Ferdinand

My experience of LED G9s is that they go pop a lot more often than LED GU10s. I find that I have to replace more at changes of tenant, even though I generally have fewer of them than GU10s. Usually no GU10s at all will have gone pop, but the T will have used up the G9 in the spare bulb selection I supply. I see the same pattern at home. My sample is small enough not to be a firm guide, but is perhaps useful anecdata. For something like that, a cheapish consumable that is a pain if it keeps breaking, perhaps a Trade Rated product from Screwfix, or a similar thing elsewhere, is a useful guide?

Lots of people getting excited about electrics / electricians and plumbers / plumbing in bathrooms, and I am nonplussed. Can anyone explain to me what exactly needs to be disconnected in order to retile a bathroom, and why it needs an electrician or plumber to do it? Obviously a bathroom cannot be wired or rewired by a non-electrician - but it's not being wired or rewired. I've just had a look at both my bathrooms, and I can't find anything except - possibly - an electric shower. Everything else is I think on the ceiling. There's a shaver socket on the side of my bathroom mirror, which may involve a penetration behind the mirror (can't remember), but that's more a job for a joiner or handyman than an electrician once originally wired in by a lecky. Full tiling to ceiling would make a small difference, but very little. When I'm designing a bathroom I would go out of my way to make sure that as little as possible - especially electrics - is installed on tiles, because it's such a PITA. To completely disconnect my bathrooms I flick a couple of switches on the consumer unit, and I expect the tiler / fitter or whoever to work around the minor things that are there. And they are. But my guy who does tiling does entire bathrooms, and also entire kitchens, beautifully and without turning a hair, and has been doing jobs for my dad before me - back to the 1990s. He also does all my 2G and external doors, since he has the kind of trade contacts I do not have. I would not ask him to rewire a house of course, since that is correctly heavily regulated for safety - and if I did he would tear me off a strip. Normally that is done before the kitchen is fitted, of course, as I'm sure we all do. Am I missing something, here? Or is my man bionic? As a note I tend to keep it simple by not having huge tiles and so on. But I've had about 10 bathrooms done without the "but what about the plumber and electrician I need" issue ever even being mentioned. And several by others than my main man.

Welcome @Joel . 1 - If I have it right, you are in a 1st floor flat experiencing an ingress of smoke from downstairs. 2 - The aim is to keep the smoke out. I'd make 2 points: 3 - For simplicity, you can also look at this from above the floor, if you include a membrane (eg DPC polythene sheet - comes in 4m width so easy to do). You could, for example, lay a click-fit laminate floor over a 2 layer combo of membrane and a layer of normal laminate sponge-base. Seal the edges carefully, ideally by wrapping up behind skirting boards and sealing the membrane / wall join, and that should help a great deal. If you use a click fit system you can potentially take it up again and then do the harder underfloor option if you find it not good enough. So you get to try the easy way first. The only click-fit system I use in house renovations is Uniclic from Quick Step, because I know it is suitable to be taken up and put back down. And it comes with a 25 year guarantee (or did last time I bought some). 4 - Then look into PIV (or through the wall ASHP units if you want heating, dehumidifying, and ventilating as well) to use mechanical ventilation to help. I think that for smoke particles and smells you will need an activated carbon filter which will need periodic replacement. 5 - There are other ways of applying a seal, such as sealing between all your floorboards. In any case I would aim to get any low hanging fruit too, such as raise one floorboards and seal the light fitting carefully. A chance for some bonus Christmas Zoot. Alas, I also cannot resist 😉.

