On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:02:23 +0100, Rod Speed wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:34:03 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:40:29 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 21:14:23 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 20:18:00 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 08:03:37 +0100, News

wrote:

In message , Mr Macaw
writes

Anyway, the reason I asked is I'm insulating my garage, as I
heat
it
to
keep tropical birds in.

Some years ago, I had a longish single width garage I wanted to
use
as
a
'hobby room', yet allow easy conversion back to garage when
selling
the
house.

I was lucky enough to have a roll of old carpet which I cut to
garage
width, and laid on top of plastic sheet, on the concrete floor.
The
plastic and carpet was run the full length of the garage then
straight
up at 90 degrees, in front of the metal up and over door, and
secured
at
the top. Old sheets of chip were cut to length and screwed to
the
door
frame, over the carpet. Ceiling and all walls, including the
chip,
painted white, fluorescent lights installed, job done.

No idea about R values, but it did make a large, cosy, draught
proof
room, that was easily converted back to a garage. There was, of
course,
a separate personal access door.

I wonder how much is lost through the concrete floor?

Quite a bit.

That's the only thing I haven't insulated.

The other effect you get with carpet is that the surface
temperature is a lot closer the air temp so if feel warmer
because you don't radiate from your body to that surface
so much.

Not as good for a room full of birds tho, harder to hose
the **** away.

What I'd do is put joists across with poly sheets between, then a
floorboard layer of wood, with a thin layer of concrete on top.
Expensive
though if most of the heat doesn't go downwards anyway.

Yeah, unless it is very wet ground under the concrete,
you wont be losing that much heat that way.

Water table here is only 2 feet below the surface in wet weather.

That is still 2' of soil, pretty decent insulation.

Its actually better to insulate it the way that underfloor heating
is done, put the insulation on top of the current concrete floor
and then pour another slab on top of that.

That is obviously going to raise the floor level a lot tho
and that my not work that well at the door for people
if it has a separate one of those.

A step up to go in isn't a problem, the house is already two steps up.

Yeah, plenty are like that. I deliberately designed my house
so there is no step up at all. Its actually about 6" above the
surrounding dirt level, but I use a ****ing great thing we
call a digger/back hoe and you lot call a JCB to push the
dirt up to the house and it looks like its all one level.

I'd not want my house on ground level incase of rain.

That is why its 6" higher than the surrounding ground.

We did in fact have a mega deluge about 10 years after
it had been built which saw water inches deep in the street
but no water inside the house at all. I actually run the
sprinklers in the park on the S side of the house, it's a
council park. I normally leave them on all night and
you end up with a massive great sheet of standing
water in the lowest part but that soaks away in a few
hours after you turn the sprinklers off and it never
even spreads onto any of my land, let alone inside
the house. There is no fence on that side so my land
and the park flow into each other and it gives the
visual effect that its all mine. The council mows it
with a ****ing great tractor and mows mine at the
same time because I run the sprinklers for them.

I thought you had water meters in Australia?

We do, but that is the council's water supply in the park.

So if it's their water and presumably their sprinklers, what part do you play in it? Can they not just connect a timer? Or do you go and place them out then remove them so nobody vandalises or stands on them?

--
The greatest distance attained for a jet of semen that has ever been recorded is 18'9" (5.71 m) which was achieved with a "substantial" amount of seminal fluid by Horst Schultz.

On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:03:54 +0100, Rod Speed wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:37:44 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:45:24 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 21:16:00 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 20:14:08 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 10:49:04 +0100,
wrote:

On Sunday, 3 April 2016 20:49:40 UTC+1, Mr Macaw wrote:
I looked everywhere on Google, and all I can find is the R-value
of
insulated garage doors (which I didn't even know existed!).
What is the R-value of a traditional garage door, made of a
simple
sheet of steel?

I used to have to work in an uninsulated sheet steel and
plexiglass
cabin
(not a shipping container, a lot less substantial) and the blow
heater
going full blast just about kept it warm. Turn the heater off and
the
temp plummeted within minutes. No insulative effect at all, it
just
kept
the wind out.

Steel garage doors are usually very badly fitting too, so lots of
draughts.

I had fitted draught excluders, but I was unaware most of the heat
went
through the steel door. I insulated the ceiling first as heat
rises.

You were likely losing more thru the door than the ceiling.

It did feel a lot colder when I placed my hand half an inch from the
steel
door. But I went for the ceiling first because the heat from the
radiator
was rising up, and flowing along the uninsulated ceiling, so I
assumed
it
was going out before even being used.

It likely wouldn't have been doing that unless the ceiling was very
leaky
airflow wise.

It was just chipboard with bitumen on top.

The chipboard is a pretty reasonable insulator.

But it's only 1.5cm thick.

Still a lot better than the metal door or a single sheet of glass.

Yes, but "heat rises" is important isn't it?

So probably conducted a lot of heat through it, since it had hot air
against it from the radiator, much hotter than the room air.

It cant have been conducting too much otherwise there wouldn't
have been noticeably hotter air there than in the body of the room.

It was only hotter there because of the large radiator blasting it up
there. By the time it moved along the ceiling and started down the
opposite wall, it didn't feel as hot.

Sure, but it was still where less heat escaping there than the
uninsulated
walls.

The walls were single brick. Only the front was steel.

Yeah, that's what I meant. You were in fact losing more thru the walls
and door than you were thru the ceiling before you insulated anything.

I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick wall loses more than plywood, especially as the plywood is at the top.

--
Caution: Always engage brain before operating mouth.

"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:01:09 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:27:53 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:35:33 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:

The crowd that sells the reinforcing mesh for the slab has a system
where you send them a copy of the plan, they send back a plan of
the slab with the composite beams around the outside and the
cross beams across the width of the slab, with how the mesh is
done. The beams have a square section of mesh and all the
mesh is supplied all cut to length etc and you make it all up
using wire ties with are 8" length of with a loop in each end.
You twist the ties with a big tool with a hook in it. You put the
hook thru the loops and then just pull on the tool and it twists
the wire, holding the mesh together at that point.

I just did what the slab plan said to do and had the building
inspector tell the builders in the area to go and look at mine
because that was how it was supposed to be done.

They don't bother to use things called bar chairs which hold
the big sheets of mesh up so the concrete goes under the
mesh and ends up part way thru the slab when it sets. They
just use things with a hook on the end to pull the mesh up
thru the concrete after its been poured in from the readymix
truck. The problem with that approach is that it doesn't always
end up with the mesh where it should be because they have to
stand on the mesh when pulling it up.

The building inspectors inspect the slab reinforcing before the
concrete pours and want to see where the mesh will end up in
the concrete.

It's your house, they should mind their own business!

None of the first or second world does it like that now.

Doesn't make it right. The only things they should check is anything
that
would affect another property.

You can make a case for it being safe to live in too.

That's one of the main things wrong with modern society, the law forcing
you to be safe to yourself. ****'s sake that is intrinsically nobody's
business but yours.

That isn't so true with stuff like houses which mostly do get
sold to someone other than who built it in the first place.

Particularly with stuff like how the slab is done where it isnt
that easy to even check how it was done before buying it.

"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:03:54 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:37:44 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:45:24 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 21:16:00 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 20:14:08 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 10:49:04 +0100,
wrote:

On Sunday, 3 April 2016 20:49:40 UTC+1, Mr Macaw wrote:
I looked everywhere on Google, and all I can find is the
R-value
of
insulated garage doors (which I didn't even know existed!).
What is the R-value of a traditional garage door, made of a
simple
sheet of steel?

I used to have to work in an uninsulated sheet steel and
plexiglass
cabin
(not a shipping container, a lot less substantial) and the blow
heater
going full blast just about kept it warm. Turn the heater off
and
the
temp plummeted within minutes. No insulative effect at all, it
just
kept
the wind out.

Steel garage doors are usually very badly fitting too, so lots
of
draughts.

I had fitted draught excluders, but I was unaware most of the
heat
went
through the steel door. I insulated the ceiling first as heat
rises.

You were likely losing more thru the door than the ceiling.

It did feel a lot colder when I placed my hand half an inch from
the
steel
door. But I went for the ceiling first because the heat from the
radiator
was rising up, and flowing along the uninsulated ceiling, so I
assumed
it
was going out before even being used.

It likely wouldn't have been doing that unless the ceiling was very
leaky
airflow wise.

It was just chipboard with bitumen on top.

The chipboard is a pretty reasonable insulator.

But it's only 1.5cm thick.

Still a lot better than the metal door or a single sheet of glass.

Yes, but "heat rises" is important isn't it?

So probably conducted a lot of heat through it, since it had hot air
against it from the radiator, much hotter than the room air.

It cant have been conducting too much otherwise there wouldn't
have been noticeably hotter air there than in the body of the room.

It was only hotter there because of the large radiator blasting it up
there. By the time it moved along the ceiling and started down the
opposite wall, it didn't feel as hot.

Sure, but it was still where less heat escaping there than the
uninsulated
walls.

The walls were single brick. Only the front was steel.

Yeah, that's what I meant. You were in fact losing more thru the walls
and door than you were thru the ceiling before you insulated anything.

I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick wall loses more
than plywood,

There isnt much in it at all.
http://www.archtoolbox.com/materials...n/rvalues.html
That also has the metal too, they call it siding in there.

especially as the plywood is at the top.

But there is a lot more wall/door area than ceiling area.

"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:02:23 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:34:03 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:40:29 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 21:14:23 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 20:18:00 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 08:03:37 +0100, News

wrote:

In message , Mr Macaw
writes

Anyway, the reason I asked is I'm insulating my garage, as I
heat
it
to
keep tropical birds in.

Some years ago, I had a longish single width garage I wanted to
use
as
a
'hobby room', yet allow easy conversion back to garage when
selling
the
house.

I was lucky enough to have a roll of old carpet which I cut to
garage
width, and laid on top of plastic sheet, on the concrete floor.
The
plastic and carpet was run the full length of the garage then
straight
up at 90 degrees, in front of the metal up and over door, and
secured
at
the top. Old sheets of chip were cut to length and screwed to
the
door
frame, over the carpet. Ceiling and all walls, including the
chip,
painted white, fluorescent lights installed, job done.

No idea about R values, but it did make a large, cosy, draught
proof
room, that was easily converted back to a garage. There was,
of
course,
a separate personal access door.

I wonder how much is lost through the concrete floor?

Quite a bit.

That's the only thing I haven't insulated.

The other effect you get with carpet is that the surface
temperature is a lot closer the air temp so if feel warmer
because you don't radiate from your body to that surface
so much.

Not as good for a room full of birds tho, harder to hose
the **** away.

What I'd do is put joists across with poly sheets between, then a
floorboard layer of wood, with a thin layer of concrete on top.
Expensive
though if most of the heat doesn't go downwards anyway.

Yeah, unless it is very wet ground under the concrete,
you wont be losing that much heat that way.

Water table here is only 2 feet below the surface in wet weather.

That is still 2' of soil, pretty decent insulation.

Its actually better to insulate it the way that underfloor heating
is done, put the insulation on top of the current concrete floor
and then pour another slab on top of that.

That is obviously going to raise the floor level a lot tho
and that my not work that well at the door for people
if it has a separate one of those.

A step up to go in isn't a problem, the house is already two steps
up.

Yeah, plenty are like that. I deliberately designed my house
so there is no step up at all. Its actually about 6" above the
surrounding dirt level, but I use a ****ing great thing we
call a digger/back hoe and you lot call a JCB to push the
dirt up to the house and it looks like its all one level.

I'd not want my house on ground level incase of rain.

That is why its 6" higher than the surrounding ground.

We did in fact have a mega deluge about 10 years after
it had been built which saw water inches deep in the street
but no water inside the house at all. I actually run the
sprinklers in the park on the S side of the house, it's a
council park. I normally leave them on all night and
you end up with a massive great sheet of standing
water in the lowest part but that soaks away in a few
hours after you turn the sprinklers off and it never
even spreads onto any of my land, let alone inside
the house. There is no fence on that side so my land
and the park flow into each other and it gives the
visual effect that its all mine. The council mows it
with a ****ing great tractor and mows mine at the
same time because I run the sprinklers for them.

I thought you had water meters in Australia?

We do, but that is the council's water supply in the park.

So if it's their water and presumably their sprinklers,

Yes.

what part do you play in it?

There are two different systems. The park is 50' wide in half of it,
and 75' wide in the other half. In the 50' wide part, you just turn
the tap which is in a hole in the ground half way thru the park.

In the wider part you have to push the sprinklers like these
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....5MICUIU-1L.jpg
into a spring loaded fitting with a metal cap which is in the grass.

http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/images/...hf1/s-l225.jpg
is what they look like before you push them into the ground socket.

Can they not just connect a timer?

