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No,no thread. I might do one when we build. It's a whiles off anyway. My partner is an interior designer and I'm half a building designer and work for a construction company so we can get it pretty much how we want it. We both are pretty keen for a not quite tiny home shipping container house, but with some nifty features. Also a fair few low impact and enviro tweaks. But like I said, a whiles off yet.
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jimi
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,776
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Sounds like you have similar questions about heating as I have about air conditioning. I'd love to put air con in the bedroom for those hot sticky nights. But we'd use it about 3 or 4 times a year and it's really not worth it. Put in a heat pump and you can use it for cooling in the summer and heating in the winter, more efficient that a gas boiler.
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Last Edit: Jun 2, 2022 22:04:21 GMT by jimi
Black is not a colour ! .... Its the absence of colour
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Less energy/CO2 but still quite a bit more expesive (because electricity is 4x the cost of gas in the UK per kwh).
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Heating in each room? Luxury!
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1968 Mini MkII, 1968 VW T1, 1967 VW T1, 1974 VW T1, 1974 VW T1 1303, 1975 Mini 1000 auto, 1979 Chevette, 1981 Cortina, 1978 Mini 1000 1981 Mini City, 1981 Mini van, 1974 Mini Clubman, 1982 Metro City, 1987 Escort, 1989 Lancia Y10, 1989 Cavalier, 1990 Sierra, 1990 Renault 19, 1993 Nova, 1990 Citroen BX, 1994 Ford Scorpio, 1990 Renault Clio, 2004 Citroen C3, 2006 Citroen C2, 2004 Citroen C4, 2013 Citroen DS5. 2017 DS3 130 Plenty of other scrappers!
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jimi
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,776
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Less energy/CO2 but still quite a bit more expesive (because electricity is 4x the cost of gas in the UK per kwh). At the moment in the UK yes it is, but that may well change what with the Russian situation and the lack of support/investment in the North Sea (which supplies roughly half the UK gas) We're paying a fortune for energy now and yet Britain is hitting record energy exports this year ☹️
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Black is not a colour ! .... Its the absence of colour
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in the bedroom for those hot sticky nights. Ah, I remember those times.... Sorry, you mean summer?
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Sometimes, others may not understand why you like a car so much. Sometimes, you may not even understand why you like a car so much. But none of that matters; all that matters is that you like the car, and having it makes you happy.
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Hiya James,
Thank you for the detailed explanation above (i won't requote).
I hadn't realized one radiator shouldn't have a TRV on it. All mine have and it's a fairly new house.
So, from your explanation, i'm guessing that if the hall with no TRV on it keeps heating, you could find yourself in a situation where the thermostat switches the boiler off before the other rooms have got up to temp. I may have just re-written what you already explained so i apologize but i'm thinking outloud.
The trouble in our house is I suspect the hall with the thermostat never gets up to temp, and never switches the boiler off because all the heat rushes upstairs. The result is the bedrooms are always over heated, or so is the landing if we close all the bedroom doors. The issue also occurs badly if we leave the living room door open. Heat from the living room rushes into the hall, which rushes upstairs.
The other issue i have is we like slightly colder bedrooms, but the second thermostat is in the master bedroom so it too never gets to temp and switches the boiler off. Plus I suspect the colder rooms upstairs also draw the heat from downstairs up.
I'll keep scratching my chin as i suspect how we use the house is playing a big part. I've also looked at cavity wall insulation but that seems to be another massive conversation.
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in the bedroom for those hot sticky nights. Ah, I remember those times.... Sorry, you mean summer? Hahaha! Damnit! Now I'm going to have to explain to Mrs Sweetpea what's so funny.
