Ferdinand

We seem to be back in Hogwarts. if this is still the unico tower 12 HP one, it weighs 54kg, but is Afaics designed to sit on the floor against the wall, not dangle.

i have a T who temporarily disconnects the tumble dryer vent pipe, and uses that. F

I guess that one thing to add here is rid of any remaining halogen bulbs, and switch to LEDs, as they put out a fair amount of heat.

Are these any good? I see that the sports ones are about double the price of the work ones ! https://gsworkwear.com/products/portwest-cooling-vest-cv01 It might be something to try for mum. Ideally it would be a back-support as well.

I come close to that with a patio door on N side, and skylights on E side - but it needs a certain amount of juggling. Sometimes works with an exposed door on the S side - but last night it would have been backwards and the warm side would have rushed in. I did wonder if there is a separate thread about creating watery environments (eg water wall feature in your Winter Garden) which would work with airflow, and may have more effect on a low-E house as all the numbers are sometimes smaller. That may be a separate thread. F

Perhaps suitable for the cooling season, does anyone have any systematic thoughts on this? My little list of considerations. Maintainabilty. Ease of use. Automated? Power opening and closing, but also detecting conditions. Security. In sight or hidden? Prevailiing winds. Insects. Interlock with air conditioning? (see - Tenants and District Heating victims cooling the house / flat by opening the window not turning it down) Control systems that are obsolete in less than 10 years - simplicity or switches not whole house systems? To me one idea is skylights easily openable at opposite ends of the prevailing wind direction. Ferdinand

Also watch out vertically or horizontally in line with switches, plugs etc. These are "safe zones" where electrical wiring goes (in theory). ie unsafe if you drill in. Personally I specialise in hitting water pipes not electricals. F

Ooh. What a story to have. Did you video the glass elevator?

i seem to have discovered a limitation of the Bear Freezer (Lee-Bear). Normally if you leave it on SuperFrost by mistake. It is down at -30C within a few hours .. this time it took most of the night with an ambient of 27C. It seems to have given me a nice cool draft for 2 cups of coffee with the door open, and the bit of the room with the thermometer near the freezer is about a fraction of a degree cooler. An an idea very much from the ‘solve global warming by opening our car windows with the air on on’ school. F

My feeling is that it would do it, but that that would depend on everything else being equal. And I do not know if that is the case in your house. Ferdinand

Back from appliances direct ... no sound of gouging but a bit of scrimmage. Several people demanding that they had been instructed to collect the air on they had ordered over the telephone. Yeah right. Temperature outside has been at 31.5C. Inside in the kitchen at about 27.3 at 65% RH. Opened skylights .. not a sausage on temp, but dropped RH by 10% quite sharpish. Experimenting with how good the Liebherr Supercool Function is when applied to a whole room. F

it is reported on the grapevine at the local timber merchant that Appliances Direct who are 4 miles away have temporarily hiked the prices of their portable air con units. No idea if it’s true, and not going to find out. Ferdinand

OK. Couple of hours looking. I am *not* shelling out the best part of 2k without some careful research, especially as I am so wallspace-constrained. Can anyone recommend a decent portable 1 room aircon unit that I can have as a holding strategy this summer? I guess that - like sports cars - this is something to buy pre-owned in the winter when someone has just barked their shin on it. (Has anyone installed something and now has an unwnted portable unit?) ? Any comments most welcome. But damn that puts me back to hoses out of windows ? . Ferdinand

How much of a breeze would one of these generate outside. Does it need to be kept away from where people? eg If one (different room - S Facing potential downstairs bedroom) came out into the open front porch would it blow the postman away? Ferdinand

cache:https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/insight/an-inspector-falls-what-the-building-control-insurance-crisis-means-for-the-housing-sector-62279 (sorry: does not seem to work. Put this into Google search, and the direct link should allow you to see: "A large building inspection firm has filed for liquidation. Luke Barratt explains what it means for those involved in building new homes." ) F

Good job you checked ! Recommend a misspent retirement watching Countdown. 55 sqm is about the size of my lounge - conservatory - kitchen - utility when I add it up. But it is north facing so should be a bit more resilient.

