Ferdinand

Is not the issue with the downstairs loo is that wheelchair accessibility is a Building Regs requirement? I am not sure whether the shower is required to be accessible. But this is again your subject, so I guess you have that covered. Also I think I recall that a raft of new Building Regs came in on I think June 15th this year. I'd encourage you to do the more relaxed stairs to the extent you can - you lose about half a square metre and it makes a noticeable difference. F

I like the project as well, especially the upstairs open to the warm roof. You should know being an AT, but check if the number of bedrooms you submit with requires an extra parking space or other stuff (minimum private outside space is a common one - may require an opaque tall front gate so your front lawn is private) under policy. It should be easy peasy to leave it as 2 big bedrooms upstairs and divide one later. Does your downstairs shower room meet disabled 'turning circle' regs? Personally I prefer roof windows to be towards the top more than you have it, so there is a sense of light from the sky - unless they are ones you need a view through. Keep your staircase gradient as shallow as possible (ie towards 35-37 degress rather than 42), as it makes the whole house feel more luxurious. If you can. F

At least two Rolands have won Nobel Prizes.

I don't know, but I'm getting the impression that LT has some competent back room staff who have been working on this for some time. Also hearing interesting things about developing the relationship with the European Commission.

Judging by R4 this morning, fixed rates will be capped to the pro-rata £2500 cap for 2 years.

Yes, I'm teasing a touch. I'd suggest that the "limited return" point will be somewhere beyond where you are now, so I'd go for at least 50mm of PIR and perhaps a bit more given energy prices and that I only get to do it once. Framing or dot and dab is the choice of method. If you are already inside an insulated wall then your cold bridge is well limited. I'd suggest the 62.5mm or 72.5mm PIR backed plasterboard, or perhaps use separates if you can get a really good price on the PIR (but will require framing) - the last one I did a few years ago I found non-foiled 50mm PIR at £10 a sheet, which was OK. If you dot and dab remember to make sure your glue lines prevent air circulation in the gap. And you do need to check the requirements for a thermal element under Regs. ATB. F

Make sure you consider what you might want to replace it with in the future, and that that can be done without messing all your plumbing and electrics around again. Remember that gas boilers are on the way out over a decade or two. Personally I would consider boxing it in suitably where it is, too. The lattice sheet stuff that rad covers are made out of can be very useful, and can be bought in sheets relatively inexpensively. F

Remember to make the EWI thick enough and to discuss permeability and ventilation.

It's sometime 1976-1979 ish. https://h-frame.weebly.com/79-001-timeline.html There's a Yoochoobe channel called "WorkMateGuy".

>Macerator at WC ( no bitching about that ) The bitching is for when you are trying to mend it if it breaks. "How are you getting on, dear?" "I'm in the sh*t". That's one heck of a vintage workmate. I inherited one of those from dad 10+ years ago, who himself had it for at least 35 years. F

Can your House Automation system cope with the solution they used on the exhaust pipe of the Death Star? Just need to make sure that none of your local rats are Jedis.

Are you going to miss or notice losing an extra 1/160th (=0.625%) of your room dimension? (If you need to get rid of a 3.56m wide Jackson Pollock to make that possible, I'll take of off your hands, and collect at no charge) Why not go for 75mm PIR everywhere ? 😛

And don't forget to consider ventilation alongside your insulation if it is airtight. (You may have done that on the other thread which I have not reread.)

