Nice people thread part 3- Nice as pie

silvercar

lostinrates wrote: »

I really long for one of those taps.

You don't. Friends have one in their new snazzy, gadgety kitchen.
Half the gadgets are things that you stop using after a week.

The instant hot water tap isn't quite as hot as kettle water, so the tea isn't quite brewed properly. Coffee (when you are allowed instant rather than the type that involves funnels and tubes and a sliding up and over door to reveal a coffee making gadget) doesn't taste hot enough. So they use a kettle, but that involves finding a plug point, hidden by a press-down pull up plug bar that pops up (sometimes) to reveal five plug points on a twisting pole!

michaels

Can't beleive no one has had a juvenile snigger at this one yet...

lostinrates wrote: »

DH is plucking some gamebirds we were gifted and I'm about to head back into the cold. we've done NOTHING but huddle by the fire, snuggle cats and dogs and drink tea/make snacks all day.

:rotfl:

PasturesNew

michaels wrote: »

Can't beleive no one has had a juvenile snigger at this one yet...



:rotfl:

Are you suggesting he's a pheasant plucker?

LydiaJ

michaels wrote: »

I found myself agreeing with everything you say. I also need to see floorplans and was already extending in my mind anything we looked at (I found the already extended too frustrating as they had all been done 'wrong' to some extent and paying the extended premium for something that you would always be thinking should be laid out differently was just a no go). I also did my plans in Excel (1 square = 1 foot, size the cells to make them square and fit each floor on one screen) and the architect basically drew them up on the official forms for me. Now I just need them to pass at the planning committee....

How reassuring to find I'm not the only one.

I did mine in Powerpoint. I had an Excel sheet to convert feet & inches into mm at a scale of 1:100, and then started by drawing the insides of the rooms as coloured rectangles and formatting them to be the right size. Then I drew walls around them of an approximately appropriate thickness, moved the next room up to be the other side of the wall, and gradually built the house up. I've got key pieces of furniture to the same scale, so I can see where they will fit, too.

PasturesNew

I don't want any of the house layouts I've ever seen.... very few houses are built for single people - and those that are are comparatively expensive (compared to 3-4 bed houses) and/or small afterthoughts.

I often think of perfect layouts and my friend who has a 4-bed detached house really has about the right footprint ... it's just they squeeze in tiny bedrooms, then two tiny living rooms out of it.

My perfect house doesn't exist, but I'll be too tight to change whatever I do buy.

Davesnave

treliac wrote: »

The other main worry I have had in the past month has been about my mum who has been in very poor health. However, I'm pleased to say that, mainly because I have done all the research and badgered her GP plus a few other things I have had to push for, she is a bit better and all the required referrals have been made and various tests are underway.

DH and I have three parents, all of whom have developed health problems which require time and attention. I've reached the point where the juggling is getting impossible without having to approach my employer to ask if I can be classed as being a carer and allowed the flexibility to undertake the responsibilities that I am now having to manage.

...

I know all about that, and sometimes one has to badger. My Dad had a cancerous finger, and it wasn't really my job to diagnose it, but after repeated failures of 'treatment,' I put the boot in, and it was sorted. One wonders if nobody bothers too much when they're around 85-90.

I was lucky to have a certain amount of flexibility within my employment, provided I was willing to accept a more junior role. Came as a bit of an eye-opener!

I'm glad your DH is weathering the employment storm; it will free you up to take on your other role if he's secure.

RenovationMan

lostinrates wrote: »

Looking at all of this soon with our architect. Its all a bit confusing for me I'm afraid, but we do plan to be quite serious in energy production one way or another. we're also looking at all the options for other people using some of our roof space (we can't use the house roof but can use barn rooves for solar generation).