I make that 140 cubic metres. F

My main considerations for what to put where and how to attach it are normally: 1 - What is the impact on the light from the window when the whatevers are open, esp. in the darker months. Unless they are removable easily. 2 - Avoiding fouling the window or door, depending partly on how often it will be opened. 3 - How to attach in a way that will not cause problems in the future eg by drilling of lots of holes into plaster. And the answer would be different depending on the exact circs, what the window is made from and if it is actually a door, slide or hinged etc. My normal answer involves a batten inside or outside the reveal, and sometimes good quality curtain poles leaving space to put in cup hooks into the batten below that. But that is driven mainly by surviving potentially frequent changes of occupant with ease of repair, and preventing my walls being repeatedly drilled by possibly not brilliant DIYers. In your circs I might be looking for something nearly or entirely damage free, which might even be suckers on the glass. I wonder whether command.com surface hooks could do it? Can you do it such that you just take the whole thing down, rather than open and close it? Just thoughts. Ferdinand

Yes, just talked to a chap, and it would need to be a tower unit. It seems that there is flexibility for the pipes. F

Another basic question. Can the inside half of these units be mounted vertically, or the pipes fed in from the end not the back? My 400-500mm width of wall where it has to go, which actually has a drainpipe on it as well, is going to be a big constraint if I am not careful. Whilst one can build a custom shelf unit to hide it, far better if the unit can mount suitably. Ferdinand

Just a marker for a project thread.

How do these units work wrt to doing several rooms? I ask because mine is a lounge - conservatory - kitchen-diner, with external quality patio doors at each room division (translation: the last owner did not get around to building the conservatory in the "L" between the two due to running out of getting-his-money-back on sale, which is fair enough). There is also a bedroom above that might be easiest to reach from this side. (The rest of the house could be reached OK from the other side as there is a garage and garden corridor the full depth of the house. Presumably they come with several pairs of outlets, and the pipes can then be run to several of the indoor-half. Or you rely on natural flow between the rooms. Or alternatively set up a tree type set of pipes on both the in and out halves, but that would then bring in balancing issues I assume. Has anyone done this? Or is it a bonkers idea? Ferdinand

I'll be biting the bullet on this, and going for a mini-project ("The Coolroom"). There's a little bit of thinking to do first, just about how I will tackle it should I need to do more of the house, and about possible ASHP for the future when the boiler dies in about 10 years or whenever. I don't really know about this side of self-build. so help will be most welcome.

OK. Serious. Has your planner asked for a contemporararary design? If so, what an opportunity! But it is not "features". If you go for "features" you will get a pile of features, not a house. That is probably one element of how the TF companies operate - you can have your nearly-identical house looking bricky, or stoney or woody, or even metally, but the interior might not be that different. And that is valid. But contemporary designs can be just as old fashioned as traditional designs, or trad materials can be used in wonderful ways. Did you see Eileen's "Walled Garden" that she posted here. Trad but contemporary. And probably slightly beyind most of our reach, but inspiring. I love the approaches, but my interesting brick bit was a 5m long patterned garden wall and a perforated bin store - which I still love, and which still make the street a bit more interesting. Planners can be a bit like exterior interior designers when approaching your house (as opposed to say community facilities) - they really focus heavily on appearance, and you need to start from "How, then, will we live?" and "What do we need?" After you have an idea of this, then... My suggestion is to go and visit lots of other houses - architects' houses are always good fun, via National Trust (eg Goldfinger, Hampstead inspires me), Open House days, Estate Agents, Landmark Trust, friends, BHers, and Air BNB. And enjoy it. For a bit. Then come back to your ideas and your practical head once your thinking has been stretched into a weird shape, and you can decide how far you wish to go, and in which directions. Then if you have an architectural technician or architect, you are in a position to be an engaged client rather than being overwhelmed. F

Makrpe it like a Rubik’s Cube not a Sugar Cube. (Runs and hides)