It's that Grand Designs programme again ...

Just watched this week's one. What is it with people and eco-bollox houses that look like jail blocks ? How could anyone live in a depressing concrete blockhouse like the piece of nonsense that this week's dumbo greenies built ? I should think that the kids were embarrassed to bring any mates back to the dreadful dog-kennel bedrooms that they had. The room that my daughter had in halls at university was bigger than those - and that's saying something.

And what was that bloody 40 foot monstrosity at the side of the place in aid of ? Anyone who thought that thing was going to provide the whole house with electricity forever, deserved to be relieved of forty grand by the charlatans who built it. Might the clue as to how good it was going to be, have been in the "001" serial number ...?

With the best will in the world, given a sustained cold spell like we had last winter, I can't see that place being heat self-sufficient from south facing windows alone. I couldn't believe that in the end, they spent 340 grand building that dreadful house, especially considering that the guy just about totally bollocks'd himself doing a lot of the work on his own. And whilst on that point, what the f*!k was that kitchen about ? How anyone could have produced that crappy black concrete block of a work surface, and been proud of it, was beyond me. The excellent McLeod summed that up nicely when he said "Well, smooth in the way that a tarmac road is smooth ..."

I have to say that I had total admiration for the controlled way that he presented this week's prog. You could see the hysterical laughter lurking just below the surface, and his choices of tongue-in-cheek comments were just magical !

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily
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I didnt see it, and I am not sorry for that. sounds the usual eco-bollocks really.

You CAN, by careful design, get away with very minimal heating in a house. When I did the analysis the next stage for me would be dumnping open fireplaces and installing heat recovery ventilation.

But some forms of efficiency aren't worth living for.

The average UK teperaure is IIRC 9C in te sarf. with a living temp of say 17C, thats a 7C differential on average. At -5C outside, thats a peak of 22C diff.. three times worse than average.

which broadly equates to heating ciosts here. zero in sumemr, relative one in spring/autumn, relative 3 in winter Brrr.

Still not got the CH on..but others have. I can tell by the higher noise level on my ADSL. More electrical stiff switching on in the evening than usual.. Bugers me forr about half a meg download speed in winter.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Dumping open fireplaces and replacing with stoves is a bit of a no-brainer - they really are so much more efficient.

Stoves still let one indulge ones desire to burn things and shovel ash.

Reply to
Clive George

And if a glass front isn't good enough, you can get ones that work happily as a fairly open fire if you open the doors.

Reply to
Alan Braggins

But like many efficient things, they have no soul..

People just love our large open fires..

It would be like saying 'why not serve them 15% grain alcohol and grape juice' instead of wine..

We have a stove as well. We love it. Its omn te bedroom..

but a dinner party with crackling logs and wine bottles warming in the hearth..no. Not really up for replacement.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Hey, squirt it with a sodastream and tell them it's champagne ...

Reply to
Andy Burns

...

Your fingers are freezing up already NP, as your typing shows! (i.e. even worse than usual ...I'm not getting at you .. my typing is so bad that I reckon I type about 150% more than ever actually appears, due to backspacing and correcting)

Wonderful thread this one: the voices of uk.d-i-y united in scornful condemnation! Makes me feel all warm inside :-) (Personally I never watch GD -- my wife can only take so much shouting at the telly from me.)

We had a porch built on the front of our semi this summer (something we'd been aspiring to for about 20 years). I'm not looking for fuel savings, but already it does make the house "feel" warmer. (Which is not to say that we aren't starting to feel cold today, IYSWIM.)

We badly need a wood stove, but I somehow suspect that October is the wrong month to start looking for one.

John

Reply to
Another John

People love large warm stoves, and they still burn stuff with real flames and everything.

Not all stoves are soulless metal boxes. We're not talking agas here.

So get one you can run with the doors open. Run in pretty mode for the tiny proportion of time you've got guests, run in warm mode otherwise.

Of course there is the problem of your green wood habit - they don't like that so much.

Reply to
Clive George

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