jamiehamy

We used Seconds and Co for PIR - however we ended up not able to use it. They sell the boards are 'x - y' sizes and therefore the luck of the draw what you get. IN our case, we got about three different type boards and 3 different thicknesses - useless for a flat roof! But for walls that will have battens or filling spaces, then ideal and a huge saving to be made. Funnily enough, I put 15 of the boards on Gumtree for £150 and could have sold them ten times over!

haha! Amazing!

Looking good - keep the pics coming! We're preparing to start the first fix joinery soon and I'm liking seeing how things look on simialr projects. The stairs are simply tremendous - I need to make sure my other half doesn't see them!

I was in that sort of mood last night to fired something off. Not sure if I'll get a response. Thanks for everyones feedback - glad it wasn't jsut me. As I allude to in my email, her views are of course valid, but as 'expert opinion' to the government - I think it was woeful. The other contributors seemed to know what they were talking about and had some good ideas thankfully. But as stated elsewhere - why such a limited and unrepresentative panel? Dear Mr Golden, I am contacting you following the Committee session on 20th September 2016 on 'Greenhouse Gas emmisions', at which you were present. I would normally contact Mr Greene, but as you are part of the committee I thought I would contact you in the first instance - I'm such Mr Greene will be glad to be spared another email from me. I should explain that currently, my partner and I are building our own house near Largs - and I mean building quiet literally. When reading the transcript of the session, the contributions from Sue Roaf started to make me wonder and by the end, I was rather concerned about her input as a so-called 'expert'. Why was she chosen to participate - what are her credentials in this matter that make her a choice above others who may be equally or more qualified? Also, given her long standing commitment to solar power, should an interest not have been declared? I had never heard of her previously but following my reading of the transcript, I looked into her background and found - not surprisingly - that she is a massive proponent of solar - to the point that as an expert, her opinion is clearly fairly subjective and possibly biased. In the grand scheme of things, her contribution was only one of many opinions being heard, but I would suggest that many of her claims are quite simply incorrect, or cannot be stated as fact. Others clearly were designed to promote her own agenda, rather than offer a balanced view to the parliament. Her contributions would have been really good as part of a debate, as they are in most cases, one view or side of an argument, rather than facts that can be proven conclusively. I'm not sure what can be done now, but given that we are building our own house and I'm familiar with almost all of the issues Sue Roaf raised and that so much of the evidence provided is, I believe, so flawed or subjective, I felt I should highlight this to you. Ultimately, politicians like yourself rely on such evidence when making decisions or recommendations - and so the standard of evidence should be very high. I believe Sue Roaf's falls way short - her opinion and evidence frankly is worth as much as anyone with even a basic understanding of energy efficiency and house building or design. I have provided commentary below on some of the more stand out comments below. Regards, Jamie “Homes are incredibly important to Scotland because citizens are important to their legislators.” what does this statement even mean? Has this been recorded incorrectly? This early comment drew my attention to subsequent contributions. “Now we are beginning to realise that, with the next generation of housing, we have created problems. For instance, in modern, light-weight, cheap-to-build, highly insulated timber housing with very little air movement, people are experiencing very bad indoor air-quality problems. Such houses often have big windows that do not have bits that it is possible to open. The solution is a small machine.” Her view on air quality is very subjective and cannot be relied on as - the magnitude of the problem should be quantified. We, for example, are building our house to high airtightness standards and fully aware of the ventilation requirements, which are also covered in any case in the Building Regulations. Houses cannot be built without the correct ventilation systems in place - the incorrect operation of the MHRV systems is usually to blame as opposed to a fundamental failing. This 'small machine' is a very sophisticated piece of machinery that not only circulates and introduces fresh air, but recovers heat from the stale outgoing air - you wouldn't be able to gather this from Sue Roafs contribution. I would suggest she completely misrepresents the system and those 'lobbyist-driven vested interests' would be able to mount a firm and strong rebuttal to her claims,with scientific data to back it up. “If we genuinely want the domestic