Big J

Interior or exterior insulation. Interior isn't as effective and impinges on room sizes and still has issues of cold bridging where interior walls join exterior walls. Exterior is more effective but there are issues with planning, the eaves detail where it meets the roof and it's not as effective on a very thick wall (ie 600mm). Generally better than internal insulation as there are no thermal bridges (continuous envelope). As you say, the cavity is there for a reason and shouldn't be filled. There is no ideal solution, and insulation should be done on an individual house by house basis. The best thing we could do in terms of energy conservation is to knock down most of our existing house stock and build proper houses! Every material has a vapour permeability rating, with many materials classed as moisture permeable. There are quite a range for EWI and IWI that will do this. I do agree that there are potentially costs as opposed to cavity wall insulation, but it can't be overstressed how unhealthy a damp house is. I'd rather live in a cold house than a damp house anyday.

That is unfortunately normally the case. You may get slightly better thermal properties in the wall, but the foam that is injected isn't moisture permeable meaning that moisture is unable to escape through the wall. To anyone thinking of getting cavity wall insulation, don't! There are much more effective ways of insulating your home. The government have jumped onto the green wagon with this one though and offer grants for something that generally creates more issues than it solves.

Yes, shut it. Make sure that the fire is good and hot first though. We also have a Villager stove, though I think a different model. I disagree. Shutting the air down doesn't necessarily mean that it is going to smoulder. I run both my stove and my Rayburn overnight but they don't smoulder. With dry timber, a good bed on the fire and a controlled air flow, you have the recipe for a good, slow, clean burn. Lots of air into the stove doesn't necessarily mean a clean chimney but it definitely means wasted fuel.

Showers aren't too bad as you can contain the moisture within the bathroom, but indoor drying of washing is a tricky one. Unless you have a well ventilated room with a good heat source, you can cause a lot of issues with damp, mould and breathing related illnesses. At 250w (the rating of your dehumidifier), you are using 70 pence of electricity a day to keep the house dry - another option would be a tumble dryer, which uses 4-5kw (44-55 pence) and doesn't create the same indoor air quality issues. Jonathan

Air control is the key. Get a flue thermometer - best £12 you can spend on a stove. Ensure that prior to closing it down, you get the temp fairly high (top of safe zone) and then close vents. You would fully stoke the fire prior to bringing the temperature up. Make sure every last cubic inch of the firebox is full or timber. Species of timber is important too. I find scrub elm to burn longer than anything else. Cherry is a close second.

In older houses, they were never constructed to deal with the amount of water that we now use in our houses. So washing machines, dishwashers, showers, baths, indoor bathrooms etc. This is where you get moisture from in a house, as well as human/animal respiration of course. Modern houses are constructed better in terms of moisture management with moisture permeable membranes such as Tyvek. In older houses, a lime or clay plaster is a very useful tool for moisture management. The difficulty that we have personally is that we like in an old rented estate cottage, and due to the damp crappy summers we have had lately, there is almost no way to keep the house dry in summer except for dehumidification. When it's 18 degrees and 80% RH outside, it's going to be the same inside. A clay or lime plaster would really help, but it's not our house. Generally speaking, the housing stock in this country is very poor, whether it's old or new.

Have you considered a heat recovery unit for moisture control in winter (less effective in summer due to temperature differential indoor/outdoor being smaller)? A HRU like this one: Vent Axia Manrose Heat Recovery Ventilation Fan Unit - Bathroom Shower Kitchen | eBay On trickle setting will pull out quite a bit of water with almost no electrical cost. You also get decent ventilation with 70% heat recovery. For instance, if the outdoor temperature is 0 celcius and 80% humidity and indoor temperature is 20 celcius and 50% humidity, there is 4g/cubic metre water coming in for every 10g water going out. At 43 cubic metres an hour, you are going to extract just over 6 litres of water a day for a cost of 12w (a daily electrical saving of 5.71kw/ 68 pence). Just an idea - it's the same principle I kiln my timber on. I like heat recovery units as they are so simple - very little to break down. Jonathan

Lots of stunning quality Elm out of the kiln now at 1.5 inch (40mm) thickness. Boards up to 27 inches wide and around 8ft long. It's the best straight elm I've had, and the colouring is wonderful. Price is £40 a cubic foot plus VAT, but if you order over £500 plus VATs worth, there is a 10% discount this week. I hate December - very quiet on the timber sales front until about the 4th or 5th of January. Also, truly lovely quality pippy Oak (kiln dried) at 1.25 and 1.5 inches. One side straight edged (3ft diameter plus tree halved with chainsaw mill and then popped onto the woodmizer). No defects at all - completely flat, no shake or checking. £41 a cubic foot plus VAT. Same 10% offer applies. Boards up to 18 inches wide and 9ft long. Also plenty of Cedar, beech, Lime and some Ash. PM for details. Jonathan

I must have shown that video to a good dozen different people in the last 6 months. Different times!