@OP Yes and that requires the underfloor void to be dry and sealed. In effect you created a shaped plastic bag from your DPC and fill the inside of that. You don't do it if there is a chance of water coming back - high water table, flood risk, standing water in the void etc. When I did my bungalow the BCO was nervous as it was not familiar, so for simplicity I went with insulation below floor level to the bottom of the joists to let any dampness escape, and made sure the cross-ventilation was good below that level. At one place I had to replace the air brick with a periscope version to get it below the new insulation, and 150mm above the extra concrete which had been added to the drive at some stage leaving the air brick at ground level. On EWI, it is *really* important imo to use a specialist long-term in the business (not a general builder or one who can't show you 3 previous EWI projects where you talk to the customer) as there is a lot of detail that can be got wrong, and it is a bugger to redo afterwards. A simple example is if they don't put the 2G in first, as the EWI has to overlap the frames with a suitable detail. And *everything* (drainpipes, satellite dishes, lights ...) mounted on the wall has to be mounted outboard of the EWI or considered carefully - otherwise cold bridges. A good cost up here (North Notts) in 2018 was around £110-£130 per sqm of wall area. Read this thread for some thinking: Perhaps @Adsibob can tell us how it went and identify some elephant traps. Also on EWI you tend to get recommendations with a low amount of insulation - say 100mm. The material is cheap, so I would go with 200-250mm of EPS as a compromise - some argue woodfibre as it is moisture permeable. Plus you need to be sure where the dew point is at your temperature range, to ensure you get no interstitial moisture condensation (more complex if your cavity wall is insulated), and need to be sure that any moisture that makes it in can make it out again. It is easy for the structure inside the wall to show through to the outside. Also of course, it's a semi so you have the step and the coal bridge to next door through the entire cross section of your external wall. F

It's important to think about regulation, and neighbours and pollution, and small soot particles. Log burners are coming into the cross-hairs (imo correctly), especially in urban settings. I have a portable aircon, which is an air conditioner and a heat pump if you plug it in the other way round (CoP about 2.5). This is details, but it is a refurbished version: https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/78293300%2f1%2f78082979%2f1%2fairflex15w/electriq-782933001780829791airflex15w--air-conditioner What about a traditional cowboy pot-bellied stove? (You would need a bigger one) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Old-Mountain-10141-Black-Accessories/dp/B000MMWXMY Around here we tend to say look at stoves for boats, which are smaller. Make sure it stands on something fireproof.

Perhaps the renovation thread first, as that sets the context and will alert you to wider things to think about. Make sure you take the time to reflect. It is always worth spending time before you spend money - replacement time is free. For me this was for a long term rental investment over 20 years plus, so simplicity and maintainability are important. There was also a brief thread on Green Building Forum - the "other place": http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=14711

I'd recommend PropertyTribes or LandlordZone or a local planning consultant for this one TBH. You'll get lots of opinions but we have only a small number of experts on stuff this detailed in this area. If the Council think you will get planning either with a retrospective, or with a CLD because you are beyond the enforcement time, that might be worth a try. Or can you say "we agreed to the structure and relied on you to build it, Mr Tenant - if it is not lawful we require you to restore the property to original condition", and just slope shoulders on the whole thing. Or can you argue that it is a Covered Way, or some other structure that does not require PP, or make it into one? Remember you may need to think about both Building Regs (eg flammable material on boundary such as wood) *and* Planning. This may be useful: http://www.home-extension.org/downloads/B-Regs-exempt-guide.pdf Or a convo we did have: ATB. Ferdinand