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Hey toast00 , I'm no heating engineer but, what I've said about having one radiator with no TRV is how I understand it. If the boiler is running it has to have some where for the water to go to protect the boiler from overheating. On our system (as it was before EvoHome) when the stat got to temp it closed the zone valve which then shut off the boiler. But to protect itself the boiler would leave the pump circulating water for a couple of minutes. But with the zone valves all closed there was no where for the water to go. So... The thing in the red 'circle' is a sprung valve that provides a circulating path in the event that the pump is running and the valves are all closed. I believe that with EvoHome that never happens as the controller can command the boiler off but leave the valves open somewhere in the system. What you've described is very similar to the problems we had. A computerised system isn't a magic fix as air will still circulate around the house. But we do have much more control now. Before, heat from the hall would rush up the stairs and warm the bedrooms that we wanted to be cooler, now we can run the heat in the living room and have the hall a few degrees cooler. It still needs to be on to stop cold draughts coming into the living room. When we first put EvoHome in I thought we could leave the front room and hall turned off but all it did was suck cold air into the living room. Of course we could just close the doors, but, nah. We opened some of the chimneys up. Specifically in the living room and the front room. If, in the winter, we lit the fire in the living room the air rushing up the chimney would actually pull freezing air down the chimney in the front room and we'd have a horrid draught. And a smell of smoke if the wind was in the right direction. I actually plug the chimneys when they are not in use these days. Then it just sucked air through the gaps in the floorboards so they all got sealed up too. Old houses - there's always something. One of the things that winds me up about 'being green' is that they keep saying that we all need to live in well insulated, well sealed up houses. Ok, that's fine for a newly built house but most of the UK's homes are probably 100 years old or more and leak like a leaky thing. Nobody seems to be advising how to deal with them. Just 'look at this nice efficient new house...' Thanks for that, I don't happen to live in one of those, what am I supposed to do? I seem to be getting grumpy in my old age. I enjoy it!
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If you don't have a crawl space under the floor It's possible but a massive task, basically you need to rip up all the floors (and any walls, kitchen, stairs they are supporting), either insulate and add a vapour barrier under the floor then re-lay it or replace the whole lot with an insulated concrete sub floor (and ideally underfloor heating if you want to run a heat pump). then externally insulate the walls and stuff the loft with insulation.
Oh and if you sell the house it adds virtually no value to it. (round here at least).
I have managed to get a layer of multifoil under part of our floor which helps but the rest is the kitchen and I'm not ripping all that out!
I've also wondered if I could also do something with a air recovery unit, basically pump the hot damp air from the top of the house through a heat exchanger and out then draw fresh air in over the other side of the exchanger and pump it under the floors. (with all the under floor vents sealed up) apart from cost the main issue is finding somewhere to put a 6 inch pipe from top to bottom inside the house.
At the moment when it's really cold (basically Dec- Feb) we block off the under floor vents which really helps, the ground is very dry under our house (we are on top of a bed of gravel, the old quarry being 100yds away) and it doesn't seem to cause any damp problems.
As you say if someone was prepared to put some proper research into affordable ways to insulate older houses there could be massive gains to be had.
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Paul Y
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,948
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Our home is around 90 years old and leaks air like the proverbial sieve.... Looked at having cavity wall insulation but stopped when the Doris told me they were going to drill a 6 inch hole in the wall to let air in. Had to point out the 4 open fire places, wooden floors and comical door gaps as the reason why I didn't need another hole in my walls but they wouldn't have it. Rules are rules. Which is why I don't have cavity wall insulation..... Agree with you Kevin. More should be done to come up with a cost effective way of insulting the older housing stock - it constitutes the vast majority of where we all live! Nice work Mr Pea. P.