I think it's a multifaceted question, My comments: 1 - I'm not convinced inflation is much of a risk in the medium term - say 3-6 years. It is coming down and will stay down. So imo a 3-6 year fixed rate investment, ideally with an escape hatch cause to limit risk, is perhaps a good choice. I wouldn't necessarily view a letting investment as a good money shelter; prices are falling and if someone finally gets a grip of housebuilding that may continue. There are now lettings based investment trusts. 2 - On rental, I don't think it has been easy, and has been targeted, for a number of years. Down here in South Britain holiday lets are one form of private letting that still has most of the tax breaks in place, but which have been reversed for most of the rest (unless you incorporate). 3 - Are there a couple of other interesting options you could consider. Two that spring to mind are: a - An annexe to your existing property, which you could let out for holidays as @Crofter does. i Such an annexe could be attached - I once rented one with a locked door to the main house, which they just unlocked if a relative was currently in situ (this could be set up as a "spare room" to keep it tax free. ii Or separate, in which case if your plot is suitably configured it could even be extended and sold off later as a separate dwelling if appropriate. b - An as-packaged-as-possible investment in a safe market city which is wholly managed by an agent. In Nottingham I could tell you what to buy and who to have to run it, but I am not well informed about property in Scotland. My sense for this option is that you need to be looking at something like a student flat or two in a city with a couple of universities and a hospital. That would deliver an income and an asset. 4 - Given current law, which I think broadly applies in Scotland as well as England the sweet spots for rentals are due to how you are taxed on your finance expenses as if it were income, so you pay the bank and then you pay the Inland Revenue as if you had kept it. Current sweet spots are a - Things with finance which do not tip you into higher tax band, b - Cash purchases which you do not need finance on, c - A property company. 5 - I'm a very firm supporter of ratcheting up EPC requirements, especially on Owner Occupier, and I'm jealous it had happened in Scotland and been canned in England. Should have been done from 2013 at the same time as for landlords, but Conservative Governments always pander cynically to their hoped-for Daily Mail reader supporters. But this is a side-issue n your thread. HTH Ferdinand

OT: IIRC Grenfell was an early 1970s build, so would probably be before such design practices came in.

I think your quote is notably expensive. I don't understand stuff like "plumber to disconnect", "electrician to disconnect" and a few of the other lines. I would file those under "wtf?". I'd say that in this particular case someone is taking the p, or might it be possible that he doesn't want the job and is trying to scare you off? One question on the existing work is that to me the tiles seem to have similar direction orientation - all lined and joined up, rather than random orientations. That may be one factor in emphasizing the "large pattern" rather than going for a broken up "background texture" look. I had 2 bathrooms quite heavily redone fairly recently (2019) to do with enlarging and adjusting shower cubicles and a new bath put in, changes to the floor structure to correct mistakes by the original self-builder (had used subfloor material that moved in moisture and cracked tiles), sounds insulation, and "accessibility" for my elderly mum. When my plumber-joiner-kitchen-bathroom-fitter needed stuff disconnecting he just made me turn off the circuit at the fuse, or turn the water off at the SureStop switch. I'm not sure what takes a full day to do that, unless it is some peculiar estimating or work system and he has a funny strict contract with his subs for which you are having to pay? I'd suggest getting the rest done, and return to this in a few months with separate quotes from several tilers. Then spend the money (£3-5k?) you save on a nice holiday. There are other approaches you could take, such as full size fabric hangings on a wall or two. Ferdinand

The heater there is fed by the same heat pump as everything else. But does it really make a difference? It's just a strategically placed radiator, after all. I'll try and come back to the other points in detail later. Remember that I am speaking from my experience in the English Midlands with traditionally built houses, and English climate (which is may be very different to a typical climate in your part of France) and gas boilers / radiator heating. But on this one is the way to find out just to switch that bit off and see if it makes any difference over say a year? It may be that a low steady heat distributed throughout the house via slow background airflow helps with keeping it all fresh, and that is worth the investment of keeping it running. You can get humidity / thermometer max/min meters off Amazon for under £10 that you can move around over a period of time to see where your peaks and troughs are. I have about three; one routine use I make of them is to tell me when washing is dry in the drying closet I use in winter (which is my small bathroom with the fan left on and a dehumidifier running). There are I think others on Buildhub based in France who may be able to advise.

Can anyone quote me a specific example or two of the efficiency level of an MVHR system, and supporting data? I'm having a debate elsewhere (about how far we can reduce energy demand in narrow boats, of all things), "90%" has been quoted for MHVR efficiency (I had quoted 75%-80% for HR extract fans), and someone has asked for evidence for the 90% 🙂. Thanks Ferdinand

