Russdl

@PNAmble I like that. I’ll see if I have the technology…

Help! We have a new, temporary WiFi (story below). How do I get my Shelly relays on to the new WiFi whilst the existing one is dormant? Google has failed me. ~~~ Apparently our broadband is broken somewhere outside the house - it will be fixed on the 19th. BT provide an EE mini hub that we had in the house, as soon as you report the failure they activate the mini hub that uses 4G to provide WiFi broadband whilst we await the fix. That’s all good and working well but I can’t get the Shelly relays on to it.

And, as an aside we also use our bio ethanol fuel to make our own surgical spirit aka ‘rubbing alcohol’ 70% bio ethanol 30% deionised water* Almost odourless and cleans almost everything. *we collect this from the dehumidifier when we dry clothes indoors in the winter.

@jamiehamy thanks for the link to the fuel, doesn’t that unit price decrease with bulk! I’m pretty sure we’ve only ordered 3 lots of 6L - so 18 bottles in total - and we still have 8 and a bit bottles left after 2.5 winters but I’ll definitely re-stock from ekofuel when the time comes.

There is no discernible smell from our bio ethanol fire.

This is the stuff we’ve ordered. 6 x1L bottles, £24.49

We have used a 2kW bio ethanol fire for the last three winters now. It lives in the lounge, on the coffee table. Of an evening if there’s a nip in the air we light it for 30-40 mins with the lounge door partially closed. It quickly warms the room (not the whole house) and the room stays cosy for the rest of the evening. The more open plan your house is the less effective it will be. We’ve probably used it a dozen or more times so far this winter, more than previous winters due to the distinct lack of sunshine. It’s in no way a replacement for the beautiful Clearview stove we had in our old house but it does what is required of it, it has a real flame, it doesn’t create any ash or need cleaning and I’m not spending loads of my spare time harvesting, chopping storing and fetching timber. It’s also hundreds or thousands of pounds cheaper than an installed passive standard log burner (that most likely wouldnt get a great deal of use). We wouldn’t change a thing. We get ours from Amazon.

We got an A103 with direct electric for heating (Willis) and DHW (Sunamp). 7.5kW of solar on the roof no doubt helps as does building to Passive standard.

That’s not good, it’s been bugging me ‘what would I do’? I think I’d consider supporting the existing staircase. Chopping off the bottom to or three stairs. Completing the floor as designed and then re forming the bottom steps. How that would work in reality I don’t know but leaving ‘as is’ would be dire I reckon.

+1 to all that advice above but especially the YouTube tutorial stuff. Also bear in mind that when you’re up close and painting it may look a bit shabby however when you get off the steps and stand back it may not be quite so bad.

I reckon blown in cellulose would be a right pain on internal studwork. You’d have to cut holes above and below every noggin, plus remember where every noggin is. @Barny pretty much, we did every wall wall/ceiling where we didn’t want sound to travel from one side to the other.

We used sound block rockwool and acoustic plaster board. Works well. Same build up between the ground floor ceilings as well.

And setting fire to things for cooking/heating is so ‘last century’ 😁

That playing field is levelled a bit by the greater efficiency of induction over gas. Probably further levelled by cheaper/easier cleaning for the induction.

I would say “if you have electricity, I cannot for the life of me see why you would want gas.” I think @ectoplasmosis summed it all up nicely. @ProDave we’ve got a couple of camping gas stoves for the power cut that hasn’t happened since we bought them. Tonight may be the night though, it’s blowing a hoolie out there.

@dpmiller it goes in a cold oven that is then heated to 200 degrees (iirc) for an hour and then left to cool down. The kitchen is a no go zone for a good couple of hours. Obviously not a problem in the summer when doors and windows are opened.

@Blooda exactly the same! We only use boost when cleaning the charcoal filter. Did it a couple of days ago when the sun was shining bright. Absolutely poisonous. The instructions do say to make sure the room is well ventilated but it was way too cold to open a door/window 😂

Our down draft hob has a washable grease filter and a rechargeable charcoal filter. It expels the air at floor level below a standard ceiling mounted MVHR extract duct. I didn’t expect it to be completely effective for the reasons @Dreadnaught mentions, but after two and a half years of use I’d have to say that it is. There is no evidence of grease etc in the MVHR extract duct and the pendant lights that hang down to about a meter above the back of the hob are equally unmarked. We don’t fry a great deal of food which will obviously help but I’d say the down draft hobs are more effective than you might expect.

The white pipe filling with water looks like a tumble dryer hose! I presume it’s ‘exhaust’. I can’t quite work out the orientation of it, Is it just filling up with rain? What does the outside look like?

Factory silicone for most of ours iirc. The condensation is a minor irritant that happens only occasionally and I think I’m the only one here with 3G windows that suffers from it - you’ll be fine.

Ah, ok. It looks like our windows are different then but if it helps here’s some pictures of ours. This is one of our frameless windows. and this is the back door. Condensation is always a feature for us when it’s particularly cold outside. The house has definitely dried out, my belief is it’s connected to the Enthalpy MVHR but the jury is still out on that one.

@Meabh I can’t see where the gunk is you’re referring to, can you elaborate? We don’t have HF410’s but we do have fixed HX300’s so maybe a similar build up or our back door is an AT410, obviously that opens but otherwise maybe a similar build up? If you can highlight your exact issue I can ‘compare and contrast’ for you.

It looks like the bricks have been cleaned (left side different shade to right side) in a straight line coincident with the new fence. What’s going on there?

And probably needs protecting. If you’re not familiar with pedestals for a patio here’s a picture of ours, different build to yours but I’m pretty sure it would work and the pedestals would keep the air bricks free to do their job.

@richie9648 have you considered pedestals for your patio? The air bricks would remain unobstructed, and your patio could be pretty much level with the patio doors. We did that with the Aco below the patio tiles and out of sight.