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Last Edit: Jun 7, 2022 13:42:36 GMT by Paul Y
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Jun 19, 2022 16:28:06 GMT
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Oh my… I’m so far behind in my typing. This is just a quick one to say that I’ve been doing this…  Stripping paint off the front door. Probably the one thing more tedious than watching paint dry is burning it off with a blow torch and heat gun. We’d probably have had it dipped but that plan just didn’t come off when we tried to arrange it. So I said I’d heat up the paint and watch it fall effortlessly to the floor. Well, that was ok as a plan but it got flushed down the crapper when one side turned out to be covered in gloopy 1930s varnish. That stuff is terrible. It melts under the heat, moves to a different part of the door and then goes solid again. It does not go crispy and fall effortlessly to the floor. I’ve also started cleaning up the door furniture in the sand blaster.  Think it’s going to look good but it’s turning out to be a bigger job than I’d thought. I have one of those oscillating saw things which I’m using as a detail sander on the door. Just stick a bit of sand paper to a dead cutting blade and you can get into the tightest corners. Trouble is, it’s gotten deafeningly loud. So I took it to bits and found it had a 6 sided bearing. It’s not supposed to have 6 massive notches in it, it’s knackered.  So I bought a new bearing. I don’t really know if this will shut it up properly but it’s worth a try. Anyway, this ties into the bus thread because while I was buying the bearing I also got a rubber seal… linky to bus threadJames
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Last Edit: Jun 19, 2022 16:40:36 GMT by Sweetpea
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Jun 21, 2022 12:31:41 GMT
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gloopy varnish sounds like shelac !
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Jun 22, 2022 20:13:11 GMT
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gloopy varnish sounds like shelac ! Oh, I hadn't thought of that. Interestingly the gloopy stuff was on the inside of the door. There was varnish on small parts of the outside too but it's different stuff and came off easier. It did clog the sand paper badly though. Not looking forward to sanding the inside 'possibly shellac' stuff though. I suspect that's going to be endless sandpaper clogging action.
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glenanderson
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 4,072
Club RR Member Number: 64
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Jun 22, 2022 21:37:13 GMT
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I had a similar gloopy sticky varnish under the several layers of paint on the skirting and picture rails in our old (1930s built) house.
I found that getting the worst off with the heat gun and scraper, then removing the residue with steel wool and thinners did the trick.
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My worst worry about dying is my wife selling my stuff for what I told her it cost...
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Jun 22, 2022 21:42:46 GMT
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I find it's far better to strip with celly thinner, soak a rag in it, lay it on an area about a foot square and leave for 1/2 hour covered in cling film or polythene. Old paint then usually scrapes off easily leaving lovely clean wood behind you may have to do it a couple of times if the paint is very thick.
It's much more gentle than dipping which tends to disolve glues holding it together as well.
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Jun 24, 2022 22:20:39 GMT
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Oh man, you're all cool. Luckily most of the door sanded fine with the orbital. But the detailed bits just clogged the sandpaper. However celly thinners seems to be working a treat. Thank you! I had wondered about warming it up and trying to take it off with wire wool but that'd have been literally painful. Hadn't thought of using a solvent.
As a reward for your help I'll tell you a joke.
Bob's a flower farmer. Trouble is his Tulip crops kept failing and Bob couldn't work out why. Eventually he asked advice from Richard next door. Richard's tulip crops were always outstanding. "Well" said Richard "What you need to do is get as many hamsters as you can find. Then you boil them with equal amounts of sugar and a bit of water, put the result in jars and leave it to set..." "Oh come on" interrupted Bob, "What are you talking about!? Next you'll be telling me that I spread the resulting conserve on the fields as a fertiliser!" "Oh course that's what you do." replied Richard, "Don't you know that you only get Tulips from Hamster Jam?"
Thank you ladies and gentleman, thank you. I'm here all week, thank you!
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jimi
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,776
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Showing your age now James, I remember hearing that joke at school ....... and that wasn't yesterday ( more like 20,075 yesterdays)
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Last Edit: Jun 25, 2022 0:50:47 GMT by jimi
Black is not a colour ! .... Its the absence of colour
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Jun 25, 2022 11:50:45 GMT
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Hey, I never said it was a new joke. Or any good for that matter.
Makes me giggle though - still haven't grown up apparently.
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jimi
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,776
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Jun 25, 2022 18:39:23 GMT
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I'll admit to a snigger as well
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Last Edit: Jun 25, 2022 18:41:09 GMT by jimi
Black is not a colour ! .... Its the absence of colour
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