Do you actually need the PIV? In answer to your first question, my view is that Yes, you can create a sort-of-MVHR. You will not get the same performance, but you get improved performance in so far as you got towards matching the conditions in a modern well sealed, well insulated house. And over a trad house I reckon one can get more than half way there. It has been my standard approach across renovating properties, dated 1850-1970+, in the last decade. My current habit is to install a PIV, which is set at the appropriate level (so it is background not blowing a hoolie) at the top, and put in a background HR extract fan at the other end (eg utility room downstairs). I have been using Vent-Axia Lo Carbon Tempra units since about 2014, which state an efficiency of 78% for their heat exchanger. i call it poor man's MVHR. My reno scheme is now typically good double glazing and doors, under floor insulation, backdraft shutters on extract fans, proper sealing of penetrations, air sealed loft hatch, and all the other detailed stuff I can get at. Plus good -> very good insulation in other respects - aiming for say a good C in EPC terms. To help internal air circulation you may need to do something like trimming the bottom of doors. TBH if you have open chimneys to the rooms then that is likely significantly or entirely to undermine any attempt to control your ventilation or environmental conditions well. IMO seal and ventilate. PIVs have always been almost a magic bullet for fixing condensation (assuming leaks etc sorted), and imo this is the next level. If your house fabric is still full of holes and leaks, then I'm not sure about heating incoming air on the PIV. That's direct electric heating, which imo is not perhaps a good idea if you are about low energy bills. Does insulation in that attic (and the other attics?) require some attention?

There are less expensive options (still not cheap): https://www.elesi.com/soho-lighting-brushed-chrome-flat-plate-dimmer-and-rocker-switch-combo-blk-ins

This is looking at it from the wrong end ! Your kids are demolishing your curtains. The problem is the kids and the curtains, not that you need Hoover Dam type curtain poles. And the solution is in the Sound of Music. Be Green and Make Like Maria. Did not Sister Maria von Trapp reduce the load on her curtain poles by making the curtains into uniforms for the sprogs? Easy-peasy: 😁 Then put on the SoM in a domestic theatre you are about to build in your Garden Room. (I will accept no liability for subsequent domestic revolutions.)

So ... are we closer to making @Adsibob the hoster with the poster toaster about which he can boaster the moster ?

Does anybody do a massive toasting session? And what is massive? For one of those one obtains a conveyer belt roaster, surely? 😉 If he wants the geniune self-build adventurer, he could get a Dalek Toaster for a gas ring, as used in traditional narrowboats and static caravans.

Dualit seem to have a range of multiple toasters, starting at a far lower price. https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/is-it-worth-buying-a-dualit-toaster-aGavh9G4GTOh

A Dualit one will last 25 years (ours did), and you can get spare parts (such as a set of reflector plates). The other is digital, and will not. It seems you can get it in a colour called Eucalyptus. They haven't fallen for Elephant's Breath, yet.

@Clark Kent Have you considered what is called "skirt insulation" - where you dig a trench round the outside and make it a French Drain * with 300mm (say) of insulation up against the outside of your house to a depth of (say) 600 or 900mm? The mechanism is that the soil temperature at that depth is pretty stable, and the ground under your house heats up over time because the thermal path away is now much longer. Having a warm ground reduces your heat loss downwards. You lose less on the neighbour side because their house extends around your boundary to them, heating up the ground there. Contraindications for this may be eg that there is a high water table, and water movement may steal your heat - which is what the French Drains can be there to divert to keep your patch dry. * French Drains are at their simplest gravel filled trenches with the gravel wrapped up in weed membrane. Easy to do if you need. I put a loose laid path of heavy slabs on top - you get a free hidden route to run pipes and cables.

Not sure that is quite correct -wasn't it Jeremy and that when he installed ufh on top of a 300mm eps raft that 8% of the ufh heat went downwards, not of all his heat lost from the house. Perhaps me putting too much on precise wording.

To add one further comment. Assuming you have a longish term commitment to this site, is there the opportunity to change the facts on the ground to some degree? For example can you plant a native woodland between your barn and viewpoints such as Public Footpaths or the road? Something like native trees surrounded by a temporary shelter belt of fast growing trees to be protection. So then in your scheme in N years time, you can argue that the property will not be very visible to the public. I did a housing estate, which ended up going to appeal. One of our consultants was a "disturbing the view" consultant, who drove round the landscape taking photographs of our site and how much it would disturb the views from other locations. "But what about my view" was one of the repeated objections, which can be shoehorned into "impact on amenity" if they try really hard. We had a "political no" from the Committee voting down the support from the Officer, and at Appeal the Planning Inspector walked onto site including about the distant complaints, asked where they were coming from, stared into the distance and said "I can't see it", and that - in AA Milne style - was that. F

Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh is the new Surbiton. From Good Farmer to Good Life in a decade.

