saveasteading

Hoorah. Some varieties are ready at that stage. Others when the beans inside are starting to plump out. You might need to pick that one anyway and just chuck it into some continental type stewey thing. We have only one plant producing at present, but have had 4 portions from it this week. Plus one marrow (from being away) 7 courgettes, 4 cucumbers and 2 tomatoes. Hardly a glut. But we were away 3 weeks, there was no rain and the irrigation machine failed. I forecast that a week from now you will have too many.

Haven't done it yet, but start in the next week or so. Fundamentally we are using the properties of the wall. It is made of inner and outer granite masonry and a central core of rubble and mortar. Very little dampness gets through all that, according to numerous studies. The little damp that inevitably exists can be dealt with by 3 methods. 1. waterproof the inside face...not a good idea because it will come off in time. 2. build inner insulated wall with a cavity, and ventilate it. This is a common solution, but in my opinion, defeats the insulating benefit of the thick wall. 3. ditto but not ventilated. There will always be some ventilation through the wall anyway, especially along the core.. The bottom metre is the only part which has significant damp so we are tanking that, and allowing the rest to breathe. (I borrowed this from another project which had a blog. Also it fits with technical info on tested buildings. come back if this works for you, but await other comments that number 2 is the only way. Our steading has similarities. Although it is big, the individual wings are narrow, so we had the same concerns about losing room width. We have dug out the floors (the ground is sand) and will put in 125mm of PIR. Walls we are thinking 50mm PIR and 50mm rockwool. attic spaces Fibreglass quilt. Exposed roof tried some PIR, and now changing to cavity batt. Insulation levels will exceed new-build requirements. You urgently need to know the wall construction. I am anticipating the end extension is modern and block.

Apologies if this is already stated, or I have missed the point. A highway includes marginal land / verge etc up to the stated property. This is because the land has been deemed to be be highway in the past, possibly hundreds of years before. The road may have been wider to allow weaving past ruts and puddles, and may have had banks before being built up. If so, then it is not only the planner but also the highways authority who would want to retain the land. It could be of use in the future for road or services, and avoids recovering land that has been lost.

It would be nice to complete , and the Juliet suggestion is good. You should get one in a week if not too fussy about the appearance. Speak to the BCO first though.

Do you know the product 'drain trace'. Brown powder that becomes fluorescent yellow. that will show where the water goes, if you have rodding cceses downstream. I wouldn't be surprised that a builder had done the easy thing. Is the Aco to resolve a serious issue? where does the water go at present. An easy answer might be a catch pit, so that the rain flow is not obstructed, but the downstream connection is under water.

Brilliant. Very Exciting. My initial thoughts. Obviously the damp bit to be dealt with. Not high enough for 2 storey (?) although could get a gallery perhaps. The walls are very thick, and provide a lot more insulation than the calculation programmes allow. You will be converting so do not have to reach any specific standard for insulation. However it is in your own interests to do what you can. Therefore I would put high quality but skinny insulation and stud on the walls, and make up for it in the floor and ceiling/roof. If the floor is concrete or stone, you can keep that in place and insulate/screed over it. I suggest UFH and Air source. This also avoids undermining the walls, which may be very shallow. You will be living within a plastic tent, with no draughts, which is possibly more important than insulation levels. Dampness from the walls has to be dealt with. I am happy with our solution for 600mm solid granite, although one or two other BH members disagree. Later. You have to look properly at the roof timbers. Prepare for bad news, although the roof doesn't seem much out of shape. External insulation would mess with the geometry, hence my suggestion above. I think you need to sacrifice 125mm on each wall. perhaps 100. Try to add a porch as it will be a heat buffer when the winter winds blow. No reason why planning shouldn't allow that. Apart from the roof, it seems to be an inside job, with a few service holes. So if you are into DIY this looks promising.

Keep us informed please. Not much like Hastings, which is perhaps the point. I like Hasting btw.

I am not understanding what the problem is. A sketch or photo would help.

Other than the smallest ones, new stoves in Scotland now must have a fresh air feed. At first I resisted but can now see the reasons. ie I was going to put a closable grille nearby, for use only when needed. But of course this is subject to user knowledge, and ability. A few stoves now have a dedicated air inlet at the back, but they are much more expensive. This is what we have shown on our Building Warrant application, so must shop around or hope that prices drop as it becomes standard. I didn't know until recently, and don't expect most builders to know either.

Ahh , the dry East Kent coast., except when the salt water lashes off the sea. You are right though, it isn't as generally damp as many places. Did they also fade to grey, or too small to notice? A timber merchant showed me a technical document about why WRC was not a great idea in much of the UK. He also showed it to potential purchasers and architects but to little avail. It was good business he said, but there were quite a lot of disappointed customers. South Coast.

