Radian

That sounds very ominous 😂 I just like to point out that unfounded associations between scary technology X and scary human condition Y are sometimes flipped on their heads as an equally unfounded positive association. The examples that come to mind are the miracle cures supposed to follow from doses of ionising radiation when it was first identified at the turn of the 20th century, and light therapy - a 21st century treatment using IR that is being used to treat a wide range of conditions. The assumption with the latter being that it has a positive effect, yet anything powerful enough to have any effect at all can't just be assumed to be beneficial or harmful to suit some other agenda. We soon realised the harm that can be done with with exposure to ionising radiation. But in the case of IR light therapy, 5G or any other electromagnetic (non-ionising) radiation, the measurable effect is heating: as in microwave cooking or, in the case of measuring tiny amounts of RF power, a Bolometer which is sensitive to nano-watts. Heating is a kinetic response to such radiation. Whether it comes from lighting a log fire, cooking your porridge or sticking a cell-phone next to you head, it's all the same. So small are the power levels involved that if you were standing right next to a 5G antenna you would not notice that you were being ever so slightly warmed. But you would be. Just as you would be if standing next to a lit candle. Or out enjoying the Sun.

Great to see your weather data plots. But doesn't the plot show the wind suddenly increasing at 4:30? By 5:00 it looks to have been pretty much the same strength for half an hour, and while the temperature was dipping a bit during that period, it suddenly went off a cliff edge at something like 5:10 I'm not so sure there's a correlation with wind strength there. It's almost as though the wind direction is having a greater effect - it veers around to the South, and a little way past to SE when the temperature drops 2oC in about 5 minutes. Could it be creating a low pressure in this room which draws down air from the roof space?

I guess it would just depend on how close you could get to the ideal. Nothing says it all has to be on the same latitude. Shame about the Pacific Ocean.

I'm not advocating it as a great idea. It would be very vulnerable to hostilities for one thing. I just think it beats the ongoing development of nuclear fusion on all counts - anything that makes use of the gigantic fusion reactor in the sky gets my vote, be it solar PV or wind power. For a fraction of the cost, interconnects around the equator might make more sense.

Except that this collects and beams down solar PV from a geostationary orbit that's constantly illuminated.

Just as much chance it could cure cancer. i.e. zero.

I think it'd be a better investment that trying to replicate the fusion reactor that generates that energy down here on the ground. A tiny bit more detail about some proposed systems:

I will always be using deep-flow guttering from now on after seeing how much better it copes with rainstorms than the standard half-round profile I have on the original parts of the house.

At the weekend I did a little experiment to see how well I could heat our garden room using excess PV generation alone. I say alone which isn't quite accurate as this side has 9m2 of patio doors pointing S.E. so we also harvested about 2.5kWh of solar gain on this occasion. It had gotten up to 24oC by 11:30AM and everyone was sweating buckets: The import power total (magenta plot) flatlines between 9AM to 1:30PM as the excess PV is diverted to the 2kW convector (except for the kettle going on for elevenses) I haven't started logging the PV output to the database yet but we generated 8.6kWh on this day in the second half of November - which is frankly better than I anticipated. At least the robot cat (mouser) was enjoying the heat.

An article I was reading in Architects Journal states the following: "Rules on the use of stub stacks are commonly forgotten. Firstly, the floor served by the stub stack should be no more than 1.3m high from the invert of the drain that it connects to." Why is this?

+1. How old are the kids? Anyone on any benefits? Call your local authority to see if can be done under the Energy Company Obligation

Reckons 196 MWh is enough power 300,000 homes for two hours: 327W per house. Not at around 6PM it won't.

Unfortunately you can't have your cake and eat it. The insulation needs thorough ventilation to dissipate moisture. A stupid amount of water vapor will be coming up from your house - although you'll be unaware of it - until you find an ingenious way to trap it. Boarding over it is one such way. The only way this scheme might work is to make it into a 'warm roof' which is harder than it might seem. From my previous paragraph you will see that if you can stop water vapor getting through the ceiling then you've removed the need for the insulation to be ventilated. But how would you do this? You might try removing all the insulation (yuk) and drape an impermeable membrane over the truss chords (without leaving any air pockets) and replacing the insulation. Now you want to cover it to prevent it absorbing moisture from the atmosphere - but not with a moisture barrier because if it has the tiniest air leak you'll eventually end up with a bag full of wet insulation (Knauf once made an awful product to this recipe). You would use a breathable membrane with pores to control vapor going in and out*. Then you might be able to board over it - but making sure you don't compress the insulation at all. So you need something like 250mm of stand-offs to maintain the space for the insulation. Another option is to take the insulation layer all the way up to the pitch of the roof, giving you a warm loft. This is even trickier to do without causing knock-on problems. I will spare you the lengthy description of the steps involved. Suffice to say the simple option of having a well ventilated loft with unrestricted insulation is always the most effective solution. This is the basic trouble-free recipe that's worked for the majority of our housing stock. *If you don't like the idea of the drafts 'wind washing' your insulation, you could get a breathable 'space blanket' that offers a tiny bit of extra insulation and drape that over. But of the numerous products in this category, I know of only one which is breathable - and it costs an arm and a leg.

