SimonD

Definitely worth a look for space heating. You will usually get a much better COP than A2W (up to 4.6) and the latest life cycle assessment I read said A2A gave a 34% reduction in carbon emmissions over A2W. The only limitation can be the max number of indoor units for a multi-split system. You'd also get handy cooling as they're usually sold as air-conditioners with heating capability.

+ 1 to that. Timber prices naturally fluctuate at any time and to predict what it's going to do as a layman is nigh on impossible. I reckon it's still going to take a good couple of years for the timber market to settle down as some of the supply difficulties are down to lower yields from forests due to poor winter conditions, adding to the whole mix. The other side to it is that supply of timber products has gradually fallen behind demand over the last decade or so, so any investment in additional production capacity will take some time. I suspect the only thing that will dramatically affect prices short-term is if there's a sudden crash in demand, possibly from China due to its precarious property market right now. The problem is that as an individual, it's impossible to beat the market, so just buy when you can afford it. I'd also recommend just going for the whole lot. There's nothing worse than having a job partially completed on your mind and then having to re-engage in getting it finished later on down the road (or having the stress of having parts of the house exposed) - I've been there and I'm also partially in that situation due to supply problems over the last couple of years.

How I wish more people saw it in that way. Couldn't be more true. It's also healthier and provides a much more pleasurable and comfortable environment to be in, providing it's done right of course. I personally think that due to their mostly passive nature, thermal upgrades are cheap for what you get.

+1 to induction hobs. I used to be wedded to gas thinking it was the only way to cook properly. Having used induction for the last 3 years, I wouldn't go back to gas again.

I'm just prepping a bathroom for a microcement walk-in shower. I've decided to take a bit of a punt with it to see what it's like and how it works over the long term. I've looked at shower panels and decided against them, and I'm not tiling the place either. I'm doing the whole install myself so will be fully responsible for prep and finish - this also means I'm better able to select the full build-up spec and resins that I use for the waterproof finish. Having done a search I was unable to find anything specific on BH already, so thought I'd ask if anyone has personal experience of using microcement in a shower and how has it faired for them?

I've installed the woodfibre boards using woodscrews, but nowadays the woodfibre manufacturers are recommending Ejotherm STR H screw-in anchors as they do reduce cold bridging. A few of the eco and passivhaus merchants sell them. HTH

That isn't what I said though, was it? I said: I don't think that you have to have what you call 'proper' scientific training to be a scientist, just that you use a systematic process to gain knowledge and understanding. That specific process - i.e. inquiry method and methodology - will be defined by domain and context and its suitability to the question at hand.

Yeah, totally! Now I'm going to go and hide....

My next BC inspection is pre-plaster and while I'm aware that stud walls etc. should still be open, I'm just wondering whether, if I half complete internal partition walls, leaving one side open, my BCO is likely to get annoyed. The reason I want to do this is because we've always been using part of the existing house as toilet, kitchen, and utility during the build. I now need to move these to their new location so I can get on with working on and fitting out this part of the house and to do so, I need partial walls, like round the new toilet/shower and for a basic working kitchen. I've also set up one room as a basic gaming and tv room for the kids as due to the various delays during COVID and cabin fever being in the caravan for to long. Anyone reckon I'll get blowback from BC for doing this?

You've done it again, I did say about Quantum Physics: What's interesting here is that you don't actually say what a real scientist or science is. And it just goes to show how we're in completely different paradigms in our perspective. In my mind it's also emblematic of a certain snobbery and elitism that persists in certain quarters of the scientific community. Science is merely about having a curiousity for the world, and using that to gain knowledge and understanding about phenomena in the world using a systematic process. Anyone can be a scientist, from a primary school child, to a retiree gardener. I'd even go as far at to say that master craftsmen are scientists in that they explore the materials they work with to understand them more fully, gaining more knowledge about them and passing that knowledge on to others - that's just applied science, but it may not be published in a highbrow journal. Science is merely about knowledge. People are an interconnected part of the natural world and so the study of people, individually and collectively, is a scientific process. How you can exclude this from science as whole is rather unfathomable to me, as is the exclusion of mathematics, particularly because mathematics is fundamentally about patterns, not necessariy just numbers, and patterns are integral to knowledge and understanding about our world. I'd suggest it's also pretty methodised ? This points back to my earlier comment, that a lot of scientists don't realise or understand that science grew out of philosophy, which is rather selective. Science is philosophical and the way science is pursued is driven by that philosophy - i.e. the predominant scientific world view - which includes reductionism and mechanism. This philosophy, unwares to most people is also driving the approach to climate change in that the remedies are seen to be technical, material and mechanical. I agree with you that the problems really start to show, because when you understand the underlying philosophy upon which mainstream science is based, you not only understand better its strengths, but its limitations and problems. You then also understand the bias that is contained within all mainstream science since its inception and that its 'truth' is only truth from this perspective and world view. This is uncomfortable for some in the scientific community so the inevitable response becomes one of ? rather than constructive revision. ?