I would expect that to be cavity wall. If you can check the wall thickness it will provide a strong clue. Measure at the door or a window.

No question. WRC is not good in the UK climate, as it doesn't like dampness. WRC ends up grey if you are lucky and don't get staining from the fixings.

Collecting, separating Very nice design. I would just suggest 2 tiny improvements, which are possibly not necessary or worth doing as retrofit. 1. break the rwp run through a gully with grating, to catch the bigger stuff that comes off the roof. Much easier and safer at ground level then a grille in the gutter. Also reduces the occasions for cleaning the catch pit. 2. Close the top of the T, in case any detritus drops through there. Just laying a tile or brick on it would do.

Next week we are laying the base screed (ie for the PIR to sit on.) I have specified fibre crack reinforcement, because it will save £2,000 worth of steel mesh. The fibre concrete can be a pig to work with, and we have dispensed with the contractor. So 4 amateurs doing it (not me). We will have a Gen 2, with fibres and plasticiser. £12/m3 more than without the fibres, i.e £1.80 /m2 for the reinforcement. Report will follow. They laid an outbuilding slab last week, prepped, shuttered, site mix, and lay. Very high quality, and for beginners I am seriously impressed.. No cracks at all. No fibres in that though, so we will see soon enough how it goes.

It has to be applied rather thickly, although many painters don't, which defeats the object. You would want to see it in life before committing as it doesn't always look great.

I have one of those. It works really well, especially with a simple control (toolstation I think) where one push switches it on for an hour. Retrofit was complex with wires to the bathroom from an adjacent dry room. recommended though.

It is a very good idea. I must have looked at dozens of damp problems and this is the most usual solution (apart from obvious overflowing gutters etc). Make sure the pipe has somewhere to empty. The problem is usually that successive owners have built up the ground around. Taking it all down to original level is better than the gravel trench, if possible. Even without deliberate surfacing, buildings settle a little and ground builds up (otherwise why are all archaeological investigations called 'digs) I don't often favour trendy ideas of breathing floors and walls. Any floor is going to move, and if it is concrete or lime it will crack. I am equally cautious of your proposal too, unless you don't mind seeing cracks in the floor, and not being able to sell the house. These doubts apply equally to hempcrete, living walls, straw bale construction, and more i will think of later. There are very good reasons why these are trendy but not mainstream. Solves the issues with the damp as timber (they claim) Ask for a guarantee, with insurance cover in case they aren't around. It is energy efficient, I can get a 0.22 u-value with 150mm+100mm. this is great because we have a 450-500mm foundation. ok , but this is just the effect of PIR. Lime above PIR will not breathe, or am i misunderstanding the problem? It has all the pros of concrete. The pros of concrete are strength, crack control, hard surface, industry standard material. As above, sort the damp problem first.

I have done many buildings with timber overclad, all commercial or education but i think applies to domestic. Usually we had a steel wall behind, fully sealed, but I think the same will apply for any modern construction. Sometimes fully boarded, others with architectural gaps. Timber will continue to shrink however well they say it has been dried. Have always used battens so there is a gap behind. Have never known of any problems with insects/ uv. Of course any black membrane provided for appearance should breathe if that is the property of what it is covering. But this could be any cheap membrane as long as UV resistant. Then stain, not paint, the battens to resemble the cladding. Small gaps should be avoided. A 5mm gap could expand to 10 or stay the same, and so the gap difference would be very obvious. Twisting of the wood wold have the same problem. The only problems we have had were of excessive shrinkage, opening up gaps when there should have been none.

It takes a lot of heat and time to burn a house from the inside. All the timber structure should be protected by plasterboard or other.* Wood doesn't burn unless it gets heat and oxygen. From outside is a different matter. My house is all wood walls. However with no buildings nearby the risk is very low. A metal roof will make no difference at all. In fact a metal roof on a mature house suggests the hiding of other problems. In terraced housing fire often spreads through the roof space if the walls are not full height. * A real fire test of an office showed that one layer of plasterboard on timber stud resisted fire for much longer than the books suggest.

I look forward to pictures too, if possible. This will make it all so much clearer to respond usefully.

Careful! don't think they can't tow it / hoist it away without you noticing. They can be slick, and on a bonus.

it depends where you want the window. Ours are either midway in a 600mm solid stone wall, or in a new timber frame. Either way, the fixing is a strap behind the frame, or alternatively a screw through the frame, which would be a shame.

There might be rules about not being nearer to the road. Check your local plan. Design what you want. Explain your reasoning to the planners. Solar panels angled and to the south , smallish windows facing south, big windows facing north,

That is a 2m3 plastic tank, not a 5m3 harvester system. Water butts are good. If you watch the market they vary from £25 to £50 for the same model.

Shiny metal, very good, oxidised, half as good, dirty.....as good as the material the dust is made of so very poor? Without an air gap, pointless.