larry

Thanks. OK, great. I'll read up on those. We are small isolated town. I think neighbours in all directions have them and personally never mind the smell. The old coal fires, on the other hand, are/were something else. If I'm honest I doubt we'd use it loads. Just slightly comforting to have a backup source of heat...... And we are I guess going to do a lot of the labour anyway so if we do now is the time. I guess time to make some calls to get some prices as there's no way I'll be the one putting the liner down! Thank you!

Hello So, I've just finished with a full refurb of one of my downstairs rooms. I'm about to move onto the other - floor up, walls back to plaster, new suspended floor, wood fibre insulation on walls (1920s solid wall) is the plan. I'm not sure what to do about the fireplace. Obviously our approach will be different depending on whether or not we want to stick a log burner in (either now or in future), and if I'm honest I'm ambivilant on that. I also won't know what size the opening is I guess until I start pulling stuff back (at the moment there's just a panel covering up what I expect to be a slew of mummified pigeons). I've never had a wood burner before so this is new territory. Preumably, if we go down the wood burner route we'd need to get somebody to fit a liner down the chimney, which would then be insultated with Vermiculite held back in place with a closure plate? But in that case, how do we insulate the back wall of the fire place - behind the stove? (the external chimney is built half way out of the solid wall). Thank you for feedback and sorry if an obvious question - just trying to think this through

We had a piano sitting on an old suspended floor. Completely fine.

Definitely not a roofer either but sure it's not condensation? What's your ventilation like up there?

Ours scraped a C rating partly based on insulated cavity walls. We have solid walls. To be fair, the house survey made the same mistake.

The other dimension here of course is the environmental one. Not just the pointlessness of manufacturing celotex which then just goes into the loft basically for storage, but the gap between how well we think a building will perform based on design and what happens in practice. Think of the potential extra fuel you'd use over the next 20 years or so whilst being potentially convinced you've got an efficient modern house. Bad workmanship has huge potential to influence the carbon footprint of our housing stock whilst likely also leaving us to get the maths wrong about what that footprint is. The reflections in this thread highlight what a key part good BC processes are to any drive to reduce emissions.

Single glazing? Wooden frames?

I'm just doing mine with 100mm rockwool, decided against celotex for reasons you mentioned. And also I had a shedload already... Ended up being a far bigger job than anticipated, boards were impossible to lift so cut out, then joist ends rotten and sleeper walls crumbling so have replaced whole lot. And of course not enough ventilation. Did mean I've put slightly thicker joists (4" Vs 3"). Need to get it back down before it gets too cold!!

Not completely clear but looks like a solid not a cavity wall? If so please don't coat it with sealant or damp resistant paint. Lots of info online but if a solid wall you do need to tread carefully to not cause further problems. (We had similar issue with render and knocked it all off easily, but consequently soft bricks below were very spalled. Had it redone in lime. Painted now with silicate paint. Very happy and so far so dry.)

Hello We have three salt glaze pipes that run under our driveway to the drains. House is approx 100 years old and presume these are original. I had a CCTV drain survey and the chap said they were in remarkably good condition. No concerns at all. Which was nice! I'd now like to dig up the driveway and replace with gravel grids on compacted MOT and Terram. I've done this on half the driveway already and really happy with it. But that half hasn't got any pipes under. How careful do I need to be about the pipes under the driveway? We have sandy soil. If I wasn't being careful is use an electric compactor etc to do it properly. Advice greatly received.

And thanks, sorry I didn't make clear in original post i wasn't keeping old cable under new floor.

Thank you both. Just for context: Loads of problems with the setup when we moved here but mostly new circuits upstairs wired to a new CU. All tested and all good. I could make a list of the horrors unpicked for entertainment value but might need a new thread. The ground floor bit I'm looking at hasn't been touched for years and the bits I'm adding will be with new wire. I won't be using old wire. It's this I want to make sure I'm clipping/securing right. Whilst the first socket in this room will be connected with the existing old wire for a time, once we do the other room it'll be easy to then get this section also replaced as easy access to the boards near the CU. Just want to do this section right before I fix boards back again ...as ProDave I do not want to have to lift this again as I am indeed insulating. Any other advice always welcomed of course...

Thanks so much. Perfect.

I'm looking at extending an existing radial circuit whilst I am working on a ground floor suspended floor. Current cable is sat on the soil. Presumably it is better practice to clip this to underside of joists? Or even use a ventilated cable tray, or is this overkill? Circuit is on a 20A RCBO. Currently serves two rooms with no high demand appliances. Plenty of space in the CU, would there be a benefit to asking a sparky to split the radial in half so each room is a separate circuit (currently single circuit with two cables at the RCBO). Thanks

I suspect others can impart more wisdom than me but I'd just follow the advice on the cement packet. I thought 5 to 1 was standard for cement (I have a older 1920s house with lime mortar so have used an NHL lime mix with no cement) Does the damp inside correspond with the lower part of the wall? Is the mortar crossing the DPC? I would not use any sealants personally.

