Ferdinand

Quick recommendation - I have just bought various suction + screw applied bathroom fitments in the Tatkraft Megalock brand via Amazon, and they seem to be good and inexpensive. I have successfully applied these to smooth tiles and Multipanels, and the loo roll holder (ie a lightweight one) to the underside of a stainless steel cabinet. I have not had them long, but they seem to be very well attached. Glass should also be OK. I cannot comment on whether it will rust or not, or longer term use. The obtangular (they call it rhombic iirc) caddy below us now in my bathroom, so I have bought another for the rental. it says this one is tested to 8 kg. The caddy below is about 30cm by 15cm made from 5mm wire / rod, and is about £16. I also have the soap dish / loo roll holder / towel hook set for about £17. (Do we need an Amazon affiliate link for Buildhub?) Ferdinand

Dunelm Mills - mainly furnishings and fit out. I note that Dunelm Mills seem to deliver to the 'extremities' at no extra cost. They are my go to supplier for a small number of things such as curtains and curtain tracks. They do, however, reserve the right to take an extra couple of days, and do not do express delivery. That includes free delivery over the same threshold as everywhere else. It seems to be orders of £50 or more that are free delivery, but the categories and thresholds are moderately complex, so read the policy. http://www.dunelm.com/info/help/delivery Ferdinand

@AliG Do take a serious look at the costs of buy/sell too. I only ever did one serious "hire-dehumidifiers" exercise, when a T went on holiday in winter and the water froze in the roof leaked. That ended up with an 8k insurance claim, the T back with his dad for 8 weeks, and the house taking several weeks to dry. It was within spitting distance of the new cost of the dehumidifiers used in hire charges. As I put on here this summer, I have now bought a couple of heavy-duty ones. Ferdinand

Thanks for clarifying, @TerryE. TBH I wasn't sure - I have never thought about the CoP of dehumidifiers. Usually there are other criteria that dwarf the importance of the cost of running dehumidifiers (eg on my only serious rental water leak the tenant had to move out for 2 months, and the Dehumidifier hire cost would be 10+ times the running cost). My evaluation of DHs has revolved around reservoir capacity, the ability to put it on a box and have a hose into a big bucket or drain so I can leave it safely overnight, the existence of a humidistat, and - as usual for me - a slightly anal focus on price when the essentials are met. It was only talking to professional building-dryers that made me internalise the huge benefit of also running extra heaters, even at ££ per hour. Hence the fan heaters while drying the Little Brown Bungalow plaster skim for the sparky who was due 4 days later. In this case, the figures for that DH are: Based on your number of 4.1 at 100%RH and 35C, that suggests that the CoP at 70%RH and 20C is around 1.2. That highlights how quickly the performance rolls off with lower temp / humidity. Ferdinand

So have I perhaps calculated incorrectly? It has been a busy day. I know it is good and that the chap closing down his drying business recommended those out if all the types he had. Have I misunderstood what they mean by Nominal Current? Spec: http://www.equiplogistics.com/buy/broughton-cr40-heavy-duty-dehumidifier-dual-voltage.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIir7HmMn91wIVipTtCh1HsQWoEAQYAiABEgLjpfD_BwE

The 40l per day (at 35C 100% rh) commercial dehumidifier I mentioned says it uses 1.3A at 220/240v or approx 350W. Surprisingly low. Your fan heaters to get it warm will be the main issue. Good job it s well insulated :-).

