joe90

My personal door to my garage is tongue and groove, not cheap and because its painted and faces south the joins crack the paint every year, i caulked it and repainted but yep the cracks in the paint come back. Can’t stop wood moving I suppose.

Seems a shame to waste that heat when we go to all that trouble to use less energy, is there not some way to duct it into the MVHR (apart from when summer bypass is on)?

We also replaced a bungalow with two story cottage and planners kept saying it was “imposing” as both our neighbours (100 meters away) were bungalows, ha, I measured next door (room In roof) and it was 1200mm higher than they had planning for but it was years ago and I was not fussed, also I designed ours as a hip roof to reduce “mass” (and wind noise on the gable), they soon shut up and the appeal officer also pointed it out to them ?

My neighbour objected to our drive (amongst other things) and said headlights would shine into his house, the appeal officer stated the obvious, his house was over 100mtrs from my drive entrance, guess what, I won our appeal.

240 sq m.

Mine is very similar to @ProDave, mine is a rectangle with the longest elevation facing south to maximise solar gain into the brickwork. Bathrooms above kitchen/hall/cloakroom for short pipe runs.

+1, 6x6 posts will carry tons!

I had an attached garage to a previous home with what I thought was adequate security (bars at window and good padlocks) but that was broken into whilst I was asleep and tools stolen (covered by good insurance tho) .

Yes but what building is more secure?

Please sir, and me ?(not sure when I joined?)

I am surprised, my container is made of very thick steel, doors have a couple of top to bottom security bars and very solid lock placement for three padlocks. Any building usually has windows and doors less secure than that. Perhaps they attract “tea leaves” because of the value of site tools and sites are rarely lived on.?

I didn’t spend a lot of time designing ours, I found a design on a website somewhere that I thought worked well and with a few adjustments thought it was good for us, er indoors agreed and that was that. The footprint was within 10% of the building we were replacing (although another story higher). I spent more time learning about passive build techniques and incorporated that ethos into the build. As I said before, the architect just transferred it from pencil and paper onto CAD (wish I had found an architectural technician instead £££).

Like builders, there are good and bad ones around. I planned my house but not being CAD trained I employed an architect to convert my pencil drawings into CAD for planning and building regs, he made many fundamental errors (didn’t copy what I gave him,,!). Conversely, my builder was brilliant, open to new methods, understanding and did what I asked of him.

On the subject of efficiency (but hoping not to divert this thread), with Dick Strawbridge and his over shot wheel the inefficiency came mainly from the gearbox , something like 100:1, lots of gears and an inefficiency in every one. I thought at the time that a chain drive would be a lot more efficient?. I would love to have a water source that I could generate from .

I have a 300 Ltr cylinder and a 5 Kw ASHP, like @ProDave water temp 48’, usually 2 people but 2 visitors as well and it copes well, not run out of hot water yet. I am thinking of E7 or E10 next year to run the ASHP.

I remember Dick Strawbridge years ago built a water wheel with gearbox and old alternator to generate 12v for his lighting, was a fun project.

I think you will find the Morris 1300 was front wheel drive, not the Morris minor. The Morris minor was the first road car to have torsion bar suspension on the front and with a set of radials cornered really well (I had one with an M.G. engine in it, trouble was understeer!!!).

As a slight aside to this, we have a treatment plant supplied by WTE , a Vortex and it discharges to a ditch that is dry a couple of months a year by using a rumble drain. (Pipe from plant is perforated and lies within drainage stone 10m to the ditch) . We are also on solid yellow clay.

For those of us who do not have a degree, could you explain the above (in words of one syllable fir me please).

What a lovely build, well done mate, you should be proud ?

I am helping my son renovate an old Victorian terrace house (on a tight budget). We have had to remove a bedroom ceiling due to nail rot on the laths. There is another floor so although it’s a bedroom there is another above it. The plasterboard costs are about £86 but rockwall sound insulation is £256. Question is is double boarding the plasterboard as good as 100mm rockwall sound batts?

NO, leaf tea in a pot, leave to “stew” then pour, (then add milk) how far can we we get away from the OP without the mods interfering ?

A pro for b@b, our build was b@b and shed loads of moisture after plastering, we suffered just a couple of hairline cracks after 6 months, the decorator stated our new build had less cracks than any other new build he had painted (as I have said before, we had a brilliant builder). Regarding being hung up, or being pedantic about terminology, it’s either right or wrong, my pet hate is people saying “ah yes, but you know what I meant”, NO I know what you said (which was wrong). I used to use the term “thermal mass” but now say we have a “heavy house”. (Then explain that thermal mass has no units to be measured).

Years ago the DNO tried to pull cable into my place through their duct and asked if I had any talcum powder to help them, it worked well.

Yup, and retired, finished my build and living the dream (pottering with vintage tractors ?) ?