I was there this time last year for a while as part of our honeymoon and absolutely loved it.

Just south of Lima is the Ballestas islands which are well worth a trip then an hour or so’s drive inland to the dessert oasis for a dune buggy and sand boarding trip and Pisco tasting was one of the best days of our whole trip. highly recommended.
Arequipa’s brilliant as are so many of the towns, I could just soak up the town squares all day. loved it

Here’s a photo book from our trip
Moves into Bolivia and Chile too but starts in Peru.

A privilege earned, and the standards need to be higher than they are imo too

I know my mother in-law took her test a dozen times to pass. I’ve only ever been in a car with her driving once, never again!!

If you ever see here driving and wave/flash lights, walking or in another car, she’ll never see you because she can’t see anything past the patch of road directly in front of her bonnet.

She should not be driving imho

afaik the 33hp restriction is only if your under 21 I think

as above DAS then get something a bit bigger than a 125, CBT’s isn’t up to the job on it’s own imo DAS is much better. I had a CBR400 for a few years and it was great commuted on it daily almost all year

really want another bike, I will when I’ve the £’s for one as a luxury nothing flash just a few year old 600 would do the job perfectly

small concentration of magnesium maybe
I think a fair few alloys have magnesium

that is probably complete nonsense though

Jesus fella!!
SD why the
chill out F F S!

only seen a few of your post on here but every one seems to end up with you having a pop at somebody for having an opinion
No neeeeed! calm down

[edit] oh and btw I won’t be back to enter into an argument, simply not interested, thanks again for everyone’s input on the thread[/edit]

OP nobodys having a go! just saying they don’t look like any of the Marathon plus we have

+1 MrCrush

They look nothing like my Marathon plus

CaxtonFX card here only costs a fiver to get one I think.

for the last little trip (long weekend in the med) it was cheaper to just draw cash out from a cash machine on arrival than any exchange rates I could get on the high street

proportionally yes, 160’s can look a bit silly with the clown wheels 🙄

functionally not ime

Dublin is good, one of my fav’s, a few dull bits 20 odd miles in but good route, well organised, I’d do it again

Edinburgh is high on my list, heard nothing but good about it too.

Took me 4 years, to get in, did it once, hated it, will never do London again (unless I get in on a “good for age” start).

What sort of time are you after? The quicker the better I’d say, less and less chance of incredibly optimistic idiots in your way for the first 13 odd miles, most of which should be 2 pens back from where they do start. ruined it for me 🙁

Be careful really setting your heart on a PB.

Honestly though, hope you enjoy it.

take bibs and plenty of Asos 😆

this was me after 4 hours riding through Death Valley in the Atacama desert. I felt like I was walking like that for a week afterwards too 😳

[/url]
HorseRidingLegs[/url] by KeithHarris[/url], on Flickr

rabbits more than once
and I also managed to to hit a bat once, on my shoulder not with the wheels 🙄

I hate the fact that it seem very difficult to find out how much a lot of their products cost 😕

Peru and Bolivia were the highlights from what we saw last year

Chile and Brazil have some great sights but in general are much more developed and more western way more expensive that’s for sure. The less developed nations have so much more character imo

I really want to go back and see more of it

just checked B&Q actually sell subsidised rolls ready to go at the same price and the ones via the energy company’s 8)

I’ll definitely do loads in the loft for sure
probably under floor boards too
walls still?????

where’s the best place to get it from to take advantage of any/all subsidies? I assume not B&Q

I’m happy to fit it myself

best thread today 😆

Just found this an interesting read, a good few comments about windows and VDPC which is pretty interesting.

cheers catnash I’ll have a look at that in a mo

[Edit] oh and they seem to recommend poly balls too
lots of talk about shoddy installs with loads of gaps which cause a lot of problems not the insulation itself

I’m sure the current “damp” is nothing to really worry about and can be sorted.

any idea what it’s called Taff?

just did a quick Google and could find anything similar other than sheet stuff which needs installing at build time

We’ll get the full details next week. I think the damp probably isn’t that serious and can be resolved. the place has been empty for a few months so that’s probably not helped.

what I’m after more than anything is advice/pointers on cavity wall insulation in older houses which have more porous materials than modern houses and have a greater potential for damp issues, old slate DPC is never going to be good a as a modern unbroken plastic DPC etc….

now I’ve heard roc wool is bad for bridging
but then there’s foam, polystyrene balls + ??

The house does have cavity walls, I’m no builder or structural surveyor or anything, but I can spot a cavity wall. It’s a very similar construction to my current place built in 1910.

I want to insulate for obvious reasons BUT! I don’t want to cause myself even more problems by doing it

hmmm confused!?!??

sorry should have said, the house is in a National park with strict planning. Rendering the house and changing the external appearance of the house is very unlikely to be an option.

