The pollsters could be missing a Harris surge – politicalbetting.com

System

The pollsters could be missing a Harris surge – politicalbetting.com

Young Black women are leading the way, seeing their registration almost triple, relative to the same point in 2020. Young Hispanic women aren't far behind, with a 150% increase in registration. Black women overall have almost doubled their registration numbers from 2020.

Read the full story here

bondegezou

1st

MattW

2nd. Thank-you for the header.

FPT:

Nigelb said:

As it's a JD Vance thread, here's TwitterX on town name pronunciations in Ohio.

There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy.
https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191

Houston: “How-stun”
Russia: “Roo-shee”
Bellefountaine - "Bell Fountain"
Genoa - "Juh Noah"
Leipsic - "Lip sick"

There's a hamlet in Derbyshire called New York - just like the one in Ukraine. And one in Nidderdale. And one in East Lindsay.

jamesdoyle

There was also the info a couple of weeks back that someone had posted a thread on TwiX titled 'Can my husband find out it how I voted', (showing that they couldn't) which had 8 million views in less than a week.
Those husbands aren't going to be Harris voters, are they?

MarqueeMark

jamesdoyle said:

There was also the info a couple of weeks back that someone had posted a thread on TwiX titled 'Can my husband find out it how I voted', (showing that they couldn't) which had 8 million views in less than a week.
Those husbands aren't going to be Harris voters, are they?

But their wives are....

(and still not fixed the running order of posts I see - grrr......)

JosiasJessop

MattW said:

2nd. Thank-you for the header.

FPT:

Nigelb said:

As it's a JD Vance thread, here's TwitterX on town name pronunciations in Ohio.

There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy.
https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191

Houston: “How-stun”
Russia: “Roo-shee”
Bellefountaine - "Bell Fountain"
Genoa - "Juh Noah"
Leipsic - "Lip sick"

There's a hamlet in Derbyshire called New York - just like the one in Ukraine. And one in Nidderdale. And one in East Lindsay.

There are loads of New Yorks in England, including one in Staffs, to the northeast of Leek. But I don't know of one in Derbyshire?

DavidL

My posts have gone upside down with the latest at the bottom. Weird, as JD Vance would say, weirdly.

Edit, and this one has gone to the top. Is this PB or confused.com?

ydoethur

It is true that registering doesn't equal voting.

However, registering at all suggests a big surge in enthusiasm. Quite possibly sparked by fear of a Trump presidency and all it would entail with the likes of Vance or Kennedy involved.

We should also ask ourselves if these people will be voting early. We keep talking about November 5th but early voting begins in many states on October 7th. If they do, even if they have second thoughts later it may not lead them to abrogate their vote.

TheScreamingEagles

DavidL said:

My posts have gone upside down with the latest at the bottom. Weird, as JD Vance would say, weirdly.

Edit, and this one has gone to the top. Is this PB or confused.com?

Vanilla has done one of its unannounced 'upgrades'.

Robert is trying to reverse the 'upgrade'.

DavidL

Anyway, one of the big signs that I think is favourable to Harris is that those states with abortion on the ballot are having a surge of young voter registration. This is particularly strong in Arizona and Nevada. The amount of joy I get from the fact that Trump's frankly evil compromise with evangelicals delivering lying muppets onto the SC to overturn Roe, is likely to cost him re-election probably says nothing good about me.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/28/2266250/-Harris-campaign-focuses-on-Arizona-in-its-push-to-drive-Gen-Z-voters-to-the-polls?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_3&pm_medium=web

RochdalePioneers

Surely the task is simple - the GOP need to remove all of these new voters from the ballot. Its just unfair that Joe Biden could be undemocratically removed from the ballot. Perhaps the Supreme Court of the GOP needs to rule that removing Biden is unconstitutional or something.

Because Trump is getting demolished.

Sandpit

ydoethur said:

It is true that registering doesn't equal voting.

However, registering at all suggests a big surge in enthusiasm. Quite possibly sparked by fear of a Trump presidency and all it would entail with the likes of Vance or Kennedy involved.

We should also ask ourselves if these people will be voting early. We keep talking about November 5th but early voting begins in many states on October 7th. If they do, even if they have second thoughts later it may not lead them to abrogate their vote.

For balance, there’s also a large Republican campaign going on in swing states around voter registration and early/postal voting, which they’ve not done before but which came from the post-mortem of the 2020 election.

Led by a young man called Scott Presler. https://x.com/scottpresler

DavidL

RochdalePioneers said:

Surely the task is simple - the GOP need to remove all of these new voters from the ballot. Its just unfair that Joe Biden could be undemocratically removed from the ballot. Perhaps the Supreme Court of the GOP needs to rule that removing Biden is unconstitutional or something.

Because Trump is getting demolished.

As that vaguely annoying Eon advert says this is already in hand. Over 1m people have been struck from the Texas register already, just in case it was getting close.

Its democracy Ian, but not as we know it.

Nigelb

MattW said:

2nd. Thank-you for the header.

FPT:

Nigelb said:

As it's a JD Vance thread, here's TwitterX on town name pronunciations in Ohio.

There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy.
https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191

Houston: “How-stun”
Russia: “Roo-shee”
Bellefountaine - "Bell Fountain"
Genoa - "Juh Noah"
Leipsic - "Lip sick"

There's a hamlet in Derbyshire called New York - just like the one in Ukraine. And one in Nidderdale. And one in East Lindsay.

Every state in the US must give at least one town a pronunciation that is inexplicable and specifically designed to easily identify outsiders
https://x.com/politicalmath/status/1828568040377651535

ydoethur

Sandpit said:

ydoethur said:

It is true that registering doesn't equal voting.

However, registering at all suggests a big surge in enthusiasm. Quite possibly sparked by fear of a Trump presidency and all it would entail with the likes of Vance or Kennedy involved.

We should also ask ourselves if these people will be voting early. We keep talking about November 5th but early voting begins in many states on October 7th. If they do, even if they have second thoughts later it may not lead them to abrogate their vote.

For balance, there’s also a large Republican campaign going on in swing states around voter registration and early/postal voting, which they’ve not done before but which came from the post-mortem of the 2020 election.

Led by a young man called Scott Presler. https://x.com/scottpresler

The snag is,it's all well and good asking for early voters but at this moment Trump's campaign is going through a bad patch. Unless it reverses rapidly - the debate probably has to be the game changer for him - early voting is not to his advantage as the votes won't be for him.

TheScreamingEagles

Sandpit said:

ydoethur said:

It is true that registering doesn't equal voting.

However, registering at all suggests a big surge in enthusiasm. Quite possibly sparked by fear of a Trump presidency and all it would entail with the likes of Vance or Kennedy involved.

We should also ask ourselves if these people will be voting early. We keep talking about November 5th but early voting begins in many states on October 7th. If they do, even if they have second thoughts later it may not lead them to abrogate their vote.

For balance, there’s also a large Republican campaign going on in swing states around voter registration and early/postal voting, which they’ve not done before but which came from the post-mortem of the 2020 election.

Led by a young man called Scott Presler. https://x.com/scottpresler

Isn't he a bit Eddie Izzard, pretty much losing every election he campaigns for?

Edit - I know it led to that comedy moment for the Wisconsin Supreme Court election with the GOP fella absolutely looking like a moron when footage was shown of Scott Presler at the Stop The Steal protest at the Capitol on January 2021.

rottenborough

Oh God, it's the hope that kills you.

ydoethur

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Surely the task is simple - the GOP need to remove all of these new voters from the ballot. Its just unfair that Joe Biden could be undemocratically removed from the ballot. Perhaps the Supreme Court of the GOP needs to rule that removing Biden is unconstitutional or something.

Because Trump is getting demolished.

As that vaguely annoying Eon advert says this is already in hand. Over 1m people have been struck from the Texas register already, just in case it was getting close.

Its democracy Ian, but not as we know it.

If they still lose despite that I worry @StillWaters might just actually die laughing.

MattW

JosiasJessop said:

MattW said:

2nd. Thank-you for the header.

FPT:

Nigelb said:

As it's a JD Vance thread, here's TwitterX on town name pronunciations in Ohio.

There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy.
https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191

Houston: “How-stun”
Russia: “Roo-shee”
Bellefountaine - "Bell Fountain"
Genoa - "Juh Noah"
Leipsic - "Lip sick"

There's a hamlet in Derbyshire called New York - just like the one in Ukraine. And one in Nidderdale. And one in East Lindsay.

There are loads of New Yorks in England, including one in Staffs, to the northeast of Leek. But I don't know of one in Derbyshire?

I didn't either until this week. It's very small, and now I've lost it again !

Mexicanpete

Sandpit said:

ydoethur said:

It is true that registering doesn't equal voting.

However, registering at all suggests a big surge in enthusiasm. Quite possibly sparked by fear of a Trump presidency and all it would entail with the likes of Vance or Kennedy involved.

We should also ask ourselves if these people will be voting early. We keep talking about November 5th but early voting begins in many states on October 7th. If they do, even if they have second thoughts later it may not lead them to abrogate their vote.

For balance, there’s also a large Republican campaign going on in swing states around voter registration and early/postal voting, which they’ve not done before but which came from the post-mortem of the 2020 election.

Led by a young man called Scott Presler. https://x.com/scottpresler

Vote early, vote often.

jamesdoyle

Sandpit said:

ydoethur said:

It is true that registering doesn't equal voting.

However, registering at all suggests a big surge in enthusiasm. Quite possibly sparked by fear of a Trump presidency and all it would entail with the likes of Vance or Kennedy involved.

We should also ask ourselves if these people will be voting early. We keep talking about November 5th but early voting begins in many states on October 7th. If they do, even if they have second thoughts later it may not lead them to abrogate their vote.

For balance, there’s also a large Republican campaign going on in swing states around voter registration and early/postal voting, which they’ve not done before but which came from the post-mortem of the 2020 election.

Led by a young man called Scott Presler. https://x.com/scottpresler

Who is a grifter who has achieved nothing with pretty much all his 'activism'.
Oh, and he's blocked me on TwiX! I've made it!

MarqueeMark

Sandpit said:

ydoethur said:

It is true that registering doesn't equal voting.

However, registering at all suggests a big surge in enthusiasm. Quite possibly sparked by fear of a Trump presidency and all it would entail with the likes of Vance or Kennedy involved.

We should also ask ourselves if these people will be voting early. We keep talking about November 5th but early voting begins in many states on October 7th. If they do, even if they have second thoughts later it may not lead them to abrogate their vote.

For balance, there’s also a large Republican campaign going on in swing states around voter registration and early/postal voting, which they’ve not done before but which came from the post-mortem of the 2020 election.

Led by a young man called Scott Presler. https://x.com/scottpresler

One of the more amusing 180-degree shifts is Trump - so set against mail-in votes in 2020 - advising his base to go for mail-in votes.

Also amusing is Trump saying that he would win in California if Jesus was counting the votes there. (Spoiler, Donald: he's not...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYX0-pnqbbI

Stuartinromford

Sandpit said:

ydoethur said:

It is true that registering doesn't equal voting.

However, registering at all suggests a big surge in enthusiasm. Quite possibly sparked by fear of a Trump presidency and all it would entail with the likes of Vance or Kennedy involved.

We should also ask ourselves if these people will be voting early. We keep talking about November 5th but early voting begins in many states on October 7th. If they do, even if they have second thoughts later it may not lead them to abrogate their vote.

For balance, there’s also a large Republican campaign going on in swing states around voter registration and early/postal voting, which they’ve not done before but which came from the post-mortem of the 2020 election.

