Member postings for Mike Garnham

...........while we're at it, would it now be possible to but a tag on each gallery posting so that wherever it crops up on the site the name of the gallery owner goes with it?

It is always a bit of a pain seeing a posting which refers to someones photo, but without clicking on the photo you have no idea whose work it is.

For instance, here is a post started by Sparky responding to a gallery posting. Unless Sparky gives a clue as to whose gallery item it is (which he hasn't in this case), the only way to find out whose photo it is is to go to the gallery. If the photo had a title on it saying from the x gallery of Joe Bloggs it would make responding so much easier.

Anyway.......glad that the changeover seems to have worked.

Cheers

Mike

Ben,

I am not sure what is happening with the galleries.......

I have just tried to find my chopping boards from Christmas here and they don't seem to be in any of my galleries even though they remain on show in the posting. Furthermore, when you click on them in the posting it doesn't take you to a gallery but simply opens a Jpeg in a seperate viewer.

Mike

Beech is traditional, Phil, but the ash boards I made for Christmas have worked exceptionally well......look here.

Mike

Did it work?

Stop chamfers Olly!! It needs stop chamfers.........on the corners at least, but best if you can do them on all the stiles and rails.

There could be a lot of shrinkage with that cross grain lid design.......you're going to have to think about that carefully. It will be all about screw positions and either t&g or half-laps.

If they've got kids I would think of something to prevent the lid crashing down on little fingers. Either space it off the top, or have a child-proof clip.

I know this is a quick drawing, and you would do the following automatically in the workshop, but your joins between vertical boards (is this matching?) must be symmetrical. It looks awful otherwise, as I note everytime I look at my bathroom cabinet!

This looks quite tall......what are the dims?

Mike

No problem, Keith.......they all have optional filters (which, BTW, make them great for hay-fever sufferers if done on a whole house basis).

Mike

It's sketch-time!!!

Could you do a quick (pencil not SU) sketch, scan it and post it or PM me.......

There's always a way!!

Mike

The inlet and outlet are just the ends of a 4 inch pipe. These pipes connect back to the fan unit (which is the thing you see in the website), which also has pipes connected to it bringing in fresh air, and ducting out stale air. There is very little weight at all in the inlet and outlet, but they are fixed points because of the pipework.....so a door isn't suitable. the unit itself obviously has to be fixed in place because of the pipework.....ideally at the top of a cupboard in in the loft, but you could faste it to the soffit of your basement, or hang it on the wall. It will depend on the pipe runs and the drain-off point.

There is virtually no wiring involved. It is certainly DIY. The Vent-Axia has a plug on a lead for plugging into any socket........all you need to do is screw a wire in place inside the control box to determine the speed at which the fans run. There is no wiring at the inlet and outlet positions.

Baz's bit of kit looks excellent. Probably has a higher spec than the Vent Axia unit. However, it will almost certainly cost a lot more, and the VA is plenty good enough (13 trouble free years of service in the first house I built, and still going strong).

Mike

baz wrote (see)

He has asked about it once or twice Marc .

This looks very much like ash to me.......

.............isn't this that bed you were supposed to start about 6 months ago Baz?!!

Mike

I've even thought of a way of doing a wooden piano hinge........that could look good here.

Probably the easiest is a pin hinge (my name..........no idea what is really called!), where you bring the sides up past the lid, or plant something on the sides, and simply drill through into the lid and insert pins.

Mike

Hey PJ!!!!!

Welcome back!!!

Wooden hinges are the way to go, I reckon. They're always a great talking point. Somewhere on here is a photoset of me making wooden T hinges.......probably not what you need.....

Dinner time......so more later!

Mike

Hi Baz,

Mine is a Baxi, and so are the 8 or 10 others I have installed. 

VA was just my shorthand for Vent Axia.

I think they all collect condensation in the base.........and now that it is plastic there is no problem as long as the overflow runs down-hill (and doesn't freeze up!)

Mike

Ben,

Here is a link to a Vent Axia product that may well suit. You will have to chat to the people at Vent Axia to see if I have got the right piece of kit for your purpose.........I am more used to the Baxi range which has now been taken over by VA.

A couple of suggestions. Firstly, avoid the flexible pipes which they suggest. There are cheap light 100mm pipes and fittings available from Screwfix amongst others. These are less noisy, and less prone to collecting dust internally. Push-fit fittings, taped up, make it a very easy installation.

Secondly, you will obviously be supplying and extracting from the same room (your basement). This will mean having the terminals as far apart as possible........say, inlet at low level at one end of the room, extract at high level at the opposite end. Your fresh-air-in terminal should also be sited a long way from your stale-air-out terminal (ideally on another face of the house).

You will need to decide on a location for the unit which should be within easy reach of a drain of some description so that the drained-off condensate can run away easily.

These machines run continuously (35w), producing a controlled continuous air-change, extracting a lot of the heat from the stale outgoing air to pre-warm the incoming fresh air. They are boostable (normally when I have burnt the bacon!!)........either manually, or via a humidistat. For an irregularly used room such as your basement, a humidistat might be worth considering.

Hope this helps! 

Mike

As I said Baz, i swear by the whole-house systems. It certainly won't be too noisy......just don't locate it over a bedroom because the only time you'll hear it is at night. They are a magic bit of kit! I'd be interested to know which one you plan to use.......

Mike

baz wrote (see)

If you go for the ventilation route Ben, you could always go for a heat recovery ventilation system. These have a drain which deals with any condensation formed within them & claim to be up to 95 percent efficient depending on manufacturer.

Baz

Great idea Baz...I'd forgotten they did the little individual fans with a heat exchanger.  95% is ridiculously optimistic, but nevertheless, they do work well. I have a whole house system with heat recovery.............and it is the best thing about the house. I couldn't live without one again.

Mike

Nice Baz......

I bet that left you a bit pushed for space in your workshop.......especially when it was clamped up!!

Did you glue it? If so, what did you use?

Mike

Andrew,

Why? They are simply little rectangular things with a couple of screw holes..... 5 minutes of a job in wood for a man of your skills!

Mike

Ben,

your potential heat losses through an increased rate of ventilation would be small compared with the energy and financial costs of running a de-humidifier constantly.

I would be very careful.........no, I'll be stronger........I just would not recommend internal tanking. At best, in my view, it is a temporary solution until the external water pressure  pushes the barrier off the wall or rots the wall structure away behind the tanking. At worst, it hides the problem, moves it elsewhere and can be expensive and unpredictable.

I have just finished a new-build project with a large cellar, and the conversations with the specialist suppliers of water-proofing materials were quite an eye-opener! They wouldn't even guarantee a purpose-built concrete-reinforced blockwork construction in light soil with low water table. We had to do the whole basement, walls and floor, in re-inforced concrete.......simply for the waterproofing, (and we were proposing best-practice external tanking). It wasn't required structurally.

I would certainly remove any vestiges of the polythene sheet, if there are any. That would just be a good way to trap moisture, encourage mould growth, and  prevent the ventilation doing its drying work.

You can still insulate the walls, but would need to leave a ventilated void between the insulation and the wall..........if you propose going down this route let me know and I'll give you some details.

I think that once the initial drying-out period is over you will be quite surprised how well the forced ventilation works, how little it comes on, and how much better the air smells (and how much drier your wood is).

Hope this helps...........

Mike

PS Sorry to hijack your thread, Joshua!! BTW, your in a small group as far as my experience goes.........a site carpenter who relies on hand-tools!! Good for you!!!