Yes, they are just changing the narrow half tap into one of those now.

Or do you go and place them out then remove them

Yes, in the wide part of the park.

so nobody vandalises or stands on them?

You can't actually turn them off and leave them there.
The action of pushing the big brass vertical into the
capped fitting in a hole in the grass is what pushes
the spring loaded valve open and lets the water get
into the vertical and out thru the sprinkler head.

On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:59:49 +0100, Rod Speed wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:01:09 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:27:53 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:35:33 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:

The crowd that sells the reinforcing mesh for the slab has a system
where you send them a copy of the plan, they send back a plan of
the slab with the composite beams around the outside and the
cross beams across the width of the slab, with how the mesh is
done. The beams have a square section of mesh and all the
mesh is supplied all cut to length etc and you make it all up
using wire ties with are 8" length of with a loop in each end.
You twist the ties with a big tool with a hook in it. You put the
hook thru the loops and then just pull on the tool and it twists
the wire, holding the mesh together at that point.

I just did what the slab plan said to do and had the building
inspector tell the builders in the area to go and look at mine
because that was how it was supposed to be done.

They don't bother to use things called bar chairs which hold
the big sheets of mesh up so the concrete goes under the
mesh and ends up part way thru the slab when it sets. They
just use things with a hook on the end to pull the mesh up
thru the concrete after its been poured in from the readymix
truck. The problem with that approach is that it doesn't always
end up with the mesh where it should be because they have to
stand on the mesh when pulling it up.

The building inspectors inspect the slab reinforcing before the
concrete pours and want to see where the mesh will end up in
the concrete.

It's your house, they should mind their own business!

None of the first or second world does it like that now.

Doesn't make it right. The only things they should check is anything
that
would affect another property.

You can make a case for it being safe to live in too.

That's one of the main things wrong with modern society, the law forcing
you to be safe to yourself. ****'s sake that is intrinsically nobody's
business but yours.

That isn't so true with stuff like houses which mostly do get
sold to someone other than who built it in the first place.

Particularly with stuff like how the slab is done where it isnt
that easy to even check how it was done before buying it.

So what? When you buy a house, you check things like that, if you can't tough ****. Anyway the slab has managed until then....
When I bought my house I didn't bother with all the silly checks. I just had a look around.

--
Got myself a new Jack Russell puppy, he's mainly black and brown with a small white patch, so I've named him England.

On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:15:15 +0100, Rod Speed wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:03:54 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:37:44 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:45:24 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 21:16:00 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 20:14:08 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 10:49:04 +0100,
wrote:

On Sunday, 3 April 2016 20:49:40 UTC+1, Mr Macaw wrote:
I looked everywhere on Google, and all I can find is the
R-value
of
insulated garage doors (which I didn't even know existed!).
What is the R-value of a traditional garage door, made of a
simple
sheet of steel?

I used to have to work in an uninsulated sheet steel and
plexiglass
cabin
(not a shipping container, a lot less substantial) and the blow
heater
going full blast just about kept it warm. Turn the heater off
and
the
temp plummeted within minutes. No insulative effect at all, it
just
kept
the wind out.

Steel garage doors are usually very badly fitting too, so lots
of
draughts.

I had fitted draught excluders, but I was unaware most of the
heat
went
through the steel door. I insulated the ceiling first as heat
rises.

You were likely losing more thru the door than the ceiling.

It did feel a lot colder when I placed my hand half an inch from
the
steel
door. But I went for the ceiling first because the heat from the
radiator
was rising up, and flowing along the uninsulated ceiling, so I
assumed
it
was going out before even being used.

It likely wouldn't have been doing that unless the ceiling was very
leaky
airflow wise.

It was just chipboard with bitumen on top.

The chipboard is a pretty reasonable insulator.

But it's only 1.5cm thick.

Still a lot better than the metal door or a single sheet of glass.

Yes, but "heat rises" is important isn't it?

So probably conducted a lot of heat through it, since it had hot air
against it from the radiator, much hotter than the room air.

It cant have been conducting too much otherwise there wouldn't
have been noticeably hotter air there than in the body of the room.

It was only hotter there because of the large radiator blasting it up
there. By the time it moved along the ceiling and started down the
opposite wall, it didn't feel as hot.

Sure, but it was still where less heat escaping there than the
uninsulated
walls.

The walls were single brick. Only the front was steel.

Yeah, that's what I meant. You were in fact losing more thru the walls
and door than you were thru the ceiling before you insulated anything.

I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick wall loses more
than plywood,

There isnt much in it at all.
http://www.archtoolbox.com/materials...n/rvalues.html

Interesting, the wood is better than the brick, even thought it's a lot thinner.

That also has the metal too, they call it siding in there.

Now.... that claims it's 0.61. That's almost as good as brick, which isn't what people have said in this thread so far.

especially as the plywood is at the top.

But there is a lot more wall/door area than ceiling area.

I suppose. Anyway it's all been insulated except the floor.

--
I'm not as drunk as thinkle may peep.

On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:22:53 +0100, Rod Speed wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:02:23 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:34:03 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:40:29 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 21:14:23 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 20:18:00 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 08:03:37 +0100, News

wrote:

In message , Mr Macaw
writes

Anyway, the reason I asked is I'm insulating my garage, as I
heat
it
to
keep tropical birds in.

Some years ago, I had a longish single width garage I wanted to
use
as
a
'hobby room', yet allow easy conversion back to garage when
selling
the
house.

I was lucky enough to have a roll of old carpet which I cut to
garage
width, and laid on top of plastic sheet, on the concrete floor.
The
plastic and carpet was run the full length of the garage then
straight
up at 90 degrees, in front of the metal up and over door, and
secured
at
the top. Old sheets of chip were cut to length and screwed to
the
door
frame, over the carpet. Ceiling and all walls, including the
chip,
painted white, fluorescent lights installed, job done.

No idea about R values, but it did make a large, cosy, draught
proof
room, that was easily converted back to a garage. There was,
of
course,
a separate personal access door.

I wonder how much is lost through the concrete floor?

Quite a bit.

That's the only thing I haven't insulated.

The other effect you get with carpet is that the surface
temperature is a lot closer the air temp so if feel warmer
because you don't radiate from your body to that surface
so much.

Not as good for a room full of birds tho, harder to hose
the **** away.

What I'd do is put joists across with poly sheets between, then a
floorboard layer of wood, with a thin layer of concrete on top.
Expensive
though if most of the heat doesn't go downwards anyway.

Yeah, unless it is very wet ground under the concrete,
you wont be losing that much heat that way.

Water table here is only 2 feet below the surface in wet weather.

That is still 2' of soil, pretty decent insulation.

Its actually better to insulate it the way that underfloor heating
is done, put the insulation on top of the current concrete floor
and then pour another slab on top of that.

That is obviously going to raise the floor level a lot tho
and that my not work that well at the door for people
if it has a separate one of those.

A step up to go in isn't a problem, the house is already two steps
up.

Yeah, plenty are like that. I deliberately designed my house
so there is no step up at all. Its actually about 6" above the
surrounding dirt level, but I use a ****ing great thing we
call a digger/back hoe and you lot call a JCB to push the
dirt up to the house and it looks like its all one level.

I'd not want my house on ground level incase of rain.

That is why its 6" higher than the surrounding ground.

We did in fact have a mega deluge about 10 years after
it had been built which saw water inches deep in the street
but no water inside the house at all. I actually run the
sprinklers in the park on the S side of the house, it's a
council park. I normally leave them on all night and
you end up with a massive great sheet of standing
water in the lowest part but that soaks away in a few
hours after you turn the sprinklers off and it never
even spreads onto any of my land, let alone inside
the house. There is no fence on that side so my land
and the park flow into each other and it gives the
visual effect that its all mine. The council mows it
with a ****ing great tractor and mows mine at the
same time because I run the sprinklers for them.

I thought you had water meters in Australia?

We do, but that is the council's water supply in the park.

So if it's their water and presumably their sprinklers,

Yes.

what part do you play in it?

There are two different systems. The park is 50' wide in half of it,
and 75' wide in the other half. In the 50' wide part, you just turn
the tap which is in a hole in the ground half way thru the park.

In the wider part you have to push the sprinklers like these
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....5MICUIU-1L.jpg
into a spring loaded fitting with a metal cap which is in the grass.

http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/images/...hf1/s-l225.jpg
is what they look like before you push them into the ground socket.

Can they not just connect a timer?

Yes, they are just changing the narrow half tap into one of those now.

Or do you go and place them out then remove them

Yes, in the wide part of the park.

so nobody vandalises or stands on them?

You can't actually turn them off and leave them there.
The action of pushing the big brass vertical into the
capped fitting in a hole in the grass is what pushes
the spring loaded valve open and lets the water get
into the vertical and out thru the sprinkler head.

So you get a bit wet then :-)

--
Avoid cutting yourself when slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold the vegetables while you chop.

"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:59:49 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:01:09 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:27:53 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:35:33 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:

The crowd that sells the reinforcing mesh for the slab has a system
where you send them a copy of the plan, they send back a plan of
the slab with the composite beams around the outside and the
cross beams across the width of the slab, with how the mesh is
done. The beams have a square section of mesh and all the
mesh is supplied all cut to length etc and you make it all up
using wire ties with are 8" length of with a loop in each end.
You twist the ties with a big tool with a hook in it. You put the
hook thru the loops and then just pull on the tool and it twists
the wire, holding the mesh together at that point.

I just did what the slab plan said to do and had the building
inspector tell the builders in the area to go and look at mine
because that was how it was supposed to be done.

They don't bother to use things called bar chairs which hold
the big sheets of mesh up so the concrete goes under the
mesh and ends up part way thru the slab when it sets. They
just use things with a hook on the end to pull the mesh up
thru the concrete after its been poured in from the readymix
truck. The problem with that approach is that it doesn't always
end up with the mesh where it should be because they have to
stand on the mesh when pulling it up.

The building inspectors inspect the slab reinforcing before the
concrete pours and want to see where the mesh will end up in
the concrete.

It's your house, they should mind their own business!

None of the first or second world does it like that now.

Doesn't make it right. The only things they should check is anything
that
would affect another property.

You can make a case for it being safe to live in too.

That's one of the main things wrong with modern society, the law forcing
you to be safe to yourself. ****'s sake that is intrinsically nobody's
business but yours.

That isn't so true with stuff like houses which mostly do get
sold to someone other than who built it in the first place.

Particularly with stuff like how the slab is done where it isnt
that easy to even check how it was done before buying it.

So what?

So it is reasonable to require the house to be built safely.

Same with cars and appliances too.

When you buy a house, you check things like that,

Just not practical to check where the reinforcing mesh
is in the slab, or how the integrated beams in the slab
have been done, which is why it makes sense to have
the building inspector sign that stuff off before the
slab has been poured.

Same with the main sewer lines, they inspect those
in the trenches before the trenches are back filled.

if you can't tough ****. Anyway the slab has managed until then....
When I bought my house I didn't bother with all the silly checks. I just
had a look around.

But you knew that when you knew roughly when
the place had been built, what inspections had been
done at the time it was built and that you didn't
need to check that stuff had been done properly.

"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:15:15 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:03:54 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:37:44 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:45:24 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 21:16:00 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 20:14:08 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 10:49:04 +0100,

wrote:

On Sunday, 3 April 2016 20:49:40 UTC+1, Mr Macaw wrote:
I looked everywhere on Google, and all I can find is the
R-value
of
insulated garage doors (which I didn't even know existed!).
What is the R-value of a traditional garage door, made of a
simple
sheet of steel?

I used to have to work in an uninsulated sheet steel and
plexiglass
cabin
(not a shipping container, a lot less substantial) and the
blow
heater
going full blast just about kept it warm. Turn the heater off
and
the
temp plummeted within minutes. No insulative effect at all,
it
just
kept
the wind out.

Steel garage doors are usually very badly fitting too, so
lots
of
draughts.

I had fitted draught excluders, but I was unaware most of the
heat
went
through the steel door. I insulated the ceiling first as heat
rises.

You were likely losing more thru the door than the ceiling.

It did feel a lot colder when I placed my hand half an inch from
the
steel
door. But I went for the ceiling first because the heat from
the
radiator
was rising up, and flowing along the uninsulated ceiling, so I
assumed
it
was going out before even being used.

It likely wouldn't have been doing that unless the ceiling was
very
leaky
airflow wise.

It was just chipboard with bitumen on top.

The chipboard is a pretty reasonable insulator.

But it's only 1.5cm thick.

Still a lot better than the metal door or a single sheet of glass.

Yes, but "heat rises" is important isn't it?

So probably conducted a lot of heat through it, since it had hot
air
against it from the radiator, much hotter than the room air.

It cant have been conducting too much otherwise there wouldn't
have been noticeably hotter air there than in the body of the room.