Led by a young man called Scott Presler. https://x.com/scottpresler

Splendid if there is... Voting is good. But look at the demographics where registration is up. A shiny nickel says they aren't favourable to the Republicans.

MattW

Picking up the FPT Building Regs conversation.

darkage said:

Re the build cost issue, it is fundamentally driven by labour and material cost. Scrapping building regulations would not significantly change the labour/material cost. There are issues with building regs but they mostly seem to be connected to rushed policy changes post Grenfell and panics about safety.

I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.

There isn't a lot of difference in the principle of Building Regulation across European countries. One interesting thing about the UK (maybe 'England') is that the methods are not compulsory as such. They are a combination of required outcomes and approved methods. If you convince your Control Officer that your alternative method meets the required outcome safely, you can do it with their approval; that's how innovation can happen. A good example is underfloor insulation of traditional houses by entirely filling the void with polystyrene beads, which has been done since the 1990s; the BCO needs to be convinced that your method will prevent moisture getting in and rotting the floor joists.

The main issues are a reluctance amongst developers to build to decent quality, and lack of capacity in Councils to monitor/enforce since the developers cannot be trusted.

The increasing quality required by building regs has been a key part of our reducing energy consumption per household by 25% since 2000, which is quite an achievement. That's *after* taking into account trends such as us running our houses at a higher temperature, and is bills cheaper than they would otherwise be. My image quota for the day *:

(2022 is anomalous due to the energy crisis, but is perhaps a measure of what we *can* achieve under current conditions when we need to do so.)

@darkage flat is interesting. I'm not sure what regulations if any require an EPC C - are you planning to rent it out? These regs are coming in in Scotland and will be here in England too at some stage. There are exemptions, and also funding available. I support this, as there is too much prior history of poor quality rentals.

If a building is overheating extensively in summer in the conditions, then often it has not been designed or modified well enough, or perhaps conditions have changed and the owners have not adapted. A classic is to insulate, and to forget to ventilate.

* Source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/651422e03d371800146d0c9e/Energy_Consumption_in_the_UK_2023.pdf

ydoethur

MarqueeMark said:

Sandpit said:

ydoethur said:

It is true that registering doesn't equal voting.

However, registering at all suggests a big surge in enthusiasm. Quite possibly sparked by fear of a Trump presidency and all it would entail with the likes of Vance or Kennedy involved.

We should also ask ourselves if these people will be voting early. We keep talking about November 5th but early voting begins in many states on October 7th. If they do, even if they have second thoughts later it may not lead them to abrogate their vote.

For balance, there’s also a large Republican campaign going on in swing states around voter registration and early/postal voting, which they’ve not done before but which came from the post-mortem of the 2020 election.

Led by a young man called Scott Presler. https://x.com/scottpresler

One of the more amusing 180-degree shifts is Trump - so set against mail-in votes in 2020 - advising his base to go for mail-in votes.

Also amusing is Trump saying that he would win in California if Jesus was counting the votes there. (Spoiler, Donald: he's not...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYX0-pnqbbI

Further Spoiler Donald - you muddled up Jesus and Satan.

Scott_xP

Donny's campaign is NOT in trouble...

ydoethur

Scott_xP said:

Donny's campaign is NOT in trouble...

There was a loud noise coming from Lyndon Johnson's grave.

It sounded like laughter, interspersed with shouts of 'make the sonofabitch deny it!'

DavidL

MarqueeMark said:

Sandpit said:

ydoethur said:

It is true that registering doesn't equal voting.

However, registering at all suggests a big surge in enthusiasm. Quite possibly sparked by fear of a Trump presidency and all it would entail with the likes of Vance or Kennedy involved.

We should also ask ourselves if these people will be voting early. We keep talking about November 5th but early voting begins in many states on October 7th. If they do, even if they have second thoughts later it may not lead them to abrogate their vote.

For balance, there’s also a large Republican campaign going on in swing states around voter registration and early/postal voting, which they’ve not done before but which came from the post-mortem of the 2020 election.

Led by a young man called Scott Presler. https://x.com/scottpresler

One of the more amusing 180-degree shifts is Trump - so set against mail-in votes in 2020 - advising his base to go for mail-in votes.

Also amusing is Trump saying that he would win in California if Jesus was counting the votes there. (Spoiler, Donald: he's not...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYX0-pnqbbI

Pretty sure he meant Josef Stalin: "“Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.”

Don't think he is doing the counting either....

Alphabet_Soup

Nigelb said:

MattW said:

2nd. Thank-you for the header.

FPT:

Nigelb said:

As it's a JD Vance thread, here's TwitterX on town name pronunciations in Ohio.

There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy.
https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191

Houston: “How-stun”
Russia: “Roo-shee”
Bellefountaine - "Bell Fountain"
Genoa - "Juh Noah"
Leipsic - "Lip sick"

There's a hamlet in Derbyshire called New York - just like the one in Ukraine. And one in Nidderdale. And one in East Lindsay.

Every state in the US must give at least one town a pronunciation that is inexplicable and specifically designed to easily identify outsiders
https://x.com/politicalmath/status/1828568040377651535

There's a hamlet in Warwickshire called Beausale, pronounced Bew-sail. I like to think this is how the Normans said it, before the languorous Parisian accent infected the whole of France.

Sandpit

MarqueeMark said:

Sandpit said:

ydoethur said:

It is true that registering doesn't equal voting.

However, registering at all suggests a big surge in enthusiasm. Quite possibly sparked by fear of a Trump presidency and all it would entail with the likes of Vance or Kennedy involved.

We should also ask ourselves if these people will be voting early. We keep talking about November 5th but early voting begins in many states on October 7th. If they do, even if they have second thoughts later it may not lead them to abrogate their vote.

For balance, there’s also a large Republican campaign going on in swing states around voter registration and early/postal voting, which they’ve not done before but which came from the post-mortem of the 2020 election.

Led by a young man called Scott Presler. https://x.com/scottpresler

One of the more amusing 180-degree shifts is Trump - so set against mail-in votes in 2020 - advising his base to go for mail-in votes.

Also amusing is Trump saying that he would win in California if Jesus was counting the votes there. (Spoiler, Donald: he's not...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYX0-pnqbbI

Yes, Trump’s vocal opposition to postal voting was cited by Republicans as a key reason for the 2020 defeat, hence the total u-turn on the subject this time accompanied by a lot of activists getting involved in registration and door-knocking in the swing states.

Eabhal

MattW said:

Picking up the FPT Building Regs conversation.

darkage said:

Re the build cost issue, it is fundamentally driven by labour and material cost. Scrapping building regulations would not significantly change the labour/material cost. There are issues with building regs but they mostly seem to be connected to rushed policy changes post Grenfell and panics about safety.

I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.

There isn't a lot of difference in the principle of Building Regulation across European countries. One interesting thing about the UK (maybe 'England') is that the methods are not compulsory as such. They are a combination of required outcomes and approved methods. If you convince your Control Officer that your alternative method meets the required outcome safely, you can do it with their approval; that's how innovation can happen. A good example is underfloor insulation of traditional houses by entirely filling the void with polystyrene beads, which has been done since the 1990s; the BCO needs to be convinced that your method will prevent moisture getting in and rotting the floor joists.

The main issues are a reluctance amongst developers to build to decent quality, and lack of capacity in Councils to monitor/enforce since the developers cannot be trusted.

The increasing quality required by building regs has been a key part of our reducing energy consumption per household by 25% since 2000, which is quite an achievement. That's *after* taking into account trends such as us running our houses at a higher temperature, and is bills cheaper than they would otherwise be. My image quota for the day:

(2022 is anomalous due to the energy crisis, but is perhaps a measure of what we *can* achieve under current conditions when we need to do so.)

@darkage flat is interesting. I'm not sure what regulations if any require an EPC C - are you planning to rent it out? These regs are coming in in Scotland and will be here in England too at some stage. There are exemptions, and also funding available. I support this, as there is too much prior history of poor quality rentals.

If a building is overheating extensively in summer in the conditions, then it has not been designed or modified well enough, or perhaps conditions have changed and the owners have not adapted. A classic is to insulate, and to forget to ventilate.

Yes, you need an EPC of D or higher, C or higher from next year.

You're right about it keeping cool. South facing with big Victorian windows, so my flat is almost unbearable in the summer. I'm not sure how sustainable that is going to be going forward - I know that my friends in London really struggle with it already.

If there was a new regulation that overnight temperatures in a rented flat cannot exceed 25c or something, I would be in real trouble.

Nigelb

Scott_xP said:

Donny's campaign is NOT in trouble...

Hypothesis: The big disjunct between Senator and President in swing states (eg, Kari Lake versus Trump) measures the difference between MAGAts reported as the batshit people they are and Trump, whose batshittery the MSM has cleaned up...
https://x.com/emptywheel/status/1829033605512802486

DavidL

Sandpit said:

MarqueeMark said:

Sandpit said:

ydoethur said:

It is true that registering doesn't equal voting.

However, registering at all suggests a big surge in enthusiasm. Quite possibly sparked by fear of a Trump presidency and all it would entail with the likes of Vance or Kennedy involved.

We should also ask ourselves if these people will be voting early. We keep talking about November 5th but early voting begins in many states on October 7th. If they do, even if they have second thoughts later it may not lead them to abrogate their vote.

For balance, there’s also a large Republican campaign going on in swing states around voter registration and early/postal voting, which they’ve not done before but which came from the post-mortem of the 2020 election.

Led by a young man called Scott Presler. https://x.com/scottpresler

One of the more amusing 180-degree shifts is Trump - so set against mail-in votes in 2020 - advising his base to go for mail-in votes.

Also amusing is Trump saying that he would win in California if Jesus was counting the votes there. (Spoiler, Donald: he's not...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYX0-pnqbbI

Yes, Trump’s vocal opposition to postal voting was cited by Republicans as a key reason for the 2020 defeat, hence the total u-turn on the subject this time accompanied by a lot of activists getting involved in registration and door-knocking in the swing states.

It was an essential, if irrational, part of the steal argument that since Trump "won" the on the day count these pesky early votes should be disregarded and he should be declared the winner. Stop the count etc.

Sandpit

Eabhal said:

MattW said:

Picking up the FPT Building Regs conversation.

darkage said:

Re the build cost issue, it is fundamentally driven by labour and material cost. Scrapping building regulations would not significantly change the labour/material cost. There are issues with building regs but they mostly seem to be connected to rushed policy changes post Grenfell and panics about safety.

I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.

There isn't a lot of difference in the principle of Building Regulation across European countries. One interesting thing about the UK (maybe 'England') is that the methods are not compulsory as such. They are a combination of required outcomes and approved methods. If you convince your Control Officer that your alternative method meets the required outcome safely, you can do it with their approval; that's how innovation can happen. A good example is underfloor insulation of traditional houses by entirely filling the void with polystyrene beads, which has been done since the 1990s; the BCO needs to be convinced that your method will prevent moisture getting in and rotting the floor joists.

The main issues are a reluctance amongst developers to build to decent quality, and lack of capacity in Councils to monitor/enforce since the developers cannot be trusted.

The increasing quality required by building regs has been a key part of our reducing energy consumption per household by 25% since 2000, which is quite an achievement. That's *after* taking into account trends such as us running our houses at a higher temperature, and is bills cheaper than they would otherwise be. My image quota for the day:

(2022 is anomalous due to the energy crisis, but is perhaps a measure of what we *can* achieve under current conditions when we need to do so.)

