gravelld

Some sliders have rubber seals that engage when the door is locked.

Yep, as I said. Strapping varies in thickness too, can't remember what the thickest was... it was twenty years ago!

This brings me back, my parents used to run a company that sold steel strapping. I wonder if you could use the same tool? If you have a lot that you want to do safely we used to use something like http://www.rajapack.co.uk/packaging-tape-strapping/strapping-accessories/steel-strapping-heavy-duty-safety-cutters_SSC06.html?prixTTC=true&gclid=CIjd05mLmdACFUu6GwoddQQIRg&gclsrc=aw.ds But maybe this strip is thicker?

The space heating cost estimates still seem quite high on these - is that because of SAP's blind spot to higher performance houses?

Thanks Roger, really helpful.

Sounds like a really good setup Roger. As a newbie I don't quite understand about the water supply though - is your supply capable of 25 to 30 lpm? I thought it was normally more like half that. Do you have some form of cold storage?

I think you might be right, I was a bit hasty.

Can you get glazing bars that are thermally broken? Look into whether cross laminated timber is permitted, assume so as it should look the same. Better than solid timber. You will want a construction that has its thermal break between the timber sections. Also look into engineered wood. Personally I would not go for a softwood (although it might depend on the exposure of the house).

IIRC OPEC also chose to constrain production for the first time in a while just recently. Build your houses properly folks, then this won't matter...

I wonder in a Ph build whether it would also negate the need for any other space heating, given the requirement should be very low (depends how low you are getting).

That's right. I'm not sure a "standard job" is good enough really, if he means the standard most trades get away with.

Probably so they can capture usage data and publish some infographics.

Still too much opportunity for air ingress imo - top and bottom, cracks appearing over time with movement, what sort of joists do you have? If normal joists: shrinkage. I don't believe there's a cavity in the land which is air tight. Personally I am still not convinced about rigid blocks as an approach, but if I was forced into it (space considerations) I'd foam and tape them.

Yes, Jeremy's anecdote sprang to mind when I read the post above. But that ain't evidence. If there's one thing I've learnt in business, whenever money is involved: don't trust what people say they will do, look at what they actually do.

@K78 What you say makes sense, but it also sounds a little FUDish. I'd like to see some numbers. I remember when we were last in the market. One nice place we found didn't have NHBC. We were of the opinion that you take a risk with any house. But then the vendor... the vendor! chipped in saying the previous purchase fell through because of it, and the mortgage company refused to mortgage it. It was that which sewed doubt into our minds. We would've gone for it anyway (our mortgage company was fine) but by then someone else had their offer accepted.

They've been promising this for a while. I'd actually like more heat inputs! Maybe something to capture excess biomass burning. It could then be a good replacement for a TS, right? Hook into the wet CH system and use the heat when you need it. Good for high performance retrofits which will have low heat demand but an existing wet CH system.

I'm interested in this evidence. Have some statistically significant numbers been released?

Any use? https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/How-to-change-the-command-line-colors-in-AutoCAD.html

I would never expect this to be free - whoever you are using to store the data is incurring a cost. But obviously there are free ways of doing it. You can get an AWS account and this usage will easily be in their free tier. I would store the data in S3. You could either upload the data using something that knows about S3 or create an API which accepts a more generic form (just post some data to a HTTP server using Lambda or Elastic Beanstalk), which then stores the data in S3. You can use a self signed cert for SSL if you think your temperature and humidity data is sensitive. You can actually get free certs via AWS Certificate Manager, or use Lets Encrypt. Later you might want a more flexible way of storing the data to make retrieval and analysis easier. If you wanted you could use a relational data store but personally I think that's overblown complicated. Just get something working and improve it incrementally. And there are loads of alternatives to AWS.

Why are external blinds VAT exempt???

Oh here's a discussion on this I was involved in: http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=13530&page=1

I'm not an expert but here's my opinion It is a bridge and should be designed out if possible. That said, most heat loss through the slab is via the edges of the slab, particularly in many EWI cases where the plinth is left uninsulated (all those ECO and Green Deal installs...). In your case you have wisely avoided this. To many, insulating the plinth down to foundations is still good enough to qualify for Enerphit (see Beattie Passive's TCosy system which does this). It might just be a case of making it up elsewhere. This suggests to me that straight-down losses are not significant, but that might depend on your ground condition, and particularly whether higher quantities of water is running through it. So if possible try to find someone who knows what they are talking about and model it.

I'd far rather see a modern well designed house in stark contrast to the "vernacular" than some ersatz volume builder house with fake bricked up windows and a dummy chimney. But aren't the planning officers just following orders?

A good choice to self host, but consider moving to your own domain if possible.

The manufacturer of my diverter went bust quite a while ago - http://smarthomeenergy.co.uk/goodbye-energeno-diy-kyoto-wattson-0 Still works though. Cross fingers I don't get any other issues!