It was only hotter there because of the large radiator blasting it
up
there. By the time it moved along the ceiling and started down the
opposite wall, it didn't feel as hot.

Sure, but it was still where less heat escaping there than the
uninsulated
walls.

The walls were single brick. Only the front was steel.

Yeah, that's what I meant. You were in fact losing more thru the walls
and door than you were thru the ceiling before you insulated anything.

I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick wall loses
more
than plywood,

There isnt much in it at all.
http://www.archtoolbox.com/materials...n/rvalues.html

Interesting, the wood is better than the brick, even thought it's a lot
thinner.

Yeah, that's what I meant, you said it better there.

That also has the metal too, they call it siding in there.

Now.... that claims it's 0.61. That's almost as good as brick, which
isn't what people have said in this thread so far.

But that is nothing like a garage door, particularly with
the big air gap you get with siding but not with a door.

especially as the plywood is at the top.

But there is a lot more wall/door area than ceiling area.

I suppose. Anyway it's all been insulated except the floor.

And that wouldn't normally be worth doing, partly because
it isnt easy to do cheaply given you want to be able to hose
out the bird **** and because its got at least 2' of soil under
it which is a pretty decent insulator, and the temperature of
the soil you are leaking the heat into isnt as bad as what is
outside the walls and ceiling, particularly on a winters night.

On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:13:51 +0100, Rod Speed wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:59:49 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:01:09 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:27:53 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:35:33 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:

The crowd that sells the reinforcing mesh for the slab has a system
where you send them a copy of the plan, they send back a plan of
the slab with the composite beams around the outside and the
cross beams across the width of the slab, with how the mesh is
done. The beams have a square section of mesh and all the
mesh is supplied all cut to length etc and you make it all up
using wire ties with are 8" length of with a loop in each end.
You twist the ties with a big tool with a hook in it. You put the
hook thru the loops and then just pull on the tool and it twists
the wire, holding the mesh together at that point.

I just did what the slab plan said to do and had the building
inspector tell the builders in the area to go and look at mine
because that was how it was supposed to be done.

They don't bother to use things called bar chairs which hold
the big sheets of mesh up so the concrete goes under the
mesh and ends up part way thru the slab when it sets. They
just use things with a hook on the end to pull the mesh up
thru the concrete after its been poured in from the readymix
truck. The problem with that approach is that it doesn't always
end up with the mesh where it should be because they have to
stand on the mesh when pulling it up.

The building inspectors inspect the slab reinforcing before the
concrete pours and want to see where the mesh will end up in
the concrete.

It's your house, they should mind their own business!

None of the first or second world does it like that now.

Doesn't make it right. The only things they should check is anything
that
would affect another property.

You can make a case for it being safe to live in too.

That's one of the main things wrong with modern society, the law forcing
you to be safe to yourself. ****'s sake that is intrinsically nobody's
business but yours.

That isn't so true with stuff like houses which mostly do get
sold to someone other than who built it in the first place.

Particularly with stuff like how the slab is done where it isnt
that easy to even check how it was done before buying it.

So what?

So it is reasonable to require the house to be built safely.

Same with cars and appliances too.

When you buy a house, you check things like that,

Just not practical to check where the reinforcing mesh
is in the slab, or how the integrated beams in the slab
have been done, which is why it makes sense to have
the building inspector sign that stuff off before the
slab has been poured.

Same with the main sewer lines, they inspect those
in the trenches before the trenches are back filled.

if you can't tough ****. Anyway the slab has managed until then....
When I bought my house I didn't bother with all the silly checks. I just
had a look around.

But you knew that when you knew roughly when
the place had been built, what inspections had been
done at the time it was built and that you didn't
need to check that stuff had been done properly.

No, I'm not anal enough to care. The house had stood from 1979 to 2000 and looked fine.

--
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. -- Steven Weinberg

"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:22:53 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:02:23 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:34:03 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:40:29 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 21:14:23 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 20:18:00 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 08:03:37 +0100, News

wrote:

In message , Mr Macaw

writes

Anyway, the reason I asked is I'm insulating my garage, as I
heat
it
to
keep tropical birds in.

Some years ago, I had a longish single width garage I wanted
to
use
as
a
'hobby room', yet allow easy conversion back to garage when
selling
the
house.

I was lucky enough to have a roll of old carpet which I cut
to
garage
width, and laid on top of plastic sheet, on the concrete
floor.
The
plastic and carpet was run the full length of the garage then
straight
up at 90 degrees, in front of the metal up and over door, and
secured
at
the top. Old sheets of chip were cut to length and screwed
to
the
door
frame, over the carpet. Ceiling and all walls, including the
chip,
painted white, fluorescent lights installed, job done.

No idea about R values, but it did make a large, cosy,
draught
proof
room, that was easily converted back to a garage. There was,
of
course,
a separate personal access door.

I wonder how much is lost through the concrete floor?

Quite a bit.

That's the only thing I haven't insulated.

The other effect you get with carpet is that the surface
temperature is a lot closer the air temp so if feel warmer
because you don't radiate from your body to that surface
so much.

Not as good for a room full of birds tho, harder to hose
the **** away.

What I'd do is put joists across with poly sheets between, then
a
floorboard layer of wood, with a thin layer of concrete on top.
Expensive
though if most of the heat doesn't go downwards anyway.

Yeah, unless it is very wet ground under the concrete,
you wont be losing that much heat that way.

Water table here is only 2 feet below the surface in wet weather.

That is still 2' of soil, pretty decent insulation.

Its actually better to insulate it the way that underfloor
heating
is done, put the insulation on top of the current concrete floor
and then pour another slab on top of that.

That is obviously going to raise the floor level a lot tho
and that my not work that well at the door for people
if it has a separate one of those.

A step up to go in isn't a problem, the house is already two steps
up.

Yeah, plenty are like that. I deliberately designed my house
so there is no step up at all. Its actually about 6" above the
surrounding dirt level, but I use a ****ing great thing we
call a digger/back hoe and you lot call a JCB to push the
dirt up to the house and it looks like its all one level.

I'd not want my house on ground level incase of rain.

That is why its 6" higher than the surrounding ground.

We did in fact have a mega deluge about 10 years after
it had been built which saw water inches deep in the street
but no water inside the house at all. I actually run the
sprinklers in the park on the S side of the house, it's a
council park. I normally leave them on all night and
you end up with a massive great sheet of standing
water in the lowest part but that soaks away in a few
hours after you turn the sprinklers off and it never
even spreads onto any of my land, let alone inside
the house. There is no fence on that side so my land
and the park flow into each other and it gives the
visual effect that its all mine. The council mows it
with a ****ing great tractor and mows mine at the
same time because I run the sprinklers for them.

I thought you had water meters in Australia?

We do, but that is the council's water supply in the park.

So if it's their water and presumably their sprinklers,

Yes.

what part do you play in it?

There are two different systems. The park is 50' wide in half of it,
and 75' wide in the other half. In the 50' wide part, you just turn
the tap which is in a hole in the ground half way thru the park.

In the wider part you have to push the sprinklers like these
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....5MICUIU-1L.jpg
into a spring loaded fitting with a metal cap which is in the grass.

http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/images/...hf1/s-l225.jpg
is what they look like before you push them into the ground socket.

Can they not just connect a timer?

Yes, they are just changing the narrow half tap into one of those now.

Or do you go and place them out then remove them

Yes, in the wide part of the park.

so nobody vandalises or stands on them?

You can't actually turn them off and leave them there.
The action of pushing the big brass vertical into the
capped fitting in a hole in the grass is what pushes
the spring loaded valve open and lets the water get
into the vertical and out thru the sprinkler head.

So you get a bit wet then :-)

You don't get wet at all when you get the knack of it.

The sprinkler head ticks around with the arm on the top
spring loaded into the water jet and kicks the sprinkler
around each time it is kicked out of the water jet.

When you push the vertical brass tube into the spring
loaded valve in the dirt, you just aim the water jet
away from you and then step back away from it
with it ticking away from you.

When you need to turn it off, you just wait till its
pointing away from you, walk up to the sprinkler
and just release the vertical brass tube by turning
it using the brass arm you can see half way up so
it stops.

On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:18:51 +0100, Rod Speed wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:15:15 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:03:54 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:37:44 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:45:24 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 21:16:00 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 20:14:08 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 10:49:04 +0100,

wrote:

On Sunday, 3 April 2016 20:49:40 UTC+1, Mr Macaw wrote:
I looked everywhere on Google, and all I can find is the
R-value
of
insulated garage doors (which I didn't even know existed!).
What is the R-value of a traditional garage door, made of a
simple
sheet of steel?

I used to have to work in an uninsulated sheet steel and
plexiglass
cabin
(not a shipping container, a lot less substantial) and the
blow
heater
going full blast just about kept it warm. Turn the heater off
and
the
temp plummeted within minutes. No insulative effect at all,
it
just
kept
the wind out.

Steel garage doors are usually very badly fitting too, so
lots
of
draughts.

I had fitted draught excluders, but I was unaware most of the
heat
went
through the steel door. I insulated the ceiling first as heat
rises.

You were likely losing more thru the door than the ceiling.

It did feel a lot colder when I placed my hand half an inch from
the
steel
door. But I went for the ceiling first because the heat from
the
radiator
was rising up, and flowing along the uninsulated ceiling, so I
assumed
it
was going out before even being used.

It likely wouldn't have been doing that unless the ceiling was
very
leaky
airflow wise.

It was just chipboard with bitumen on top.

The chipboard is a pretty reasonable insulator.

But it's only 1.5cm thick.

Still a lot better than the metal door or a single sheet of glass.

Yes, but "heat rises" is important isn't it?

So probably conducted a lot of heat through it, since it had hot
air
against it from the radiator, much hotter than the room air.

It cant have been conducting too much otherwise there wouldn't
have been noticeably hotter air there than in the body of the room.

It was only hotter there because of the large radiator blasting it
up
there. By the time it moved along the ceiling and started down the
opposite wall, it didn't feel as hot.

Sure, but it was still where less heat escaping there than the
uninsulated
walls.

The walls were single brick. Only the front was steel.

Yeah, that's what I meant. You were in fact losing more thru the walls
and door than you were thru the ceiling before you insulated anything.

I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick wall loses
more
than plywood,

There isnt much in it at all.
http://www.archtoolbox.com/materials...n/rvalues.html

Interesting, the wood is better than the brick, even thought it's a lot
thinner.

Yeah, that's what I meant, you said it better there.

That also has the metal too, they call it siding in there.

Now.... that claims it's 0.61. That's almost as good as brick, which
isn't what people have said in this thread so far.

But that is nothing like a garage door, particularly with
the big air gap you get with siding but not with a door.

Is "siding" the frame of American double glazing? If there's an air gap, the air gap should be R 4.

especially as the plywood is at the top.

But there is a lot more wall/door area than ceiling area.

I suppose. Anyway it's all been insulated except the floor.

And that wouldn't normally be worth doing, partly because
it isnt easy to do cheaply given you want to be able to hose
out the bird **** and because its got at least 2' of soil under
it which is a pretty decent insulator, and the temperature of
the soil you are leaking the heat into isnt as bad as what is
outside the walls and ceiling, particularly on a winters night.

Agreed on the expense, but I could make it have a concrete layer on top of whatever I made it from.. I'll see what happens next winter without it.

--
"I'm prescribing these pills for you," said the doctor to the overweight patient, who tipped the scales at about three hundred pounds.
"I don't want you to swallow them. Just spill them on the floor twice a day and pick them up, one at a time."

"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:18:51 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:15:15 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:03:54 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:37:44 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:45:24 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 21:16:00 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 20:14:08 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Mon, 04 Apr 2016 10:49:04 +0100,

wrote:

On Sunday, 3 April 2016 20:49:40 UTC+1, Mr Macaw wrote:
I looked everywhere on Google, and all I can find is the
R-value
of
insulated garage doors (which I didn't even know
existed!).
What is the R-value of a traditional garage door, made of
a
simple
sheet of steel?

I used to have to work in an uninsulated sheet steel and
plexiglass
cabin
(not a shipping container, a lot less substantial) and the
blow
heater
going full blast just about kept it warm. Turn the heater
off
and
the
temp plummeted within minutes. No insulative effect at all,
it
just
kept
the wind out.

Steel garage doors are usually very badly fitting too, so
lots
of
draughts.

I had fitted draught excluders, but I was unaware most of
the
heat
went
through the steel door. I insulated the ceiling first as
heat
rises.

You were likely losing more thru the door than the ceiling.

It did feel a lot colder when I placed my hand half an inch
from
the
steel
door. But I went for the ceiling first because the heat from
the
radiator
was rising up, and flowing along the uninsulated ceiling, so I
assumed
it
was going out before even being used.