I used a strategy on a reno 5 years ago, on a wooden floored bungalow of almost identical size and semi-detached layout, where I created an insulated envelope as you are - plus underfloor ins - and ran all the services inside. At that time electricity was about 10% of current cost. The economic balance has now shifted to even more insulation for less reliance on volatile electricity prices. I did not insulate my walls internally or externally as my walls were already cavity-insulated which was suitable to get me a C76-C77 ish EPC. But I did allow for 200mm EWI in the future with extended windows sills etc, but when I got to it the numbers said itw as not necessary. I lifted every 3rd plank of the existing floor, and put 100mm rockwool between joists (staple gun), took out the old services, and replaced non-sound floorboards. Then a membrane. Then 25mm celotex on top in a framed out floor. Then an 18mm osb floor, then a high quality (QuickStep 25yr guarantee) click-floor or underlay + carpet. I left an underfloor void along some internal walls to run my services (*), plumbing to rads on internal walls, and wiring to sockets on internal walls. It was going to be 50mm celotex on the floor, but I couldn't find doors I could trim by 80-90mm. So had to compromise a little or start taking the top out of doorframe; I found Cottage Oak doors that could be trimmed by ~65mm. Really you want 50mm in case 15 or 22m pipes need to cross (which they might), we had to did a little hole in the old floor in one place. The beauty of it is that everything can be accessed without making any holes, or dismantling, anything. As long as you cut your overfloor in the right shapes. Essentially I left a 300mm wide void in the added floor which ran along internal walls as far as the socket locations. That sandwch could be adapted to fit your Wunder system in. I put markers where things went using football pitch line marker paint before putting the floating finish down. (The one thing I put right under the old floor were ducts with pullstrings for telephone and TV wires in the future so the Virgin Orang-Utan would get to pull on a rope rather than apply his 2ft long 18mm drill through my beautiful thermal envelope). My reno, including replacing 1/3 of the roof, cost just under £40k. But I bought the bungalow for under £100k. This is not Twickenham ! Two threads: we discussed the floor strategy, services and insulation in Boffin's Corner here when I was thinking about future replacement of gas by ASHP (long term investment). The piccie just showing is the floor sandwich: There is a detailed reno thread here: ATB Ferdinand

- The previous hot water, 5019kWh is unusually high, what happened to reduce it so dramatically? - In case you missed it I made some comments on floor insulation savings on page 1. Did not answer this when we did this thread first time around. I don't know what reduced the projected water heating amount so seriously, except that it had a copper tank system and went to a brand new combi.

A couple of things don't quite add up imo. 1 - UFH with zero insulation underneath. How much heat do you lose? Short answer: half of it, unless you have something in place to stop, such as no ventilation underfloor void and your EWI goes 600mm underground around the edge, in which case you will get a warmer patch of soil underneath after 1-2 years. 2 - How do you stop your floor joists rotting if you stop the underfloor being ventilated? If you do ventilate it there is an insulation free heat path direct to the outside, except for 1. But 1 will mean that 2 then applies, and your joists can rot when moisture gets in. You can do it by completely sealing it, and then you have a dry void you can leave empty or fill with insulation (traditionally people use poly beads, but it is less popular now). In short no insulation underfloor is a touch ludicrous, as you have to put a more expensive sticky plaster somewhere else. And 2 questions: Where are your services running? What spec are you renovating in to? Your renovation is not *that* deep - I live in a bungalow which the previous occupant reduced to three walls and a hole, and he put solid slab floors and ufh throughout. Cost him more than he got back as it was sold to us in 2013. (Further post with an idea to follow) F

Maybe not. Perhaps logic would say it will track where the per kWh October price cap would have been, plus a small percentage - to equal the £2500 typical bill minus £400 level (?) which seems to be the new price cap level. It's a small minority, so perhaps it won't be price related. Or maybe it will just be a grant on all new oil purchases (sorry) ! F

Octopus Agile Outgoing Tariff may help.

Liz Truss speech on Energy Savings, which seems to have got most of it about right so far: But by all accounts far larger news is about to break. Even Harry and Meghan are heading to Edinburgh to be near HMQ. London Bridge, perhaps.

The diesel one is interesting. We already have a lot (can't find how many) of diesel generator farms connected to the grid as a small part (~10%; much of it is gas power stations) of the Short Term Operating Reserve (STOR) a backup for interruptions in service for overwhelmingly maintenance and outages and (about <10%) for renewables backups. Is that what the BBC are talking about? There's an occasional Daily Mail flap about "renewables causing more diesel use", always dominated by fake figures and a spittle-flecked outrage bus. They usually have about 200 hours a year of use - a very good stable cashflow from infrastructure for the likes of pension funds and Nicola Horlicks' organisation, who invested £100m around 2015. So if they are being increased in use, the rates would need to be renegotiated if the top rate use period is not capped. Also a potential Nimby explosion. It seems sensible to allow for further usage, as one of the myriad of small measures.

It may be an issue in a future EU accession given Brussels' commitment to defending its incumbents' interests first, but that is the least of anyone's current problems.