El Pibe

In all fairness Otta, deep amoing the guts of Steiner philosophy, they pose some interesting and relevant questions, it's just that their answers are so very, very wrong!!

This is of course the argument given to justify the astronomic costs. Last I heard (or watched on inside london or whatever it's called) interest was next to nowt. Agreed they are pretty though. It does rather seem to be the job of government these days to piss good cash up the wall for the 'big idea'. At least the bus is a great deal cheaper than the Olympics, or millennium tent, or NHS IT, or Aircraftless carriers, or Eurofighter or........(ad nauseum)

Much as I love some of the wackier stuff out there, we are quite limited in how zany we can be as the original farmhouse and outhouses are listed and basically need to end up looking like they do now...only without the rotting crumbling ex/interiors obviously.

Steiner = Woo. Avoid like the plague.

Doesn't the catch all "The management reserves the right..." suffice?

LOL, oh that's fine then, why didn't you mention it was anaglyptic? ;-P

"a wallpaper trellis has been set up, with rolls of embossed 'period' looking wallpaper." Oh dear, I reluctantly refer to my comment. "whereby a pub can be revitalised without going down the canoes on the ceiling (20 years ago), pine/chrome (15 years ago), flock wallpaper (10 years ago)" Seriously, can't they try for a dash of originality? Flock fecking wallpaper!!!!

I'm a lapsed Spaniard, I try to talk to El Pibi?o in Spanish, but far too inconsistently. I'd be interested in going along to something like this though only weekends would work for me unfortuantely as he's full time in nursery (plus my rusty Spanish could do with some help too).

Good advice SC, thanks for that. We are pretty remote so are almost definitely going with SPV, hopefully we can get some pretty decent output as we have a lot of surface area to work with. Everyone in that part of the world goes with oil burners which is something we're very keen to avoid if possible for a whole host of reasons about cost (present and future), sustainability, energy security and of course carbon footprint.

Doesn't Kings College Hospital have a team, THey used to drink at (and for a time were sponsored by) the George Canning.

Thanks for all the advice and wishes of luck everyone, I'm sure we'll need it but I'm feeling a little less like I'm floundering in ignorance now.

Right, will do Ruari, I'm not convinced the architect will have even heard of them, thanks again! With the state of the economy over there, quite possibly *Bob*, quite possibly!!

Thanks a million; so invest in the insulation first and foremost, sounds very sensible, I'll look into it.

Thanks UDT. We do rather fit the bill for: "Heat-pump systems ... might be worthwhile installing in new-build projects, as an alternative to oil or LPG (Calor gas) in country areas."

Our original London architect was very keen on passivehaus, for one reason or another we didn't go with him and went with a local one who frankly didn't know their arse from their elbow. It'll be a very big property, about 450 m2 altogether with an odd configuration (double heights, single heights, height and a half bits) as well as sort of three wings based around a central glazed hallway. This is done to unite but stay true to the original buildings though we'll be levelling and efectively starting from scratch. I'm wondering if passivehaus standard may be unafordable, or can we not afford not to...so to speak? Not to take up too much of your professional time, and thanks for the feedback, but not really knowing anything is our insulation a decent standard, now would be the time to gt those changes in?

I thought NN might appreciate this http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/who-runs-the-world/

"bring back singing the national anthem at every gathering of 500+" "bring back hunting land mammals with dogs" "Stop motorcyclists driving cars" "Allow all those wanting to do a nvq 3 to do just that " "return indicators to cars" These are all open btw.

I think Cockers could probably stand for parliament on an independent ticket with this crucial legislation

Thanks *Bob*, this site is a comedy goldmine!! This one is currently active, only 99899 signatures to go!!

wonderful, I can't imagine why it was rejected.

Cool, all good thoughts, thanks chaps. '30-40% less' sounds more plausible than the '20% of' which was quoted to me (by a salesman obviously). Of sloar energy, our architect says she runs her place entirely off the panels from march to october which is really encouraging (even in Ireland!!!).

I think there are enclosed heat capture/retention systems, I'm sure this has been mentioned to me. I'd love to know what it entails and if I can implement it.

Ok, seeing as this place is full of know it alls, I was wondering if people knew everything about modern architectural practices and more specifically keeping carbon footprint low and energy costs down. I'm building a house very soon, I have planning and am in the tendering process, meaning we're having to think very seriously about details now. Most importantly is heat and energy sources. I like the sound of geothermal energy, but am a little sceptical about some of the claims the vendors are making and am wondering if anyone knows what the real energy [electricity] costs are compared to say traditional gas or oil powered water heating and what the long term costs are in maintenance and replacement of pumps and so forth. The place will have 10cm high density cavity insulation in walls, floors and ceiling with 30cm around joists, so we should be good at retaining heat. We'll have high quality insulation with the windows too. Do people have any experience with solar thermal transfer and whether this might be viable on its own or in conjunction with another source. (there is about 18 metres of south facing wall we can harness and about 300 m2 of roof space. THere are also 3 wood burning stoves and an open fire. We're also looking at solar panels for electricity generation. Any other alternative ideas we should be looking at? I'm completely open to suggestion as this is all pretty new to me. I'd like to cook with gas out of habit, but first and foremost we want to have little or no dependence on fossil fuels for any of it (especially oil!!) and we do have an old aga we can plumb into whatever we do end up using. Wow, I bored myself with that one!! Bear in mind also this is far to the west of here in a place not known for being either a)warm or b)sunny. *edited mostly for paragraphs and things*

I thought we agreed the Mash was pass?, but that's silly even by their standards!!!! Oooohhhhhh. Tha Mail huh? Go figure!

Moncur and Potts, have I gone through a time warp here? Please tell me there isn't a young Abou in the wings!