Gone West

Quite some project, good luck. Hope you can stretch your budget to completion.

Is that assumption based solely on your sister and BiL's actions or more comprehensive data. How can you define "too" warm. Depending on age, health factors and individuals comfort there will be a wide range of temperatures that people require to live a comfortable life.

Sounds cool to me. It's been 11C here since I got up at 06.30. It was 3C at 10.30 last night.

That's almost exactly how I felt about our build.

Is the sistered joist going to sit on the blocks as the other pair of joists are, if so, looking at the table and your pictures I can't see why there would be a problem, but then I'm not a SE.

I'm another one who didn't have a problem. Our tank was kept at 45C and the shower mixers worked fine as did the thermostatically controlled valve on the bath.

When I looked at buying my present house I hired a Protimeter Surveymaster which uses FM radio waves to detect damp under the wall surface. I haven't a clue as to how it works but it could be a basis for detecting different materials.

It's quite interesting that last summer, watering with tap water, they survived ok but didn't grow. Once it started to rain they looked much healthier and put on a lot more growth. The crop was down a little on the previous year but that might have been because the blackbirds had discovered them.

I never asked them if it was ok, but my blueberry bushes had to make do with tap water in the summer.

10C, wind and rain, much better than snow!!

We had full plans building control with the LABC. The build started in 2010 and was completed in 2018. We had a few emails and phone calls at various times enquiring about progress but we weren't asked for extra payments.

I had 89mm x 38mm CLS studwork, and where the TV bracket was to go, I just glued and screwed a load more noggins and studs to take the bracket. Mine was only a 48" though and Wendy thought it was quite big enough.

There is nothing wrong with your heating system, in fact it's very similar to the system I designed for my Passivhaus. I had three electric towel rails and an EASHP built into the MVHR which provided warm air through the MVHR ducting. We also had a solar gain area to add to the heating when suitable. Once the house was warm, the heating was never turned off during the cold months. We kept the house at 23C 24/7 with very low electricity bills. The house had very good airtightness 0.47 ACH and the U factor for the walls and roof was 0.095 W/m2K. Without the high insulation levels and airtightness there would be no chance of keeping the house warm.

Amazingly I found the old Rehau Geneo PDF. Page three shows the optional insulation that was available with the version ten years ago. REHAU Geneo Energy Efficiency.pdf

We had the windows installed in 2012. We visited the manufacturers to see the profile and a window being made. We saw the lengths of insulation for the each of the chambers which was just slid into the cavity. The insulation was optional but we wanted to have it to minimise thermal bridging. I'll see if I can find an old PDF describing the construction, but don't hold your breath, it was a long time ago. It might be worth contacting Rehau to see if it's still an option.

Physically insulated.

There is a large variation in types of uPVC window profiles. In my PH I had triple glazed Rehau Geneo frames which were insulated. The standardised figures were Ug value = 0.5 W/m²K Uf value = 0.77/0.78 W/m²K Uw value = 0.67 W/m²K

I've had two cards in the post and a phone call in the last two weeks asking me to have a smart meter.

A while ago I was thinking about an LPG generator, for heating and lighting only, for when we have power cuts. Honda make small dual fuel generators that would be suitable. I was going to have a seperate circuit just for the heating. https://www.geargb.co.uk/search/LPG-Dual-Fuel-Generator

Another one. https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/home-grants/article/insulation-grants-aGAZv8p9hGkY

https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/home-grants/article/insulation-grants-aGAZv8p9hGkY Might be worth a look.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/find-energy-grants-for-you-home-help-to-heat Might be worth a look.

Brick and Thermalite with 75mm batt in 150mm cavity is coming up as U=0.28.

I used it on our fence and it was dark brown. I'm not sure if they do a lighter shade.

Agreed. I semi-retired at 45, fully retired at 54 and since then I designed and built my own PH. I wouldn't say doing your own self build isn't hard work though, and a lot is tied up in building it. The satisfaction came when I completed it.