Indeed, but this is an accepted reality in all areas of science, physics included, because any observation of phenomena will go through a perception filter and scientists from either the same field, or others, will interpret the observations differently. That's actually part of the whole scientific process; both a valuable and limiting part of it. If you dig even further you'll find that there is inherent bias within the whole western approach to science given its pretty narrow philosophical basis, thus to remove the bias you'd have to untangle its very philosophical foundations. I think this is one of the biggest problems in science as a whole, because many scientist aren't even aware of these baked in, implicit biases. I think what you're highlighting is more a question of method and methodology, and so it's unfair and a bit extreme to write off whole fields of science just because some studies are questionable from a methodological perspective. You have to take each study on its merits. I'd hardly call the Facebook soap dispenser an example of either social or medical research, that's down to poor product design and testing. It's a totally different thing.

You're going all journalistic on me and selectively quoting what I said ? I did actually say: I did not say science as a whole ? Qauntum physics is a systemic and relational area of science, given for instance that it explicitly accepts the observer of phenomenon is embedded within the system being observed. Thus light can be particle or wave depending on your perspective. But you could hardly say it's mainstream yet, other than maybe used in lots of popular science books. I can't say I've come across the Quantum Physics approach to climate change or heat pumps yet, even if some people have used it to explain why climate change is happen..on balance of probability. Relativistic effects are hardly a science, rather a phenomena observed in science. I'm intrigued, what do you define as a real scientist and science? And truth?

May I add to that a dilution of both appreciative enquiry (as in fully trying to understand the position of someone who holds a different view, as well as contradictory findings) and critical enquiry (which is probably more important in that it involves a continuous critical enquiry of your own knowledge, understanding and position). I actually came across someone who had set up a website, specifically to track and critique another academic critical to some climate policies. This person had maintained the website for more than 20 years - creepy. The criticisms were highly personal, rather than academic, but one interesting thing I found was that the academic was criticised for changing his mind about aspects of climate change following empirical findings and research - to be critical of that as inconsistent is a bit weird in my view as surely that's what you're supposed to do following research no? There is also that the whole debate has become so politicised even within academic and scientific communities, it's often very hard to untangle the wheat from the chaff.

For me it's a fundamental problem where areas of science continue to believe in that the mechanistic approach is sufficient and applicable to encompass all scientific enquiry, or should I say knowledge about the world. This is especially the case when it comes to our planetary environment. Whilst it has benefited us enormously since its philosophical inception about the 1600s, it has some fundamental limits. So yes, while it has its place, there does need to be a fairly significant injection of non-mechanical, dynamical, and relational approaches to science, and I'd say related areas of engineering. There is a reasonable body of climate science using complex systems, non-linear dynamics etc. but while they take a significant step in the right direction they are subject to arbitrary system boundary cut off and the models don't necessary consider, or include, relevant influence of relationships external to the system considered - relationships that may in fact be critical in the emergence of system properties and behaviours. This is an unfortunate aspect still in a lot of systems thinking and approaches. So yes, there are better approaches suitable for the context, but often because they are challenging to entrenched scientific thought, they tend to get marginalised and/or dismissed. Really? Or is that just another case of enhanced human optimism, something which we do know a lot about but still fail to acknowledge and do something about, especially in leadership circles?

Once upon a time I remember catching a tv series, maybe on BBC2 or something, where they had an ex-burglar actually break into people's houses and then show them how to secure the place. I was always amazed by the simple and cheap steps he would suggest. One of these was a gate across the driveway - not anything highly secure, just any old gate, and to keep it shut. Didn't even need to be locked. He basically explained exactly the same thing, that any scrote looking to burgle somewhere will tot up a list of annoyances which amount to inconvenience and risk and walk away to the next easier picking. The other side to security is not to make it so annoying and cumbersome to yourself that you then can't be bothered.