@darkage flat is interesting. I'm not sure what regulations if any require an EPC C - are you planning to rent it out? These regs are coming in in Scotland and will be here in England too at some stage. There are exemptions, and also funding available. I support this, as there is too much prior history of poor quality rentals.

If a building is overheating extensively in summer in the conditions, then it has not been designed or modified well enough, or perhaps conditions have changed and the owners have not adapted. A classic is to insulate, and to forget to ventilate.

Yes, you need an EPC of D or higher, C or higher from next year.

You're right about it keeping cool. South facing with big Victorian windows, so my flat is almost unbearable in the summer. I'm not sure how sustainable that is going to be going forward - I know that my friends in London really struggle with it already.

If there was a new regulation that overnight temperatures in a rented flat cannot exceed 25c or something, I would be in real trouble.

If new builds are required to have so much insulation that we start having to install air conditioning for the summer, is that not totally counter-productive to the target of reducing power consumption?

Eabhal

Sandpit said:

Eabhal said:

MattW said:

Picking up the FPT Building Regs conversation.

darkage said:

Re the build cost issue, it is fundamentally driven by labour and material cost. Scrapping building regulations would not significantly change the labour/material cost. There are issues with building regs but they mostly seem to be connected to rushed policy changes post Grenfell and panics about safety.

I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.

There isn't a lot of difference in the principle of Building Regulation across European countries. One interesting thing about the UK (maybe 'England') is that the methods are not compulsory as such. They are a combination of required outcomes and approved methods. If you convince your Control Officer that your alternative method meets the required outcome safely, you can do it with their approval; that's how innovation can happen. A good example is underfloor insulation of traditional houses by entirely filling the void with polystyrene beads, which has been done since the 1990s; the BCO needs to be convinced that your method will prevent moisture getting in and rotting the floor joists.

The main issues are a reluctance amongst developers to build to decent quality, and lack of capacity in Councils to monitor/enforce since the developers cannot be trusted.

The increasing quality required by building regs has been a key part of our reducing energy consumption per household by 25% since 2000, which is quite an achievement. That's *after* taking into account trends such as us running our houses at a higher temperature, and is bills cheaper than they would otherwise be. My image quota for the day:

(2022 is anomalous due to the energy crisis, but is perhaps a measure of what we *can* achieve under current conditions when we need to do so.)

@darkage flat is interesting. I'm not sure what regulations if any require an EPC C - are you planning to rent it out? These regs are coming in in Scotland and will be here in England too at some stage. There are exemptions, and also funding available. I support this, as there is too much prior history of poor quality rentals.

If a building is overheating extensively in summer in the conditions, then it has not been designed or modified well enough, or perhaps conditions have changed and the owners have not adapted. A classic is to insulate, and to forget to ventilate.

Yes, you need an EPC of D or higher, C or higher from next year.

You're right about it keeping cool. South facing with big Victorian windows, so my flat is almost unbearable in the summer. I'm not sure how sustainable that is going to be going forward - I know that my friends in London really struggle with it already.

If there was a new regulation that overnight temperatures in a rented flat cannot exceed 25c or something, I would be in real trouble.

If new builds are required to have so much insulation that we start having to install air conditioning for the summer, is that not totally counter-productive to the target of reducing power consumption?

Depends on the insulation and ventilation, as MattW points out. I lived in an amazing Australian flat that was so well insulated we only needed to put the aircon when it was over 30c. Magic.

I think we made a net gain in the end, with the new solar panels on the roof covering all the costs.

DavidL

jamesdoyle said:

Sandpit said:

ydoethur said:

It is true that registering doesn't equal voting.

However, registering at all suggests a big surge in enthusiasm. Quite possibly sparked by fear of a Trump presidency and all it would entail with the likes of Vance or Kennedy involved.

We should also ask ourselves if these people will be voting early. We keep talking about November 5th but early voting begins in many states on October 7th. If they do, even if they have second thoughts later it may not lead them to abrogate their vote.

For balance, there’s also a large Republican campaign going on in swing states around voter registration and early/postal voting, which they’ve not done before but which came from the post-mortem of the 2020 election.

Led by a young man called Scott Presler. https://x.com/scottpresler

Who is a grifter who has achieved nothing with pretty much all his 'activism'.
Oh, and he's blocked me on TwiX! I've made it!

Shame on you. The only good TwiX is a chocolate bar.

bondegezou

https://www.oxfam.org.uk/media/press-releases/top-1-bags-over-40-trillion-in-new-wealth-during-past-decade-as-taxes-on-the-rich-reach-historic-lows/

Oxfam on taxing the super-rich

ydoethur

Nigelb said:

Scott_xP said:

Donny's campaign is NOT in trouble...

Hypothesis: The big disjunct between Senator and President in swing states (eg, Kari Lake versus Trump) measures the difference between MAGAts reported as the batshit people they are and Trump, whose batshittery the MSM has cleaned up...
https://x.com/emptywheel/status/1829033605512802486

Although you wonder how long that will last if he keeps tweeting AI photos of him humping lions.

rottenborough

ydoethur said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Surely the task is simple - the GOP need to remove all of these new voters from the ballot. Its just unfair that Joe Biden could be undemocratically removed from the ballot. Perhaps the Supreme Court of the GOP needs to rule that removing Biden is unconstitutional or something.

Because Trump is getting demolished.

As that vaguely annoying Eon advert says this is already in hand. Over 1m people have been struck from the Texas register already, just in case it was getting close.

Its democracy Ian, but not as we know it.

If they still lose despite that I worry @StillWaters might just actually die laughing.

1m is not quite as bad as it first appears. The Hill says "About half of the voters removed have died, requested to be be taken off or are living in another state, based on figures from the governor’s office."

MattW

Eabhal said:

MattW said:

Picking up the FPT Building Regs conversation.

darkage said:

Re the build cost issue, it is fundamentally driven by labour and material cost. Scrapping building regulations would not significantly change the labour/material cost. There are issues with building regs but they mostly seem to be connected to rushed policy changes post Grenfell and panics about safety.

I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.

There isn't a lot of difference in the principle of Building Regulation across European countries. One interesting thing about the UK (maybe 'England') is that the methods are not compulsory as such. They are a combination of required outcomes and approved methods. If you convince your Control Officer that your alternative method meets the required outcome safely, you can do it with their approval; that's how innovation can happen. A good example is underfloor insulation of traditional houses by entirely filling the void with polystyrene beads, which has been done since the 1990s; the BCO needs to be convinced that your method will prevent moisture getting in and rotting the floor joists.

The main issues are a reluctance amongst developers to build to decent quality, and lack of capacity in Councils to monitor/enforce since the developers cannot be trusted.

The increasing quality required by building regs has been a key part of our reducing energy consumption per household by 25% since 2000, which is quite an achievement. That's *after* taking into account trends such as us running our houses at a higher temperature, and is bills cheaper than they would otherwise be. My image quota for the day:

(2022 is anomalous due to the energy crisis, but is perhaps a measure of what we *can* achieve under current conditions when we need to do so.)

@darkage flat is interesting. I'm not sure what regulations if any require an EPC C - are you planning to rent it out? These regs are coming in in Scotland and will be here in England too at some stage. There are exemptions, and also funding available. I support this, as there is too much prior history of poor quality rentals.

If a building is overheating extensively in summer in the conditions, then it has not been designed or modified well enough, or perhaps conditions have changed and the owners have not adapted. A classic is to insulate, and to forget to ventilate.

Yes, you need an EPC of D or higher, C or higher from next year.

You're right about it keeping cool. South facing with big Victorian windows, so my flat is almost unbearable in the summer. I'm not sure how sustainable that is going to be going forward - I know that my friends in London really struggle with it already.

If there was a new regulation that overnight temperatures in a rented flat cannot exceed 25c or something, I would be in real trouble.

Are you LL or T in the flat?

There are a couple of strategies. My main one is to buy the northern half of a pair of semi-detached properties, so no S-facing windows and no heat-soak from a S-facing wall.

For your S-facing flat I would look at:

1 - Anti-solar film on the outside of the windows, which can cut solar gain in half with no impact on appearance and little effect on view. If you have recent-ish Scottish windows which have to be cleanable from the inside for safety, you can get it fitted from the inside. There are other appearance affecting possibilities.

2 - Air to air heat pump heating, which can be run backwards to cool it down. The CoP of 3 or 4 brings the bills down. If you are in a top conversion flat air intakes may be possible via an insulated cold loft. "Through the wall single penetration" ones are available.

I've been playing with a portable one of these for a couple of years, vented to the conservatory through a top-window fitting, with a top window open conservatory-outside too, and it has cut my gas bill substantially. When my boiler goes phut, or before, I'll put real ones in, which is tricky but doable.

I have one rental property which will be difficult, and may need an exemption. It's my grandma's 1850 2 up 2 down detached cottage with solid walls. Since 2010 I have done everything which means the bills are now half of what they were then, but it is still D/E borderline, and there is nothing left to do other than throw out the gas - which might not be enough,

ydoethur

rottenborough said:

ydoethur said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Surely the task is simple - the GOP need to remove all of these new voters from the ballot. Its just unfair that Joe Biden could be undemocratically removed from the ballot. Perhaps the Supreme Court of the GOP needs to rule that removing Biden is unconstitutional or something.

Because Trump is getting demolished.

As that vaguely annoying Eon advert says this is already in hand. Over 1m people have been struck from the Texas register already, just in case it was getting close.

Its democracy Ian, but not as we know it.

If they still lose despite that I worry @StillWaters might just actually die laughing.

1m is not quite as bad as it first appears. The Hill says "About half of the voters removed have died, requested to be be taken off or are living in another state, based on figures from the governor’s office."

All of which is fair enough.

If, of course, we believe the governor's office.

Greg Abbott would make Rudi Giuliani look honest. Still, he may be telling the truth.

JosiasJessop

Sandpit said:

ydoethur said:

It is true that registering doesn't equal voting.

However, registering at all suggests a big surge in enthusiasm. Quite possibly sparked by fear of a Trump presidency and all it would entail with the likes of Vance or Kennedy involved.

We should also ask ourselves if these people will be voting early. We keep talking about November 5th but early voting begins in many states on October 7th. If they do, even if they have second thoughts later it may not lead them to abrogate their vote.

For balance, there’s also a large Republican campaign going on in swing states around voter registration and early/postal voting, which they’ve not done before but which came from the post-mortem of the 2020 election.

Led by a young man called Scott Presler. https://x.com/scottpresler

The only post-mortem of the 2020 election the GOP need is one that says: "Whatever we do, don't support Trump and MAGA."

Sadly, their post-mortem is one that leads the USA down a very dark and anti-democratic route.

Scott_xP

ydoethur said:

Although you wonder how long that will last if he keeps tweeting AI photos of him humping lions.

His latest whine was about the Harris campaign posting 'fake' images, after the lion and the fake Swifties.

He's losing it

TimS

Alphabet_Soup said:

Nigelb said:

MattW said:

2nd. Thank-you for the header.

FPT:

Nigelb said:

As it's a JD Vance thread, here's TwitterX on town name pronunciations in Ohio.

There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy.
https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191

Houston: “How-stun”
Russia: “Roo-shee”
Bellefountaine - "Bell Fountain"
Genoa - "Juh Noah"
Leipsic - "Lip sick"

There's a hamlet in Derbyshire called New York - just like the one in Ukraine. And one in Nidderdale. And one in East Lindsay.