sector to have a resilient and robust future that includes large emissions reductions, we will need to start ventilating houses naturally again, getting rid of the machines and running them on solar energy” - I am baffled why Sue Roaf refers to these as 'machines' - these are low energy Mechanical Heat Recovery and Ventillation systems. Their purpose is to do away with 'natural' ventilation as this is hugely inefficient - it is pointless building a house with high insulation and air tightness levels and then undoing all that work by opening windows or having trickle vents that let in cold air, and create draughts - something Sue Roaf refers to later. “People—myself included—can build or design houses that do not need much heat any more. That is the solution. One way of doing that is to incorporate thermal storage in the buildings, as we always used to in cavity walls, for example.” We never used to build thermal storage into cavity walls - certainly not by design. This comment baffles me. “We would probably do the citizens of Scotland more of a favour if we mandated for thermal storage to provide resilient heat over time than if we tried to force them to put in extremely expensive and often inefficient and expensive-to-run heat-pump systems.” This is a purely subjective opinion and should not be presented or taken as 'fact'. I would also love to hear how Sue Roaf plans to retrofit thermal storage in houses and measure the efficiency and cost effectiveness. “I do not know how many members have looked out of their windows and seen what I call the great eye of Sauron—the huge gas flame on the horizon—over the past week. For 10 days, millions and millions of tonnes of gas have been flared off. It looks like Mordor over there.” I've not checked, but suspect this is complete and utter nonsense - 'millions and millions of tonnes' in 10 days? Might be worth checking this out of course, but I think Ineos would confirm pretty quickly it's a nonsense claim. I'm surprised the Greens didn't highlight this. Incidentally, not one contributor mentioned in the analysis LPG as a fuel for combustion engined cars - something I've had in two of my cars and has virtually no support from any government, despite the far lower level of noxious gases emitted. A serious ommision from these 'experts' who think it's electric or nothing. “Singapore recently irked Elon Musk by refusing to allow Tesla cars into its market. It has done that because it does not have any renewable energy and the Tesla is a really big car that uses a lot of energy to get from A to B, irrespective of its being electric. Therefore, the simple message about the size of vehicles is critical.” This is quite simply wrong and misleading - there is no 'simple' message and to try suggest there is, is frankly disingenuous. Maybe Sue Roaf would like to speak to Mr Musk to get the other side of her one sided (and questionable) statement. “There is also the point about tariffs. There might be a tariff that reflects excess wind on a particular night.” - The less said about this comment, the better - but is the Scottish Parliament seriously relying on experts who will come out with this type of comment? Can you imagine a government or private company even considering such a proposition? Excess wind from Sue Roaf I think! “We need to take a new approach and say to designers, “When you design a new building, you need to put in a safe climate room for extreme cold, heatwaves and so on.” We can start incrementally by putting insulation into the roof of that particular room, installing double glazing to get rid of draughts and putting in a nice warm carpet. Making every building energy efficient will just not happen.” This final session is so riddled with inaccuracies it is almost beyond belief. Firstly - someone of Sue Roaf's standing should understand the difference between a 'roof' and a 'ceiling'. The distinction is clear, and important. Secondly, installing double glazing DOES NOT get rid of draughts. Again, someone like Sue Roaf should know this. Thirdly - there is no such thing as a 'warm carpet'. Yet - it has the feeling of warmth, but a carpet offers little insulation qualities and offers not additional heat source. Maybe I should pop down to Carpetrite and ask for one of these new 'warm carpets' and see the look I get! If only I knew about these new 'warm carpets' - I would not have bothered putting in 150mm of XPS insulation under our new floor!

" We are getting chronic problems of overheating in Scotland " " If we genuinely want the domestic sector to have a resilient and robust future that includes large emissions reductions, we will need to start ventilating houses naturally again, getting rid of the machines and running them on solar energy "

Glad it wasn't just me! I might pop down and buy one of these new 'warm carpets' and take out the 150mm of insulation we bought. If only I knew about 'warm carpets'! I'm actually drafting an email to one of my MSPs who is on the committee as I think this 'evidence' is pretty shocking to be honest - politicians make decisions based on this stuff!