It likely wouldn't have been doing that unless the ceiling was
very
leaky
airflow wise.

It was just chipboard with bitumen on top.

The chipboard is a pretty reasonable insulator.

But it's only 1.5cm thick.

Still a lot better than the metal door or a single sheet of glass.

Yes, but "heat rises" is important isn't it?

So probably conducted a lot of heat through it, since it had hot
air
against it from the radiator, much hotter than the room air.

It cant have been conducting too much otherwise there wouldn't
have been noticeably hotter air there than in the body of the
room.

It was only hotter there because of the large radiator blasting it
up
there. By the time it moved along the ceiling and started down
the
opposite wall, it didn't feel as hot.

Sure, but it was still where less heat escaping there than the
uninsulated
walls.

The walls were single brick. Only the front was steel.

Yeah, that's what I meant. You were in fact losing more thru the
walls
and door than you were thru the ceiling before you insulated
anything.

I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick wall loses
more
than plywood,

There isnt much in it at all.
http://www.archtoolbox.com/materials...n/rvalues.html

Interesting, the wood is better than the brick, even thought it's a lot
thinner.

Yeah, that's what I meant, you said it better there.

That also has the metal too, they call it siding in there.

Now.... that claims it's 0.61. That's almost as good as brick, which
isn't what people have said in this thread so far.

But that is nothing like a garage door, particularly with
the big air gap you get with siding but not with a door.

Is "siding" the frame of American double glazing?

No, siding is a metal wall of a house or
shed, instead of a brick or wooden wall.

If there's an air gap, the air gap should be R 4.

especially as the plywood is at the top.

But there is a lot more wall/door area than ceiling area.

I suppose. Anyway it's all been insulated except the floor.

And that wouldn't normally be worth doing, partly because
it isnt easy to do cheaply given you want to be able to hose
out the bird **** and because its got at least 2' of soil under
it which is a pretty decent insulator, and the temperature of
the soil you are leaking the heat into isnt as bad as what is
outside the walls and ceiling, particularly on a winters night.

Agreed on the expense, but I could make it have a concrete layer on top of
whatever I made it from..

Not that cheap to do that, essentially because if you
say use polyfoam and then pour the concrete on that,
the concrete needs to be quite thick so it doesn't crack.

I'll see what happens next winter without it.

On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:38:02 +0100, Rod Speed wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:18:51 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:15:15 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick wall loses
more
than plywood,

There isnt much in it at all.
http://www.archtoolbox.com/materials...n/rvalues.html

Interesting, the wood is better than the brick, even thought it's a lot
thinner.

Yeah, that's what I meant, you said it better there.

That also has the metal too, they call it siding in there.

Now.... that claims it's 0.61. That's almost as good as brick, which
isn't what people have said in this thread so far.

But that is nothing like a garage door, particularly with
the big air gap you get with siding but not with a door.

Is "siding" the frame of American double glazing?

No, siding is a metal wall of a house or
shed, instead of a brick or wooden wall.

So when you say air gap, is it double?

If there's an air gap, the air gap should be R 4.

especially as the plywood is at the top.

But there is a lot more wall/door area than ceiling area.

I suppose. Anyway it's all been insulated except the floor.

And that wouldn't normally be worth doing, partly because
it isnt easy to do cheaply given you want to be able to hose
out the bird **** and because its got at least 2' of soil under
it which is a pretty decent insulator, and the temperature of
the soil you are leaking the heat into isnt as bad as what is
outside the walls and ceiling, particularly on a winters night.

Agreed on the expense, but I could make it have a concrete layer on top of
whatever I made it from..

Not that cheap to do that, essentially because if you
say use polyfoam and then pour the concrete on that,
the concrete needs to be quite thick so it doesn't crack.

I'd have joists and floorboards to support the concrete. Joists plus boards plus foam costs a lot unless there's some going cheap. I've found a place near here that sells off recovered stuff from people doing up houses. Cheap boilers, conservatories, etc, not sure about bricks and wood.

--
Did you hear about the guy who finally figured out women?
He died laughing before he could tell anybody.

On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:23:19 +0100, Rod Speed wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:22:53 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:02:23 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:34:03 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:

We did in fact have a mega deluge about 10 years after
it had been built which saw water inches deep in the street
but no water inside the house at all. I actually run the
sprinklers in the park on the S side of the house, it's a
council park. I normally leave them on all night and
you end up with a massive great sheet of standing
water in the lowest part but that soaks away in a few
hours after you turn the sprinklers off and it never
even spreads onto any of my land, let alone inside
the house. There is no fence on that side so my land
and the park flow into each other and it gives the
visual effect that its all mine. The council mows it
with a ****ing great tractor and mows mine at the
same time because I run the sprinklers for them.

I thought you had water meters in Australia?

We do, but that is the council's water supply in the park.

So if it's their water and presumably their sprinklers,

Yes.

what part do you play in it?

There are two different systems. The park is 50' wide in half of it,
and 75' wide in the other half. In the 50' wide part, you just turn
the tap which is in a hole in the ground half way thru the park.

In the wider part you have to push the sprinklers like these
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....5MICUIU-1L.jpg
into a spring loaded fitting with a metal cap which is in the grass.

http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/images/...hf1/s-l225.jpg
is what they look like before you push them into the ground socket.

Can they not just connect a timer?

Yes, they are just changing the narrow half tap into one of those now.

Or do you go and place them out then remove them

Yes, in the wide part of the park.

so nobody vandalises or stands on them?

You can't actually turn them off and leave them there.
The action of pushing the big brass vertical into the
capped fitting in a hole in the grass is what pushes
the spring loaded valve open and lets the water get
into the vertical and out thru the sprinkler head.

So you get a bit wet then :-)

You don't get wet at all when you get the knack of it.

The sprinkler head ticks around with the arm on the top
spring loaded into the water jet and kicks the sprinkler
around each time it is kicked out of the water jet.

When you push the vertical brass tube into the spring
loaded valve in the dirt, you just aim the water jet
away from you and then step back away from it
with it ticking away from you.

When you need to turn it off, you just wait till its
pointing away from you, walk up to the sprinkler
and just release the vertical brass tube by turning
it using the brass arm you can see half way up so
it stops.

Isn't it easier to turn the main tap off first? Or just go do it in speedos and get all the local women excited.

--
Why are Jewish Men circumcised? Because Jewish women don't like anything that isn't 20% off.

"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:38:02 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:18:51 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:15:15 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick wall
loses
more
than plywood,

There isnt much in it at all.
http://www.archtoolbox.com/materials...n/rvalues.html

Interesting, the wood is better than the brick, even thought it's a
lot
thinner.

Yeah, that's what I meant, you said it better there.

That also has the metal too, they call it siding in there.

Now.... that claims it's 0.61. That's almost as good as brick, which
isn't what people have said in this thread so far.

But that is nothing like a garage door, particularly with
the big air gap you get with siding but not with a door.

Is "siding" the frame of American double glazing?

No, siding is a metal wall of a house or
shed, instead of a brick or wooden wall.

So when you say air gap, is it double?

No, just the inside one.

If there's an air gap, the air gap should be R 4.

especially as the plywood is at the top.

But there is a lot more wall/door area than ceiling area.

I suppose. Anyway it's all been insulated except the floor.

And that wouldn't normally be worth doing, partly because
it isnt easy to do cheaply given you want to be able to hose
out the bird **** and because its got at least 2' of soil under
it which is a pretty decent insulator, and the temperature of
the soil you are leaking the heat into isnt as bad as what is
outside the walls and ceiling, particularly on a winters night.

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/...ulation-part-2

Agreed on the expense, but I could make it have a concrete layer on top
of whatever I made it from..

Not that cheap to do that, essentially because if you
say use polyfoam and then pour the concrete on that,
the concrete needs to be quite thick so it doesn't crack.

I'd have joists and floorboards to support the concrete.

Its actually much better to do it the other way, put
a layer of insulation on top of the existing concrete,
and then pour the new concrete floor on top of that.

That's the way underfloor heating is done.

Joists plus boards plus foam costs a lot

The foam doesn't cost much. The new
concrete floor would be most of the cost.

unless there's some going cheap. I've found a place near here that sells
off recovered stuff from people doing up houses. Cheap boilers,
conservatories, etc, not sure about bricks and wood.

You can get used bricks from demolitions etc, usually bought
from the demolition site rather than a dealer in used bricks tho.
Quite a bit of work to chip off the old mortar, but its unskilled
work and quite easy to do with a scutch hammer.

"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:23:19 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:22:53 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:02:23 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 20:34:03 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:

We did in fact have a mega deluge about 10 years after
it had been built which saw water inches deep in the street
but no water inside the house at all. I actually run the
sprinklers in the park on the S side of the house, it's a
council park. I normally leave them on all night and
you end up with a massive great sheet of standing
water in the lowest part but that soaks away in a few
hours after you turn the sprinklers off and it never
even spreads onto any of my land, let alone inside
the house. There is no fence on that side so my land
and the park flow into each other and it gives the
visual effect that its all mine. The council mows it
with a ****ing great tractor and mows mine at the
same time because I run the sprinklers for them.

I thought you had water meters in Australia?

We do, but that is the council's water supply in the park.

So if it's their water and presumably their sprinklers,

Yes.

what part do you play in it?

There are two different systems. The park is 50' wide in half of it,
and 75' wide in the other half. In the 50' wide part, you just turn
the tap which is in a hole in the ground half way thru the park.

In the wider part you have to push the sprinklers like these
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....5MICUIU-1L.jpg
into a spring loaded fitting with a metal cap which is in the grass.

http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/images/...hf1/s-l225.jpg
is what they look like before you push them into the ground socket.

Can they not just connect a timer?

Yes, they are just changing the narrow half tap into one of those now.

Or do you go and place them out then remove them

Yes, in the wide part of the park.

so nobody vandalises or stands on them?

You can't actually turn them off and leave them there.
The action of pushing the big brass vertical into the
capped fitting in a hole in the grass is what pushes
the spring loaded valve open and lets the water get
into the vertical and out thru the sprinkler head.

So you get a bit wet then :-)

You don't get wet at all when you get the knack of it.

The sprinkler head ticks around with the arm on the top
spring loaded into the water jet and kicks the sprinkler
around each time it is kicked out of the water jet.

When you push the vertical brass tube into the spring
loaded valve in the dirt, you just aim the water jet
away from you and then step back away from it
with it ticking away from you.

When you need to turn it off, you just wait till its
pointing away from you, walk up to the sprinkler
and just release the vertical brass tube by turning
it using the brass arm you can see half way up so
it stops.

Isn't it easier to turn the main tap off first?

It isnt actually, more walking involved.

Its very easy to do without getting wet at all once you
get the hang of it. You just push the big brass vertical
tube into the valve in the grass and turn the lever thru
90 degrees to lock it into the valve. Its got a couple of
pins sticking out at 180 degrees to each other at the
bottom where it goes into the valve.

In fact the most time consuming part is actually finding
the valves, they aren't that easy to find in the grass unless
you know roughly where they are.

Or just go do it in speedos and get all the local women excited.

They'd be even more excited if you do it starkers like you do.

But the only woman who currently overlooks the park
is my back neighbour who is a retired nurse now well
over 70 who has seen it all before and is unlikely to
even bother to watch. The other neighbour who is on
the opposite side of the part to the retired nurse has
just kicked his wife out and divorced her after she
got involved with her toy boy who isnt much older
than her oldest son.

He did go looking for a replacement surprisingly
quickly, but when his oldest son ended up in jail
for quite literally attempting to strangle him, and
she proclaimed that he should let the grandkids
stay in the house instead of being sent back to
their mother and her new ****er, he left her
place very unceremoniously and hasn't been
back since and has some pretty blunt things
to say about women currently.

The other neighbours place has no windows
overlooking the park, tho she does walk thru
there for exercise sometimes.

On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 01:06:06 +0100, Rod Speed wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:23:19 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:22:53 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:

There are two different systems. The park is 50' wide in half of it,
and 75' wide in the other half. In the 50' wide part, you just turn
the tap which is in a hole in the ground half way thru the park.

In the wider part you have to push the sprinklers like these
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....5MICUIU-1L.jpg
into a spring loaded fitting with a metal cap which is in the grass.

http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/images/...hf1/s-l225.jpg
is what they look like before you push them into the ground socket.

Can they not just connect a timer?

Yes, they are just changing the narrow half tap into one of those now.

Or do you go and place them out then remove them

Yes, in the wide part of the park.

so nobody vandalises or stands on them?

You can't actually turn them off and leave them there.
The action of pushing the big brass vertical into the
capped fitting in a hole in the grass is what pushes
the spring loaded valve open and lets the water get
into the vertical and out thru the sprinkler head.