Every state in the US must give at least one town a pronunciation that is inexplicable and specifically designed to easily identify outsiders
https://x.com/politicalmath/status/1828568040377651535

There's a hamlet in Warwickshire called Beausale, pronounced Bew-sail. I like to think this is how the Normans said it, before the languorous Parisian accent infected the whole of France.

Nice name. Beautiful-dirty. Just how I like my villages.

ydoethur

Scott_xP said:

ydoethur said:

Although you wonder how long that will last if he keeps tweeting AI photos of him humping lions.

His latest whine was about the Harris campaign posting 'fake' images, after the lion and the fake Swifties.

He's losing it

Well, let'sl hope so!

Scott_xP

ydoethur said:

Scott_xP said:

ydoethur said:

Although you wonder how long that will last if he keeps tweeting AI photos of him humping lions.

His latest whine was about the Harris campaign posting 'fake' images, after the lion and the fake Swifties.

He's losing it

Well, let'sl hope so!

Have we all seen this?

https://x.com/SethAbramson/status/1828668148528083038

DavidL

TimS said:

Alphabet_Soup said:

Nigelb said:

MattW said:

2nd. Thank-you for the header.

FPT:

Nigelb said:

As it's a JD Vance thread, here's TwitterX on town name pronunciations in Ohio.

There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy.
https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191

Houston: “How-stun”
Russia: “Roo-shee”
Bellefountaine - "Bell Fountain"
Genoa - "Juh Noah"
Leipsic - "Lip sick"

There's a hamlet in Derbyshire called New York - just like the one in Ukraine. And one in Nidderdale. And one in East Lindsay.

Every state in the US must give at least one town a pronunciation that is inexplicable and specifically designed to easily identify outsiders
https://x.com/politicalmath/status/1828568040377651535

There's a hamlet in Warwickshire called Beausale, pronounced Bew-sail. I like to think this is how the Normans said it, before the languorous Parisian accent infected the whole of France.

Nice name. Beautiful-dirty. Just how I like my villages.

Villages?

Scott_xP

Oasis have announced three extra concert dates in the UK for their reunion tour next year.

The band said they were adding the extra concerts due to "unprecedented demand".

The new dates are: 16 July in Heaton Park, Manchester; 30 July, Wembley; 12 August, Edinburgh.

The additional gigs mean the band will play five Wembley concerts, five in Manchester, and three in Scotland.

Cicero

I must admit that my reaction to the headline was "No Shit".

We know that the push polling, especially on the GOP side, is muddying the waters and giving far more evenly matched results than the probable reality, so the polls showing a tight race or a Trump lead are not necessarily reliable. We know that the ghost of Roe v Wade is haunting the Republican campaign. We know that as a result Harris has attracted large numbers of female votes to the Blue column. We know that she has fired up the base to a dramatic degree and the convention, far from being a 1968 disaster, was a total triumph. We know that Harris is raising historically large amounts of money very quickly. We know that Harris has made a good VP pick and that Trump... hasn´t. We know that Trump has never won the popular vote. Trump is still trying to win the 2020 fight, but the style is just looking tired and dated, as is he.

Yet the fear of 2016, like the fear of 2019 in the recent UK general election, is leading people to fear that Trump can still snatch a victory. I think even with all the corruption and malpractice that the convicted felon can orchestrate it will not be enough to overcome a very large vote for Harris. I think she could be headed for a landslide,

Nigelb

ydoethur said:

rottenborough said:

ydoethur said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Surely the task is simple - the GOP need to remove all of these new voters from the ballot. Its just unfair that Joe Biden could be undemocratically removed from the ballot. Perhaps the Supreme Court of the GOP needs to rule that removing Biden is unconstitutional or something.

Because Trump is getting demolished.

As that vaguely annoying Eon advert says this is already in hand. Over 1m people have been struck from the Texas register already, just in case it was getting close.

Its democracy Ian, but not as we know it.

If they still lose despite that I worry @StillWaters might just actually die laughing.

1m is not quite as bad as it first appears. The Hill says "About half of the voters removed have died, requested to be be taken off or are living in another state, based on figures from the governor’s office."

All of which is fair enough.

If, of course, we believe the governor's office.

Greg Abbott would make Rudi Giuliani look honest. Still, he may be telling the truth.

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/08/27/greg-abbott-voter-rolls-texas/
..In 2019, Texas officials flagged 95,000 voters whom they identified as “noncitizens” and accused broadly of voter fraud. After review, it turned out that many of the people identified on the rolls were naturalized citizens. The scandal resulted in the secretary of state resigning. The state abandoned the effort after numerous lawsuits, which resulted in the state setting new guidelines for future voter roll clean-ups.

ACLU of Texas attorney Ashley Harris points to the 2019 incident as an example of the state's lack of transparency about how it collects this data.

“It's difficult to tell what these numbers actually mean, and the state hasn't pointed to anyone who actually voted as a noncitizen, and they've provided data without context,” Harris said...

Alphabet_Soup

TimS said:

Alphabet_Soup said:

Nigelb said:

MattW said:

2nd. Thank-you for the header.

FPT:

Nigelb said:

As it's a JD Vance thread, here's TwitterX on town name pronunciations in Ohio.

There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy.
https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191

Houston: “How-stun”
Russia: “Roo-shee”
Bellefountaine - "Bell Fountain"
Genoa - "Juh Noah"
Leipsic - "Lip sick"

There's a hamlet in Derbyshire called New York - just like the one in Ukraine. And one in Nidderdale. And one in East Lindsay.

Every state in the US must give at least one town a pronunciation that is inexplicable and specifically designed to easily identify outsiders
https://x.com/politicalmath/status/1828568040377651535

There's a hamlet in Warwickshire called Beausale, pronounced Bew-sail. I like to think this is how the Normans said it, before the languorous Parisian accent infected the whole of France.

Nice name. Beautiful-dirty. Just how I like my villages.

Nostalgie de la boue as the Normans used to say.

ThomasNashe

Cicero said:

I must admit that my reaction to the headline was "No Shit".

We know that the push polling, especially on the GOP side, is muddying the waters and giving far more evenly matched results than the probable reality, so the polls showing a tight race or a Trump lead are not necessarily reliable. We know that the ghost of Roe v Wade is haunting the Republican campaign. We know that as a result Harris has attracted large numbers of female votes to the Blue column. We know that she has fired up the base to a dramatic degree and the convention, far from being a 1968 disaster, was a total triumph. We know that Harris is raising historically large amounts of money very quickly. We know that Harris has made a good VP pick and that Trump... hasn´t. We know that Trump has never won the popular vote. Trump is still trying to win the 2020 fight, but the style is just looking tired and dated, as is he.

Yet the fear of 2016, like the fear of 2019 in the recent UK general election, is leading people to fear that Trump can still snatch a victory. I think even with all the corruption and malpractice that the convicted felon can orchestrate it will not be enough to overcome a very large vote for Harris. I think she could be headed for a landslide,

It’s just becoming more and more obvious, isn’t it? The notion that it’s going to be ‘on a knife-edge’ is increasingly ridiculous.

Monksfield

Cicero said:

I must admit that my reaction to the headline was "No Shit".

We know that the push polling, especially on the GOP side, is muddying the waters and giving far more evenly matched results than the probable reality, so the polls showing a tight race or a Trump lead are not necessarily reliable. We know that the ghost of Roe v Wade is haunting the Republican campaign. We know that as a result Harris has attracted large numbers of female votes to the Blue column. We know that she has fired up the base to a dramatic degree and the convention, far from being a 1968 disaster, was a total triumph. We know that Harris is raising historically large amounts of money very quickly. We know that Harris has made a good VP pick and that Trump... hasn´t. We know that Trump has never won the popular vote. Trump is still trying to win the 2020 fight, but the style is just looking tired and dated, as is he.

Yet the fear of 2016, like the fear of 2019 in the recent UK general election, is leading people to fear that Trump can still snatch a victory. I think even with all the corruption and malpractice that the convicted felon can orchestrate it will not be enough to overcome a very large vote for Harris. I think she could be headed for a landslide,

Yep.

In 2016 my gut feeling was that the UK would vote out
This year my gut feeling was that the LibDems would massively exceed expectations.

The receipts are on this site.

At the moment my gut feeling is that USA2024 is not going to be close. Harris will clean up the swing states and add a couple of surprise wins.

ajb

Sandpit said:

Eabhal said:

MattW said:

Picking up the FPT Building Regs conversation.

darkage said:

Re the build cost issue, it is fundamentally driven by labour and material cost. Scrapping building regulations would not significantly change the labour/material cost. There are issues with building regs but they mostly seem to be connected to rushed policy changes post Grenfell and panics about safety.

I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.

There isn't a lot of difference in the principle of Building Regulation across European countries. One interesting thing about the UK (maybe 'England') is that the methods are not compulsory as such. They are a combination of required outcomes and approved methods. If you convince your Control Officer that your alternative method meets the required outcome safely, you can do it with their approval; that's how innovation can happen. A good example is underfloor insulation of traditional houses by entirely filling the void with polystyrene beads, which has been done since the 1990s; the BCO needs to be convinced that your method will prevent moisture getting in and rotting the floor joists.

The main issues are a reluctance amongst developers to build to decent quality, and lack of capacity in Councils to monitor/enforce since the developers cannot be trusted.

The increasing quality required by building regs has been a key part of our reducing energy consumption per household by 25% since 2000, which is quite an achievement. That's *after* taking into account trends such as us running our houses at a higher temperature, and is bills cheaper than they would otherwise be. My image quota for the day:

(2022 is anomalous due to the energy crisis, but is perhaps a measure of what we *can* achieve under current conditions when we need to do so.)

@darkage flat is interesting. I'm not sure what regulations if any require an EPC C - are you planning to rent it out? These regs are coming in in Scotland and will be here in England too at some stage. There are exemptions, and also funding available. I support this, as there is too much prior history of poor quality rentals.

If a building is overheating extensively in summer in the conditions, then it has not been designed or modified well enough, or perhaps conditions have changed and the owners have not adapted. A classic is to insulate, and to forget to ventilate.

Yes, you need an EPC of D or higher, C or higher from next year.

You're right about it keeping cool. South facing with big Victorian windows, so my flat is almost unbearable in the summer. I'm not sure how sustainable that is going to be going forward - I know that my friends in London really struggle with it already.

If there was a new regulation that overnight temperatures in a rented flat cannot exceed 25c or something, I would be in real trouble.

If new builds are required to have so much insulation that we start having to install air conditioning for the summer, is that not totally counter-productive to the target of reducing power consumption?

Since 2022 they have also required that overheating is avoided by passive means if at all possible. That is, the provision of shading, external blinds, shutters, or canopy. Like they use in most countries that have had this climate for longer.

Annoyingly you have to get planning permission to retrofit any of these on a frontage, but hopefully this will be changed.

MarqueeMark

ydoethur said:

Scott_xP said:

Donny's campaign is NOT in trouble...

There was a loud noise coming from Lyndon Johnson's grave.

It sounded like laughter, interspersed with shouts of 'make the sonofabitch deny it!'

I think the woman on the right is voting for Harris. "Shit, I'm in this photo ain't I?"

ydoethur

Nigelb said:

Scott_xP said:

Donny's campaign is NOT in trouble...

Hypothesis: The big disjunct between Senator and President in swing states (eg, Kari Lake versus Trump) measures the difference between MAGAts reported as the batshit people they are and Trump, whose batshittery the MSM has cleaned up...
https://x.com/emptywheel/status/1829033605512802486

I think the other thing to remember is that while Trump was never a nice man, or a particularly stable one, he has got progressively worse over 8 years. You look back at him in early 2016 and he was both coherent and energetic - in some ways, more so than Clinton. Now, he looks like a rambling old fool with no grasp of reality because he is one, but it hasn't happened overnight even if losing in 2020 accelerated it.

