Russdl

…when whacking them in to the ground? I needed three half round post in a straight line but as soon as I started knocking them in they do their own thing regarding the line. I guess it’s stones in the ground that dictate where the post will go. Also the posts rotate slightly as they get deeper, maybe stones again. Is there a secret way to get the posts to go in straight and stay aligned with one another and not rotate?

‘Happy wife - happy life’ Get an automatic. Wrap the kids in cotton wool. Then follow @Jilly’s advice.

I thought your keyboard was broken 🤣

Ah yes. Thanks for the reminder. I do remember stuff about that now. They are squeezing between the WPC cladding and the zinc cladding but I’m quietly confident they won’t get any further as I still bare the scars of the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ from installing the acres of insect mesh, but I shall keep a beady eye on the little fockers.

We had a fair few fly’s in yesterday, the sliders were open most of the day. I wonder if there is a ‘perfect storm’ for flies? We’ve just seen this on our cladding (zoom in, there’s lots there). Most of them are on the west facing cladding which hasn’t warmed up much yet. Any idea what’s going on?

If you have no other home for the metal in that lot you’ll get a few good bob from a scrap metal merchant. Try and get all the wood out, could come in handy during the build, I built a couple of sheds out of wood from our bungalow among many other other things.

+1 to the mice issue. Always had the tenacious little ba$tards in previous houses, they’ll never get in here. Spiders and flies get in when a door is left open, spiders are humanly caught and released to the wild to continue their job of work on the outside. As for the flies, it’s chemical warfare for them.

If you’re heading that way then I’d urge you to look into the PHPP. Very DIY’able if you have the time and patience or you can chuck a chunk of cash at a consultant - but check their credentials. Carefully. As mentioned, it sounds like overheating will be your biggest problem. Our issue comes from east facing windows, but we’ve got a workaround for those now. West facing windows can also be an issue, south facing - not so much especially with the large overhang’s you’re planning. External shading will sort all those potential problems. As for heating a passive house, ours has a Willis heater for the ground floor UFH (which wasn’t working properly last winter due to a valve on one of the circulation pumps not being fully open) and that sufficed. I’m sure it will be more than sufficient this winter. Electric UFH in the two bathrooms plus electric towel rails and that’s it. You basically don’t need much at all, and it doesn’t need to be complex. Courtesy of @TerryE

That was a stand out feature wasn’t it. Going by what it replaced I think you’d have to say ‘yes’.

Wot @Kelvin said.

Likewise, that’s got to be the way ahead to improve the quality of the houses that are thrown up around the country. It’s a pity there was scant detail on insulation, air tightness etc.

That’s a bit of a kerfuffle isn’t it. What do the drawings show? I would have thought continuing the blocks up in pillars would look the best. And between the lower and upper windows but I guess that’s not do-able? I see on the side window there’s a lintel that matches the blocks, or at least seems to. Is that not an option?

Have a search of this forum for shutters/blinds/overheating etc etc all have been discussed at length. Won’t shutters make it pretty dark inside when deployed? Inward opening windows is a no brainier IMHO.

Sadly the the info was there last year.

@Mandana that’s gutting (well it would be for me). The Lakeland protectors we’ve been using has kept our hob looking like new for anyone else looking for ’prevention’.

Octopus say you can. I’ll see if I can dig out their words later on.

Wasn’t it just. What an amazing place this is.

I guess it was always that high as it’s just been resurfaced but what a state. The flashing looks diabolical along with everything else.

Or you could always go for trees…

Yes. Get the one with a cutlery tray at the top. It takes up next to no space compared to the cutlery bucket in the bottom draw, you’ll not know it’s there, big plates will still fit in - as will everything else

Horses for courses but I think that looks great!

It’s 45 days since I cleaned the MVHR filters and whilst I’ve not had a ‘message’ telling me to clean them the MVHR did seem a bit noisier, nothing excessive but as it’s normally pretty much inaudible the fact that I could hear it sent me to the loft to investigate. The intake filter is quite bogging after a month and a half, the extract is not too bad at all considering doors and windows have been opened as required to off load unwanted heat. The pre-filter seems to be doing its job, this was a brand new pair of tights a month and a half ago! I wonder if the pre filter housing is actually enticing critters in? Again, this was cleaned out a month and a half ago. The coarse mesh of the intake grill is covered in cobwebs, as is the duct into the house though they don’t show up too well in the photos. the joys of living in the countryside, spitting distance to the wheat field that was just recently harvested I suppose. I opted to replace the intake filter as vacuuming it achieved the square root of bugger all. I didn’t think to check the MVHR fan speeds before and after the service but it seems quieter again so I’m assuming the crud was restricting the airflow enough to cause the fan speeds to increase to maintain the selected airflow.

@Ferdinand it’s very manual (so not very passive) and relies completely on my unhealthy obsession with the outside air temperature. The blinds and MVHR could be automated I suspect but not the door/window opening.

To highlight that point, our neighbours have just returned from a weekend away, probably to a hot house, and they have now opened all the windows. It’s lovely and breezy out there, but it’s also 30 degrees out there so they will be filling they’re house with 30 degree air which probably isn’t for the best. I could go and tell them but as they don’t speak to us since the slab was power floated, I won’t bother. 😁

We clearly have similar tastes 👍