So you get a bit wet then :-)

You don't get wet at all when you get the knack of it.

The sprinkler head ticks around with the arm on the top
spring loaded into the water jet and kicks the sprinkler
around each time it is kicked out of the water jet.

When you push the vertical brass tube into the spring
loaded valve in the dirt, you just aim the water jet
away from you and then step back away from it
with it ticking away from you.

When you need to turn it off, you just wait till its
pointing away from you, walk up to the sprinkler
and just release the vertical brass tube by turning
it using the brass arm you can see half way up so
it stops.

Isn't it easier to turn the main tap off first?

It isnt actually, more walking involved.

You lazy old fart.

Or just go do it in speedos and get all the local women excited.

They'd be even more excited if you do it starkers like you do.

I have never operated a sprinkler system naked :-)

But the only woman who currently overlooks the park
is my back neighbour who is a retired nurse now well
over 70 who has seen it all before and is unlikely to
even bother to watch. The other neighbour who is on
the opposite side of the part to the retired nurse has
just kicked his wife out and divorced her after she
got involved with her toy boy who isnt much older
than her oldest son.

He did go looking for a replacement surprisingly
quickly, but when his oldest son ended up in jail
for quite literally attempting to strangle him, and
she proclaimed that he should let the grandkids
stay in the house instead of being sent back to
their mother and her new ****er, he left her
place very unceremoniously and hasn't been
back since and has some pretty blunt things
to say about women currently.

What a nice caring family.

The other neighbours place has no windows
overlooking the park, tho she does walk thru
there for exercise sometimes.

--
Q: What's the difference between an Irish funeral and an Irish wedding?
A: One less drunk.

On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:54:40 +0100, Rod Speed wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:38:02 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:18:51 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:15:15 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick wall
loses
more
than plywood,

There isnt much in it at all.
http://www.archtoolbox.com/materials...n/rvalues.html

Interesting, the wood is better than the brick, even thought it's a
lot
thinner.

Yeah, that's what I meant, you said it better there.

That also has the metal too, they call it siding in there.

Now.... that claims it's 0.61. That's almost as good as brick, which
isn't what people have said in this thread so far.

But that is nothing like a garage door, particularly with
the big air gap you get with siding but not with a door.

Is "siding" the frame of American double glazing?

No, siding is a metal wall of a house or
shed, instead of a brick or wooden wall.

So when you say air gap, is it double?

No, just the inside one.

Then that's not an insulative gap. How is that any better than my garage door?

If there's an air gap, the air gap should be R 4.

especially as the plywood is at the top.

But there is a lot more wall/door area than ceiling area.

I suppose. Anyway it's all been insulated except the floor.

And that wouldn't normally be worth doing, partly because
it isnt easy to do cheaply given you want to be able to hose
out the bird **** and because its got at least 2' of soil under
it which is a pretty decent insulator, and the temperature of
the soil you are leaking the heat into isnt as bad as what is
outside the walls and ceiling, particularly on a winters night.

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/...ulation-part-2

That refers to a "basement slab", which isn't in direct contact with room temperature air.

Agreed on the expense, but I could make it have a concrete layer on top
of whatever I made it from..

Not that cheap to do that, essentially because if you
say use polyfoam and then pour the concrete on that,
the concrete needs to be quite thick so it doesn't crack.

I'd have joists and floorboards to support the concrete.

Its actually much better to do it the other way, put
a layer of insulation on top of the existing concrete,
and then pour the new concrete floor on top of that.

Yes, that's what I meant, the joists were to support a chipboard floor to hold the concrete "carpet" in place. You can't pour concrete onto polystyrene, it would just crush when you stood on it.

That's the way underfloor heating is done.

Joists plus boards plus foam costs a lot

The foam doesn't cost much. The new
concrete floor would be most of the cost.

No. What I used for the wall was big polystyrene sheets, same stuff as you use for packaging in the post. Quite expensive. Cement, sand, ballast, and stuff like that is **** all from a builder's merchant.

unless there's some going cheap. I've found a place near here that sells
off recovered stuff from people doing up houses. Cheap boilers,
conservatories, etc, not sure about bricks and wood.

You can get used bricks from demolitions etc, usually bought
from the demolition site rather than a dealer in used bricks tho.
Quite a bit of work to chip off the old mortar, but its unskilled
work and quite easy to do with a scutch hammer.

I got used bricks for replacing the garage door. Somebody was knocking down a large garden wall 2 miles away and couldn't be bothered taking the remains to the skip, so I removed the whole bricks for him after he'd demolished it. Dunno what he did with the broken ones. When I say bricks I mean 42cm long concrete blocks. I've got quite a few left over which I may use for a conservatory.

--
If voting could really change things, it would be illegal.

"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:54:40 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:38:02 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:18:51 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:15:15 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick wall
loses
more
than plywood,

There isnt much in it at all.
http://www.archtoolbox.com/materials...n/rvalues.html

Interesting, the wood is better than the brick, even thought it's a
lot
thinner.

Yeah, that's what I meant, you said it better there.

That also has the metal too, they call it siding in there.

Now.... that claims it's 0.61. That's almost as good as brick,
which
isn't what people have said in this thread so far.

But that is nothing like a garage door, particularly with
the big air gap you get with siding but not with a door.

Is "siding" the frame of American double glazing?

No, siding is a metal wall of a house or
shed, instead of a brick or wooden wall.

So when you say air gap, is it double?

No, just the inside one.

Then that's not an insulative gap.

There is actually with a house wall.

How is that any better than my garage door?

The air between the metal and the inner wall.

If there's an air gap, the air gap should be R 4.

especially as the plywood is at the top.

But there is a lot more wall/door area than ceiling area.

I suppose. Anyway it's all been insulated except the floor.

And that wouldn't normally be worth doing, partly because
it isnt easy to do cheaply given you want to be able to hose
out the bird **** and because its got at least 2' of soil under
it which is a pretty decent insulator, and the temperature of
the soil you are leaking the heat into isnt as bad as what is
outside the walls and ceiling, particularly on a winters night.

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/...ulation-part-2

That refers to a "basement slab", which isn't in direct contact with room
temperature air.

Agreed on the expense, but I could make it have a concrete layer on
top
of whatever I made it from..

Not that cheap to do that, essentially because if you
say use polyfoam and then pour the concrete on that,
the concrete needs to be quite thick so it doesn't crack.

I'd have joists and floorboards to support the concrete.

Its actually much better to do it the other way, put
a layer of insulation on top of the existing concrete,
and then pour the new concrete floor on top of that.

Yes, that's what I meant, the joists were to support a chipboard floor to
hold the concrete "carpet" in place.

You don't need any joists or chipboard floor.

You can't pour concrete onto polystyrene,

You can actually and that is how underfloor heating is done.

it would just crush when you stood on it.

No, because the concrete slab spreads the load.

And you can get quite rigid foam you can walk on too.

That's the way underfloor heating is done.

Joists plus boards plus foam costs a lot

The foam doesn't cost much. The new
concrete floor would be most of the cost.

No. What I used for the wall was big polystyrene sheets, same stuff as
you use for packaging in the post. Quite expensive.

Not with the cheapest stuff.

Cement, sand, ballast, and stuff like that is **** all from a builder's
merchant.

In fact with a floor like that it only makes sense to do
it with a readymix/minimix truck and have it pump it in
thru the door. That how the underfloor heating is done.

unless there's some going cheap. I've found a place near here that
sells off recovered stuff from people doing up houses. Cheap boilers,
conservatories, etc, not sure about bricks and wood.

You can get used bricks from demolitions etc, usually bought
from the demolition site rather than a dealer in used bricks tho.
Quite a bit of work to chip off the old mortar, but its unskilled
work and quite easy to do with a scutch hammer.

I got used bricks for replacing the garage door. Somebody was knocking
down a large garden wall 2 miles away and couldn't be bothered taking the
remains to the skip, so I removed the whole bricks for him after he'd
demolished it.

Yeah, that's pretty common way to get them.

Dunno what he did with the broken ones. When I say bricks I mean 42cm
long concrete blocks.

Yeah, that's what I did the house with, 8"x8"x16"
blocks for the outside walls, 8"x4"x16" for the
internal walls. The feature wall is solid 8"x4"x16"
blocks split in a hydraulic machine with the very
rough face where they split, the wall you see,
with granite aggregate and very light almost
white concrete.

I've got quite a few left over which I may use for a conservatory.

On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 02:01:30 +0100, Rod Speed wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:54:40 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:38:02 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:18:51 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:15:15 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick wall
loses
more
than plywood,

There isnt much in it at all.
http://www.archtoolbox.com/materials...n/rvalues.html

Interesting, the wood is better than the brick, even thought it's a
lot
thinner.

Yeah, that's what I meant, you said it better there.

That also has the metal too, they call it siding in there.

Now.... that claims it's 0.61. That's almost as good as brick,
which
isn't what people have said in this thread so far.

But that is nothing like a garage door, particularly with
the big air gap you get with siding but not with a door.

Is "siding" the frame of American double glazing?

No, siding is a metal wall of a house or
shed, instead of a brick or wooden wall.

So when you say air gap, is it double?

No, just the inside one.

Then that's not an insulative gap.

There is actually with a house wall.

How is that any better than my garage door?

The air between the metal and the inner wall.

Are you talking about all the air in the garage? That doesn't count, it has to be 4 inches or less, or you get too much convection.

If there's an air gap, the air gap should be R 4.

especially as the plywood is at the top.

But there is a lot more wall/door area than ceiling area.

I suppose. Anyway it's all been insulated except the floor.

And that wouldn't normally be worth doing, partly because
it isnt easy to do cheaply given you want to be able to hose
out the bird **** and because its got at least 2' of soil under
it which is a pretty decent insulator, and the temperature of
the soil you are leaking the heat into isnt as bad as what is
outside the walls and ceiling, particularly on a winters night.

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/...ulation-part-2

That refers to a "basement slab", which isn't in direct contact with room
temperature air.

Agreed on the expense, but I could make it have a concrete layer on
top
of whatever I made it from..

Not that cheap to do that, essentially because if you
say use polyfoam and then pour the concrete on that,
the concrete needs to be quite thick so it doesn't crack.

I'd have joists and floorboards to support the concrete.

Its actually much better to do it the other way, put
a layer of insulation on top of the existing concrete,
and then pour the new concrete floor on top of that.

Yes, that's what I meant, the joists were to support a chipboard floor to
hold the concrete "carpet" in place.

You don't need any joists or chipboard floor.

You can't pour concrete onto polystyrene,

You can actually and that is how underfloor heating is done.

it would just crush when you stood on it.

No, because the concrete slab spreads the load.

I find that very hard to believe. You might be able to walk across it carefully, but running across it or placing a heavy appliance or piece of furniture on it would cause cracks.

And you can get quite rigid foam you can walk on too.

Probably costing more than the joists and floorboards.

That's the way underfloor heating is done.

Joists plus boards plus foam costs a lot

The foam doesn't cost much. The new
concrete floor would be most of the cost.

No. What I used for the wall was big polystyrene sheets, same stuff as
you use for packaging in the post. Quite expensive.

Not with the cheapest stuff.

I bought the cheapest stuff. About £150 for the ceiling of a single garage, big enough for a car plus a freezer at the end.

Cement, sand, ballast, and stuff like that is **** all from a builder's
merchant.

In fact with a floor like that it only makes sense to do
it with a readymix/minimix truck and have it pump it in
thru the door. That how the underfloor heating is done.

Can't be bothered hiring stuff like that.

unless there's some going cheap. I've found a place near here that
sells off recovered stuff from people doing up houses. Cheap boilers,
conservatories, etc, not sure about bricks and wood.

You can get used bricks from demolitions etc, usually bought
from the demolition site rather than a dealer in used bricks tho.
Quite a bit of work to chip off the old mortar, but its unskilled
work and quite easy to do with a scutch hammer.

I got used bricks for replacing the garage door. Somebody was knocking
down a large garden wall 2 miles away and couldn't be bothered taking the
remains to the skip, so I removed the whole bricks for him after he'd
demolished it.

Yeah, that's pretty common way to get them.

Bloody difficult to lay them straight, as they had 0, 1, or 2 sides with mortar left on them, and not possible to remove it without cracking the bricks.

Dunno what he did with the broken ones. When I say bricks I mean 42cm
long concrete blocks.

Yeah, that's what I did the house with, 8"x8"x16"

Never heard of those. I take it that's for strength. I'd have laid 8x4x16 on their side, although that means twice the mortaring. My house is made of the 8x4x16 ones on the inside layer, and normal little red bricks on the outside layer (with an airgap inbetween).

blocks for the outside walls, 8"x4"x16" for the
internal walls. The feature wall is solid 8"x4"x16"
blocks split in a hydraulic machine with the very
rough face where they split, the wall you see,
with granite aggregate and very light almost
white concrete.