I use one when abroad (CaxtonFX) gives you way better rates on cash withdrawals and better exchange rates than CC’s and DC’s

must get better protection or perks (Cashback?) or something, else I can’t see the point over a debit card when in the UK

my wife had one do that, physio did help get there after a few months, but she has to be careful still and has the odd bad day with in years later

She doesn’t ride really but does run a bit (5k once maybe twice a week) and does circuits/zumba type stuff

just be religious about doing the exercises you’re given to help it, slacking with ’em’s not the way to sort it, don’t over do it though.

good luck with it

I was round there this time last year (Peru, Bolivia, Chile) 8)
I so want to go back such an amazing place and people too 😥

a hell of a lot of what ‘we’ recycle goes off to China. probably one of our biggest exports now (excluding air). The majority of containers leaving the UK are empty

Does she read much?

tiny bit over budget but how about a Kindle

that’s which I’m getting my Wife for her birthday this year

GSHP was a brief thought but I don’t think there’s space for GSHP without bores which makes it very pricey + solar PV to make it work too even more expensive. Also as far as I know it works best with super insulated homes which we’ll struggle to do due various limitations (age and construction, planning, no ducting, space and cost)
also no south facing roofs to make the most of PV
South East and South West roofs means Solar water heating is still cost effective though I think!

Hi all, loads of info/ideas here for me to look into.

@Dobbo New place is inside the New Forest

Some pretty big systems compared to my requirements, which will be a bit more modest. I’ll definitely do as much insulation as I can I’ll definitely be doing thermal solar after that still very undecided

plenty to think about with regards making the best of the solar 1-2 stores/buffers?
biomass all to store or some direct to CH??
UFH too??? quick/slow start ups?

losts of ????????? but thanks all
I’ve got loads of time to do plenty more research/thinking

I’m off now, will be back Monday, off to do a 140m Run/Bike/Kayak C2C this weekend

My Bro’ is a sparky and is doing a lots of LED stuff now
so should be able to get stuff to test no prob’s

So Stoner you went with Plastic for all your plumbing then by the looks of it?
plain plastic or the Alloy lined plastic stuff?
seems so easy to work with compared to copper and soo! much cheaper
I just worry about the fixings a little
and what’s all this about air ingress is that through the pipe itself or the fixings?

small rooms so extra studs internally is something I really want to avoid

roof line can’t be changed, oh thinks it’s about 1910-1920’s

window reveals even have to stay the same and even be replicated in the extension too from what I’ve read of the planning rules

oh we’ll also be re-doing all the lights to low power ones, probably LED

only had few conversations with planing so far but it’s pretty restrictive where we are. Don’t want to butt heads with them for ages so will try to work as best we can with them to get what we can, space and energy efficiency.

insulation wise what options are there? That will not rob the room of space. other than:
-decent windows/doors (low U thermal glass etc)
-Cavity wall insulation
n.b I need to be careful with this as 100 year old porous bricks can be a problem with the wrong type
-loft/roof insulation (must remain Slate I believe)

part of my problem is to do my extension I need to knock down the dodgy old extension where the boiler is currently housed. and i don’t want to have to go back after wards and put more pipes etc in /not sue some
so suck and see isn’t that easy

cheers dobbo

I think my needs are a little more modest from yours and Stoner’s from the looks of your set ups. So the time to raise the temp of a much smaller thermal store should be a bit better + pellets have an a lot more autonomy so hopefully shouldn’t be too much hassle

£15K Ouch!!!

may just do a simple underground tank and a simple pump for watering the garden. so just a big water butt

a friend got an old oil style tank, buried it and added a pump to water his veggie patch. cost about £200 I think

I’ll work on her on the floor.

Keeping mud out shouldn’t be too much of a problem
The plan is to to have the boiler room on the back of the garage but also a shower room and toilet. So when I come in from a muddy ride/run or from working on bikes etc then I can get washed up out there before coming in

All part of the Maximising living space.

The national park planning rules are very rigid and will only allow for a 30% increase in floor area in the house (should get us 121sqm), but we have a number of small “outbuildings” (garages, sheds, aviaries, copper house and coal store) that we can knock down and re-used the area in one big garage/shower room/boiler room/utility/office thingy. It’ll be to the side of the house with a path in-between with 2 doors facing one another to get between the two, we’ll probably have the path covered too

oh forgot to say I’ll probably have a go a doing a rain water harvesting system too. usual for toilets washing machine and outside taps. I was Looking at a 2.5-3k litre system

these are the plans anyway, need to get them all drawn up and pass planing but reading the rules I think we should be ok

No, not wood in the kitchen, tiles! wood in the lounge and dinning areas

The Wife’s not keen on tiles/stone throughout downstairs, something about kids falling over, wood floor will still hurt