I don't think there is necessarily a specific title. I think you would be asking the HA to conduct an assessment by a suitably competent person. The problem is, as you suspect, the HA has a vested interest to either drag their feet, conduct an assessment that doesn't get to the root cause of the problem, etc. You may be better communicating your concerns and observations directly to the person who visits you and ask them for a proposed action plan with timescales. If they don't stick to it, or if the action plan is not suitable, engage with the HA's complaints process and keep it all in writing. Keep clear logs of the actual 'symptoms' you are experiencing and engage with (rather than dismiss out of hand) and suggestions they make to improve the situation. Try to ask questions that are one step ahead of the process e.g. they say 'try this dehumidifier for four weeks', you say 'great, I'll try the dehumidifier for four weeks, what happens if it doesn't make a difference?'.

Hello all, I've been pulling up my floorboards and joists to relay with insulation in between. The picture below shows a corner of an external wall. The wall in front of you is a gable wall, two stories. The joists in the floor above sit on this wall. The old joists sat with their ends on the bricks which have now come away from the concrete blocks behind. The joists then ran across the floor sat on two extra sleeper walls with the other end sitting on a similar looking set of bricks on the opposite side. Obviously the bricks here have come away from the wall - it's damp crumbly plaster/mortar but the joists in this corner weren't actually too bad (at least compared to other side of room). I don't think these bricks are sitting on anything more than soil (but haven't poked about much!). House built early 1920s so obviously not expecting a great deal in the way of foundations in any case! It is a solid wall except for the bottom 800mm or so which is a dwarf cavity wall. The outside of wall has for some time been covered up to DPC level with soil/gravel but there's now a small trench dug around the outside to reduce this. Bricks below DPC have lot of efforesence on outside (but I think look to be drying out). The dwarf wall cavity (bizarrely, as it is so short so no way for this to make a difference to the room) has been insulated with EPS beads at some point. Cavity is only approx 3cm thick. My question is: are these bricks that have fallen away from the wall part of the actual wall foundations or just built for holding up my joists? The walls to the left and right don't have them (they otherwise look identical with the concrete blocks running to the base of the wall). The only other thing to say: there was until late a small piano sitting on the two joists nearest the wall on the left. I'm guessing this possibly didn't help. No signs of movement in the wall. My instinctive plan is to try to rebuild this or something like it with engineering bricks or concrete blocks but didn't want to go messing around too much until I understood the function of these bricks. Thanks for advice as ever.

We've put grids on our drive filled with 10/20 round shingle. Works well but wouldn't have got anything bigger in terms of the aggregate. Really rate the grids. Reduces movement significantly and much easier to push a buggy /Wheely bin whatever over it. We did terram (from eBay) then MOT, sand layer and then the grids. Bought a second hand compactor for the MOT. Do get a few weeds I guess from seeds that make their way in but easy to remove.

This sounds like a complete recipe for future disaster! But maybe I'm a luddite!

We've used 100mm wood fibre onto a solid wall with lime render outside, so far so happy. Have you got a clear idea on the wall makeup beyond just brick, plaster, render, wallpaper, paint? All may impact moisture transmission and buffering which I'd say is a key consideration if you're whacking a load of celotex on inside. Will defer to others but can't see relevance of MVHR to the wall if you're sealing the wall from the room (you will improve air quality but how is the dryer air going to get to your wall??)

They'll move in, disconnect the MVHR and then wonder why they're getting headaches from the lack of Oxygen, right? Need to teach this stuff at school.

Do you mind sharing what happened in the end? I hope positive resolution. A key question though, have you paid them?!

Looks good! And well done, you must be pleased. Are you also insulating the walls? And did you bring up the floor VCL above or below the DPM? (All helpful for when I do this!)

Can't help you on your actual question (other than - do you mean U value or R value? - in either case it looks a tiny difference in practice... and are there other differences in the properties between the beads?) But are you clear on what you are trying to achieve - are you experiencing problems with the current setup e.g. damp? Have you had a go with an infrared camera on a cold day with the house heated?

OK - thank you all for your comments. Just to come full circle. Had a good chat with the renderer yesterday. He was very reasonable about it all, and was happy to switch to using hydraulic lime. Scaffolding is now up and this evening I've given it all a good spray as suggested here. The heavens have now also opened so I daresay that should help. I've got a telescopic lance attachment now for my hose (feel like I've made it in the world now) so should also make things easier for keeping it damp over the next few days. We'll be using mesh - I think this was his plan anyway though just in case not I've got half a roll left from some upstairs DIY plastering and as a result of this thread one more roll on the way. Once again thank you to all who have provided advice here, feeling much more positive about it now. Will upload a pic with some progress.