It did occure to me to wonder this last week what happens to solar/pv when covered in snow! Ground or air source is on our list for discussion. I really do not love our wood burner. I is not wildly efficient, I don't thnk, and last night, on the third re reading of the manual, I prepared it to go through the night, and half way through the night it was raging like an inferno. This morning only one lacklustre ember was left. The only other woodbuner I've had was much more user friendly I think. This is a bit like a rayburn I had that would only get up to temperature when the wind was blowing from the south or west, and refused to play ball with a NE wind..hovering at a simmer temp in the hot oven:rotfl:

The way to control the burn of a wood burner is to increase or reduce the air flow. We have two wood burners, the main one has a back boiler with a thermostat that opens or closes a port at the back depending on the temperature we set. The smaller woodburner has two sliding shutters on the front that makes the fire last all night when closed. You need to use softwood during the day and hardwood at night when banking your stove. Even better is to have a multifuel stove that allows you to bank it up with coal overnight as it lasts for ages.

Have a look online for your stove's manual to see how the air flow is operated. If the stove is an old one, you could look at buying a new boiler stove like this one: http://www.dunsleyheat.co.uk/yorkshirestoveCH.htm.
It's brilliantly fuel efficient and is defra approved for use in smokeless areas.

We also cant put solar on our roof because we are in a listed building (farm house built in 1752) but we can put them on a barn (now large garage) at the back. The roof faces east and west, which is not ideal, but still workable. From what I have read, the snow on top of a solar panel melts faster because the panel is black and soaks up the sun's rays, warming it. Even if the snow is a foot deep, light can still penetrate it and hit the solar panel.

Ground sourced heat pumps use electricity, but are 400% efficient, which means that for every kilowatt of electrical power you put in, you get 4 kilowatts out. We looked at this, but decided that our combination of efficient gas condensing boiler, solar and wood burner would be sufficient for our heating needs. If I wasnt on mains gas though I would definitely get a ground sourced heat pump.

lostinrates

RenovationMan wrote: »

The way to control the burn of a wood burner is to increase or reduce the air flow. We have two wood burners, the main one has a back boiler with a thermostat that opens or closes a port at the back depending on the temperature we set. The smaller woodburner has two sliding shutters on the front that makes the fire last all night when closed. You need to use softwood during the day and hardwood at night when banking your stove. Even better is to have a multifuel stove that allows you to bank it up with coal overnight as it lasts for ages.

Have a look online for your stove's manual to see how the air flow is operated. If the stove is an old one, you could look at buying a new boiler stove like this one: http://www.dunsleyheat.co.uk/yorkshirestoveCH.htm.
It's brilliantly fuel efficient and is defra approved for use in smokeless areas.

Thanks, we have the paper copy of the manual. Ours is also one approved for smokeless areas, but I'm really not getting on with it. Vents were all tightly closed for night and it burst into life of its own despite that. We've been talking about resiting it to elsewhere in the house but I wouldn't be upset if we buy something else instead!

We also cant put solar on our roof because we are in a listed building (farm house built in 1752) but we can put them on a barn (now large garage) at the back. The roof faces east and west, which is not ideal, but still workable. From what I have read, the snow on top of a solar panel melts faster because the panel is black and soaks up the sun's rays, warming it. Even if the snow is a foot deep, light can still penetrate it and hit the solar panel.

Same issue exactly. The new art of ur house was built in cicra 1740. We have a lot of barn roof space, and on most of it we can mount south facing panels. leaving all period barns/buildings untouched. We thought of doing this on one roof near the house for our use and on three rooves for one of the companies that rents the space...therefore mximising use without over extending....if we could afford to do it all ourselves we'd probably have a lot of electricity to sell in the summer

Ground sourced heat pumps use electricity, but are 400% efficient, which means that for every kilowatt of electrical power you put in, you get 4 kilowatts out. We looked at this, but decided that our combination of efficient gas condensing boiler, solar and wood burner would be sufficient for our heating needs. If I wasnt on mains gas though I would definitely get a ground sourced heat pump.

That makes sense. We are in a different position, not being near mains for anything.

Davesnave

It's swung back to summer again here today. Back door wide open and I'm in shirtsleeves outside! :j

SingleSue

Hehe...not quite that warm here, I'm trying to work out if I can afford to put my little halogen heater on as the central heating doesn't come on for another hour or so or if to just go out to my parents where it is snuggly warm all day long.

Think it might be the going to parent's decision as we could even get dinner thrown in!