So people coming fresh to Kari Lake see a loon, but they're not coming fresh to Trump and keep making excuses for his decline.

MattW

Sandpit said:

Eabhal said:

MattW said:

Picking up the FPT Building Regs conversation.

darkage said:

Re the build cost issue, it is fundamentally driven by labour and material cost. Scrapping building regulations would not significantly change the labour/material cost. There are issues with building regs but they mostly seem to be connected to rushed policy changes post Grenfell and panics about safety.

I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.

There isn't a lot of difference in the principle of Building Regulation across European countries. One interesting thing about the UK (maybe 'England') is that the methods are not compulsory as such. They are a combination of required outcomes and approved methods. If you convince your Control Officer that your alternative method meets the required outcome safely, you can do it with their approval; that's how innovation can happen. A good example is underfloor insulation of traditional houses by entirely filling the void with polystyrene beads, which has been done since the 1990s; the BCO needs to be convinced that your method will prevent moisture getting in and rotting the floor joists.

The main issues are a reluctance amongst developers to build to decent quality, and lack of capacity in Councils to monitor/enforce since the developers cannot be trusted.

The increasing quality required by building regs has been a key part of our reducing energy consumption per household by 25% since 2000, which is quite an achievement. That's *after* taking into account trends such as us running our houses at a higher temperature, and is bills cheaper than they would otherwise be. My image quota for the day:

(2022 is anomalous due to the energy crisis, but is perhaps a measure of what we *can* achieve under current conditions when we need to do so.)

@darkage flat is interesting. I'm not sure what regulations if any require an EPC C - are you planning to rent it out? These regs are coming in in Scotland and will be here in England too at some stage. There are exemptions, and also funding available. I support this, as there is too much prior history of poor quality rentals.

If a building is overheating extensively in summer in the conditions, then it has not been designed or modified well enough, or perhaps conditions have changed and the owners have not adapted. A classic is to insulate, and to forget to ventilate.

Yes, you need an EPC of D or higher, C or higher from next year.

You're right about it keeping cool. South facing with big Victorian windows, so my flat is almost unbearable in the summer. I'm not sure how sustainable that is going to be going forward - I know that my friends in London really struggle with it already.

If there was a new regulation that overnight temperatures in a rented flat cannot exceed 25c or something, I would be in real trouble.

If new builds are required to have so much insulation that we start having to install air conditioning for the summer, is that not totally counter-productive to the target of reducing power consumption?

No - because passive cooling is not difficult to organise in a newbuild to cover most of the cooling. There's a whole galaxy of ways.

On power consumption, it's a balance between energy saved on heating in winter vs extra energy required to cool in summer.

That balance is overwhelmingly in favour of a *lot* more insulation (it is not difficult to reduce the baseload demand for house heating to 1-2kW, or overall by 80-90% over "typical"), plus the little bit of cooling required for a few weeks in summer.

Here's an account from a friend who did a top to toe renovation on a 1950s house to passive (Enerphit) standard in 2015, cutting their heat demand from 153 kWh/m2/yr to 23 kWh/m2/yr ie by about 85%.

https://passivehouseplus.ie/magazine/upgrade/derbyshire-upgrade-blitzes-enerphit-target

eek

Sandpit said:

Eabhal said:

MattW said:

Picking up the FPT Building Regs conversation.

darkage said:

Re the build cost issue, it is fundamentally driven by labour and material cost. Scrapping building regulations would not significantly change the labour/material cost. There are issues with building regs but they mostly seem to be connected to rushed policy changes post Grenfell and panics about safety.

I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.

There isn't a lot of difference in the principle of Building Regulation across European countries. One interesting thing about the UK (maybe 'England') is that the methods are not compulsory as such. They are a combination of required outcomes and approved methods. If you convince your Control Officer that your alternative method meets the required outcome safely, you can do it with their approval; that's how innovation can happen. A good example is underfloor insulation of traditional houses by entirely filling the void with polystyrene beads, which has been done since the 1990s; the BCO needs to be convinced that your method will prevent moisture getting in and rotting the floor joists.

The main issues are a reluctance amongst developers to build to decent quality, and lack of capacity in Councils to monitor/enforce since the developers cannot be trusted.

The increasing quality required by building regs has been a key part of our reducing energy consumption per household by 25% since 2000, which is quite an achievement. That's *after* taking into account trends such as us running our houses at a higher temperature, and is bills cheaper than they would otherwise be. My image quota for the day:

(2022 is anomalous due to the energy crisis, but is perhaps a measure of what we *can* achieve under current conditions when we need to do so.)

@darkage flat is interesting. I'm not sure what regulations if any require an EPC C - are you planning to rent it out? These regs are coming in in Scotland and will be here in England too at some stage. There are exemptions, and also funding available. I support this, as there is too much prior history of poor quality rentals.

If a building is overheating extensively in summer in the conditions, then it has not been designed or modified well enough, or perhaps conditions have changed and the owners have not adapted. A classic is to insulate, and to forget to ventilate.

Yes, you need an EPC of D or higher, C or higher from next year.

You're right about it keeping cool. South facing with big Victorian windows, so my flat is almost unbearable in the summer. I'm not sure how sustainable that is going to be going forward - I know that my friends in London really struggle with it already.

If there was a new regulation that overnight temperatures in a rented flat cannot exceed 25c or something, I would be in real trouble.

If new builds are required to have so much insulation that we start having to install air conditioning for the summer, is that not totally counter-productive to the target of reducing power consumption?

Not really - its an ideal use of solar panels..

kamski

Cicero said:

I must admit that my reaction to the headline was "No Shit".

We know that the push polling, especially on the GOP side, is muddying the waters and giving far more evenly matched results than the probable reality, so the polls showing a tight race or a Trump lead are not necessarily reliable. We know that the ghost of Roe v Wade is haunting the Republican campaign. We know that as a result Harris has attracted large numbers of female votes to the Blue column. We know that she has fired up the base to a dramatic degree and the convention, far from being a 1968 disaster, was a total triumph. We know that Harris is raising historically large amounts of money very quickly. We know that Harris has made a good VP pick and that Trump... hasn´t. We know that Trump has never won the popular vote. Trump is still trying to win the 2020 fight, but the style is just looking tired and dated, as is he.

Yet the fear of 2016, like the fear of 2019 in the recent UK general election, is leading people to fear that Trump can still snatch a victory. I think even with all the corruption and malpractice that the convicted felon can orchestrate it will not be enough to overcome a very large vote for Harris. I think she could be headed for a landslide,

"We know that the push polling, especially on the GOP side, is muddying the waters and giving far more evenly matched results than the probable reality"

No we don't, but if you have evidence of this I'd be very happy to see it.

Also feel free to calculate a polling average excluding "GOP push polling", I doubt it will be any different to most of the established polling averages from Silver Bulletin, 538 etc.

You can argue, as the header does, that there are reasons to believe the polling might be underestimating Harris's lead. OTOH you can look at the last 2 times Trump was on the ballot and question whether pollsters have done enough to fix whatever went wrong with their polling in 2016 and 2020 - especially in critical states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

eg for 2020 comparing the final 538 polling average with the actual result:

Wisconsin 538 average: Biden +8.4%, result Biden +0.6%

Michigan 538 average: Biden +7.9%, result: Biden +2.8%

Pennsylvania 538 average: Biden +4.7%, result: Biden +1.2%

eek

Scott_xP said:

Oasis have announced three extra concert dates in the UK for their reunion tour next year.

The band said they were adding the extra concerts due to "unprecedented demand".

The new dates are: 16 July in Heaton Park, Manchester; 30 July, Wembley; 12 August, Edinburgh.

The additional gigs mean the band will play five Wembley concerts, five in Manchester, and three in Scotland.

And 5 more dates at Wembley are already booked ready to be announced as the original ones sell out. Manchester will no doubt be the same.

TOPPING

The good news is that I think people on PB.com are realising the joys of posting order as it is on vanilla. The most recent post should be on the bottom, obvs, so if you come to a thread you haven't read yet and want to read it (it happens) then you aren't constantly glancing up to see the next post and you read it logically with the oldest at the top.

Nigelb

ThomasNashe said:

Cicero said:

I must admit that my reaction to the headline was "No Shit".

We know that the push polling, especially on the GOP side, is muddying the waters and giving far more evenly matched results than the probable reality, so the polls showing a tight race or a Trump lead are not necessarily reliable. We know that the ghost of Roe v Wade is haunting the Republican campaign. We know that as a result Harris has attracted large numbers of female votes to the Blue column. We know that she has fired up the base to a dramatic degree and the convention, far from being a 1968 disaster, was a total triumph. We know that Harris is raising historically large amounts of money very quickly. We know that Harris has made a good VP pick and that Trump... hasn´t. We know that Trump has never won the popular vote. Trump is still trying to win the 2020 fight, but the style is just looking tired and dated, as is he.

Yet the fear of 2016, like the fear of 2019 in the recent UK general election, is leading people to fear that Trump can still snatch a victory. I think even with all the corruption and malpractice that the convicted felon can orchestrate it will not be enough to overcome a very large vote for Harris. I think she could be headed for a landslide,

It’s just becoming more and more obvious, isn’t it? The notion that it’s going to be ‘on a knife-edge’ is increasingly ridiculous.

Though you shouldn't forget what happened to Clinton, who had a double digit led in the polls in October 2016.

I think any result between a Harris landslide and a narrow Trump win is just about possible - though I have quite a lot of money on Harris winning.

Eabhal

MattW said:

Eabhal said:

MattW said:

Picking up the FPT Building Regs conversation.

darkage said:

Re the build cost issue, it is fundamentally driven by labour and material cost. Scrapping building regulations would not significantly change the labour/material cost. There are issues with building regs but they mostly seem to be connected to rushed policy changes post Grenfell and panics about safety.

I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.

There isn't a lot of difference in the principle of Building Regulation across European countries. One interesting thing about the UK (maybe 'England') is that the methods are not compulsory as such. They are a combination of required outcomes and approved methods. If you convince your Control Officer that your alternative method meets the required outcome safely, you can do it with their approval; that's how innovation can happen. A good example is underfloor insulation of traditional houses by entirely filling the void with polystyrene beads, which has been done since the 1990s; the BCO needs to be convinced that your method will prevent moisture getting in and rotting the floor joists.

The main issues are a reluctance amongst developers to build to decent quality, and lack of capacity in Councils to monitor/enforce since the developers cannot be trusted.

The increasing quality required by building regs has been a key part of our reducing energy consumption per household by 25% since 2000, which is quite an achievement. That's *after* taking into account trends such as us running our houses at a higher temperature, and is bills cheaper than they would otherwise be. My image quota for the day:

(2022 is anomalous due to the energy crisis, but is perhaps a measure of what we *can* achieve under current conditions when we need to do so.)

@darkage flat is interesting. I'm not sure what regulations if any require an EPC C - are you planning to rent it out? These regs are coming in in Scotland and will be here in England too at some stage. There are exemptions, and also funding available. I support this, as there is too much prior history of poor quality rentals.

If a building is overheating extensively in summer in the conditions, then it has not been designed or modified well enough, or perhaps conditions have changed and the owners have not adapted. A classic is to insulate, and to forget to ventilate.

Yes, you need an EPC of D or higher, C or higher from next year.

