Ferdinand

Best blog on the site. (Says I) ?

Welcome. I wouldn't want to have to paint all those window and door bars ... ?

Proper darkness is more worrying in town where the muggers are. Perhaps less likelihood of robbery on the outskirts of Much-Grinding-in-the-Marsh. F

Hawthorn will taek a long time to become significantly large, so imo either do nothing or the root barrier.

I feel this is all a little flippant ? ?. Not that I can complain given that it is what I do a lot of the time ?. Alas, doggoes and 8 year olds are relatively expensive, and the latter carries a risk of modern slavery charges and violating minimum wage regulations. The exact problem is a Roku controller used by someone else that costs me about 5-10 minutes three times a week, and that these (posh) Roku controllers do not seem to be replaceable without a new "stick of Roku". Last lost one cost me a new Roku stick at £50+. If there were something that used those wires that shops put in clothes that would be good, or a smaller version of the Veridian (sp?) Patch they used to track Captain Kirk on Rurapente (which is probably like some of our building sites), that might do it. Cheers F

Can anyone point me to a thing I can attach to a TV remote to help find it when mislaid? It only needs to work within the house, and I do not care if it is Bluetooth, GPS, or whistles the Star Spangled Banner when I sing the Red Flag. But I need to find my Fat Controllers when mislaid ?. cheers Ferdinand

Podcast interview with McCloud published by Ben Adam-Smith yesterday. https://www.houseplanninghelp.com/hph267-self-build-tips-eco-design-and-the-climate-emergency-with-kevin-mccloud-from-grand-designs/ Have not listened yet, so this may not be mentioned. Ferdinand

Welcome. At this point it would be really helpful to have an anonymised copy of your floor plans , site plan etc posted, which will facilitate far more focussed responses. One of my first questions , living in a converted bungalow myself, is what will happen to the practicality of your garage when you insulate the walls properly? Mine is now quite narrow, even though the bloke who did it before I moved in pulled a slight fast one by a few inches with both side boundaries. On search, Google with the site parameter is at least as useful, though the advanced options of the forum search are very powerful. Ferdinand

My suggestion would be yes, but run the numbers carefully wrt orientation, usage pattern etc and your conscience. AIUI domestic feed in tariffs are gone, and instead you are paid for exporting electricity. But otoh solar panels are now cheap, and there may not be much you will miss out on in the next few years by buying now. IMO batterIes have much further to go in overall efficiency gains per £. However, the rates are low (5p per unit ish?), so now the thing is to use your own generation for max advantage which might be washers or charging cars or hot water or a heat battery, but that we still need evolution in the gubbins to let you use that effectively and easily on a single home scale, and that commercial solutions are not quite there yet to make it a no brainier from a financial point of view. Some people are doing it, but there are still elements of home brew involved for maximum effectiveness aiui. That gap may be bridged by eco-conscience (sometimes I do that with extra insulation) plus expecting the tech (particularly battery tech, but also interface-to-car tech and 2 way meter tech, and perhaps tariff offers) to evolve. So my answer would be provision for it at the least (routes to run wires, install space etc) to avoid butchering anything later, and take.a look. If it adds up, do it. I am not clear whether Sunamp (heat battery) have sorted out their previous problems yet, or whether on demand charging interfaces to cars are here yet, r on the cost effectiveness of batteries. One option is to setup with secondhand panels. Potentially a complex decision as to how far to go. The heating with solar is a bit of a red herring imo because the seasonal time of needing it is directly the opposite of the output from your solar system mostly, and domestic heating has been very successfully addressed by passive approaches. Heating water for your ablutions is a far more fruitful thing to consider there. Ferdinand

The two subsidiaries have gone through, not the parent company HAB UK. F

They occasionally have significant reductions on ones with this system at B&Q.

Hope it goes well. Let us know if it ends up triangular ?

You need some more baseball history. Would be wonderful so see an entire Grand Designs episode where all the Kevin McLoud questions were answered strictly with Yogi Berra quotes. But will it leak? "You can observe a lot by just watching." When will it be finished? "It ain't over till it's over." Is it on schedule? The future ain't what it used to be.

I wonder if that is affected by prior experience such as beach showers, having been in swimming pool showers a lot, or having spent time at eg the Hampstead Bathing ponds. In this buttoned down age of PC, what happens in the showers when a school class goes swimming? F

Wall-less wet room sounds a bit exposed. Pocster will be making like David Blaine.

Wonder if this boss will take responsibility for the decision if it doesn't work ? ?

For a serious moment, you could gain 200-400 by turning the loo through 90, or going for a corner throne, and moving the whb.

He won’t fit, unless there is nothing behind that crisp packet.

A note that the pound has just jumped by several % against the Euro in the last 48 hours. If you have been sitting on your hands waiting, now may be the time to gain a bit and minimise risk on purchases or moving funds. It is really a balance between 3-4% in the hand, or +- 10% in the bush. Depends on your judgement. If I were spending 5k in Euro imminently I would take the 4% saving. It will jump significantly one way or t’other depending on what happens with the Brexit negotiations over the next 2-3 days. Now may .. or may not .. be a least unhappy medium. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cx250jmk4e7t/pound-sterling-gbp To take advantage you will need something that works off current rates. F

Maybe ... needs a watching brief. Mentioned on here from time to time. With a risk of having my head chopped off for sticking my neck out (said the giraffe), you could perhaps should be maintaining your relationship as you do your house; little and often with rituals that enforce regular attention on both sides. Suspect that most people do stuff anyway. As I understand it, one thing is not to drift off from knowing each other as well as you did before the build whilst you both change, and a regular whatever to stop the underpinning resilience of the relationship being drained away. So to speak to evolve together rather than in different directions which potentially creates a ‘gap’. F

Whilst also on the topic of maps, some Council website maps have some surprisingly large scale maps. Until recently mine had maps that would blow up to about 1:300, and allow quite reliable measurement of eg width of drive etc. F

This one is fun. This is where I used to live - the centre one not the Google pin. It is Grade II listed. The thing in the red circle is a 40ft refrigerated lorry trailer that dad parked up in 1995 for storage ie 320 sqft ish on plan, with a row of former pigsties behind it. It was dismantled and removed in 2010 by me. Presumably in 2009 I could have turned it into a row of haysheds if no one could see the difference, and then into a house under Section whatever later. That pond was filled in in the 1970s. The path across the fields does not exist, but the one by the LH fence is a public footpath. So I think this was updated from aerial photos. Ferdinand

FOI?

The two I have fitted recently have B as 900-950mm, but longer trays and full screens on the end. The latestalso has a 20mm upstand. Had a chat to the fitter at subfloor level, and I wanted it to be minimal and water retaining but not flat, and wheelchairable. You can always take 5mm off by using more screed or glue, but not add it back on. This tray is 900 x 1800. The sloping roof also means my shower is positioned so that spray would stay in with no door. I will probably remove that door and cap the screen end as I think I will not find a magnetic door seal easily. You could make A into a shower curtain or a hinged or multifold screen.

I did not mention it specifically but it comes with a thermostat. We used to have a single wire version of one of these that was about 5 feet long behind a run of wardrobes at the old stone farmhouse.