With the husk off, then, @SteamyTea, rather than an attempt at an amusing diversion. It is a bit long - sorry. I think this piece was an exercise in churnalism - the only difference being that the Press Release was perhaps especially written for the BBC to swallow. It was the kind of spacefiller / clickbait listicle I would expect in say the Independent or the Huffington Post, or perhaps on Buzzfeed on a really bad day. If it was a data journalism article written in an environment with either a competent journalist or a competent editor, one or the other would have made sure that the article should have: 1 - Identified its purpose and the questions to be answered, and *why* these are important questions. 2 - Profiled the source. Discussed Data sources and the relationship. Was this specified by the BBC, or data that just happened to be around in the media department etc? Why was *this* data selected? Why is "maximum distance possible" a good statistics to choose (suspect median distance to the 60 minute the perimeter would be better rather than a masimum)? Why is 3 times on a Friday a meaningful investigation? 3 - Explained the method used for deriving the claim. I think it was probably a Monte Carlo Method or similar simulation based on the company's routing software. We just have "x provided the data". 4 - Provided the context so that we can relate the data / claims to our experience. Is this real-world data? It is presented as representing such, and you interpreted it as such. But the BBC have not even told us what "typical" means - eg what about roadworks that are normally present at some time of the route, or school holidays when traffic is lower etc. As we all know, that makes a massive difference. 5 - Provided some analysis and produced some conclusions as to the implications. 6 - Given that it is the BBC, I would expect Cardiff or Swansea, and perhaps Belfast, to be in there. 7 - As an absolute minimum included a sanity check to match the data to reality, so they don't end up looking like right Charlies when/if it doesn't match. Dead easy to do; all they have to do is to get some staff going home at these times to measure their journey length. A couple of dozen would show whether the simulated data fits reality. As it is I can do my own personal factcheck. I have done the journey from Central Nottingham north up the M1 half a dozen times in the last 2 years after lunch with a friend or visiting my letting agent. The claim for Nottingham is that at 4pm on a normal Friday you can travel by road North as far as Barlborough or beyond. I know that if I am not away by about 3.15pm, then nothing like the claim is possible, and I come from a mile my side of the centre. They are probably about 50% out imo. As it is, I think there is probably a systematic error in the data wrt the real world. Comparisons are perhaps meaningful - absolute claims with no context except "typical" are not. What I have seen of their "data news" stuff really is of very poor quality - a comment I would also make for much of the contemporary Online and News 24 output. I have no idea what they are playing at, but I can see the raw simulated numbers being picked up by some of the more stupid of the highly intelligent people who write for our newspapers, and quoted as 'established fact' to support their view of whatever issue they wish to harangue us about this week. I could see Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee, or perhaps even Monbiot, or any number of data-illiterate millenials using this as fuel for a trip on the outrage bus. and a demand that therefore investment must not be made in road transport. My view. Ferdinand

You mean these for your feet?

TAking figures which are the max. Much less may make adequate comfort, or close off half the house behind polythene drapes for now. A stonking transportable industrial dehumidifier in ideal conditions (eg temperature of 35c) might pull out 100l a day. If you have 100 tons of water to remove, that would take 1000 dehumidifier-days in theory. Such a beast will cost about 750 a 1000 ukp to buy new, and well over £100 a week tor rent, ish. IF you are serious then I can recommend the smaller Broughton CR40 models as compact for their performance. I bought one secondhand and it is a heavy duty but small 40l/d machine. That and a 60l/day machine dried out the plasterwork skim in the LBB in 2-3 days to a point acceptable to paint, running at a high 20s C temperature. THe LBB is 64 sqm, and all ceilings are 2.4m, 85% was skimmed. New they are about 350-400 and you would need enough for a bulk discount, but there is the prospect of selling them on here. It might make sense to buy 5-6 and 3-4 fan heaters (Screwfix?) and employ a man to sit there all day as security with windows and doors open. Then run dehumidifiers and heaters overnight. If any of your guests have asthma they could be very uncomfortable above say 70% RH. Best of luck.

Having thermally renovated a smaller detached cottage (4m x 8m outside dimensions, the roof has 7 rows of pantiles on each side) with half brick and 9" solid walls over a period with a tenant in situ, the biggest differences were (no particular order). 1 - Lots of loft insulation. 2 - Decent double glazing and doors. 3 - Cumulative effect of boarding out most walls / insulating floors as much as practical. A little difficult with semi-rooms in the roof. We have managed to reduce energy bills by something over half from what they were (still £100 a month, though) despite a 40% increase in floor area, but the interesting thing is that the T's perception has changed from "warm upstairs, cold downstairs" to the opposite - even though it is all warmer. Can I suggest a very careful look at EWI, even if DIY and just for the walls, and a also for underfloor insulation - even if it means a floating floor and a small step. Ferdinand

Does that actually mean a private vehicle exclusion policy? I trust the Public Officials do not get Zils . More seriously, it screams "work with neighbours / friends and call a sparky for a full day on a time and materials basis to do 2-3 jobs". Very low overhead to organise on a small scale / ad-hoc basis, a bit more if you set you set up something more semi-official / organised such as a sparky reserving a day a month, booked from the Island Office. Emergencies are something else, of course. Ferdinand

If you paid with something like an Amex Plat or a high end Credit Card might that company be helpful, either as a big brother wrt the company or for a claim?

Will respond to the excellent comments from all views later on. There is an interesting analogy between ufh losses due to proximity to the ground, and radiators on external walls, perhaps?

Kings Cross to Victoria in under half an hour. Pushbike .

This is from the approved plans for the floor section in my house, passed in 2007. 85mm polyurethane insulation in the floor is a slight puzzle - it was technically a renovate not a rebuild. From 2007 Building Regs what would the minimum be for that situation? The u-value seems to be about 0.26. I decided to have a little look to respond to a debate on the other thread about how much floor insulation is necessary for ufh to be a practical proposition. I can see from the 75mm screed why my ufh response has a delay in it, but even with that spec I like it. Ferdinand

Piccie taken from a front upstairs window an hour ago. It looks Edwardian ... dusting of snow, rough stone wall, next door's somewhat trimmed trees, the lane, the old-fashioned streetlamp, the bicyclist .... The iPad lens which cannot quite catch the piccie unmottled. Warms yer heart and cools yer heating.

