The ‘chicken wire’ method :D isn’t something I’ve heard off. I can’t say for sure that it’s a bad idea but issues of adequate ventilation around the timber joists would concern me. Plus as I implied, the floor isn’t where I’d be looking for ‘low hanging’ energy-saving fruit anyway.

Andy, can you just take out some of the insulation, then get someone round to quote?

My ground floor extension is cold as **** with some crappy insulation in the roof space. Just a bit of thin glass wool from what I can see.

I was thinking about that myself LMAO. What if all my insulation was suddenly removed as if it had never been there? Who would know?

Our floors are stripped and polished and asked how they would get under the floor, by cutting holes big enough to get a guy under in the boards. We are not having the work done.

How is your floor constructed?

My period terrace has a suspended timber floor and requires decent passive airflow around the joists to prevent rot. Throwing insulation down into the void would be a bad idea. Treating drafts by sealing up gaps between my square cut boards would have a good cost-benefit ratio but don’t forget that the floor only accounts for about 10% heat loss in a home away.

As mentioned on that Martin Money Matters website (or whatever it’s called), the concern is going to be that installers simply increase their prices more – the household *thinks* they are getting a great contribution to the cost so they want to take advantage of it. Then of course all the installers will be silly busy so they may end up doing quick/crap installs to maximise their orders/profits.

I looked yesterday and I couldn’t find a recommended installer within 15 miles of my home (Harrogate) and none of them I had heard of. Had I recognised a business and knew of their reputation, I might feel differently.

Yeah, it’s a known problem in the trade. When there is a lot of free money available like this the cowboys and fly-by-nights move in. The same thing happened with mass fill cavity wall insulation and has resulted in a lot of defects and damaged homes.

Im not defending Cummigns all im saying is it can’t be one rule for them and one for us – which seems the case. Cummings should have resigned / been sacked and JC and Bojos dad should be fined. Its about a level playing field when normal people break the rules we get fined they should too. its really simple.

I said at the time that spending all that political capital on saving Cummings would come back to haunt them in the event of a second wave.

I thought it was a very poor show indeed; extremely bad faith indeed from Cummings and BJ. The worst sort of leadership. As has been said above, Cummings didn’t just refuse to admit fault he had to show how clever he was by erecting a legal fiction to excuse his behaviour. The guy is pathological. It’s all about him defying journalists who he believes are out to get him. Discharging the proper duties of a man in public office doesn’t seem to be a consideration.

As for what’s going on now, I’m confused about the ends of all the measures. The first time around, the end of stopping the NHS from being overwhelmed seemed clear. Now, what are we doing though? What’s the end game here?

Had to go and do a shop earlier – panic buying in full spree again, bog roll, flour, piss, the works. People are mental.

I went to my local Morrisons eariler and some items such as tins and pasta etc., were running low. It really pisses me off that some people can be so utterly thick. I also blame the likes of the Daily Mail for posting picture of empty shelves and being alarmist. It’s totally irresponsible because it creates the panic.

I’d make it a law than anyone over about 35 shouldn’t wear shorts and/or sleeveless vests in public. Young fat people probably shouldn’t either.

It should also be illegal for anyone over 18 to walk around with a naked torso especially in a supermarket. During the summer, a man of about 65 was walking the trail near me with a naked torso and I still feel ill thinking of that image.

Sandals with no socks should be illegal too. Death penalty for wearing them on public transport especially planes.

I see the Daily Mail are doing their best to promote another wave of panic buying with pictures of empty shelves all over their website. Absolute scum.

Can’t see the issue.

Difficult for people who have invested all their identity into the job which is many people.

May want to check if a planning permission for such an extension has already been refused on the property because that would make you significantly less likely to get permission second time around, otoh it may even be possible on permitted development but I would expect that to be unduly restrictive.

Many African countries are far better at disease control than we are.

True.

I worked in West Africa when ebola was going on. Nobody was moaning about the rules or protesting their rights.

I assume there will be no more vouchers for restaurants!

If herd immunity is the solution what’s the problem?

Without knowing more I’d walk about because the failed sale may suggest that something unsavoury was discovered re the underpinning.

SAS 9.4. I’ve used but am not a great fan of R. Python is fine for data, but for analytics I like SAS. Others like R because it’s free and flexible, but the language is far behind SAS for rapid simple plots and sums. Don’t get me started on speed of simulation!

As an amateur, I was thinking of spending a couple of months getting up to speed on Python. Would that be wise do you think? Or is R more useful?

Hey TiRed, good reading your thoughts. What software do you use for your computations and graphical representations?