I've got quite a few left over which I may use for a conservatory.

--
A bloke walks into a Glasgow library and says to the prim librarian,
"Excuse me Miss, dey ye hae ony books on suicide?"
To which she stops doing her tasks, looks at him over the top of her glasses and says,
"Buggeroff, ye'll no bring it back!"

"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 02:01:30 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:54:40 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:38:02 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:18:51 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:15:15 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick wall
loses
more
than plywood,

There isnt much in it at all.
http://www.archtoolbox.com/materials...n/rvalues.html

Interesting, the wood is better than the brick, even thought it's
a
lot
thinner.

Yeah, that's what I meant, you said it better there.

That also has the metal too, they call it siding in there.

Now.... that claims it's 0.61. That's almost as good as brick,
which
isn't what people have said in this thread so far.

But that is nothing like a garage door, particularly with
the big air gap you get with siding but not with a door.

Is "siding" the frame of American double glazing?

No, siding is a metal wall of a house or
shed, instead of a brick or wooden wall.

So when you say air gap, is it double?

No, just the inside one.

Then that's not an insulative gap.

There is actually with a house wall.

How is that any better than my garage door?

The air between the metal and the inner wall.

Are you talking about all the air in the garage?

No, taking about the air between the inner
and outer walls in those yankee houses which
have metal outer walls they call siding.

That doesn't count, it has to be 4 inches or less, or you get too much
convection.

And with those yankee walls, that's all it is.

If there's an air gap, the air gap should be R 4.

especially as the plywood is at the top.

But there is a lot more wall/door area than ceiling area.

I suppose. Anyway it's all been insulated except the floor.

And that wouldn't normally be worth doing, partly because
it isnt easy to do cheaply given you want to be able to hose
out the bird **** and because its got at least 2' of soil under
it which is a pretty decent insulator, and the temperature of
the soil you are leaking the heat into isnt as bad as what is
outside the walls and ceiling, particularly on a winters night.

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/...ulation-part-2

That refers to a "basement slab", which isn't in direct contact with
room
temperature air.

Agreed on the expense, but I could make it have a concrete layer on
top
of whatever I made it from..

Not that cheap to do that, essentially because if you
say use polyfoam and then pour the concrete on that,
the concrete needs to be quite thick so it doesn't crack.

I'd have joists and floorboards to support the concrete.

Its actually much better to do it the other way, put
a layer of insulation on top of the existing concrete,
and then pour the new concrete floor on top of that.

Yes, that's what I meant, the joists were to support a chipboard floor
to
hold the concrete "carpet" in place.

You don't need any joists or chipboard floor.

You can't pour concrete onto polystyrene,

You can actually and that is how underfloor heating is done.

it would just crush when you stood on it.

No, because the concrete slab spreads the load.

I find that very hard to believe.

That's how underfloor heating is done.

It is an insulated floor because you don't want to
have most of the heat going into the ground under
the house. So you have the insulation underneath,
then the heating, either pipes or electrical heater,
and the concrete is just poured on top of that.

You might be able to walk across it carefully,

No care needed at all.

but running across it or placing a heavy appliance or piece of furniture
on it would cause cracks.

Doesn't happen with underfloor heating.

And you can get quite rigid foam you can walk on too.

Probably costing more than the joists and floorboards.

Nope. Dirt cheap.

That's the way underfloor heating is done.

Joists plus boards plus foam costs a lot

The foam doesn't cost much. The new
concrete floor would be most of the cost.

No. What I used for the wall was big polystyrene sheets, same stuff as
you use for packaging in the post. Quite expensive.

Not with the cheapest stuff.

I bought the cheapest stuff.

You clearly didn't.

About £150 for the ceiling of a single garage, big enough for a car plus a
freezer at the end.

You were ripped off.

Cement, sand, ballast, and stuff like that is **** all from a builder's
merchant.

In fact with a floor like that it only makes sense to do
it with a readymix/minimix truck and have it pump it in
thru the door. That how the underfloor heating is done.

Can't be bothered hiring stuff like that.

It's a lot more farting around mixing it by hand even
with a mixer and you'd have to hire that anyway.

unless there's some going cheap. I've found a place near here that
sells off recovered stuff from people doing up houses. Cheap boilers,
conservatories, etc, not sure about bricks and wood.

You can get used bricks from demolitions etc, usually bought
from the demolition site rather than a dealer in used bricks tho.
Quite a bit of work to chip off the old mortar, but its unskilled
work and quite easy to do with a scutch hammer.

I got used bricks for replacing the garage door. Somebody was knocking
down a large garden wall 2 miles away and couldn't be bothered taking
the
remains to the skip, so I removed the whole bricks for him after he'd
demolished it.

Yeah, that's pretty common way to get them.

Bloody difficult to lay them straight,

Not once you get the knack of bricklaying.

as they had 0, 1, or 2 sides with mortar left on them,

You remove that with a scutch hammer.

and not possible to remove it without cracking the bricks.

That is just plain wrong with good bricks.

Dunno what he did with the broken ones. When I say bricks I mean 42cm
long concrete blocks.

Yeah, that's what I did the house with, 8"x8"x16"

Never heard of those.

Those are the standard blocks.

I take it that's for strength.

Nope, that's for the big hole, two of them per block.

I'd have laid 8x4x16 on their side,

No point. Tho the 8"x8"x16" are pretty heavy by the end
of the day, particularly when laying them at eye level.

although that means twice the mortaring.

So a complete waste of time.

My house is made of the 8x4x16 ones on the inside layer, and normal little
red bricks on the outside layer (with an airgap inbetween).

8"x8"x16" for the outside walls works a lot better and is vastly less work.

blocks for the outside walls, 8"x4"x16" for the
internal walls. The feature wall is solid 8"x4"x16"
blocks split in a hydraulic machine with the very
rough face where they split, the wall you see,
with granite aggregate and very light almost
white concrete.

I've got quite a few left over which I may use for a conservatory.

On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 21:38:13 +0100, Rod Speed wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 02:01:30 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:54:40 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:38:02 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:18:51 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:15:15 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick wall
loses
more
than plywood,

There isnt much in it at all.
http://www.archtoolbox.com/materials...n/rvalues.html

Interesting, the wood is better than the brick, even thought it's
a
lot
thinner.

Yeah, that's what I meant, you said it better there.

That also has the metal too, they call it siding in there.

Now.... that claims it's 0.61. That's almost as good as brick,
which
isn't what people have said in this thread so far.

But that is nothing like a garage door, particularly with
the big air gap you get with siding but not with a door.

Is "siding" the frame of American double glazing?

No, siding is a metal wall of a house or
shed, instead of a brick or wooden wall.

So when you say air gap, is it double?

No, just the inside one.

Then that's not an insulative gap.

There is actually with a house wall.

How is that any better than my garage door?

The air between the metal and the inner wall.

Are you talking about all the air in the garage?

No, taking about the air between the inner
and outer walls in those yankee houses which
have metal outer walls they call siding.

Doesn't that make a noise when it rains?

That doesn't count, it has to be 4 inches or less, or you get too much
convection.

And with those yankee walls, that's all it is.

If there's an air gap, the air gap should be R 4.

especially as the plywood is at the top.

But there is a lot more wall/door area than ceiling area.

I suppose. Anyway it's all been insulated except the floor.

And that wouldn't normally be worth doing, partly because
it isnt easy to do cheaply given you want to be able to hose
out the bird **** and because its got at least 2' of soil under
it which is a pretty decent insulator, and the temperature of
the soil you are leaking the heat into isnt as bad as what is
outside the walls and ceiling, particularly on a winters night..

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/...ulation-part-2

That refers to a "basement slab", which isn't in direct contact with
room
temperature air.

Agreed on the expense, but I could make it have a concrete layer on
top
of whatever I made it from..

Not that cheap to do that, essentially because if you
say use polyfoam and then pour the concrete on that,
the concrete needs to be quite thick so it doesn't crack.

I'd have joists and floorboards to support the concrete.

Its actually much better to do it the other way, put
a layer of insulation on top of the existing concrete,
and then pour the new concrete floor on top of that.

Yes, that's what I meant, the joists were to support a chipboard floor
to
hold the concrete "carpet" in place.

You don't need any joists or chipboard floor.

You can't pour concrete onto polystyrene,

You can actually and that is how underfloor heating is done.

it would just crush when you stood on it.

No, because the concrete slab spreads the load.

I find that very hard to believe.

That's how underfloor heating is done.

It is an insulated floor because you don't want to
have most of the heat going into the ground under
the house. So you have the insulation underneath,
then the heating, either pipes or electrical heater,
and the concrete is just poured on top of that.

You might be able to walk across it carefully,

No care needed at all.

but running across it or placing a heavy appliance or piece of furniture
on it would cause cracks.

Doesn't happen with underfloor heating.

And you can get quite rigid foam you can walk on too.

Probably costing more than the joists and floorboards.

Nope. Dirt cheap.

I'll bear it in mind. Although from what people have written here I'm not losing much through the concrete slab on the earth. I won't find out till next winter though.

That's the way underfloor heating is done.

Joists plus boards plus foam costs a lot

The foam doesn't cost much. The new
concrete floor would be most of the cost.

No. What I used for the wall was big polystyrene sheets, same stuff as
you use for packaging in the post. Quite expensive.

Not with the cheapest stuff.

I bought the cheapest stuff.

You clearly didn't.

I bought the cheapest I could find. On Ebay. Local trade suppliers were similar prices but had less varieties of thickness, so didn't have what I needed.

About £150 for the ceiling of a single garage, big enough for a car plus a
freezer at the end.

You were ripped off.

Show me where I could have got it for less. 12mm thick.

Cement, sand, ballast, and stuff like that is **** all from a builder's
merchant.

In fact with a floor like that it only makes sense to do
it with a readymix/minimix truck and have it pump it in
thru the door. That how the underfloor heating is done.

Can't be bothered hiring stuff like that.

It's a lot more farting around mixing it by hand even
with a mixer and you'd have to hire that anyway.

I'd buy a second hand mixer for £100, or borrow a neighbour's. I wonder if you could convert an old washing machine?

unless there's some going cheap. I've found a place near here that
sells off recovered stuff from people doing up houses. Cheap boilers,
conservatories, etc, not sure about bricks and wood.

You can get used bricks from demolitions etc, usually bought
from the demolition site rather than a dealer in used bricks tho.
Quite a bit of work to chip off the old mortar, but its unskilled
work and quite easy to do with a scutch hammer.

I got used bricks for replacing the garage door. Somebody was knocking
down a large garden wall 2 miles away and couldn't be bothered taking
the
remains to the skip, so I removed the whole bricks for him after he'd
demolished it.

Yeah, that's pretty common way to get them.

Bloody difficult to lay them straight,

Not once you get the knack of bricklaying.

as they had 0, 1, or 2 sides with mortar left on them,

You remove that with a scutch hammer.

I tried a hammer and cold chisel, but it tended to crack the bricks. Never heard of a scutch hammer.

and not possible to remove it without cracking the bricks.

That is just plain wrong with good bricks.

I dunno what the quality is, they're from a guy's wall.

Dunno what he did with the broken ones. When I say bricks I mean 42cm
long concrete blocks.

Yeah, that's what I did the house with, 8"x8"x16"

Never heard of those.

Those are the standard blocks.

I take it that's for strength.

Nope, that's for the big hole, two of them per block.

I'd have laid 8x4x16 on their side,

No point. Tho the 8"x8"x16" are pretty heavy by the end
of the day, particularly when laying them at eye level.

Indeed.

although that means twice the mortaring.

So a complete waste of time.

By that token, you could get even bigger ones....

My house is made of the 8x4x16 ones on the inside layer, and normal little
red bricks on the outside layer (with an airgap inbetween).

8"x8"x16" for the outside walls works a lot better and is vastly less work.

Same work actually. You just get a thinner wall.

--
"I wonder who discovered we could get milk from cows and what the **** did he think he was doing?!" -- Billy Connolly

"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 21:38:13 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 02:01:30 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:54:40 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:38:02 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:18:51 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:15:15 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick
wall
loses
more
than plywood,

There isnt much in it at all.
http://www.archtoolbox.com/materials...n/rvalues.html

Interesting, the wood is better than the brick, even thought
it's
a
lot
thinner.

Yeah, that's what I meant, you said it better there.

That also has the metal too, they call it siding in there.

Now.... that claims it's 0.61. That's almost as good as brick,
which
isn't what people have said in this thread so far.

But that is nothing like a garage door, particularly with
the big air gap you get with siding but not with a door.

Is "siding" the frame of American double glazing?

No, siding is a metal wall of a house or
shed, instead of a brick or wooden wall.