I keep on seeing people aspiring to board their lofts, but this is not a great idea. The insulation is fully permeable to moisture and it's big old drafty loft space that takes care of it for you. Boarding over just traps that moisture and makes a mouldy mess. Your 70's house will have cavity walls. What's in the cavity? If nothing, then get them filled with blown EPS beads. The devil in the detail is how your cavities transition to the sloping ceiling at the eaves. There's a good chance that the cavity fill will also insulated this space but your need an experienced surveyor (such a person should be used by a reputable cavity specialist) to establish this. Depending on how you're fixed financially, you may be able to get this insulation work done for free under the ECO scheme but if not, then second to around 300mm of insulation in the loft, it should make a significant improvement.

Sounds like a nice spot for an office then. You've also got the side window, lots of wall space for desk & shelving. Lending some light to the bedroom with a frosted glass partition could improve the light in there.

You could partition the 'big bedroom' off at the 'sun lounge' end (Japanese paper wall style?) and move the door to the ensuite over to keep it in the bedroom, and make that space your WFH office. I had pictured having a sofa down that end anyway. Does it have a view beyond the Sun lounge?

From PE.com: 'Compaction To Refusal', the point at which the aggregate simply won't compact any further. I like that. Feels like that point you reach, then tell SWMBO to f.off

Psst... V

100% "MADE IN ITALY" still, can't generalise. I'll shut up.

I know. It's basically just outdoors down there. Don't want to make it too cosy. It's actually a pity to have to have the cross-ventilation washing cold air across the underside of the B&B but if it was all airtight, methane, radon, gas leaks etc. could do nasty things.

Our house is oriented in exactly the same way: Our front elevation points SW but has smaller windows than yours to prevent overheating. However, do I wish we had some larger windows on the SE side to make more of the solar gain in the shoulder months. Unless shaded, these two elevations get the same irradiation - an obvious point that was lost on me when we designed it. NW is far from a write-off, in the summer at least - we have French windows in the lounge facing that direction and a bay window in the dining room and get lovely sunsets from there. NE is a real pick-me-up in the summer too. We start our day in the kitchen and garden room principally facing in this direction. You have your sitting and dining room with large sliding patio doors there. I'm not sure this would suit us so well. I would think about relocating the kitchen and breakfast area to here.

I think it's the lower part of @Andehh's cavity wall that's (thankfully) filled with XPS up to DPC and dritherm above. You wouldn't want that wicking up standing water from the tops of the foundation. Generally they don't bother with a DPC + concrete on the ground (solum) below B&B - just a layer of type one to make it look pretty for the BCO. I even raked some of that off to make better use of it elsewhere.

Brilliant. My last commercially produced device like this was battery operated. No chance of that self-heating.

All night, every night... Seriously though, it's not a huge issue - unless it freezes. Chances of that are slim but non-zero. Our house is on a 1:30 slope which is less than yours but water is 'piped in' via a series of Georgian land drains that cut across the field we've built on. The best solution is to run a perforated pipe around the top of the foundation strip and out to a rainwater drain french drain style. We did that on our recent extensions but the original buildings didn't get that treatment. I'm hoping the new drainage (which does connect up via holes in the walls underneath) will take water away from the house and garage. I wish I had acted on it when the house was built because I could see water at the bottom of the cavities as the walls went up 🙄 Having said that, it's 25 years on now and I've not had any problem with it - except in persistent hot weather (ironically) I get a 'damp' smell from the lower side of the house. I put this down to the ground below drying out and the humidity finding it's way up the back of the dot & dab plasterboard.

Windows, who needs 'em in a bathroom? Ghost of old layout, with no changes to corridor. Adapting the plumbing could be an issue though.