Our neighbour dumped a load of his building materials on shared land opposite my house back in November – unfortunately the council don’t want to know. It’s still there but overgrown now

Escalate that. The council aren’t doing their job which could be fine if they cited covid as backing up their cases.

Is that base plate level? If it’s not and only a little off-level you could try shimming it to make the parasol plumb. On the other hand, it could be concreted in really badly and still settling.

Edit: by the sound of it the parasol isn’t plumb itself, or its own base isn’t straight. Again, you could try shimming it.

If the parasol sits in a shoe then you could have just bolted the shoe to the sub-base.

If it’s all concreted over then a hammer and chisel and/or sledgehammer will have to be deployed.

Lots of young people don’t seem to give a shit and flock to packed pubs or house parties. If I see people hanging out and not wearing masks it’s always teens/youth.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, as one of the 1x faithful, but front dérailleurs are actually pretty hard to beat if you need a simple, efficient mechanism to give you more range…

Indeed. The bike – whilst impressive as a piece of tech – is a solution looking for a problem.

People race these things, it isn’t a canal towpath bimbler

Yet most will end up being bimbled about on my middle-aged accountants until they get bored! :D

Ah excellent.

I suppose if you have money to burn?

I do get that whole ‘consumerification’ of bikes having wasted a few grand in my 20’s when I had a lot of disposable income and had a least 4 bikes.

Now I’m poorer but also aware that N+1 blingy bike is something of a trap; there is always something new and shiny and then something else new and shiny that you ‘need’ to acquire.

I was under the impression that some candy’s could be rebuilt and some couldn’t?

Makes you wonder who buys a very niche bike like a blingy aero-gravel bike? A gravel bike is niche enough. Cycling has become the new golf for a certain demographic.

Utter womble.

I see that on the TPT the last few weeks. Covid and summer has brought out a lot of people who have no business being on a bike.

It all depends IMHO. My old primary school had a large playing field for its size. A friend of the family lived in a detached backing onto the school playing fields and I don’t ever remember it being mentioned as a problem. The single-storey school building was at least 100 foot away or more. However, about 10 years ago the school at least doubled its size and new buildings were built. I would imagine that now the loss of amenity and overlooking is more of a problem.

My old secondary school had even more massive playing fields and I don’t think any houses backing onto it were inconvenienced.

Ramblers are some of the worst for passive-aggressive and entitled behaviour on shared-used trails and bridleways IMHO. Everything is a big drama when cyclists try to pass them.

Tell him no shitting in this shower.

If they haven’t populated the vehicle details, how would the machine know what the test criteria are for that vehicle?

That makes in a null and void test to my mind.

It seems obvious that stoping the heat on the outside of the house would be better than once it’s already inside but how much better really?

Yes it’s significant.

This is why a lot of commercial buildings have brise soleils and vertical fins now. Years ago they would just rely on blinds to keep the sun out in summer.

Ideally, you want a set-up which allows the exclusion of the sun during summer but takes advantage of solar gain in winter. This could even be a deciduous tree for example which gives the window/house shade in summer but when all the leaves fall off in winter the sun can provide solar gain.

UK housing stock is old, and of a generally poor standard, and not designed with this heat in mind at all.

I can only speak anecdotally but the 00’s flat I used to live in was utter murder during hot summer days. I think the solar gain was to blame having windows on three sides. The insulated cavity walls and floor and ceiling insulation afforded little thermal mass so there was no dampening effect to offset.

My 1850’s terrace performs far better in the summer IMHO although it’s cold as **** in winter.

Solid walls give good thermal mass which helps the interior temperature maintain a flatter cure over the day/night cycle. Thermal mass is good.

Trying to eliminate some of the solar-gain through windows is your best bet IMHO. Preventing the sun hitting the glass is far better than blocking it once it’s already in the room (i.e by using internal blinds or curtains).

There’s quite a bit of labour involved in fitting gates and fences due to digging the post holes and it’s heavy work.

Don’t use tape then. It surprises me that everyone uses it – it seems to be the main cause of issues. I use rim strips.

Duly noted. I couldn’t get the tape to stick very well and the rims had a channel so strips may be a better idea.

I spent a lot of time (and a bit of money) trying to convert my MTB and my commuting bike a few months ago.

My conclusion was that it was incredibly ‘finicky’ trying to get the rim tape ‘just right’ to get a seal and the bead of the tyre rubbing was easily pushing against the rim tape (during inflation) disrupting the seal.

I’m sure I could have got it right eventually but I called it quits. It didn’t give me much faith in tubeless.

I’m sure storing it in those hot and humid conditions for years didn’t help.

It seems the Covid situation has led to a lot of people going to places they don’t normally go to and probably have no business going to. Many of these people are young urbanites who are just f-ing ignorant and have no sense of responsibility.