His neo-liberal free market ideas have a lot to answer for in recent governments policies, and they have hastened the predictable decline of societal cohesion and the rise in social economic inequality. With modern political and societal morality norms, he wouldn't earn enough shillings to pay for a single sandal he could stand on. The amount of aggregate employment depends on the amount of aggregate demand. The amount of aggregate demand is composed of the sum of the amounts which the community spends on consumption and on investment. The propensity to consume determines how much of a given level of income will be devoted to consumption, and consequently determines the amount of employment which can be sustained for a given level of investment. Thus, for any given state of technique, resources and costs, the level of employment depends on the level of effective demand. John Maynard Keynes Or in the contemporary language: Low demand (or competition) = unemployment / low pay / lack of incentive to do better for the customer Private sector won’t spend enough Therefore, government must regulate demand or mandate outcomes Pure market economies always fail to deliver socially desirable outcomes. Therefore, government intervention is necessary to ensure fair access and prevent abuse of market power. But it does depend upon a sense of civic duty in those who govern, and the idea that making the poorest lives better can raise all the boats so to speak.

Lots of issues with the way we deliver houses. Perhaps we need to create public housing corporations to manage access to building land, rather than let the large housebuilders buy it up and dictate the market. Regional corporations could also ensure that we aren't building 'anywhere towns', and keep to the local vernacular, which would keep the NIBYs happy and make for nicer environs. They could also ease the burdon from BCO if managed holistically. Of course, we'd need a sensible country like Holland to manage it all for us. We just don't have the skill base or personalities in our population to make things better for our selves. Toby-Lloyd-2.pdf

More details, please! Maybe in a new thread. I personally would not put resin in any house I planned to breath in, but every day is a school day... I live on chalk rather than clay, but we do have wychert-built houses in the area which apear more durable than clay-based cob, so it is worth some experimentation. I'd like to try it in my workshop (with UFH) since earthen floors are less fatiguing to stand on for long periods. The cost of linseed oil is gives me pause though, as does the amount of time required to experiment and finish. I'm 12 years in on my build and really want to see an end date!

Why no underfloor heating with an earth clay floor? It seems to be the ideal time to install it: Earthen Floor Applications — The Earthen Floor Company

I meant to type 3000 - 10000ft ceiling height. Our blimp was limited to 3000ft. And less than 1300 feet after it was condemned. Being shot full of holes did not help either... (Watching the duct tape pop of the holes as we flew over the Alps was a sight I'll never forget)

Not a chance. I used to work as ground crew on one of the Goodyear Blimps (considered the second most dangerous job in avaiation (after test pilot), as it is the only role where you are required to run towards a turning propellor!) The Zepellins NT and Airlander are a world away from the crappy old balloons we used, but they still have most of the same problems: Helium! this is a finate resource, and desperately needed for medical and manufacturing purposes. Won't be long until we have a world shortage. Airships (even modern ones) leak like a teabag and it get worse when they get older. The lightship (BC A-60+) we had was end of life (the ballon was condemned and patched with aviation duct tape all the time I worked on it) and it leaked more than 90m3 per day of Helium per day! Speed Unlike our blimp, Rigid and Semi-rigids like Airlander can make headway in higher wind conditions, but that ballon is a huge wetted area to drag through the sky and top speeds will always be limited. Think of it more like a seagoing vessal than and aircraft. Air lander is a lift-body design with better aerodynamic controls, but even they cannot fly in the same conditions as a standard aircraft. Handling/Landing Even the latest airships struggle in high winds, and once they are staionary they are effectively just kites. Zeppelins and Airlander cannot land in higher wind speeds, or gusty conditions, despite their vectored thrust nacelles. Unliked fixed wing aircraft, loading/unloading (or just removing engines for maintenance) is an issue and needs careful ballasting. Boyancy also changes with air pressure. Putting them 'on-shed' is easier with these, due to their mast vehicles, but is required every time you do major maintenance, unlike fixed wings. (Hands down one of the scariest things I've ever done in employment was try to put our blimp into the Friedrichshafen hanger) Airspace Airports shut when airships land due to the handling issues. They have priority over all other craft except for emergency landings. They have limited ceiling height due to gas expansion (around 300 feet), limited by lift, air density, and envelope strength so airspace and landing slots will be vastly reduced. I've seen concepts for giant solar powered airships proposing emmissions free travel. You'd still need to find a replacement for the Helium to make this true - nothing wrong with Hydrogen of course. It was the airframe and fabrics that burnt on the Hindenburg, not the gas! But try and convince the public of that... You'd also need vastly more efficient flexible PV panels and lightweight batteries. It won't happen in time to help with the climate emergency.

I spent lots of time working on green roofs, commercial and domestic. From what I'v seen both domestic and managed commercial roofs, unless the sedums are on deep soil (intensive roof) they just get scorched and die. Even the best managed extensive roof will die unless you run sprinklers continualy. You end up with a brown mess and worse albedo than a reflective roof covering. The only sedums that seem able to cling on in these conditions are super fuggly. Not olives! Have you ever eaten a UK grown olive. Yeurgh...

Also make sure not to have doors that automatically lock when they close - lift to lock only. Although these don't always work easily single handed, they are still easier at waist height than yale lock handle combo. A single key for all locks is a boon as well.

Yes, that's what I was thinking! I should have put 'rather specific applications' in air quotes. I was once given a tour of one of those dodgy 'specific applications' (don't ask🤫) and they applied the most rigerous scientiffic approach I've seen outside of a lab! It was all chemical testing, clipboards and graphs... They had also had the most jerryrigged and terrifying electrical system I ever came accross (and I once worked on a house without a fusebox that was wired by Victorians, so that says something). Lengths of rebar rod wrapped in newspaper...

I remember a billion years ago there was a requirement for 5m distance from ground to blade tip (and from any windows) for building mounted units. Not sure about free standing rules. This will only be 3-400 watt max turbine. Noise will be zero unless you stand right under it.

What building regs requirements would apply to a lampost on a public throughfare?