So when you say air gap, is it double?

No, just the inside one.

Then that's not an insulative gap.

There is actually with a house wall.

How is that any better than my garage door?

The air between the metal and the inner wall.

Are you talking about all the air in the garage?

No, taking about the air between the inner
and outer walls in those yankee houses which
have metal outer walls they call siding.

Doesn't that make a noise when it rains?

Sure, but so do cars and vans and caravans etc etc etc.

That doesn't count, it has to be 4 inches or less, or you get too much
convection.

And with those yankee walls, that's all it is.

If there's an air gap, the air gap should be R 4.

especially as the plywood is at the top.

But there is a lot more wall/door area than ceiling area.

I suppose. Anyway it's all been insulated except the floor.

And that wouldn't normally be worth doing, partly because
it isnt easy to do cheaply given you want to be able to hose
out the bird **** and because its got at least 2' of soil under
it which is a pretty decent insulator, and the temperature of
the soil you are leaking the heat into isnt as bad as what is
outside the walls and ceiling, particularly on a winters night.

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/...ulation-part-2

That refers to a "basement slab", which isn't in direct contact with
room
temperature air.

Agreed on the expense, but I could make it have a concrete layer
on
top
of whatever I made it from..

Not that cheap to do that, essentially because if you
say use polyfoam and then pour the concrete on that,
the concrete needs to be quite thick so it doesn't crack.

I'd have joists and floorboards to support the concrete.

Its actually much better to do it the other way, put
a layer of insulation on top of the existing concrete,
and then pour the new concrete floor on top of that.

Yes, that's what I meant, the joists were to support a chipboard floor
to
hold the concrete "carpet" in place.

You don't need any joists or chipboard floor.

You can't pour concrete onto polystyrene,

You can actually and that is how underfloor heating is done.

it would just crush when you stood on it.

No, because the concrete slab spreads the load.

I find that very hard to believe.

That's how underfloor heating is done.

It is an insulated floor because you don't want to
have most of the heat going into the ground under
the house. So you have the insulation underneath,
then the heating, either pipes or electrical heater,
and the concrete is just poured on top of that.

You might be able to walk across it carefully,

No care needed at all.

but running across it or placing a heavy appliance or piece of furniture
on it would cause cracks.

Doesn't happen with underfloor heating.

And you can get quite rigid foam you can walk on too.

Probably costing more than the joists and floorboards.

Nope. Dirt cheap.

I'll bear it in mind. Although from what people have written here I'm not
losing much through the concrete slab on the earth.

Yeah, its certainly much less than you were losing thru everything else.

Less clear what the story is now tho, it may now be where most of the
heat is escaping depending on what you are doing ventilation/leaks wise.

I won't find out till next winter though.

True. Certainly not worth spending the considerable
amount of money required unless you can establish
that it will pay for itself with reduced heating bills.

That's the way underfloor heating is done.

Joists plus boards plus foam costs a lot

The foam doesn't cost much. The new
concrete floor would be most of the cost.

No. What I used for the wall was big polystyrene sheets, same stuff
as
you use for packaging in the post. Quite expensive.

Not with the cheapest stuff.

I bought the cheapest stuff.

You clearly didn't.

I bought the cheapest I could find. On Ebay. Local trade suppliers were
similar prices but had less varieties of thickness, so didn't have what I
needed.

Like that is just because your local trade suppliers are useless.

I bought very little of what I built the house with locally,
almost all of it showed on on semis with some of the stuff
like major appliances showing up as freight on the train
from the state capital.

In the case of the insulation I'd borrow
a car trailer and go and get it using that.

I did plan to do that with the 13 8'x8' patio doors
but since I bought so many the supplier was happy
to have someone personally deliver them the same
way for free.

About £150 for the ceiling of a single garage, big enough for a car plus
a
freezer at the end.

You were ripped off.

Show me where I could have got it for less. 12mm thick.

You should have been using thicker than that. That is likely
the problem, you chose to use what isnt the cheapest that way.

Cement, sand, ballast, and stuff like that is **** all from a
builder's
merchant.

In fact with a floor like that it only makes sense to do
it with a readymix/minimix truck and have it pump it in
thru the door. That how the underfloor heating is done.

Can't be bothered hiring stuff like that.

It's a lot more farting around mixing it by hand even
with a mixer and you'd have to hire that anyway.

I'd buy a second hand mixer for £100, or borrow a neighbour's.

You've clearly never mixed that much concrete using one.

I wonder if you could convert an old washing machine?

Makes a hell of a lot more sense to use a readymix or minimix.

unless there's some going cheap. I've found a place near here that
sells off recovered stuff from people doing up houses. Cheap
boilers,
conservatories, etc, not sure about bricks and wood.

You can get used bricks from demolitions etc, usually bought
from the demolition site rather than a dealer in used bricks tho.
Quite a bit of work to chip off the old mortar, but its unskilled
work and quite easy to do with a scutch hammer.

I got used bricks for replacing the garage door. Somebody was
knocking
down a large garden wall 2 miles away and couldn't be bothered taking
the
remains to the skip, so I removed the whole bricks for him after he'd
demolished it.

Yeah, that's pretty common way to get them.

Bloody difficult to lay them straight,

Not once you get the knack of bricklaying.

as they had 0, 1, or 2 sides with mortar left on them,

You remove that with a scutch hammer.

I tried a hammer and cold chisel, but it tended to crack the bricks.

Yep, that's the problem with doing it like
that if you don't know what you are doing.

Never heard of a scutch hammer.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...CL._SX300_.jpg

and not possible to remove it without cracking the bricks.

That is just plain wrong with good bricks.

I dunno what the quality is, they're from a guy's wall.

You would if you know anything about bricks.

Dunno what he did with the broken ones. When I say bricks I mean 42cm
long concrete blocks.

Yeah, that's what I did the house with, 8"x8"x16"

Never heard of those.

Those are the standard blocks.

I take it that's for strength.

Nope, that's for the big hole, two of them per block.

I'd have laid 8x4x16 on their side,

No point. Tho the 8"x8"x16" are pretty heavy by the end
of the day, particularly when laying them at eye level.

Indeed.

although that means twice the mortaring.

So a complete waste of time.

By that token, you could get even bigger ones....

They are then too heavy to lift.

My house is made of the 8x4x16 ones on the inside layer, and normal
little
red bricks on the outside layer (with an airgap inbetween).

8"x8"x16" for the outside walls works a lot better and is vastly less
work.

Same work actually.

Nope, you have two walls to lay and the bricks are a hell
of a lot more work than even just one wall of blocks.

You just get a thinner wall.

Not true either.

On Thu, 14 Apr 2016 01:21:15 +0100, Rod Speed wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 21:38:13 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 02:01:30 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:54:40 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:38:02 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:18:51 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:15:15 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick
wall
loses
more
than plywood,

There isnt much in it at all.
http://www.archtoolbox.com/materials...n/rvalues.html

Interesting, the wood is better than the brick, even thought
it's
a
lot
thinner.

Yeah, that's what I meant, you said it better there.

That also has the metal too, they call it siding in there.

Now.... that claims it's 0.61. That's almost as good as brick,
which
isn't what people have said in this thread so far.

But that is nothing like a garage door, particularly with
the big air gap you get with siding but not with a door.

Is "siding" the frame of American double glazing?

No, siding is a metal wall of a house or
shed, instead of a brick or wooden wall.

So when you say air gap, is it double?

No, just the inside one.

Then that's not an insulative gap.

There is actually with a house wall.

How is that any better than my garage door?

The air between the metal and the inner wall.

Are you talking about all the air in the garage?

No, taking about the air between the inner
and outer walls in those yankee houses which
have metal outer walls they call siding.

Doesn't that make a noise when it rains?

Sure, but so do cars and vans and caravans etc etc etc.

But we spend most of our lives in houses.

That doesn't count, it has to be 4 inches or less, or you get too much
convection.

And with those yankee walls, that's all it is.

If there's an air gap, the air gap should be R 4.

especially as the plywood is at the top.

But there is a lot more wall/door area than ceiling area.

I suppose. Anyway it's all been insulated except the floor..

And that wouldn't normally be worth doing, partly because
it isnt easy to do cheaply given you want to be able to hose
out the bird **** and because its got at least 2' of soil under
it which is a pretty decent insulator, and the temperature of
the soil you are leaking the heat into isnt as bad as what is
outside the walls and ceiling, particularly on a winters night.

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/...ulation-part-2

That refers to a "basement slab", which isn't in direct contact with
room
temperature air.

Agreed on the expense, but I could make it have a concrete layer
on
top
of whatever I made it from..

Not that cheap to do that, essentially because if you
say use polyfoam and then pour the concrete on that,
the concrete needs to be quite thick so it doesn't crack.

I'd have joists and floorboards to support the concrete.

Its actually much better to do it the other way, put
a layer of insulation on top of the existing concrete,
and then pour the new concrete floor on top of that.

Yes, that's what I meant, the joists were to support a chipboard floor
to
hold the concrete "carpet" in place.

You don't need any joists or chipboard floor.

You can't pour concrete onto polystyrene,

You can actually and that is how underfloor heating is done.

it would just crush when you stood on it.

No, because the concrete slab spreads the load.

I find that very hard to believe.

That's how underfloor heating is done.

It is an insulated floor because you don't want to
have most of the heat going into the ground under
the house. So you have the insulation underneath,
then the heating, either pipes or electrical heater,
and the concrete is just poured on top of that.

You might be able to walk across it carefully,

No care needed at all.

but running across it or placing a heavy appliance or piece of furniture
on it would cause cracks.

Doesn't happen with underfloor heating.

And you can get quite rigid foam you can walk on too.

Probably costing more than the joists and floorboards.

Nope. Dirt cheap.

I'll bear it in mind. Although from what people have written here I'm not
losing much through the concrete slab on the earth.

Yeah, its certainly much less than you were losing thru everything else.

Less clear what the story is now tho, it may now be where most of the
heat is escaping depending on what you are doing ventilation/leaks wise.

I read something that only 25% of your house heat goes through the walls, which makes cavity wall insulation pretty pointless. The floor will be a lot less than that. Less of it, and already better insulated, and cooler air due to heat rising.

I won't find out till next winter though.

True. Certainly not worth spending the considerable
amount of money required unless you can establish
that it will pay for itself with reduced heating bills.

That's the way underfloor heating is done.

Joists plus boards plus foam costs a lot

The foam doesn't cost much. The new
concrete floor would be most of the cost.

No. What I used for the wall was big polystyrene sheets, same stuff
as
you use for packaging in the post. Quite expensive.

Not with the cheapest stuff.

I bought the cheapest stuff.

You clearly didn't.

I bought the cheapest I could find. On Ebay. Local trade suppliers were
similar prices but had less varieties of thickness, so didn't have what I
needed.

Like that is just because your local trade suppliers are useless.

I bought very little of what I built the house with locally,
almost all of it showed on on semis with some of the stuff
like major appliances showing up as freight on the train
from the state capital.

What? Re-write in English.

In the case of the insulation I'd borrow
a car trailer and go and get it using that.

I did plan to do that with the 13 8'x8' patio doors
but since I bought so many the supplier was happy
to have someone personally deliver them the same
way for free.

About £150 for the ceiling of a single garage, big enough for a car plus
a
freezer at the end.

You were ripped off.

Show me where I could have got it for less. 12mm thick.

You should have been using thicker than that. That is likely
the problem, you chose to use what isnt the cheapest that way.

That gave an R of 17. Way more than what I had. And that thickness matched the height of the joists so it was most sensible.

Cement, sand, ballast, and stuff like that is **** all from a
builder's
merchant.

In fact with a floor like that it only makes sense to do
it with a readymix/minimix truck and have it pump it in
thru the door. That how the underfloor heating is done.

Can't be bothered hiring stuff like that.

It's a lot more farting around mixing it by hand even
with a mixer and you'd have to hire that anyway.

I'd buy a second hand mixer for £100, or borrow a neighbour's.

You've clearly never mixed that much concrete using one.

A single garage floor isn't much.

I wonder if you could convert an old washing machine?

Makes a hell of a lot more sense to use a readymix or minimix.

Never heard of them.

unless there's some going cheap. I've found a place near here that
sells off recovered stuff from people doing up houses. Cheap
boilers,
conservatories, etc, not sure about bricks and wood.

You can get used bricks from demolitions etc, usually bought
from the demolition site rather than a dealer in used bricks tho..
Quite a bit of work to chip off the old mortar, but its unskilled
work and quite easy to do with a scutch hammer.

I got used bricks for replacing the garage door. Somebody was
knocking
down a large garden wall 2 miles away and couldn't be bothered taking
the
remains to the skip, so I removed the whole bricks for him after he'd
demolished it.