Great cladding timber - is there anyone in the area that can take it? There is no finer cladding - extremely quick to dry (and dries far flatter than larch) and lovely figure/grain. Jonathan

That is mental! Are you actually able to wear any clothes in your house, or are tiny sauna towels costume de rigueur?

Fair enough I suppose. Wood burners have come on a long way recently. Our stove and Rayburn are fairly low maintenance and produce very little ash (one 20 litre bucket per 3 weeks, for 3 cubic metres burned). Jonathan

Why?

You've got a free supply of heat that is processed at the expense of the business Stephen. I say go for it. I love our Rayburn - it is the heart of the house and rather than heating being something that you basically ignore (except for when the gas bill comes in), it becomes something you lovingly prepare and care for. We do almost all our cooking on ours, as well as getting heating and hot water. The best thing is that you are in control of your fuel costs - not at the whim of energy companies.

I think that we've had this discussion before, but where you are in the country will hugely affect the MC of logs you are drying. Northamptonshire is one of the driest places in the country, both in terms of rainfall and relative humidity. In Edinburgh, we are probably somewhere in the middle, but you would genuinely struggle to ever get logs below 20% on the west coast of Scotland or parts of Wales. Sub 25% is fine. If customers are having issues with timber of that MC, it's most likely because they don't know how to operate the stove. Jonathan

Hi Chris, and welcome to the forum. Just plant birch. I felled one yesterday in a stand of mainly Oak and sycamore to favour the Oak. I love birch and hate felling decent specimens, but that's the job specification. This tree was less than 50 years old, 18 inches diameter and 75ft tall. At least a tonne of timber in it, despite growing in a fairly exposed (to north easterlies) position. I've worked in other stands on the estate with 15 year old birch 40ft tall and 8 inch DBH. For clean, trouble free timber, just plant birch!

Sod 'em. If people had half a brain they would be stocking up at the start of spring for the following winter, rather than waiting until the middle of winter to order. I am constantly amazed by the number of people that don't know how to a) correctly store firewood b) correctly operate a stove. It's so bloody simple - get any timber and get it dry. Doesn't have to be any specific species (though they all have their own burning characteristics). Light your stove, get it to temperature (get a flue thermometer - best £12 you can spend) and enjoy. Even my neighbour, who is more or less reliant on her stove for her heat can't use it properly. 'Just ticking over' equates to two logs smouldering tarring up the chimney giving off no heat. Rant over!

That would still be useful. You can tell a reasonable amount from a standing stem. If push comes to shove, I'm in Derbyshire from the 23rd to the 27th and can always have a look at it for you. Jonathan

Yes, if the quality is good enough. I milled a 120 cubic foot stem (26ft long, 34 inch diameter) in February. It was very clean and produced excellent quality boards. I cut them at 3 and 4 inches thick with wood turners in mind and I've probably sold about half of it so far. It dries very quickly, with the three inch stock down to 25% MC by October. I've kilned most of the remainder. Some of it has gone for a kitchen (this lime was relatively hard) and it's turned out beautifully (though the photos don't really do it justice): If you want to pop up a picture of the lime, I'll give you my best opinion as to whether to mill it. Jonathan

Perhaps lucas mill the main stem into posts. Cutting to 8x8 should yield in the region of 16-20 posts which would make ideal posts for a small barn or the like. Would fetch about £50 each too by my reckoning. You could turn some of the remaining straighter sections into cladding, and then firewood the remainder to fill the newly constructed barn. I milled quite a bit of excellent quality deodar cedar earlier in the year, and whilst it is moving, it's moving very slowly. It's kiln dried too.

PM (about to be) sent

Nuts!!

I've had the MS260 and 346XP and I'm now on a 550XP. All excellent saws. For your needs I'd go for a new Makita - this shop was linked in another thread and I'd say get the full pro Makita for less than £310: Makita DCS5031-45 Chainsaw Petrol 2 Stroke Easy Start Better off with the new saw IMO.

Very well done - that is an impressive weight loss, very well illustrated with the cheese!

If you can wait until the 23rd or thereabouts, I can drop off something on the way to Derby. I've got some very nice 1.5 inch Elm boards up to 27 inches wide, and some 3 and 4 inch lime up to 32 inches wide. Jonathan