Keeping your home warm / heating / energy crisis / insulation etc

UK plumbing & heating, in both installer and consumer habit senses, is in the dark ages.

People are so conditioned to tolerating shit/old/both UK housing stock and poorly designed heating systems that they won’t bat an eyelid at having to step out of bed into a freezing room to fire up a massively overpowered blast furnace monstrosity of a gas boiler for an hour before leaving the house to freeze again until they return.

I went through 6 different plumbers doing the house up, most of whom were incredulous at the idea of a heat pump being installed, telling me I’ll be ripping it all out in a year and belling them up to bang a gas combi in. None had much of an idea of what a heat pump even did.

Dehumidifiers for a bathroom where the bathroom doesn't have a socket that's within easy reach/don't want loads of fucking cables thanks.

So are you asking for dehumidifiers which don’t need power?

If you just want to get water out of the bathroom you're better off using a karcher window vac to get off the surface water from bath, shower, tiles than using a dehumidifier.

My intention for bathroom ventilation where the current fan isn't cutting it and dehumidifier is a hassle is one of these silent, always on fans.

https://www.greenwood.co.uk/continuous-extract-dmev/unity-cv2-gip

Edit: and also a window vac as above. That sucks up about 100ml of water after morning showers in the winter.

Yes, these are really good. You can set them either to come on when the light does, or when the humidity level raises.

In my old place I had it set to come on when the humidity level raises, and it transformed what was previously a not very nice downstairs shower room.

even a sqidgee wiper at the end of each shower is a game changer. The way I see it - a bathroom as a certain about of evaporative capacity (from a window or a radiator or a fan). The more moisture in the room, the longer it will take to dry and the more than towels will smell, and grout will mold.

Whatever you can do to reduce the amount of moisture, do it. I designed my shower to have as many flat surfaces as possible to it's a 30 second job to get a load of water off the walls/screen/floor and into the sink. Grout all still looks near brand new after 2.5 years.

Magnets. How do they work?

Righto. Karcher shower/squidgee wiper/plan to get an extractor fan installed.
Some form of electrocution plan to encourage people out of the shower after 5 mins.

1. Window open when showering
   
2. karcher window vac (large capacity)
   
3. Fan left on
   
   

You could also look at upgrading your extractor fan.

Or are you looking to dry a mound of wet towels each day?

Charlie diy has a number of video on this topic
https://youtu.be/WvSE9aAmeGk?

Window only
No Fan
Kids

?
Install Fan
Adopt Kids

Adopt Kids

I don't think more kids will solve the problem

The two fans he recommends in the vid are great.

Ideal would be the inline fan if you have a loft space above the bathroom. They're easy (cheap) to install, quiet, and work really well.

The drill out the wall solution is faster to install and fine if you don't have loft space above.

Either way, if you don't have a fan, you really should get one.

Yeah more kids is not what i'm after here.

I installed the Vent Axia Svara as recommended by Charlie DIYte. The app seems like a gimmick but it's actually really useful for setting up as the fan has lots of different modes. It's also really easy to clean it out as you can take the fan unit out to access the duct.

But yeah I also use a squeegee and a Karcher window vac, which are far more effective at keeping moisture levels down than the fan.

Dehumidifiers don't need to be in the specific room you're trying to dry out if you leave the door open they remove moisture from all around (depending on how big they are it might just take more time).

How much does that cost?

You seem to be able to pick them up for about £60-70.

I just need to check it will slot in to where my current not particularly good fan is.

You can often get them for ~£30 brand new on eBay.

I bought one before deciding to install MVHR instead; they’re genuinely silent in background mode, and the humidistat is very effective. No need to wire into lighting circuit, just mains. Set and forget.

Squeegeeing after every shower does wonders, as well as quickly wiping down the overspill around basins etc to keep the silicone sealant and grout fresh.

Windows open wide for 10 minutes?

i have a window of a few days where wife and children are away so...

i'm going to insulate all the heatingsome pipes in the subfloor. Anyone done this before? Any best practice guides for materials/general approach?

Yes, I did this as part of insulating underneath our ground floor floorboards.

It's easy and satisfying. I used Climaflex polyethylene lagging, best bang for buck. Secured with cable ties (do not fasten too tight, lagging should not be deformed at all).

You'll need to work out the outer diameter of your pipes, and use the correct bore size. We have 22mm primaries and 15mm tails to rads, so used the correct bore insulation with 25mm wall for 15mm tails, and 19mm wall for 22mm primaries.

I cut the mitres with a fully-extended craft knife. Don't worry about getting it perfect; the energy lost to a few slivers of exposed copper will be negligible.

If you have rodents using your subfloor, you'll need to wrap the lot in metal mesh tape, which costs shitloads and takes forever. We installed mesh over the airbricks to stop them getting in instead.

I would like to go down this route too. Your post is very useful stuff, thanks for sharing.

insulating underneath our ground floor floorboards

Did you already post about your experience and learnings from this? I remember a bunch of chat about rubble in floor voids, but I'm more interested in the detail of insulation and membranes/tape in relation to floor joists.