Welcome to the madhouse. And the learning curve.

@PeterW Thanks. Are there any particular issues with the thin layer and spreader plate approach? F

Has anyone experience or opinions of the type of Underfloor Heating which are put on top of a suspended wooden floor? eg This one from Polypipe says it sits in a 18mm depth, and a "housepack" for a 50 sqm heated area 5 zone area works out at about £2.5k. Though of course it needs insulation below and a floor base above. Are they: 1 - An excellent product. 2 - A good product but with compromises. 3 - The spawn of the devil. This is part of the gas free rental conversation, but I thought a separate thread was merited. For me, thoug this seems pricey, it may be a good way of getting rid of rads altogether, which can then potentially be connected to a wet ASHP. My need is to do it properly, and then more or less leave it alone for 15 years. Also, ufh does have kudos in the rental arena. Any views - especially @Nickfromwales. Cheers Ferdinand

Or, ideally, before buying it .

@pdf27 Thanks - useful comments. If I take an engineering approximation and say that your 230W peak saving saves an equivalent of 100w over the entire year for ufh (assuming I find a way of doing ufh :-), that would be say £0.1 per unit for 9000 hours = £90 per year. If we call it £30-50 per year as a buffer for my approximations, then that suggests that it might be worth spending £100-£200 for a marginal improvement to a u-value of 0.18 and £300-400 for an improvement to 0.12 (-ish), if extra material can be installed without consequences and extra labour when the floor is up. That would probably leave as realistic options: 1 - a little more insulation in the over-floor for 0.18. 2 - or complete removal of the ventilatd cavity via pumped insulation / sealing air bricks, which could also be costed against the labour of lifting the floor, and a chap with a staple gun and rolls of rockwool for a couple of days, and the insulation in the over-floor. Both might be viable options, depending on the circs. I'm not competely heartless, so I am usually willing to do a bit extra if it is the right thing for the sake of a few ££. Unfortunately, EWI will not be viable for me here without at least a 50-70% grant. I had quotes and they were coming in at £8.5-£11k, even with us doing some things. And a small bungalow is the easiest type of building to EWI. In the event I have settled for installing all my 2G with extended windowsills should the EWI be realistic in the future. It is still a payback of many decades, as it would be 130sqm of wall with a u-value reduction of 0.55 to 0.22 (ish). I make the calculation to be money saved per annum by transmission if the heating was on 24*365 approx = 130 sqm * 0.33 u-value reduction * 12 C ave. temperature difference * 0.001 to give kWh * 0.05 £/Kw * 8760 hours / yr = £225, without the air leakage, and ignoring all kinds of subsidiary effects. EPC says the heating bill may be £300 a year, and removing the whole thing would be a 20-30 year payback. Ergo not viable. But I need to improve my heat modelling skills. Ferdinand

Over the w/e. I'll try and draw up a list of everything I did, though there are various threads talking about it. It might be worth looking up all the other flats on the EPC Register (https://www.epcregister.com/reportSearchAddressByPostcode.html) for a start for ideas and hints, since that information is published and free. And remember that there will be exceptions to the rules where improvement does not give a 15 year simple payback etc. Lining your outside wall looks like one option that should give benefit, or perhaps an overfloor. That would not disturb neighbours. Or EWI the entire building :-). Then you are into improving internal systems. That shower heat exchanger suggestion sounds good, especially with an electric shower - no moving parts, I would also check the very basics ... eg does your ventilation fan in the bathroom have a backdraft shutter, are you OK for condensation, do you have background ventilation that is adequate now you have well-sealed new windows? I now fit a Lo Carbon Tempra trickle/boost fan in all properties, plus a PIV loft fan (which doesn't apply to you). None of these will make much difference to the EPC, but they may make for a happy tenant and a lack of niggling problems. One important point is photographic evidence of everything for the EPC man. There is a reason I have never bought a flat :-), though I wish I had found a way to afford the short lease one bed I was offered by my LL in EC2 in 2000 for 70k. Ferdinand

Aha. I read the photo of the gap visually as a raised profile with sloping sides ... a hump in the floor. Ignore most of my suggestions.

Ignore the humbug about bathrooms. Do just enough to make this unusable then you will have extra motivation for the bathroom.

Floor Buildup for Little Brown Bungalow. U-value = 0.23 (ignoring joists). Thickness above old floor = 53mm. Service cavities run alongside some internal walls. Calculations look slightly off but it is under £10 per sqm.