I was having a read through the Report for the Scottish Parliament. This committee session took my interest for obvious reasons. As I read the transcript, the contributions from Sue Roaf kept making me wonder. I've put some of the ones that stuck out, but you can access it here. Anyone have any thoughts? She covers quite a lot of what gets discussed on here - but maybe an interesting take? It's the section on Greenhouse gas emmisions - quite a long read but I'd be interested to hear what other members think of this session? Jamie ----------------------------------- http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=10531 “Homes are incredibly important to Scotland because citizens are important to their legislators.” “Now we are beginning to realise that, with the next generation of housing, we have created problems. For instance, in modern, light-weight, cheap-to-build, highly insulated timber housing with very little air movement, people are experiencing very bad indoor air-quality problems. Such houses often have big windows that do not have bits that it is possible to open. The solution is a small machine.” “If we genuinely want the domestic sector to have a resilient and robust future that includes large emissions reductions, we will need to start ventilating houses naturally again, getting rid of the machines and running them on solar energy” “People—myself included—can build or design houses that do not need much heat any more. That is the solution. One way of doing that is to incorporate thermal storage in the buildings, as we always used to in cavity walls, for example.” “We would probably do the citizens of Scotland more of a favour if we mandated for thermal storage to provide resilient heat over time than if we tried to force them to put in extremely expensive and often inefficient and expensive-to-run heat-pump systems.” “We would probably do the citizens of Scotland more of a favour if we mandated for thermal storage to provide resilient heat over time than if we tried to force them to put in extremely expensive and often inefficient and expensive-to-run heat-pump systems.” “I do not know how many members have looked out of their windows and seen what I call the great eye of Sauron—the huge gas flame on the horizon—over the past week. For 10 days, millions and millions of tonnes of gas have been flared off. It looks like Mordor over there.” “Singapore recently irked Elon Musk by refusing to allow Tesla cars into its market. It has done that because it does not have any renewable energy and the Tesla is a really big car that uses a lot of energy to get from A to B, irrespective of its being electric. Therefore, the simple message about the size of vehicles is critical.” “There is also the point about tariffs. There might be a tariff that reflects excess wind on a particular night.” “We need to take a new approach and say to designers, “When you design a new building, you need to put in a safe climate room for extreme cold, heatwaves and so on.” We can start incrementally by putting insulation into the roof of that particular room, installing double glazing to get rid of draughts and putting in a nice warm carpet. Making every building energy efficient will just not happen.”

I think the thread has proven this nicely

You've put the ceiling plasterboard up - does that restrict you in terms of installing lighting or the MHRV system? I take it you're not having down lighters? Can you access the space from above? We'll be starting first fix in a few months to starting to plan ahead - your pics are helpful

Get the footings in Vijay - you have had the site cleared already - in the knowledge that there were no newts. You've done nothing incorrect - to enter talks about it would just bring more attention to it. It's like asking for a Bat Survey after a building has been knocked down. What I would do however is brief whoever is doing the footings on observing wildlife and looking out for newts - ensure you have provided guidance to them about it, and what to do if they discover a GCN. Remember - it's not a crime to develop your site. Be genuinely responsible - after all - the burden of proof is on planning etc.. - the fact is, the site has been cleared lawfully. I think it safe to say there ain't going to be any GCNs there regardless. You are a single house on a plot of land - this guidance is a tick box and given the progress to date, is pretty irrelevant to you. Different if out of a planned 400 houses, the land had been cleared for 50 and the rest had not been touched - you're getting caught up in something that doesn't apply to you any more I would say.

Have you advised that you have started work? Iirc the site has been cleared? If it has been cleared then this 'notification' is too late, no? If you have your permission and have started work, they can't keep asking you to revisit your survey surely? Might be worth speaking to something like Planning Aid? These guys can be pretty helpful. The last people I would speak to at the LA or the environmental planner. I think they might be a bit late, but just in case - what are the penalties for proceeding?

