Gone West

I quite like these where they fit. https://www.screwfix.com/p/strom-maxi-flow-tap-flow-restrictor-aerator/3344r

We use an EASHP to heat our DHW tank and heat it to only 45 degrees. That temperature seems to work well for us and of course there are a lot less standing heat losses from the tank when the storage temperature is a lot lower. I don't know what the COP is but it does seem very efficient judging by our electricity bill. We don't have any PV as we are still trying to justify spending money on it bearing in mind our electricity usage is so low. We would install PV if we had an EV.

You're not wrong there , although worth it for the savings.

After we dismantled the bungalow we were left with 45 to 50 tonnes of mixed concrete, bricks and blocks along with around 10 tonnes of footings that needed digging out and removing from site. We finally found a groundworks company that would bring a concrete crusher to site and crush the mixed rubble from 50mm down to dust and dig out the footings and remove. We asked three companies for quotes which came in at £4320, £2154 and £1390. The only one that would crush on site to the size we wanted, rather than remove everything and bring in crushed concrete, was the cheapest so we went with them. We have seen what some suppliers bring in as crushed concrete and it’s crap. It took a day to crush around 35 tonnes of the best of the rubble and another to break out the footings and remove along with the remainder of the rubble. They were a company we would definitely recommend which was nice to be able to say.

A new two bedroom brick and block bungalow with ASHP & UFH sold a few weeks ago, next door to me, for £420,000.

We had ours up for 14 months and it was at a fixed price for as long as we wanted it.

Probably both . We planted Cherry Laurels as a hedge at our last house and they grew from 18 inches to 8 feet in four to five years. They need a lot of cutting back to keep them tidy because they will grow to 15 feet. There is a variety of laurel that grows to only 3 or 4 feet called "otto luykens".

Some types of bamboo are clump forming and there are less problems with the roots but the best types for screening do have very aggressive roots. Alternatives would be pyracantha or some types of cotoneaster which spread over the surface of the wall without damaging it.

I did a similar thing to a wall plate on a conservatory I built many years ago.

That is similar to the recommended way of shortening my metal web joists where a timber batten, the same size as the cord, was fixed between the cords and covered both sides with steel connector plates.

@recoveringacademic The metal web joists for our hall were too long because the stairwell was the wrong size. The timber frame company went back to the metal web joist company who told them how to alter the length. I would have thought yours could be lengthened as they are to sit in joist hangers. Have the company told you they can't be lengthened?

Five years ago a friend had an air tightness result of 0.9ACH and she was disappointed because she had put so much effort into taping etc. The house was very comfortable with no cold spots or draughts. To help her I ran the PHPP to see what the effect of different air tightness values would be on the space heating demand. Results below. I asked on the AECB forum why the PHI had set the maximum value at 0.6ACH and had an answer from Mark Siddall shown below. So until you get to relatively quite high air tightness values, space heating demand is not affected greatly. Of course the PHPP has been designed to work at the low end of air tightness. Pressurisation Test Result ACH Specific Space Heating Demand kWh/(m2.a) 0.2 12.1 0.4 12.3 0.6 12.5 0.8 12.7 1.0 12.9 2.0 14.0 A 2pa pressure difference (what you get over 2 a storey building) would mean that assuming a 1m long, 1mm wide gap would permit about 360g of water vapour to be transported through the gap in 1 day. On the basis of the internal temp being 20C/50%RH and ext. temp of 0C/80%RH then you can expect this moisture to hit the dew point as it passes through the insulation. The air tightness threshold is 0.6 so as to protect structure from moisture damage.

Shame we're outside their delivery area.

I wanted to use a percentage of furnace ash in the concrete for our slab and was told by the structural engineer that we couldn't because it would weaken the concrete too much.

Last month I bought ten packs from our local water softener supplier and it was £57.50 inc VAT and delivery.

It's hard all right 320ppm. I'll have to check our cisterns to see how they've been affected since we moved in seven months ago.

It's cold water so there aren't problems with scale and it means we use less salt and regenerating water.

Out of interest what colour is the door?

That's essentially what it is, but because of the lack of space I had to split the cold feeds into two manifolds. There is a 25mm main coming up through the floor into a 28mm double check valve, then 22mm stop cock and pressure reducing valve. The pipe bends right, round the corner and tees off to the manifold with white taps which is hard water for drinking and toilet cisterns. The braided pipes are for the water softener which then goes through a pressure reducing valve to the Genvex Combi hot water tank and to the other two cold water manifolds. All manifolds have a ball valve to isolate them.

Just my style, stunning.

Very smart. Like the green and the blinds with the tiling.

@Big Neil yes we used manifolds. As others have said easy to isolate individual circuits and no joins in pipes.

In the early 00s we had mineral wool fibres blown in to our bungalow walls under a grant scheme. They are pretty inert.

We decided to use the same shade of grey as the zinc coloured metalwork for the doors and windows as well. When the cedar cladding silvers I wanted to rename the house Shadezogray but it was vetoed.

Around ten or eleven years ago when we moved into the bungalow I saw some X10 home automation components being sold off cheap so I bought some with a view to using them in the bungalow. Of course they got dumped in a box and forgotten. Yesterday I dug them out and installed the X10 wireless PIR, switch micro module and transceiver so now my porch and outside lights come on when we walk up the path. It probably won’t be needed when the driveway is finished as there will be a security light then, but at least now we don’t have to scratch the paintwork trying to put the key in the lock. I’m amazed the X10 protocol is so simple and works.