You're right about it keeping cool. South facing with big Victorian windows, so my flat is almost unbearable in the summer. I'm not sure how sustainable that is going to be going forward - I know that my friends in London really struggle with it already.

If there was a new regulation that overnight temperatures in a rented flat cannot exceed 25c or something, I would be in real trouble.

Are you LL or T in the flat?

There are a couple of strategies. My main one is to buy the northern half of a pair of semi-detached properties, so no S-facing windows and no heat-soak from a S-facing wall.

For your S-facing flat I would look at:

1 - Anti-solar film on the outside of the windows, which can cut solar gain in half with no impact on appearance and little effect on view. If you have recent-ish Scottish windows which have to be cleanable from the inside for safety, you can get it fitted from the inside. There are other appearance affecting possibilities.

2 - Air to air heat pump heating, which can be run backwards to cool it down. The CoP of 3 or 4 brings the bills down. If you are in a top conversion flat air intakes may be possible via an insulated cold loft. "Through the wall single penetration" ones are available.

I've been playing with a portable one of these for a couple of years, vented to the conservatory through a top-window fitting, with a top window open conservatory-outside too, and it has cut my gas bill substantially. When my boiler goes phut, or before, I'll put real ones in, which is tricky but doable.

I have one rental property which will be difficult, and may need an exemption. It's my grandma's 1850 2 up 2 down detached cottage with solid walls. Since 2010 I have done everything which means the bills are now half of what they were then, but it is still D/E borderline, and there is nothing left to do other than throw out the gas - which might not be enough,

Landlord. The film might be a good idea, thanks!

I think this kind of thing will do more to shake up the rental market than anything else. Not a bad thing if the flats left on the rental market are the high quality ones, and the rubbish ones left to owner-occupiers to do up.

rottenborough

Nigelb said:

ThomasNashe said:

Cicero said:

I must admit that my reaction to the headline was "No Shit".

We know that the push polling, especially on the GOP side, is muddying the waters and giving far more evenly matched results than the probable reality, so the polls showing a tight race or a Trump lead are not necessarily reliable. We know that the ghost of Roe v Wade is haunting the Republican campaign. We know that as a result Harris has attracted large numbers of female votes to the Blue column. We know that she has fired up the base to a dramatic degree and the convention, far from being a 1968 disaster, was a total triumph. We know that Harris is raising historically large amounts of money very quickly. We know that Harris has made a good VP pick and that Trump... hasn´t. We know that Trump has never won the popular vote. Trump is still trying to win the 2020 fight, but the style is just looking tired and dated, as is he.

Yet the fear of 2016, like the fear of 2019 in the recent UK general election, is leading people to fear that Trump can still snatch a victory. I think even with all the corruption and malpractice that the convicted felon can orchestrate it will not be enough to overcome a very large vote for Harris. I think she could be headed for a landslide,

It’s just becoming more and more obvious, isn’t it? The notion that it’s going to be ‘on a knife-edge’ is increasingly ridiculous.

Though you shouldn't forget what happened to Clinton, who had a double digit led in the polls in October 2016.

I think any result between a Harris landslide and a narrow Trump win is just about possible - though I have quite a lot of money on Harris winning.

Likewise on the latter.

A Trump win means poorhouse for me and also would be incredibly depressing and frankly very scary.

Nigelb

ydoethur said:

Nigelb said:

Scott_xP said:

Donny's campaign is NOT in trouble...

Hypothesis: The big disjunct between Senator and President in swing states (eg, Kari Lake versus Trump) measures the difference between MAGAts reported as the batshit people they are and Trump, whose batshittery the MSM has cleaned up...
https://x.com/emptywheel/status/1829033605512802486

I think the other thing to remember is that while Trump was never a nice man, or a particularly stable one, he has got progressively worse over 8 years. You look back at him in early 2016 and he was both coherent and energetic - in some ways, more so than Clinton. Now, he looks like a rambling old fool with no grasp of reality because he is one, but it hasn't happened overnight even if losing in 2020 accelerated it.

So people coming fresh to Kari Lake see a loon, but they're not coming fresh to Trump and keep making excuses for his decline.

It's unlikely to improve.

Florida isn’t in play right now, but the dueling Harris & Trump ad buys in West Palm show Mar-a-Lago is contested turf because of the precious real estate between Trump’s ears — a sign of how much the presidential campaign revolves around his moods.
https://x.com/MarcACaputo/status/1828922870128378044

Actually, the Senate seat in Florida might indeed be in play.

But the Harris campaign isn't going to spend much effort there - if they were genuinely in contention in Florida, then it would mean they'd already have the election just about won.
They will campaign as though it's still a close race (ie in the swing states) - which it might well still be.

Theuniondivvie

eek said:

Scott_xP said:

Oasis have announced three extra concert dates in the UK for their reunion tour next year.

The band said they were adding the extra concerts due to "unprecedented demand".

The new dates are: 16 July in Heaton Park, Manchester; 30 July, Wembley; 12 August, Edinburgh.

The additional gigs mean the band will play five Wembley concerts, five in Manchester, and three in Scotland.

And 5 more dates at Wembley are already booked ready to be announced as the original ones sell out. Manchester will no doubt be the same.

At this rate Noel will be able to afford two divorces.

TOPPING

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

TheScreamingEagles

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

The encouragement of the armed insurrection that nearly led to the lynching of his Vice President for starters.

He waited hours to respond.

That’s for starters.

MarqueeMark

Monksfield said:

Cicero said:

I must admit that my reaction to the headline was "No Shit".

We know that the push polling, especially on the GOP side, is muddying the waters and giving far more evenly matched results than the probable reality, so the polls showing a tight race or a Trump lead are not necessarily reliable. We know that the ghost of Roe v Wade is haunting the Republican campaign. We know that as a result Harris has attracted large numbers of female votes to the Blue column. We know that she has fired up the base to a dramatic degree and the convention, far from being a 1968 disaster, was a total triumph. We know that Harris is raising historically large amounts of money very quickly. We know that Harris has made a good VP pick and that Trump... hasn´t. We know that Trump has never won the popular vote. Trump is still trying to win the 2020 fight, but the style is just looking tired and dated, as is he.

Yet the fear of 2016, like the fear of 2019 in the recent UK general election, is leading people to fear that Trump can still snatch a victory. I think even with all the corruption and malpractice that the convicted felon can orchestrate it will not be enough to overcome a very large vote for Harris. I think she could be headed for a landslide,

Yep.

In 2016 my gut feeling was that the UK would vote out
This year my gut feeling was that the LibDems would massively exceed expectations.

The receipts are on this site.

At the moment my gut feeling is that USA2024 is not going to be close. Harris will clean up the swing states and add a couple of surprise wins.

The notion being peddled by the Republicans that Harris is a Marxist-Leninist danger to America just isn't going to resonate, the more people see of her. It takes a while to come out of the shadow of the President, but she is doing that. The more they see of her, the more comfortable they will get.

The more she takes the polling lead and the EC win, the more deranged Come-back Kid Trump is going to sound.

America needs Trump to lose - and to lose bigly. Only then can the Republican Party reshape and reform. "MAGA" as a political force needs to become as toxic a brand as the KKK.

OnlyLivingBoy

Nigelb said:

MattW said:

2nd. Thank-you for the header.

FPT:

Nigelb said:

As it's a JD Vance thread, here's TwitterX on town name pronunciations in Ohio.

There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy.
https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191

Houston: “How-stun”
Russia: “Roo-shee”
Bellefountaine - "Bell Fountain"
Genoa - "Juh Noah"
Leipsic - "Lip sick"

There's a hamlet in Derbyshire called New York - just like the one in Ukraine. And one in Nidderdale. And one in East Lindsay.

Every state in the US must give at least one town a pronunciation that is inexplicable and specifically designed to easily identify outsiders
https://x.com/politicalmath/status/1828568040377651535

Virtually every other placename in Fife has this feature.

MattW

Eabhal said:

MattW said:

Eabhal said:

MattW said:

Picking up the FPT Building Regs conversation.

darkage said:

Re the build cost issue, it is fundamentally driven by labour and material cost. Scrapping building regulations would not significantly change the labour/material cost. There are issues with building regs but they mostly seem to be connected to rushed policy changes post Grenfell and panics about safety.

I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.

There isn't a lot of difference in the principle of Building Regulation across European countries. One interesting thing about the UK (maybe 'England') is that the methods are not compulsory as such. They are a combination of required outcomes and approved methods. If you convince your Control Officer that your alternative method meets the required outcome safely, you can do it with their approval; that's how innovation can happen. A good example is underfloor insulation of traditional houses by entirely filling the void with polystyrene beads, which has been done since the 1990s; the BCO needs to be convinced that your method will prevent moisture getting in and rotting the floor joists.

The main issues are a reluctance amongst developers to build to decent quality, and lack of capacity in Councils to monitor/enforce since the developers cannot be trusted.

The increasing quality required by building regs has been a key part of our reducing energy consumption per household by 25% since 2000, which is quite an achievement. That's *after* taking into account trends such as us running our houses at a higher temperature, and is bills cheaper than they would otherwise be. My image quota for the day:

(2022 is anomalous due to the energy crisis, but is perhaps a measure of what we *can* achieve under current conditions when we need to do so.)

@darkage flat is interesting. I'm not sure what regulations if any require an EPC C - are you planning to rent it out? These regs are coming in in Scotland and will be here in England too at some stage. There are exemptions, and also funding available. I support this, as there is too much prior history of poor quality rentals.

If a building is overheating extensively in summer in the conditions, then it has not been designed or modified well enough, or perhaps conditions have changed and the owners have not adapted. A classic is to insulate, and to forget to ventilate.

Yes, you need an EPC of D or higher, C or higher from next year.

You're right about it keeping cool. South facing with big Victorian windows, so my flat is almost unbearable in the summer. I'm not sure how sustainable that is going to be going forward - I know that my friends in London really struggle with it already.

If there was a new regulation that overnight temperatures in a rented flat cannot exceed 25c or something, I would be in real trouble.

Are you LL or T in the flat?

There are a couple of strategies. My main one is to buy the northern half of a pair of semi-detached properties, so no S-facing windows and no heat-soak from a S-facing wall.

For your S-facing flat I would look at:

1 - Anti-solar film on the outside of the windows, which can cut solar gain in half with no impact on appearance and little effect on view. If you have recent-ish Scottish windows which have to be cleanable from the inside for safety, you can get it fitted from the inside. There are other appearance affecting possibilities.

2 - Air to air heat pump heating, which can be run backwards to cool it down. The CoP of 3 or 4 brings the bills down. If you are in a top conversion flat air intakes may be possible via an insulated cold loft. "Through the wall single penetration" ones are available.

I've been playing with a portable one of these for a couple of years, vented to the conservatory through a top-window fitting, with a top window open conservatory-outside too, and it has cut my gas bill substantially. When my boiler goes phut, or before, I'll put real ones in, which is tricky but doable.

I have one rental property which will be difficult, and may need an exemption. It's my grandma's 1850 2 up 2 down detached cottage with solid walls. Since 2010 I have done everything which means the bills are now half of what they were then, but it is still D/E borderline, and there is nothing left to do other than throw out the gas - which might not be enough,

Landlord. The film might be a good idea, thanks!

I think this kind of thing will do more to shake up the rental market than anything else. Not a bad thing if the flats left on the rental market are the high quality ones, and the rubbish ones left to owner-occupiers to do up.

It's already been massively shaken up over the last 20 years.

Films are extensively covered on Buildhub, and don't skimp on the homework.

