saveasteading

Just a few weeks ago. It must be 10 years since sensible people stopped considering these. However I went to a BRE talk perhaps 5 years ago where they still suggested wind turbines and small hydro schemes for individual houses. The same organisation wrote the EPC programme that everyone has to use, hence the nonsense therein. For example, unless recently changed, it automatically assumes that an ASHP will also be used for cooling, and adds that to the power use. It is all in the back pages, if you insist on getting them.

How best do we cut openings for windows in a 600mm, 3 layer, granite wall? I would like to do this without taking it back 45 degrees from the bottom of the new openings. I may have some very clever ideas....but you may have done it before and know, whereas I am speculating. This is the worst condition section of wall.

I have learnt from it, even though I know a fair bit already. Indulge us nerds please.

The monetary payback target of 10 years is often a good guide to the carbon payback, unless there are subsidies. These small scale solar panels and wind turbines cost a lot of carbon to make and and bring from China, possibly never recover it. And they wont last 30 years anyway. Someone gets paid to give us this rubbish advice. How long ago was this? Surely nobody is suggesting small wind turbines any longer.

It didn't matter to us, but the guy said absolutely no, they had no interest in re-running it. The reason for mentioning it is that this was another bad example of incompetents (or worse) doing assessments, and I wonder what the standards will be when the need arises to check the nation's property.

My preferred method as a manager doing very specific one-off inspections. Take up another person whose job is ONLY to watch and warn against shuffling backwards over the edge etc. Needs a trusted and alert person though...no getting bored and looking away, or too interested and distracted. But first find a safe way up. Once did a job for a huge international company who had a permanent safety inspector watching us. We were once hoisting a ladder up, to tie to a fixing at the eaves. One man climbing the ladder with a rope, another holding the bottom and he stopped us. You can't do that, the ladder isn't tied. This sort of thing gives safety specialists a bad name and causes problems. The ladder was somehow tied in place the next morning, perhaps a cherry picker was hired for 5 minutes, and immediately taken away. My suspicion is that £20 would have resolved the situation, but we wouldn't do that.

Our daughter renovated a Victorian terrace house. We stripped the lath and fitted insulation everywhere. An EPC person came for some reason (mortgage?) and would not allow anything that wasn't standard, ie all assumptions. Therefore every building of this type will get the same rating, allowing only for dimensional changes. I didn't meet him but I think he was unskilled and uninterested, using a simple programme, and probably working for the company that bid lowest.

To do the test requires the tester to go on the roof. Ten minutes may become an hour. I wonder if they use the anchor that they are there to test...I just don't know so someone tell me please. Harness and lanyard have to be inspected too and I think disposed of at 'use by' date. I think this is 3 years assuming you haven't been sold one that has been sitting around.

Not really rhetorical. I would trust the 'fixed' one least, because I have no idea if it is fixed well , or at all. Could be siliconed on, or bolted to a skinny bit of wood. I would want to see a load test certificate or fix my own. To clean the outside of the skylight you need to provide safe access. This can be by an opening skylight or hatch or by safe climbing. If a ladder or tower is anticipated then I would also want tying points at the best point of access. Roof lights do get dirty of course, but also blasted by heavy rain. So for daylight they will usually be clean enough, especially if on a decent slope.. For a clear view of the sky perhaps not. The Scottish Standards say this both faces of a window and rooflight in a building are capable of being cleaned such that there will not be a threat to the cleaner from a fall resulting in severe injury a safe and secure means of access is provided to a roof,

As a designer/contractor we would never use the drawings supplied by an architect for detailed design. We would see them as for aesthetics , function and planning only. The whole thing gets redrawn with construction in mind, in more recent years in 3D which shows up anomalies. Why? Firstly it is how we think, and optimise a detailed design. Secondly we have seen so many errors. For example a chimney that is in 2 places at once (on 2 elevations), roofs that don't line up. A stair in 2 positions at once so that it goes through a room. A note saying 'for planning only' is often the get-out, but not always stated. This is not such a big deal in a normal house as there isn't much to go wrong, and usually a good builder's common sense just sorts it. But not always. The issue can be that the client commissions an Architect only to do the minimum, and so the drawings are not ready for anything else. Shock horror...at uni, Architects are instructed to experiment, and that making it work is down the the Engineers and builders.

This worries me. I have always resisted demands for fall arrest systems to be installed on the roof by the contractor. Why, I hear you ask? If we provide a hook point, then the window cleaner might tie himself onto it, but with what? A fancy fall arrest system with automatic brake and proper harness? Or a rope? It is false security and might be worse than nothing. If the line is short enough to stop you getting near the edge that is one thing, but not for catching the fall over the edge or though the skylight. If you end up hanging by the waist on a rope, or even in a proper harness (stops the artery in the crutch I think) , you will not survive long, and need to be got down. Therefore needs access equipment on the ground too. On the other hand, a professional maintenance company might bring their own safety equipment, including dead weights for the fixing. Whenever I explained this to a consultant or client, they backed down and dropped the demand, because it had become their decision. If you have to consider cleaning the skylights (and safe cleaning is in the regs) then the cleaner can provide their own equipment, and you can approve it in principle...Actually you should ask how they intend to do it safely. And please don't consider the roof for a terrace or even an occasional lookout. Which of these would you trust?

