Ferdinand

You will also need a letter of acknowledgement of having received the MCS Certificate from your DNO, iirc. I had a thread about it somewhere, titled something around Octopus Otgoing Agile.

For anyone going for this, remember that setting up an export from Octopus puts quite heavy documentation requirements on your solar setup, and can take 4-8 weeks or more. Plus any time for a Smart Meter. So this may be in for spring not winter. F

They have been in student houses for 8-9 months with no problems reported.

@PeterW might know someone.

It says "House for an Art Lover" (Wohnhaus Eines Kunst Freundes) in the OP !

Treating the question seriously (though you may be winding us up), that design (or a version of it) - CR's House for an Art Lover - was actually built in Bellahouston Park in Glasgow South Side in 1988-1996. Design is contemporaneous to Lutyens - was done in 1901. So you may have seen it. Vid: Piccies: Probably full of fantastic ideas and detailing, but with slightly austere "strong bones"; I've always enjoyed visiting CRM buildings. But I don't think I could live with one ... I'd take a Goldfinger. We did have someone on BH building something that was recognisably CRM inspired. Ferdinand

Have you had an inheritance? Charles Rennie Mackintosh over Frank Lloyd Wright any day (except the high-back chairs which I suspect go flub at the back-of-seat joint). Charles Rennie Mackintoshes don't auto-collapse a few years after the architect popped his clogs.

I think the name is cool.

They probably feel a little .. er .. blue. You will never know the harvest you could have had, since they won't talk to you now.

Some things like blueberries insist on that or rainwater aiui.

That's one way to avoid the licensing fee ! One comparison of interest will be with the target for the English regs for 2025, which on the numbers seems quite demanding. Another is whether they will be able to implement a proper inspection regime (assuming the current one is sample based with informal advanced knowledge for the developer as to which ones will be checked). F

That's the usual warning to people using studded tyres on bicycles. Take care when getting off 'cos teh bike has better grip. Mine's staying it its stall this week until we get above 5C.. In this vid from Cheltenham I love the chap on the bike:

Interesting - just been putting the bin out and nearly came a cropper through wet ice. This morning it was -2C here, currently it is 3C, and it had rained, then stopped, then started again. It has been noticeably slow over the last days for e car windshields to unfrost - I have been needing to preheat windows even in mid-afternoon. I went across 4 surfaces: 1 - Council slabs. Grippy for my pumps. 2 - Gravel. Grippy for my pumps. 3 - Tarmac in the lane. Grippy for my pumps. 3 - Ribbed concrete on the drive. Nearly went over. I'm assuming that was puddles from early on that had not thawed and now had a film of rain. Anybody else? Ferdinand

Yes. One layer is brittle to point loads, three layers plus all the other stuff on top spreads out the loads.

TBF - smoothing out usage reduces the need for backup infra.

Had a little dig into this, and rewatched the episode. As it happens they also redid their EPC this summer. The episode discusses that the design is passive. And the epsiode includes an air test @ 33 minutes below. His "High Five" accent reveals a Borat fan, I'd say ! Basically, the roof u-value is 0.13 (EPC = 92), and the arch is insulated on the outside under the green roof. It overhangs at the sides and that is where the uninsulated bits are - must be an interesting joining detail there. Timber frame box walls are 300mm of newspaper clippings. One point I did not remember is that the outside 2 layers of tiles (from 3) are laid in cement, whilst the inside layer is in plaster of Paris. Drainage via a layer of terram or similar, filled with 20 tons of gravel: Main source of heating is a biomass boiler. Has solar PV (with a very nice payment per unit) and also solar thermal. I'd say they knew exactly what they were doing. Well done all round. And, yes, there was the obligatory baby. Links: EPC: https://find-energy-certificate.service.gov.uk/energy-certificate/9676-0036-6304-9432-7200 Programme:

Well - the posties are giving you a break !

Octopussy has now published (on my account anyway) total amounts saved in Saving Sessions. That's 443 MWh, or the annual electricity (not all energy) demand of an average group of around 100 detached houses in the UK, saved by approx 250k customers over 4 sessions. Average electricity demand of detached house = approx 4 MWh. More relevantly, it knocked 108 MW off the peak of demand, by engaging just under 1% of electricity account holders. Gives an insight into potential flexibility. Ballpark that is a reduction of 1/4 to 1/3 in short term electricity demand, when you pay people far more than the cost of the electricity. Analysis: https://octopus.energy/press/believe-it-or-watt-octopus-energy-customers-provide-108mw-of-grid-flexibility-in-first-saving-session-equivalent-of-a-gas-power-station/

Sorry to hear your challenges, @GrantMcscott. There's been quite a bit of nodding to theory on this thread (which is important). FWIW, your floor spec is - to my eye - pretty good rather than reasonable. By ufh only has 90mm of PIR under it, but was built in 2009. Your 150mm will on its own meet the current building regs newbuild value of 0.13 in England, which was not pushed further in the latest update in June 2022, and looks to be here to stay. My suggestion is to get an inexpensive thermal camera, and take a pretty comprehensive set of photos outside and inside whilst it is cold out and and warm in, which will show heat leaks (including warm outward draughts) well. You should also see useful cold spots etc with photos taken inside. Once you have that data then you can decide what to do next. Simple tools you may also find useful are things like (sample sources): A £5-10 hand held point and shoot thermometer: https://cpc.farnell.com/duratool/d03308/infrared-thermometer/dp/IN08363 A couple of £10 or so min/max thermometer / hygrometer https://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Thermometer-Hygrometer-Temperature-Humidity/dp/B00VYRC58I/ It's he simplest form of data logger ! I always have a couple of these around for quick checks. Then you could have a simple datalogger recommended by one of the BH co-conspirators. My house is a little smaller than yours - 200sqm, but I live here on my own (with the squirrels and the foxes) and my energy bill in December is also going to spike. I've been running a couple of rads only (24x7 for some of it which I have just cracked down on), and closed down all the bedrooms except one. Are there any parts of yours you can seal off for the winter, to reduce the volume heated? I don't know about your wood supplies, but have you considered running your woodburner overnight in a damped down mode? One other thought - are you on an optimal electricity tariff for your heating strategy? What would happen if you switched to a cheap overnight tariff and ran the UFH heavily then, and relied on the slab-heat-delay plus wood burner to keep you warm in the day? ATB Ferdinand

You get those on Amazon - which allegedly target the water spray in the correct direction. I met 2 foxes in my garden last night, so I'm looking at this thread. That does not specify what "one" refers to - ultrasound or llama? 🙂 I'll be trying ultrasound to see if our urban foxes are sensitive. Plus hopefully a big spring clean in the garden in due course. F .

Available via trade routes, and legal depending how it is used. Banned from being advertising. A very British fudge.

See the two cost saving threads pinned in the General Forum. https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/forum/48-general-self-build-diy-discussion/ Essentially one is about setting yourself up to save money, and the other is a noticeboard about discounts.

Sarah Beeny's "Twice the House for Half the Money" had a lot of good examples of that sort of approach. There was another one as well where the gimmick was projects digital walkarounds where one proposal was radical and the other conservative that was also good - forgotten the series title.

You learn until you are satisfied you know enough, then use your skill and judgement to make a suitable estimate of where your best option lies 🙂.