My "former expert on Scrapheap Challenge" acquaintance got half a dozen sample pieces, attached them to his window, and monitored the temperature of the glass behind with a thermocouple.

Other options could be to swap your glass for one that does the same job, or for 2G units or slim 3G units, which can also do similar. Or secondary glazing. High end but not exotic 2G units can be a cost/performance sweet spot. New glazing or units should have double the life - say 30 years vs 15 for the film.

Depending you may also get access to the ScotGov Green loan/grant schemes, especially if you are starting from single glazing. If you go with the film, see if that can be funded.

Theuniondivvie

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

Encouraged a bout of violent 'sightseeing' at the seat of government when he lost?

DavidL

Nigelb said:

ydoethur said:

Nigelb said:

Scott_xP said:

Donny's campaign is NOT in trouble...

Hypothesis: The big disjunct between Senator and President in swing states (eg, Kari Lake versus Trump) measures the difference between MAGAts reported as the batshit people they are and Trump, whose batshittery the MSM has cleaned up...
https://x.com/emptywheel/status/1829033605512802486

I think the other thing to remember is that while Trump was never a nice man, or a particularly stable one, he has got progressively worse over 8 years. You look back at him in early 2016 and he was both coherent and energetic - in some ways, more so than Clinton. Now, he looks like a rambling old fool with no grasp of reality because he is one, but it hasn't happened overnight even if losing in 2020 accelerated it.

So people coming fresh to Kari Lake see a loon, but they're not coming fresh to Trump and keep making excuses for his decline.

It's unlikely to improve.

Florida isn’t in play right now, but the dueling Harris & Trump ad buys in West Palm show Mar-a-Lago is contested turf because of the precious real estate between Trump’s ears — a sign of how much the presidential campaign revolves around his moods.
https://x.com/MarcACaputo/status/1828922870128378044

Actually, the Senate seat in Florida might indeed be in play.

But the Harris campaign isn't going to spend much effort there - if they were genuinely in contention in Florida, then it would mean they'd already have the election just about won.
They will campaign as though it's still a close race (ie in the swing states) - which it might well still be.

Some of Harris’s tactics are simply to spread the battlefield to take advantage of her considerably better finances. The money spent on Florida and Ohio is probably part of that.

TOPPING

TheScreamingEagles said:

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

The encouragement of the armed insurrection that nearly led to the lynching of his Vice President for starters.

He waited hours to respond.

That’s for starters.

Weak. It wasn't an armed insurrection. It was a bunch of no-hopers (there's a clue in there) protesting against government. Pretty inefficiently and badly managed by the security forces. None of them expected to find themselves indoors that day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010tff is pretty good about it.

Just like Otis Ferry storming the HoC but more American.

MarqueeMark

TOPPING said:

The good news is that I think people on PB.com are realising the joys of posting order as it is on vanilla. The most recent post should be on the bottom, obvs, so if you come to a thread you haven't read yet and want to read it (it happens) then you aren't constantly glancing up to see the next post and you read it logically with the oldest at the top.

I'll remind you of this when you are having to scroll through 1,000 posts on a long thread....

DavidL

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Nigelb said:

MattW said:

2nd. Thank-you for the header.

FPT:

Nigelb said:

As it's a JD Vance thread, here's TwitterX on town name pronunciations in Ohio.

There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy.
https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191

Houston: “How-stun”
Russia: “Roo-shee”
Bellefountaine - "Bell Fountain"
Genoa - "Juh Noah"
Leipsic - "Lip sick"

There's a hamlet in Derbyshire called New York - just like the one in Ukraine. And one in Nidderdale. And one in East Lindsay.

Every state in the US must give at least one town a pronunciation that is inexplicable and specifically designed to easily identify outsiders
https://x.com/politicalmath/status/1828568040377651535

Virtually every other placename in Fife has this feature.

Yeah, but Fifers. It’s not planned or anything. It’s just the way it is.

TOPPING

Theuniondivvie said:

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

Encouraged a bout of violent 'sightseeing' at the seat of government when he lost?

I have no doubt he wanted people to get out on the streets. I don't think anyone, least of all those who participated, expected it to get so far out of hand.

Eabhal

MattW said:

Eabhal said:

MattW said:

Eabhal said:

MattW said:

Picking up the FPT Building Regs conversation.

darkage said:

Re the build cost issue, it is fundamentally driven by labour and material cost. Scrapping building regulations would not significantly change the labour/material cost. There are issues with building regs but they mostly seem to be connected to rushed policy changes post Grenfell and panics about safety.

I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.

There isn't a lot of difference in the principle of Building Regulation across European countries. One interesting thing about the UK (maybe 'England') is that the methods are not compulsory as such. They are a combination of required outcomes and approved methods. If you convince your Control Officer that your alternative method meets the required outcome safely, you can do it with their approval; that's how innovation can happen. A good example is underfloor insulation of traditional houses by entirely filling the void with polystyrene beads, which has been done since the 1990s; the BCO needs to be convinced that your method will prevent moisture getting in and rotting the floor joists.

The main issues are a reluctance amongst developers to build to decent quality, and lack of capacity in Councils to monitor/enforce since the developers cannot be trusted.

The increasing quality required by building regs has been a key part of our reducing energy consumption per household by 25% since 2000, which is quite an achievement. That's *after* taking into account trends such as us running our houses at a higher temperature, and is bills cheaper than they would otherwise be. My image quota for the day:

(2022 is anomalous due to the energy crisis, but is perhaps a measure of what we *can* achieve under current conditions when we need to do so.)

@darkage flat is interesting. I'm not sure what regulations if any require an EPC C - are you planning to rent it out? These regs are coming in in Scotland and will be here in England too at some stage. There are exemptions, and also funding available. I support this, as there is too much prior history of poor quality rentals.

If a building is overheating extensively in summer in the conditions, then it has not been designed or modified well enough, or perhaps conditions have changed and the owners have not adapted. A classic is to insulate, and to forget to ventilate.

Yes, you need an EPC of D or higher, C or higher from next year.

You're right about it keeping cool. South facing with big Victorian windows, so my flat is almost unbearable in the summer. I'm not sure how sustainable that is going to be going forward - I know that my friends in London really struggle with it already.

If there was a new regulation that overnight temperatures in a rented flat cannot exceed 25c or something, I would be in real trouble.

Are you LL or T in the flat?

There are a couple of strategies. My main one is to buy the northern half of a pair of semi-detached properties, so no S-facing windows and no heat-soak from a S-facing wall.

For your S-facing flat I would look at:

1 - Anti-solar film on the outside of the windows, which can cut solar gain in half with no impact on appearance and little effect on view. If you have recent-ish Scottish windows which have to be cleanable from the inside for safety, you can get it fitted from the inside. There are other appearance affecting possibilities.

2 - Air to air heat pump heating, which can be run backwards to cool it down. The CoP of 3 or 4 brings the bills down. If you are in a top conversion flat air intakes may be possible via an insulated cold loft. "Through the wall single penetration" ones are available.

I've been playing with a portable one of these for a couple of years, vented to the conservatory through a top-window fitting, with a top window open conservatory-outside too, and it has cut my gas bill substantially. When my boiler goes phut, or before, I'll put real ones in, which is tricky but doable.

I have one rental property which will be difficult, and may need an exemption. It's my grandma's 1850 2 up 2 down detached cottage with solid walls. Since 2010 I have done everything which means the bills are now half of what they were then, but it is still D/E borderline, and there is nothing left to do other than throw out the gas - which might not be enough,

Landlord. The film might be a good idea, thanks!

I think this kind of thing will do more to shake up the rental market than anything else. Not a bad thing if the flats left on the rental market are the high quality ones, and the rubbish ones left to owner-occupiers to do up.

Extensively covered on Buildhub, and don't skimp on the homework.

My "former expert on Scrapheap Challenge" acquaintance got half a dozen sample pieces, attached them to his window, and monitored the temperature of the glass behind with a thermocouple.

Other options could be to swap your glass for one that does the same job, or for 2G units or slim 3G units, which can also do similar. Or secondary glazing.

Depending you may also get access to the ScotGov loan/grant schemes.

This all depends on me being a benevolent landlord... the windows are fairly new and I've got a a C rating already. It's a really interesting area though and something to look out for, particularly if you own property in the SE.

My eventual plan is to sell it to the tenant once they have enough cash for a deposit. Then valuation becomes a bit tricky.

TheScreamingEagles

TOPPING said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

The encouragement of the armed insurrection that nearly led to the lynching of his Vice President for starters.

He waited hours to respond.

That’s for starters.

Weak. It wasn't an armed insurrection. It was a bunch of no-hopers (there's a clue in there) protesting against government. Pretty inefficiently and badly managed by the security forces. None of them expected to find themselves indoors that day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010tff is pretty good about it.

Just like Otis Ferry storming the HoC but more American.

How many people died or were injured when Otis Ferry and his friends invaded the Commons?

ThomasNashe

TOPPING said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

The encouragement of the armed insurrection that nearly led to the lynching of his Vice President for starters.

He waited hours to respond.

That’s for starters.

Weak. It wasn't an armed insurrection. It was a bunch of no-hopers (there's a clue in there) protesting against government. Pretty inefficiently and badly managed by the security forces. None of them expected to find themselves indoors that day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010tff is pretty good about it.

Just like Otis Ferry storming the HoC but more American.

Were there nine people dead in the wake of Otis climbing a lamppost?

boulay

TOPPING said:

The good news is that I think people on PB.com are realising the joys of posting order as it is on vanilla. The most recent post should be on the bottom, obvs, so if you come to a thread you haven't read yet and want to read it (it happens) then you aren't constantly glancing up to see the next post and you read it logically with the oldest at the top.

Indeed - I didn’t realise so many weirdos read the non-VF version - like watching a tv series episode 6 to episode 1. You are wondering how the huge fight happened in the final episode then find out Leon said he hated cats in episode 1.


Also explains why so many posts after the “new thread” alert.

algarkirk

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Nigelb said:

MattW said:

2nd. Thank-you for the header.

FPT:

Nigelb said:

As it's a JD Vance thread, here's TwitterX on town name pronunciations in Ohio.

There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy.
https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191

Houston: “How-stun”
Russia: “Roo-shee”
Bellefountaine - "Bell Fountain"
Genoa - "Juh Noah"
Leipsic - "Lip sick"

There's a hamlet in Derbyshire called New York - just like the one in Ukraine. And one in Nidderdale. And one in East Lindsay.

Every state in the US must give at least one town a pronunciation that is inexplicable and specifically designed to easily identify outsiders
https://x.com/politicalmath/status/1828568040377651535

Virtually every other placename in Fife has this feature.

Cumberland (as it now is, replacing Cumbria). Spiatri=Aspatria

MarqueeMark

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

1. Weaponsing the Department of Justice to go after anyone who has stood up to him and defended democracy.

2. Being a dictator from day one.

3. Project 2025.

You really should pay more attention to the intricacies.

MarqueeMark

algarkirk said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Nigelb said:

MattW said:

2nd. Thank-you for the header.

FPT:

Nigelb said:

As it's a JD Vance thread, here's TwitterX on town name pronunciations in Ohio.

There’s a town in Ohio called “Versailles” and it’s pronounced by the locals, and all Ohioans, as “Ver-sails” and if you try to pronounce it like you should (with the French accent), people look at you like you’re crazy.
https://x.com/EudaimoniaEsq/status/1828560881808220191

Houston: “How-stun”
Russia: “Roo-shee”
Bellefountaine - "Bell Fountain"
Genoa - "Juh Noah"
Leipsic - "Lip sick"

There's a hamlet in Derbyshire called New York - just like the one in Ukraine. And one in Nidderdale. And one in East Lindsay.

