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JohnW

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  1. JohnW
    Hi @Bosi, I was watching your post with interest and was disappointed, as I'm sure were you, when there were no replies. Have you made any decisions regarding your inverter & batteries? I'd be keen to hear your reasoning if you have made any decisions. Thanks
  2. JohnW
    Hi @MikeGrahamT21 Thanks for sharing this info, it's very enlightening. I'm considering a similar setup using a Solis Hybrid inverter and I was wondering if your initial niggles have been ironed out and if you have any more recent comparison year-on-year figures that you could share with me? Thanks again, John
  3. JohnW
    Hi We've an outdoor fireplace which is great except for the fact that the plaster is leeching chemicals (efflorescence??) and looks awful. Can anyone tell me what's going on and suggest either a paint treatment or cladding ideas to cover up the bad look please? Thanks John
  4. JohnW
    Hi Tom Congratulations, your excitement is coming through loud & clear, well done. Very interesting design. It's just a thought, but the first thing that struck me was in relation to the open plan nature of your main room and the entrance hall. From a practical point of view, during colder days when someone opens either of your entrances you are likely to get a blast of cool air flowing all the way through that lovely big room. If it were me, I think I would introduce pocket doors imbedded into the wall that separates your kitchen from the Utility & WC. You can hide them if you want and also close off the hall area if you want.
  5. JohnW
    Hi @canalsiderenovation, I agree with the above replies, that it sounds like they're too busy to quote a small domestic project. However their website has a wealth of information about the various window & door options at the following link... https://products.idealcombi.com/en ...maybe your original query will be answered there. (I have no affiliation with IdealCombi, I just spent al long time considering using them for my house build)
  6. JohnW
    That's a fair point @SiBee, thanks.
  7. JohnW
    Thanks @SiBee, I've been advised that vermiculite absorbs moisture and is therefore not suitable for an outdoor fireplace. Thanks @PeterW, I like the sound of lining it with steel. I guess I could make small brackets that would give me the 25mm buffer zone off the wall on each side.
  8. JohnW
    Hi, We had an outdoor fireplace constructed and lit it for the 1st time last weekend. It was a roaring success (if you pardon the pun!). I'm concerned that the plastered walls won't stand the test of time and intensity of heat and was wondering if anyone could recommend a suitable material to line the internal walls to give it some protection from the heat. Thanks
  9. JohnW
    Thanks @pocster, do you know how many Square Metres that was for?
  10. JohnW
    @pocster your cladding looks first class, can you tell me what product you used and a rough idea of cost please?
  11. JohnW
    Thanks @Mr Punter, we haven't ruled out board & skim, I'm just afraid the edges of the opening will crack & discolour and was wondering if there's a better way that I'm not aware of. The back-boxes are due to my pet hate of extension cables and adapters!! We've had 2 adapters get fried in previous houses from being overloaded, so, better looking at them...
  12. JohnW
    Our room sealed Element 4 Modore 75h gas fire was installed yesterday and we're planning to board & skim the fake chimney breast to finish it similar to the photo below. The temperature from the front of the fire can get up to 200 degrees Celsius. Can anyone suggest how best to finish the opening so it won't crack or discolour around the edges please?
  13. JohnW
    Thanks for the photos, looks great @Declan52...when are you free to come down to do mine ? P.S. Who golfs with a hurley stick?
  14. JohnW
    @Declan52, I'm trying to decide on rendered garden walls & raised planters very similar to the image in your original post above. What did you finally decide on, render or timber? If it was render, what did you go with and how has it survived it's first winter? (also I'd love to see a picture of the finished product if you have one) Thanks
  15. JohnW
    I've been wrestling with Loopcad for sometime now and am loosing the will to live. I take 1 step forward only to follow it with 2 steps back!! Are there any kind souls out there who are proficient in using Loopcad who could help with my loop design for the ground floor and save me from tearing the rest of my hair out? I'm trying to use spiral counter-flow where possible. Here are 2 versions of the GF plan, one with dimensions and one without.
