Russdl

If you get tempted by the Bosch thermometer you’ll be in the ‘Flir 1 Pro’ price territory. Brilliant bit of kit that attaches to the base of your iPhone (I hear rumours that other types of phone exist as well?) Heres one I made earlier of an open bedroom window. Various temps identified, should be self explanatory.

Looks like you need to pull the fitting out of the ceiling, spring clips will be holding it in. I suspect you won’t be able to change any of the individual lighting elements, you’ll probably have to bin it and get a new one and good luck finding one that matches…

@TimCx I’m using these Analox ones. No complaints so far (and the price on that site I linked is very good but no idea if it’s a good site)

@Kevin J Perfect, thanks 👍

DIY or MCS fit? That probably answers your question. It won’t be worth it.

Oo, this has kinda turned into a Sunamp thread! Ours sits there silently doing it stuff, not leaking heat etc. Heated by off peak electricity in the winter and PV in the summer (actually it’s heated by off peak all year round at the moment as it’s 5p a kW but I’m sure that’s going to change). No gas/oil boiler or ASHP gubbins or any other shizzle to worry about. It’s excellent. If it fails I would definitely buy another.

If it were me I’d bin the external door and take out the wall between plant room and pantry. The rooms can then be divided up with large sliding wardrobe doors or similar. They hide a multitude of sins and permit easy access to everything in the plant room.

Cost. Thats a fair point. If you’re ‘hands on’ then the major cost is time because it’s the air tightness detail that generally can’t be engineered in and is definitely labour intensive. The other aspects can be sorted at the design stage and there’s not a huge amount you can do about it if it isn’t/wasn’t. Benefit. Low energy bills.

Drifting the thread a bit but if you’re building from scratch and you don’t do your utmost to eliminate thermal bridges, ensure the structure is as airtight as possible and insulate the hell out of it then your missing the boat imho.

Thanks both. I think I’ll use a combination of the two methods so that hopefully my next three half rounds will be in a dead straight line (anything else is not acceptable!)

…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’.