Hey friends,

♨️ Loft Vents

Between waiting for the plumber and taking a weekend for family outings it's been a bit of a slow week but there are a few things worth reporting.

I popped in the downlights we discussed last week so my next task was to go up into the loft to run the cables between them. However, as soon as I'd raised my head above the hatch, I was hit by what I can only describe as a wall of heat. It must have been in the 35 degree+ range. I can't work in this sauna!

The problem is there's no ventilation to speak of. With the lights off you can see a few small gaps but they're not enough. This was highlighted on our survey and I just haven't done anything about until now. In more modern buildings the roofing paper is breathable but we have the old style non-breathable bitumen membrane.

While insanely hot in summer, it's probably not a cause for concern, other than it keeping the rest of the house warmer than it ought to be. It's winter that poses an issue as the moisture that gets into the loft has no escape, will condense and eventually cause the timbers to rot...and I have noticed some water droplets in winter.

Ironically, because there's only 100mm insulation at the moment, it's a relatively warm 'cold roof' and probably why we've not suffered any damage yet...just paying to heat up the loft. Once I get round to adding more layers of insulation though, the loft will get colder and we can expect more condensation.

So it needs some vents. I looked on Amazon for some PVC ones that push in-between the overlapping bitumen to create an opening but came across a helpful review that recommended using pipe lagging instead, the argument being that all you need is to hold bitumen apart. As I had some surplus lagging in the loft I gave it a go.

As soon as I'd separated the bitumen a cooling breeze wafted in. If Abi had come to see me at that moment she may have witnessed by head stuck between the rafters sighing with a satisfied look across my face. It worked and it's probably a better solution than the pre-made vents as it's not only cheaper but you can cut each section to the exact amount of slack you have in the bitumen.

To get a through-flow of air they need to be installed on both sides of the loft and perhaps shouldn't be directly opposite one-another otherwise you might get a flow in a straight line without taking much moisture out with it. Ideally we'd also have soffit vents but we don't have a soffit and also ridge vents as the moist air may still get trapped at the apex of the roof. I'll monitor it and perhaps cut into the bitumen near the top if I feel it's needed.

It's a good and cheap solution which I'd recommend. After my working conditions were corrected I cut and clipped all the cabling as previously described here.

💨 Extractor Fan

My next task was the extractor fan. You can either have it vented out the wall which is common or get an inline one and position it in your loft (or possibly the ceiling void for ground floor bathrooms). The advantage of these is that they are more powerful and quieter because they're not in the room with you. To vent them, you can either go through the soffit which, again, I don't have...

... or you can go through the roof by replacing a tile with something like this:

Given the large overhangs on our roof, that's going to be tricky. I also read that having a vertical bit of pipe in a cold roof can cause condensation to occur before it's gotten to the outside and results in water droplets flowing back down. The other thing that came up is the ridges in a flexible pipe needed for such an install can trap moisture and dust, unlike a smooth straight PVC pipe. Whether either of these issues are common occurrences, I don't know.

So while I liked the idea at first I decided to go the direct route through the wall. I opted for this fan which, while pretty ugly, is supposed to be quiet and extracts 97m3 per hour. Our bathroom is 17m3 so that's 5.7 air exchanges an hour or if I set the timer (which this model has) to run for 10 minutes after turning off the lights that's 1 whole exchange.

I didn't bother with a humidistat (good for showers on summer evenings where you might not turn the light on) nor did I want some fancy app to control it. I just want it to do its job and once installed, to never have to think about it.

I decided to locate it near the shower as this model is rated for Zone 1. I just had to think about where the joists were so I can get the cable up to the loft later.

Now I need a big hole so I purchased a core drill set to use with my SDS drill. The proper tool for this job is, unsurprisingly, a core drill like this but an SDS drill will work. The crucial thing is it needs to have a clutch to avoid it getting snagged and ripping your arm off. Fortunately my one does.

The function you want is drill mode at 6 o'clock, not hammer drill (9 o'clock). The 12 o'clock symbol is the chisel function which will come in handy in a minute.

To get started I drilled a hole with the masonry bit supplied with the kit which then sits in the core drill bit to keep you lined up straight. Once your core drill bit is in an inch or so you can take the masonry bit out. Bit confused? 😝

Now I'm not one for selfies but here you are. Bit of a Freddy vibe going on here. Or is it Jason? I forget.

The problem comes when you've gone as far as the depth of the core drill goes because then the core of the brick prevents you from going further.

I had 2 options. The first was to drill with a long masonry bit all the way through to get the location and start core drilling again from outside. It's very high up and I didn't fancy it at such a height (it's a heavy set up too) so my second option was to knock out the brick core in order to continue. I switched the dial of the SDS drill to chisel mode and knocked the brick out with one of these chisel bits I'd bought a while back. They're useful for knocking off old tiles or render too which I'm looking forward to in the old bathroom.

Once through I had a very nice circular hole which I can now fit some pipe through. On the other side will be a back-draught grille. Damn, I've been spelling draught incorrectly! Apparently they're better than a gravity grille.

Satisfying, plus I could confirm our walls are indeed cavity-less.

🌳 Garden

I've also done a bit outside. The bed I'll be dedicating to growing fruit and veg was doing my nut in as it projected into the garden and was throwing off my mowing lines. So I dug out a section to be flat with the rest of the lawn and re-seeded.

I've decided I will be removing the asbestos roof of the shed myself so I've emptied it of the previous owners' trinkets in preperation.

Quite the collection of tat. I had a quick glance at the bottom of each in case I might be throwing out my sought after treasure but alas, all junk more or less. The local dump takes these things and re-sells them so perhaps will become someone else's treasure. I got rid of some hideous gnomes the same way, although I did think 'give a gnome a home' would have made a good sign to stick out front.

On the upside I did find a shiny 1953 sixpence though. It's worth about a pound on ebay which, given there were 240 pennies to the pound back then, has actually beaten inflation. Impressive.

You can see the swings are up. I'm thinking that section of the garden should be the kiddo's play area. Perhaps some oak edging and bark. Anyone got a good set-up I can copy?

👋

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