  16. JohnW
    I plan to use electric UFH in my first floor bathrooms. They will have the following buildup; Tile Electric UFH 75mm sand & cement screed 50mm insulation 150mm hollow core slab We also have towel radiators which will provide the majority of heat and we plan to use the UFH to warm the tiles for comfort. Presumably some of the heat generated will head down into the screed rather than up into the tiles above. Should I put anything between the screed and the UFH to force the heat up and if so, what?
  17. JohnW
    @Alphonsox are you happy with your Warmstar electric UFH? Would you recommend it?
  18. JohnW
    Thanks @PeterW are you suggesting I use the spreadsheet to calculate the whole house heat loss and then if a rooms volume is 10% of the whole house volume then the heat loss for that room will be 10% of the total heat loss?
  19. JohnW
    Just trying to resurrect this thread - I can't find an online radiator sizing calculator that accounts for triple glazed windows or really well insulated walls, floors & roof. Does anyone know of a reliable one that does?
  20. JohnW
    Hi We have been asked if we would consider using "Thermal Bead Screed" on the ground floor, it's an Italian product, real name Politerm Blu 110. It appears to be a lightweight screed with insulation beads used as aggregate. My original ground floor build-up gives me a respectable U-Value of 0.14 and is as follows; 100mm Sand & cement screed with UFH pipes embedded 3mm Polythene 125mm Thermafloor TF70 insulation boards with hot & cold water pipes embedded 3mm Raydon barrier 150mm dense concrete sub-floor The key to reaching the U-Value of 0.14 is that the boards are installed correctly without gaps or voids. The "Thermal Bead Screed" approach appears to remove the risk of gaps & voids and the floor build-up is as follows; 50mm Liquid Hemihydrate screed with UFH pipes embedded 3mm Polythene 175mm "Thermal Bead Screed" with hot & cold water pipes embedded 3mm Raydon barrier 150mm dense concrete sub-floor This won't give me as good a U-Value, I've been told 0.16 by the company selling it to me and 0.18 by an independent energy assessor. Have any of you used "Thermal Bead Screed" or know anything about it?
  21. JohnW
    @Dudda Can you tell me where you sourced the replicas from please?
  22. JohnW
    Thanks @JSHarris - I've been playing with your fabulous spreadsheet (never thought I'd ever use those 2 words together) for some time now and it appears that changing the floor U-Value doesn't have a very big impact on the overall results. I tried Floor U-Values of 0.14, 0.18 and a Regs matching 0.25 for comparison and the results are shown below; What surprised me most, apart from the low values, was that the adjusted July & August figures appear to show the house over-heating more with a U-value of 0.25 than at 0.14 or 0.18. Can you confirm that this is what you would expect?
  23. JohnW
    I know the lower U-value I achieve for my ground floor the better but is there a maximum U-value beyond which under floor heating is not advisable?
  24. JohnW
    Thanks all for the explanations. I think I now understand that the P/A ratio has an impact on the overall U-Value and it sounds like potentially a negative impact in many cases. How does the P/A ratio take into consideration the fact that all our external walls have thermal blocks for the first 2 courses and 25mm insulation to mitigate horizontal thermal transfer? In my example, I know the P/A Ratio and the U-Value of the floor build-up but I would really like to know how the P/A Ratio reduced our overall floor U-Value from 0.17 to 0.14. It seems to me that there are many variables at play e.g. soil type, which could allow a more cynical person than me to achieve whatever result they want by simply tweaking those variables.
  25. JohnW
    Hi I think I understand how U-Values are calculated e.g. (Layer thickness) X Lambda = R in m2 K/W Add up all the R-values for each of the layers and 1/(Total R-Value) = U-Value in W/m2 K However if you look at the calculations from my "As-designed" SAP 2009 report below, the calculated Total R-Value = 5.844 m2 K/W and if you take the inverse of that the U-Value is 1/5.844 = 0.171 W/m2 K and not the 0.14 shown on the report below. Can anyone please explain how the 0.14 was achieved...what am I missing??? Thanks
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