I'm aware of that, but my point was more that the field of science, including many of the fields responsible for climate change outputs, are still operating from a mechanistic approach to the environment and ecosystems. And the problem with this is that we're left with lots of missing information about the relationships and their implications between disparate fields. The focus on co2 is, for me, a case in point.

It's behing a paywall for me but reading as far as I could of the second I'm wondering wtf " eco-conscious property developers and self-builders will be able to buy an intellectual property (IP) package for the house from £320,000." means?

I have to say I have some sympathy for this perspective. One of the biggest concerns I have right now is that a small number of extremely rich technocrats, like Bill Gates, are going to take it upon themselves to intervene using geo-enginering when they actually understand very little, and cannot in any way predict, its effects on a global scale. The fact that some people are taking this approach seriously is just bonkers. I mean, would you really trust the global climate to the guy responsible for Windows? For me another problem is that very few understand the extend to which things have to change to reach the current goals and to do that while maintaining the holy grail of exponential GDP growth is a sign that the current crop of policy makers have their heads stuck somewhere rather dark. From another perspective entirely, there are number of environmental scientists who are not bought into the hysteria but have a more moderate view based on the planet's complex self-organising behaviour. I've only seen a small handful of those published and maybe right now they're pressured into remaining largely silent. A lot of the fear is because we simply don't know what's going to happen and cannot actually predict it, despite the rhetoric. Frankly, we don't know if the changes to our climate might self-organise in a way that subsequently cools the planet down, or not, or the timescales involved, and we don't have either the tools or knowledge to model these effects. We already know there are serious problems with existing models because from a systems perspective, they have failed to predict that some climate change patterns will accelerate faster as the existing system adapts - yet from a system theory perspective this type of acceleration within a reorganising system is already understood to happen. As I think I may have said in another thread, I think what is going on is serious but I think the hysteria is the wrong way to approach it and will often lead to detrimental short-term knee-jerk reactions. I actually think the idea of replacing all the UK's and possibly the world's boilers with a/w heatpumps is up there with those.

He/she would have to chop off their legs and remove the drivers seat when turning. Depending on how you fit the lock, they might even have to take out the door. Check the product carefully as some of these can be opened easily by breaking the lock mechanism.

Just picked up on this thread. I had the same question as I needed foundation pads under an existing wall. One party wanted to call it underpinning so warranty provider wanted licensed contractor etc. I asked the SE to clarify in the drawings it was for strengthening and providing new foundations for steel frame. Everyone relaxed then. It's all down to a simple word! I dug it all out and filled myself according to the structural design. BCO/Warranty inspector was totally relaxed about it following pre pour inspection.

No, don't worry. Box profile has the structure strength not to need a board behind it. Just remember to ventilate the cavity though.

I'm sure there must be, but I'm not familiar with the process. You can see and feel the difference where even though it does cause staining, the black mould sits and grows on top of the wood whereas the blue stain kind of fungus seems to sit within the wood. Difficult describe really, but it also doesn't respond to treatments like oxalic acid which people often claim it does. I've had it happen on glulam beams that got wet and had been treated with a borax preservative solution, for example.

I wouldn't worry, get the wall up and just shim and use non-shrink grout where necessary, like you would finish under the base of steel columns.

What metal cladding are you using? Basic corrogated sheets or standing seam? If it's standing seam you need a board directly behind the cladding, ideally with a membrane behind it. You also need to make sure you have a continuous 25mm ventilation gap at the top and bottom of the cladding. Check curb looks good but you can also rip some chamfered timber and take the epm over that. That would be my preference as you then don't need the rubber water seal or mastic sealant.

Have you double checked to make sure this is mildew? I.e. is it slimy/fury and does it sit/grow on top of the wood? I could be wrong but something about the photos makes me think it's more like blue stain, where there is a certain type of fungus that feeds off the sugars in the wood. This does happen when there is excess moisture together with a sugar rich timber, but the difference is that whilst it leaves an ugly surface, the growth dies down naturally once the sugars have been consumed within the wood and or there's a moisture reduction. There isn't typically any damage to the structural integrity of the wood. It would be interesting to know if you've done a moisture test on the plywood itself to know whether it is actually damp? Yes, it can, but the blackness may not be causing harm to the plywood, just that the wood used in the plywood is susceptible to this kind of growth. It may be that it is a pine based board, like Radiata, or Elliottis as pine. Just a guess...