Sorry to hear of your result. I haven't seen this thread previously, but "North Downs AONB" rings a few bells from general news cover. They have been very intransigent in preventing developments of facilities related to the English Wine Industry (see the Kent papers passim.), and seem to me to have quite a chocolate box view of history. Reading their 6 page submission, I note that the first 4 pages are chest-beating to the local council wallahs like King Kong in New York - this is how important we are and all these citations from planning and legal documents you have never heard of shows who writes the law around here. Your scheme does not get a look-in until nearly page 5 out of 6, and the argument is mainly applying general principles to your microscape, rather than detailed consideration of the merits. They do, however, have good points on things like roofing profiles, and perhaps in their implication of your not having addressed specific features of the local vernacular sufficiently. I also note that the AONB staff member / consultant is an MRTPI, who are the Big Daddies of the Planning Arena. My suggestions: 1 - Can you engage with the AONB at design stage? 2 - There may be value in getting a Planning Consultant who knows their procedures / material better than they do, and can win a game of citation-chequers on their home ground; there are always authorities both sides of a question. Look for someone who has got similar circumstances schemes to yours through. It may be less expensive than you expect - I would engage someone to advise from early on as needed on hourly rate (use sparingly and carefully), and then to take a designed scheme through planning on a fixed price with a bonus for success (we paid 3% of scheme value increase), with an option to handle an appeal. You want an MRTPI (ideally FRTPI) with local AONB experience; look at other applications, the local paper, and ask the horiest old git at the oldest local estate agency for a recommendation. (And remember, KD AONB are probably reading this thread.) ATB F

+1 I'll give them some credit for significantly boosting house building 2010 -> 2020 by various means. But now he Hail Mary butt-saving passes all seem to involve burning down everything, including such achievements as they have made. I think they know they are down the plughole, and it is about saving what is left of the South Eastern Tory heartland.

Various people were playing with them, but afaik not really 'normal' until the 1920s/1930s. IME cavity insulators do not like anything under 50mm. Happy to learn new information from others, of course.

You are wise to ask all this - good call. My thoughts, which also extend a bit beyond your questions. You can get a rough check on date of build by looking at versions of old maps (various online archives eg https://www.oldmapsonline.org/ or https://maps.nls.uk/os/), and seeing when it first appears. Are there any with a data plaque - it was common in that period? Looking at the pics 1890-1910 seems reasonable. At that date cavities are unlikely, but some were using experimental partial 2" cavities if a well built house. I have a 1910 ish house with some cavities, and well built out of *very* hard bricks. Such cavities will be useless for CWI. I'd suggest drawing a carefully measured inside-outside plan, getting thicknesses of walls - which should tell you something about your wall cavity widths vs standard or measured-in-situ brick sizes. You can also learn by looking at the brick pattern - is it headers or stretchers, where and how mixed? Extra skins may well be stretchers. You could do like a CWI contractor, and drill 12mm holes through mortar joints and insert a camera ("borescope"). How does it compare with any other "detached semis" in the area .. eg at the other end of the row? Has it been extended sideways? Roof angles the same? Symmetrical with yours? What is in the planning file? Try a visit to the Council Office to read all of it, or an FOI. What about the BCO file (a bit more difficult to get hold of)? Anything in the Local History Archives at the library? Can you see anything by reaching into the edges of your loft - either with a head torch perhaps with inspection mirror, or a cable-cam plugged into your mobile phone? Can you get down the gap to the next house? If not, you are somewhat buggered by the lack of access. At least it looks too wide to terminate, through trapping, a tumbling tabbycat. Are they all rendered at the back, or just yours? If it is only a few rendered, it is potentially hiding something. I suggest that you decide on drylining-over-insulation (or not) before pouring your hearts into decoration. Aim for as close as you can get to newbuild u-values. What are your floors? If suspended (ie wood) then consider insulating underneath, and perhaps more on top or just on top if solid - it is a big benefit. My way is 100mm or so rockwool and a staple gun through raising about every 3rd or 4th floorboard, addressing underfloor ventilation / dampness along the way to protect joists and a membrane on your floor to block air leaks. If you are air-tightening an old house, then ventilation needs as much attention as insulation as you are preventing it "breathing" in the way envisaged. Wishing you all the best. Ferdinand

Tanks @Marvin - good advice, I believe E or W facing can also succeed and also somewhat higher than 5m (estimating a normal roofline height). ATB.

Can I suggest an alternative? I'd think about an apex swift box, instead. The sizing looks about right for 6 or 10 nesting spaces. Something like this: A bit of due diligence needed, but I think it is preferable. eg These people do them in 42 or 45 roof angles, or can customise. https://peakboxes.co.uk/shop-swift-boxes All the best. Ferdinand