So would I but if you ask you might not get. I do have a binding letter from previous owners stating that this building had a "country waste system" since....a long time ago.

That's good I think, as it shows there isn't an impermeable crust floating on the top. Advice to all if you encounter such a crust...it supports a heavy object such as a hammer or brick for just long enough for you to look away, then bloop.

My thought, with little or no evidence, is that the houses that ProDave goes into are the sort where they get the likes of ProDave in to do something properly. They already have insulation and other improvements. The ones he doesn't get invited to are the ones with scope for easy improvement. Many houses have hardly any insulation, I believe, or 50mm from when it was a new idea and 2". They would benefit from another 150. After that there is diminishing return (in my opinion but never proven) and I am surprised that 500mm is mentioned as a possibility. What would be your choice for 1. cynical improvement of epc at least cost? 2. Best value for actual improvement?

You cannot meet the general binding rules if you are using: a soakaway (designed for draining rainwater) installed after December 2007. But if it was installed before 2007 then it is ok....carry on. (?)

I read this to mean that an existing septic tank and existing soakaway (pre 2007) do not need to be replaced. If you use a non-standard system (such as a well, borehole and soakaway) You cannot meet the general binding rules if you are using: a soakaway (designed for draining rainwater) installed after December 2007

Or try, then give up, happy that it is tight.

I am not about to work it out, but would think that the order of benefits might be (mostly because they are non-invasive) 1. loft insulation. Many houses have next to none. Pipe insulation while up there. 2. double glazing. Astonishingly still not done in many council houses, let alone private landlords. 3. Draught reduction. Not many points for this, but an easy improvement 4. ASHP and new rads... not so easy in flats, although most Spanish flats have it through the wall as air blower. These at least will make a big difference to comfort and fuel usage, which is not necessarily the same as scores points for EPC

Best remind your SE of the bounce. I would think 50mm will make a huge difference. Although the screed above will hold it all together, even without there is no way the blocks will fall through even if broken. The crack is a very jagged line and you would have to pull the 2 parts of the block apart about 20mm before it fell The block is held in place at the ends by your preliminary grout or the concrete, so it will sit tight. Relax.

The fundamentals of the report will still be there. they can look to see if the flood maps have changed...if not then a simplel letter to say so. if so, then is probably still easy to review. worth a word with them anyway.

can run on lower setting. i think 1/3, 2/3, 3/3. There is another kind we have that sits on the floor like an old electric fire, about £25, and again 3 settings.

If that is the case then it will keep most rain out and can breathe. probably not the problem. All the things you mentioned need looking at. DPC: is this a physical dpc or injected? Flashings at chimneys. very vulnerable to ingress, and the build-up of muck including dead things. Also v difficult to inspect. Airbricks. these will not be ventilating the walls, but under the ground floor. They often get covered and you should check but that probably isn't the issue here. Chimneys. You have chimney pots without covers. These were great when fire were burning all the time. Now rains falls straight in and lands where the chimney stack cranks...usually at about half way up the wall of each floor. I would try to find an independent local expert. NOT a render company as they usually use one product for better or worse. Not a builder unless they can first prove some real knowledge...make a checklist of suggestions from us lot, don't tell the builder, and see if they match. An Architect or Engineer or Surveyor (Note the Capitals) will give an honest , warts and all report. They may even say that it isn't an easy matter, and the cure will be partial. Again, check that they are expert in this gutty, unsexy side of building. Many don't have this expertise. These professionals will charge, but that is better than thousands spent on something useless or worse. For a bit more help from us, could you do a sketch and mark where the worst damp or damage is? including the chimneys, but not necessarily exactly to scale.

To paint over rust stains and plumbing leaks, I have used stain blocker paint and it works very well Quite expensive for a small tin, but one coat does it. It is then good at accepting emulsion in a single coat. I have had a different problem with paint colours, where several areas gave become lighter. I am pretty sure this was because I used Painter's Mate to fill some cracks and hollows, and it seems to absorb the colour. Moral...use powder filler as intended.

No. That is the correct process before concreting. Just to confirm, you are concreting over the whole area? how thick?

We bought one of these for our site office which isn't insulated. works well and has power options. We also bought the stand but that depends on your space These heaters seem to have nearly all reverted to having a glowing element. I suspect people didn't trust heat that they couldn't see. This won't be quite as efficient as the 'black' units, as this is issuing light and warming more air. On the plus side you are less likely to leave it on by mistake, Wall / Stand Mount Patio Heater 2kW IP24 650 to 2000W £58