The fascination is about the view

That's my hope! Bear in mind we're always a bit cooler up here, when the sun is low, hopefully it'll get to the back where it otherwise would not get. I suppose it depends how much the Solar Tint reflex - iirc the G-value was around 0.35 - would that be right? Partner still wants two 2.4x900 rooflights over the kitchen and dining area at the front but I'm pushing back until I know what the heating cycle looks like. You can see the tint in this pic - when you're below the level of the window it reflects the sky, but from above no difference.

With no science behind it, I can share our experience thus far. We have 12m2 of glazing on the lower SW elevation. My worry was that it would heat up too much on sunny days. We have no UFH, but 80mm of concrete slag on top of the Tetris. We built the overhang to be 500mm, which means in the height of summer, almost no direct sun hits inside in the middle of the day bar the sill area. In addition, we specified Solar Tint glazing to reduce the heat gain (on that elevation only). We have only been wind and water tight for a month, but we have an inside and outside temperature sensor installed to track patterns. In short, the internal temperature downstairs is fairly contant and only increases of decreases very slowly and steadily. When you track against the outside air temperature, even when it's 22degrees outside, it might only reach 16.8 inside before sundown (there is no heating yet). But during the night when it might drop to 11degrees outside, the internal temperature will not go below 15degrees before dawn. Our overall U-value is targetting 0.15. So, hopefully the theory has paid off and we will not suffer overheating in the summer. If required, we can open windows and put ion by-pass mode, but slab cooling was never on the cards - too complex. Only time will tell tho!

Compriband? We've used that on ours and fills the small space beautifully. Iirc, it's breathable too, but weatherproof. We used Tremco TP600. I'll try get some pics at the weekend.

And our steel going in just over a year ago. We couldn't have done it without the telehandler. House is too far from the road, and the road too narrow, so a 130t crane was not an option. This thing simply picked everything up from the driveway. On full reach tho the lift was fairly limited.

Moving our biggest one. Three on each side, one at back in charge and making sure it is kept upright. We strapped insulation to the bottom of it to make it easier to drop if needed.

Wow - seeing some of the prices I'm glad we put them in ourselves. We didn't really have an option mind you - thanks to the window company screwup, we had to re-engineer just about ever single opening - then fit. I don't think I would have trusted that to anyone else, esp with the ICF.

Agreed - a jig of sorts, people at either end or a restraint system the prevents it falling over, repositioned during move. To be clear tho - widnae be me!

We used 6 people to lift our 250kg unit and one to help keep it upright. It was pretty top heavy but manageable - just. With 800kg, it would be in dodgy territory. As long as everyone is fully briefed and risks assessed, understood and mitigated then it's an option, but probably as fraught as crane.

Entrance in from the roadside.

Well done! Probably another year for us

We (I.e partner and me) moved our French doors (178kg) on timber rollers, but that was inside and the ground was completely flat. We could have done the same with the 250kg and 220kg units as when upright it's easy to keep it there - but wouldn't fancy it with an 800kg unit. Sounds like a big crane is the only real option here. Pictures please! When we fitted the big units, we did just as you said - got the bottom in at an angle and then put upright - we also had a 500kg hoist on the rafters just inside and that helped take the weight when we wanted to adjust it. I suppose the key is to make sure that when the bottom goes in, it's in exactly the right place - i.e putting battens along the back in just the right place so that when you bring it upright, it can't budge backwards. The worst part of it is, when it's in, no-one will ever quite get it - that's an 800kg unit! Only you will ever really know just what a feat it was to get it in there! All the best!

Yes - it's mostly underground. The roof will be about 500mm above ground level. We access the garage from the road. The design of the roof is such that we can park on it I think. WIll need to double check calcs with engineer- oh wait, he's gone AWOL! No joke!

Haha, I'm the same - huge garage to build a car collection and work on mine. However, I actually took a decision to put that on the backburner to let us focus on the house - if I started the garage now, it's £25k we'd need to commit - that will get us a long way on the house. But as soon as house is done, garage will go up. It'll be part underground, 200mm ICF, insulated raft, 3m high, 10m long and 8m wide. Good for hopefully 6 cars at a push