Yeah, that's pretty common way to get them.

Bloody difficult to lay them straight,

Not once you get the knack of bricklaying.

as they had 0, 1, or 2 sides with mortar left on them,

You remove that with a scutch hammer.

I tried a hammer and cold chisel, but it tended to crack the bricks.

Yep, that's the problem with doing it like
that if you don't know what you are doing.

Never heard of a scutch hammer.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...CL._SX300_.jpg

Why is that better than a chisel with the same sharpness? Ok, maybe my chisel needs a sharper blade. Easy enough to grind it down a bit.

and not possible to remove it without cracking the bricks.

That is just plain wrong with good bricks.

I dunno what the quality is, they're from a guy's wall.

You would if you know anything about bricks.

A brick is a brick isn't it? How can I tell the quality? They weigh 3 stone each and are 4 x 8 x 16 inches.

Dunno what he did with the broken ones. When I say bricks I mean 42cm
long concrete blocks.

Yeah, that's what I did the house with, 8"x8"x16"

Never heard of those.

Those are the standard blocks.

I take it that's for strength.

Nope, that's for the big hole, two of them per block.

I'd have laid 8x4x16 on their side,

No point. Tho the 8"x8"x16" are pretty heavy by the end
of the day, particularly when laying them at eye level.

Indeed.

although that means twice the mortaring.

So a complete waste of time.

By that token, you could get even bigger ones....

They are then too heavy to lift.

Depends on the builder. And if there's two people helping....

My house is made of the 8x4x16 ones on the inside layer, and normal
little
red bricks on the outside layer (with an airgap inbetween).

8"x8"x16" for the outside walls works a lot better and is vastly less
work.

Same work actually.

Nope, you have two walls to lay and the bricks are a hell
of a lot more work than even just one wall of blocks.

You just get a thinner wall.

Not true either.

Huh? Your dimension changed from 4 to 8 inches, horizontally. You need the same number of bricks to make the wall.

--
A drunk was in front of a judge. The judge says, "You've been brought here for drinking."
The drunk says, "Okay, let's get started."

"Rod Speed" wrote:

In practice it's the very low thermal mass that
stops you getting burnt when you touch it.

Yep. People frequently confuse heat with temperature.

--
Nige Danton - Replace the obvious with g.m.a.i.l

On Sat, 16 Apr 2016 03:11:25 +0100, Nige Danton wrote:

"Rod Speed" wrote:

In practice it's the very low thermal mass that
stops you getting burnt when you touch it.

Yep. People frequently confuse heat with temperature.

Does "heat" even have a specific meaning? I guess "specific heat capacity" is specific, but otherwise it's not really used in Physics.

--
"A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit."
- Army preventative maintainance publication

"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Thu, 14 Apr 2016 01:21:15 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 21:38:13 +0100, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 02:01:30 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:54:40 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:38:02 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:18:51 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news On Tue, 05 Apr 2016 23:15:15 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message
news I can believe you on the door, but I can't believe a brick
wall
loses
more
than plywood,

There isnt much in it at all.
http://www.archtoolbox.com/materials...n/rvalues.html

Interesting, the wood is better than the brick, even thought
it's
a
lot
thinner.

Yeah, that's what I meant, you said it better there.

That also has the metal too, they call it siding in there.

Now.... that claims it's 0.61. That's almost as good as
brick,
which
isn't what people have said in this thread so far.

But that is nothing like a garage door, particularly with
the big air gap you get with siding but not with a door.

Is "siding" the frame of American double glazing?

No, siding is a metal wall of a house or
shed, instead of a brick or wooden wall.

So when you say air gap, is it double?

No, just the inside one.

Then that's not an insulative gap.

There is actually with a house wall.

How is that any better than my garage door?

The air between the metal and the inner wall.

Are you talking about all the air in the garage?

No, taking about the air between the inner
and outer walls in those yankee houses which
have metal outer walls they call siding.

Doesn't that make a noise when it rains?

Sure, but so do cars and vans and caravans etc etc etc.

But we spend most of our lives in houses.

Plenty spend more time out of their house than in it.

That doesn't count, it has to be 4 inches or less, or you get too much
convection.

And with those yankee walls, that's all it is.

If there's an air gap, the air gap should be R 4.

especially as the plywood is at the top.

But there is a lot more wall/door area than ceiling area.

I suppose. Anyway it's all been insulated except the floor.

And that wouldn't normally be worth doing, partly because
it isnt easy to do cheaply given you want to be able to hose
out the bird **** and because its got at least 2' of soil under
it which is a pretty decent insulator, and the temperature of
the soil you are leaking the heat into isnt as bad as what is
outside the walls and ceiling, particularly on a winters night.

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/...ulation-part-2

That refers to a "basement slab", which isn't in direct contact with
room
temperature air.

Agreed on the expense, but I could make it have a concrete layer
on
top
of whatever I made it from..

Not that cheap to do that, essentially because if you
say use polyfoam and then pour the concrete on that,
the concrete needs to be quite thick so it doesn't crack.

I'd have joists and floorboards to support the concrete.

Its actually much better to do it the other way, put
a layer of insulation on top of the existing concrete,
and then pour the new concrete floor on top of that.

Yes, that's what I meant, the joists were to support a chipboard
floor
to
hold the concrete "carpet" in place.

You don't need any joists or chipboard floor.

You can't pour concrete onto polystyrene,

You can actually and that is how underfloor heating is done.

it would just crush when you stood on it.

No, because the concrete slab spreads the load.

I find that very hard to believe.

That's how underfloor heating is done.

It is an insulated floor because you don't want to
have most of the heat going into the ground under
the house. So you have the insulation underneath,
then the heating, either pipes or electrical heater,
and the concrete is just poured on top of that.

You might be able to walk across it carefully,

No care needed at all.

but running across it or placing a heavy appliance or piece of
furniture
on it would cause cracks.

Doesn't happen with underfloor heating.

And you can get quite rigid foam you can walk on too.

Probably costing more than the joists and floorboards.

Nope. Dirt cheap.

I'll bear it in mind. Although from what people have written here I'm
not
losing much through the concrete slab on the earth.

Yeah, its certainly much less than you were losing thru everything else.

Less clear what the story is now tho, it may now be where most of the
heat is escaping depending on what you are doing ventilation/leaks wise.

I read something that only 25% of your house heat goes through the walls,

That is a number straight from someone's arse.
That varys with the construction of the house and
how well its sealed etc and how many windows
it has and whether they are double glazed etc.

which makes cavity wall insulation pretty pointless. The floor will be a
lot less than that.

It may now be where you are losing most
of your heat depending what you have
done about sealing and ventilation.

Less of it, and already better insulated, and cooler air due to heat
rising.

It has little to do with heat rising once its well insulated.

I won't find out till next winter though.

True. Certainly not worth spending the considerable
amount of money required unless you can establish
that it will pay for itself with reduced heating bills.

That's the way underfloor heating is done.

Joists plus boards plus foam costs a lot

The foam doesn't cost much. The new
concrete floor would be most of the cost.

No. What I used for the wall was big polystyrene sheets, same stuff
as
you use for packaging in the post. Quite expensive.

Not with the cheapest stuff.

I bought the cheapest stuff.

You clearly didn't.

I bought the cheapest I could find. On Ebay. Local trade suppliers
were
similar prices but had less varieties of thickness, so didn't have what
I
needed.

Like that is just because your local trade suppliers are useless.

I bought very little of what I built the house with locally,
almost all of it showed on on semis with some of the stuff
like major appliances showing up as freight on the train
from the state capital.

What? Re-write in English.

That's english you dress wearing hairy legged wog.

In the case of the insulation I'd borrow
a car trailer and go and get it using that.

I did plan to do that with the 13 8'x8' patio doors
but since I bought so many the supplier was happy
to have someone personally deliver them the same
way for free.

About £150 for the ceiling of a single garage, big enough for a car
plus
a
freezer at the end.

You were ripped off.

Show me where I could have got it for less. 12mm thick.

You should have been using thicker than that. That is likely
the problem, you chose to use what isnt the cheapest that way.

That gave an R of 17. Way more than what I had.

What you had is irrelevant, what matters is what is economic
as far as loss is concerned relative to the cost of it. It costs
peanuts more to have it thicker than that and saves quite
a bit more power.

And that thickness matched the height of the joists so it was most
sensible.

I don't believe you have 12mm joists.

Cement, sand, ballast, and stuff like that is **** all from a
builder's
merchant.

In fact with a floor like that it only makes sense to do
it with a readymix/minimix truck and have it pump it in
thru the door. That how the underfloor heating is done.

Can't be bothered hiring stuff like that.

It's a lot more farting around mixing it by hand even
with a mixer and you'd have to hire that anyway.

I'd buy a second hand mixer for £100, or borrow a neighbour's.

You've clearly never mixed that much concrete using one.

A single garage floor isn't much.

You've clearly never mixed that much concrete using one.

I wonder if you could convert an old washing machine?

Makes a hell of a lot more sense to use a readymix or minimix.

Never heard of them.

Just the name. The ****ing great trucks that deliver concrete that
is comes out of the truck into the formwork and sets there.
http://g02.s.alicdn.com/kf/HT108KvFS...aXXagOFbXe.jpg

A minimix is the smaller version of that, not much bigger than a small van.
http://www.cityminimix.com/wp-conten...k-Unit-003.jpg

unless there's some going cheap. I've found a place near here
that
sells off recovered stuff from people doing up houses. Cheap
boilers,
conservatories, etc, not sure about bricks and wood.

You can get used bricks from demolitions etc, usually bought
from the demolition site rather than a dealer in used bricks tho.
Quite a bit of work to chip off the old mortar, but its unskilled
work and quite easy to do with a scutch hammer.

I got used bricks for replacing the garage door. Somebody was
knocking
down a large garden wall 2 miles away and couldn't be bothered
taking
the
remains to the skip, so I removed the whole bricks for him after
he'd
demolished it.

Yeah, that's pretty common way to get them.

Bloody difficult to lay them straight,

Not once you get the knack of bricklaying.

as they had 0, 1, or 2 sides with mortar left on them,

You remove that with a scutch hammer.

I tried a hammer and cold chisel, but it tended to crack the bricks.

Yep, that's the problem with doing it like
that if you don't know what you are doing.

Never heard of a scutch hammer.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...CL._SX300_.jpg

Why is that better than a chisel with the same sharpness?

It has nothing to do with sharpness. Its got a toothed
end, nothing like the flat end that a chisel has.

And its much lighter, very hard to break a brick with it.

Ok, maybe my chisel needs a sharper blade. Easy enough to grind it down a
bit.

Not the problem. The problem is that when you hit
it with a hammer, its very easy to break the brick.

Very difficult to break the brick with a scutch hammer,
because its much lighter and doesn't have the same
edge that concentrates the force on the brick.

and not possible to remove it without cracking the bricks.

That is just plain wrong with good bricks.

I dunno what the quality is, they're from a guy's wall.

You would if you know anything about bricks.

A brick is a brick isn't it?

Nope. There is a vast difference in how easy it is to break the brick.

How can I tell the quality?

See how easy they are to break.

They weigh 3 stone each and are 4 x 8 x 16 inches.

Those are blocks, not bricks.

Dunno what he did with the broken ones. When I say bricks I mean
42cm
long concrete blocks.

Yeah, that's what I did the house with, 8"x8"x16"

Never heard of those.

Those are the standard blocks.

I take it that's for strength.

Nope, that's for the big hole, two of them per block.

I'd have laid 8x4x16 on their side,

No point. Tho the 8"x8"x16" are pretty heavy by the end
of the day, particularly when laying them at eye level.

Indeed.

although that means twice the mortaring.

So a complete waste of time.

By that token, you could get even bigger ones....

They are then too heavy to lift.

Depends on the builder.

Nope.

And if there's two people helping....

Very awkward block laying that way.

My house is made of the 8x4x16 ones on the inside layer, and normal
little
red bricks on the outside layer (with an airgap inbetween).

8"x8"x16" for the outside walls works a lot better and is vastly less
work.

Same work actually.

Nope, you have two walls to lay and the bricks are a hell
of a lot more work than even just one wall of blocks.

You just get a thinner wall.

Not true either.

Huh? Your dimension changed from 4 to 8 inches, horizontally.

Nope, because of the cavity between the two walls.

You need the same number of bricks to make the wall.

Wrong again.

Mr Macaw wrote
Nige Danton wrote
Rod Speed wrote

In practice it's the very low thermal mass that
stops you getting burnt when you touch it.

Yep. People frequently confuse heat with temperature.

Does "heat" even have a specific meaning?

Yes it does, that's what is measured in calories.

I guess "specific heat capacity" is specific,
but otherwise it's not really used in Physics.

Yes it is in that situation.