Hey friends,

It's May! My favourite month. I love it because the trees have got their mojo back, the air is cool but the sun is strong which caught me out this weekend as I managed to get sunburn during a stay on the north Kent coast 🥵.

We stayed in a recently built steel-frame house with lots of mod cons. I'm always keen to see what I can implement at home so here's what stood out:

• An instant boiling water Quooker tap. These retail at over £1k in some cases so what's the fuss about? Well, it was super convenient but felt a little dangerous too. I'm okay with a kettle but one to think about.
• Light on a PIR sensor. There was an inner walkway where the lights came on automatically for about 30 second as you walked through. It was good but there were no options for always-on or always-off so I think when I do the hallway lights I'll be putting in a PIR but with those options. I've got that 3 option switch on the soffit lights in the garden room and that works well.
• A woodburner - a tall and narrow one with a metal flue. I was impressed by how easy it was to light and, with a little tuning of the air inlet, how long you can make a log last. I'm looking forward to getting one.

🤺 Fencing

The trip was for my mum's 70th birthday and instead of a gift, she asked me to instead do some DIY at her house.

I replaced a portion of the fence at the back of the garden room about a year ago but the rest of it fell down over winter.

I can remember this fence being put in, probably when I was around 12 years old so it lasted nearly 25 years which isn't bad going. As you can see the posts broke at ground level where there is both oxygen and moisture...

...not below ground - the bottom of the posts look almost as good as new. This is a point I made in my fencing videos and why with timber posts it might be a good idea to use sleeves to keep this section of the posts dry. When I did my close-board fence I built up from the postcrete with cement to achieve much the same thing.

I reversed the gate, used the breaker to get through the concrete, chewed through the London clay, installed two new posts and a gravel board and I reused the undamaged section of fencing. Not my finest work but hopefully it will last another 20 years or so.

There are a bunch of other jobs I need to do here like staining the decking so expect some updates as the summer goes on.

👨🏻‍💼 The problem with EPCs

Longer term, there's significant work to be done. The house is let out and there's a looming issue which is that it has an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of D and by 2025 all rented properties need to be a minimum of a C for any new tenancies (currently it's E), or you get delivered a £30k fine. The alternative is to show you've spent at least £10k in energy improvements. It looks like this legislation may be pushed back to 2028, in line with the deadline for existing tenancies. None of this is confirmed quite yet, it's still working its way through parliament, leaving landlords hanging.

Now, obviously I'm all for saving energy and making our housing stock better but the EPC is problematic:

• If the assessor can't see insulation, it doesn't exist. Case in point:

The loft extension does indeed have insulation, PIR - readily viewable by opening the door to the eaves.

• Neither type nor thickness of insulation is factored in.
• No U-value calculations are used.
• Air tightness isn't tested.
• The one thing that the EPC could be good for - a reliable calculation of floor area - is often inaccurate.

We'll do what we have to but it would be nice if a) EPCs were accurate and b) there was a level playing field rather than the lottery of which assessor you get. If you are doing work, such as suspended floor insulation, make sure you take lots of photos and be there to show the assessor when they come!

Worst case scenario is this pushes landlords out the market and we get a further rental squeeze. The cynic in me assumes there'll be a mad rush as the deadline approaches and builders will simply charge the maximum £10k for putting a hot water jacket on a cylinder or changing some light bulbs. The landlord doesn't have to have any void periods for major work and everyone's happy 🙃.

👋

That wasn't a very cheery ending was it? Here's some trees to enjoy:

Oh! My fitness update. April was a weird month of wild swings but I did at one point break below the 160lbs mark. From the lowest March to the lowest April weigh-in I lost 1.6 lbs. A lot slower.

Using a Total Daily Energy Expenditure calculator, confirmed by my Apple Watch data, I can see that I burn around 150 cals less per day now than I did when I started due to being lighter. So I think this month I'm going to increase my activity levels some more to try to get some of that difference back but as ever, diet is king for weight loss.

Hit "reply" if you've got any comments on this week's newsletter – otherwise I'll see you next time. Have an epic week :)

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