Every state in the US must give at least one town a pronunciation that is inexplicable and specifically designed to easily identify outsiders
https://x.com/politicalmath/status/1828568040377651535

Virtually every other placename in Fife has this feature.

Cumberland (as it now is, replacing Cumbria). Spiatri=Aspatria

Norfolk: Stiffkey = Stookie

Devon: Dittersham = Ditt'sum

DavidL

Theuniondivvie said:

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

Encouraged a bout of violent 'sightseeing' at the seat of government when he lost?

The reintroduction of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act is concerning.

kamski

ThomasNashe said:

TOPPING said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

The encouragement of the armed insurrection that nearly led to the lynching of his Vice President for starters.

He waited hours to respond.

That’s for starters.

Weak. It wasn't an armed insurrection. It was a bunch of no-hopers (there's a clue in there) protesting against government. Pretty inefficiently and badly managed by the security forces. None of them expected to find themselves indoors that day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010tff is pretty good about it.

Just like Otis Ferry storming the HoC but more American.

Were there nine people dead in the wake of Otis climbing a lamppost?

I also didn't realise that Otis Ferry had the support of a party that had just lost a general election but were claiming they had won it?

Theuniondivvie

TOPPING said:

Theuniondivvie said:

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

Encouraged a bout of violent 'sightseeing' at the seat of government when he lost?

I have no doubt he wanted people to get out on the streets. I don't think anyone, least of all those who participated, expected it to get so far out of hand.

As our own streetfighters have recently found out, when you start a process not realising your own actions might get out of hand is no defence. Of course people like 'legitimate questions' Farage never face the consequences.

Malmesbury

ThomasNashe said:

Cicero said:

I must admit that my reaction to the headline was "No Shit".

We know that the push polling, especially on the GOP side, is muddying the waters and giving far more evenly matched results than the probable reality, so the polls showing a tight race or a Trump lead are not necessarily reliable. We know that the ghost of Roe v Wade is haunting the Republican campaign. We know that as a result Harris has attracted large numbers of female votes to the Blue column. We know that she has fired up the base to a dramatic degree and the convention, far from being a 1968 disaster, was a total triumph. We know that Harris is raising historically large amounts of money very quickly. We know that Harris has made a good VP pick and that Trump... hasn´t. We know that Trump has never won the popular vote. Trump is still trying to win the 2020 fight, but the style is just looking tired and dated, as is he.

Yet the fear of 2016, like the fear of 2019 in the recent UK general election, is leading people to fear that Trump can still snatch a victory. I think even with all the corruption and malpractice that the convicted felon can orchestrate it will not be enough to overcome a very large vote for Harris. I think she could be headed for a landslide,

It’s just becoming more and more obvious, isn’t it? The notion that it’s going to be ‘on a knife-edge’ is increasingly ridiculous.

How much do you want to wager?

mercator

boulay said:

TOPPING said:

The good news is that I think people on PB.com are realising the joys of posting order as it is on vanilla. The most recent post should be on the bottom, obvs, so if you come to a thread you haven't read yet and want to read it (it happens) then you aren't constantly glancing up to see the next post and you read it logically with the oldest at the top.

Indeed - I didn’t realise so many weirdos read the non-VF version - like watching a tv series episode 6 to episode 1. You are wondering how the huge fight happened in the final episode then find out Leon said he hated cats in episode 1.


Also explains why so many posts after the “new thread” alert.

It's a worker vs layabout thing. Layabouts (me) on mobile devices like to refresh by swiping down which doesn't really work except with top posting. Workers with computers can hit f5.

MattW

Eabhal said:

MattW said:

Eabhal said:

MattW said:

Eabhal said:

MattW said:

Picking up the FPT Building Regs conversation.

darkage said:

Re the build cost issue, it is fundamentally driven by labour and material cost. Scrapping building regulations would not significantly change the labour/material cost. There are issues with building regs but they mostly seem to be connected to rushed policy changes post Grenfell and panics about safety.

I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.

There isn't a lot of difference in the principle of Building Regulation across European countries. One interesting thing about the UK (maybe 'England') is that the methods are not compulsory as such. They are a combination of required outcomes and approved methods. If you convince your Control Officer that your alternative method meets the required outcome safely, you can do it with their approval; that's how innovation can happen. A good example is underfloor insulation of traditional houses by entirely filling the void with polystyrene beads, which has been done since the 1990s; the BCO needs to be convinced that your method will prevent moisture getting in and rotting the floor joists.

The main issues are a reluctance amongst developers to build to decent quality, and lack of capacity in Councils to monitor/enforce since the developers cannot be trusted.

The increasing quality required by building regs has been a key part of our reducing energy consumption per household by 25% since 2000, which is quite an achievement. That's *after* taking into account trends such as us running our houses at a higher temperature, and is bills cheaper than they would otherwise be. My image quota for the day:

(2022 is anomalous due to the energy crisis, but is perhaps a measure of what we *can* achieve under current conditions when we need to do so.)

@darkage flat is interesting. I'm not sure what regulations if any require an EPC C - are you planning to rent it out? These regs are coming in in Scotland and will be here in England too at some stage. There are exemptions, and also funding available. I support this, as there is too much prior history of poor quality rentals.

If a building is overheating extensively in summer in the conditions, then it has not been designed or modified well enough, or perhaps conditions have changed and the owners have not adapted. A classic is to insulate, and to forget to ventilate.

Yes, you need an EPC of D or higher, C or higher from next year.

You're right about it keeping cool. South facing with big Victorian windows, so my flat is almost unbearable in the summer. I'm not sure how sustainable that is going to be going forward - I know that my friends in London really struggle with it already.

If there was a new regulation that overnight temperatures in a rented flat cannot exceed 25c or something, I would be in real trouble.

Are you LL or T in the flat?

There are a couple of strategies. My main one is to buy the northern half of a pair of semi-detached properties, so no S-facing windows and no heat-soak from a S-facing wall.

For your S-facing flat I would look at:

1 - Anti-solar film on the outside of the windows, which can cut solar gain in half with no impact on appearance and little effect on view. If you have recent-ish Scottish windows which have to be cleanable from the inside for safety, you can get it fitted from the inside. There are other appearance affecting possibilities.

2 - Air to air heat pump heating, which can be run backwards to cool it down. The CoP of 3 or 4 brings the bills down. If you are in a top conversion flat air intakes may be possible via an insulated cold loft. "Through the wall single penetration" ones are available.

I've been playing with a portable one of these for a couple of years, vented to the conservatory through a top-window fitting, with a top window open conservatory-outside too, and it has cut my gas bill substantially. When my boiler goes phut, or before, I'll put real ones in, which is tricky but doable.

I have one rental property which will be difficult, and may need an exemption. It's my grandma's 1850 2 up 2 down detached cottage with solid walls. Since 2010 I have done everything which means the bills are now half of what they were then, but it is still D/E borderline, and there is nothing left to do other than throw out the gas - which might not be enough,

Landlord. The film might be a good idea, thanks!

I think this kind of thing will do more to shake up the rental market than anything else. Not a bad thing if the flats left on the rental market are the high quality ones, and the rubbish ones left to owner-occupiers to do up.

Extensively covered on Buildhub, and don't skimp on the homework.

My "former expert on Scrapheap Challenge" acquaintance got half a dozen sample pieces, attached them to his window, and monitored the temperature of the glass behind with a thermocouple.

Other options could be to swap your glass for one that does the same job, or for 2G units or slim 3G units, which can also do similar. Or secondary glazing.

Depending you may also get access to the ScotGov loan/grant schemes.

This all depends on me being a benevolent landlord... the windows are fairly new and I've got a a C rating already. It's a really interesting area though and something to look out for, particularly if you own property in the SE.

My eventual plan is to sell it to the tenant once they have enough cash for a deposit. Then valuation becomes a bit tricky.

There are guides you can point to on that. One way to set upper and lower bounds for a conversation, if you are trying to be kind but not fleeced:

If it is not a defensible 'market' value, the HMRC might go after T for a gift or benefit value, which probably means market minus 10-15% is OK - which may set a practical lower bound.

It's easy to go 2-4% below market with no out of pocket 'cost' to, as you save fees, decoration, hassle etc.

It all depends...

ydoethur

MarqueeMark said:

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

1. Weaponsing the Department of Justice to go after anyone who has stood up to him and defended democracy.

2. Being a dictator from day one.

3. Project 2025.

You really should pay more attention to the intricacies.

It's worth remembering he did, in fact weaponise the Department of Justice last time to try and thwart certification of the result, including issuing orders to halt counting.

But he can't be prosecuted for that due to the Supreme Court ruling that it was a Presidential action and immune.

That's the kind of thing we should be worried about.

ThomasNashe

Malmesbury said:

ThomasNashe said:

Cicero said:

I must admit that my reaction to the headline was "No Shit".

We know that the push polling, especially on the GOP side, is muddying the waters and giving far more evenly matched results than the probable reality, so the polls showing a tight race or a Trump lead are not necessarily reliable. We know that the ghost of Roe v Wade is haunting the Republican campaign. We know that as a result Harris has attracted large numbers of female votes to the Blue column. We know that she has fired up the base to a dramatic degree and the convention, far from being a 1968 disaster, was a total triumph. We know that Harris is raising historically large amounts of money very quickly. We know that Harris has made a good VP pick and that Trump... hasn´t. We know that Trump has never won the popular vote. Trump is still trying to win the 2020 fight, but the style is just looking tired and dated, as is he.

Yet the fear of 2016, like the fear of 2019 in the recent UK general election, is leading people to fear that Trump can still snatch a victory. I think even with all the corruption and malpractice that the convicted felon can orchestrate it will not be enough to overcome a very large vote for Harris. I think she could be headed for a landslide,

It’s just becoming more and more obvious, isn’t it? The notion that it’s going to be ‘on a knife-edge’ is increasingly ridiculous.

How much do you want to wager?

What bet are you offering?

noneoftheabove

https://ifs.org.uk/articles/home-office-budgeting-and-asylum-overspends

Home Office Budget for Asylum, Border, Visa and Passport Operations = £110m
Actual spend = £2.6bn

3 year averages, not one off. Bonkers. Fund the courts, process claims quickly, deport quickly and let those waiting more than a month work and support themselves.

TOPPING

MarqueeMark said:

TOPPING said:

The good news is that I think people on PB.com are realising the joys of posting order as it is on vanilla. The most recent post should be on the bottom, obvs, so if you come to a thread you haven't read yet and want to read it (it happens) then you aren't constantly glancing up to see the next post and you read it logically with the oldest at the top.

I'll remind you of this when you are having to scroll through 1,000 posts on a long thread....

Thing is, if it is latest at the top then if you are catching up on a thread you see the next post before you have finished reading the current one and you don't know what that post is referring to. It is illogical and spoils the gripping tension of post development.

TOPPING

TheScreamingEagles said:

TOPPING said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

The encouragement of the armed insurrection that nearly led to the lynching of his Vice President for starters.

He waited hours to respond.

That’s for starters.

Weak. It wasn't an armed insurrection. It was a bunch of no-hopers (there's a clue in there) protesting against government. Pretty inefficiently and badly managed by the security forces. None of them expected to find themselves indoors that day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010tff is pretty good about it.

Just like Otis Ferry storming the HoC but more American.

How many people died or were injured when Otis Ferry and his friends invaded the Commons?

It's America ffs. How many people die or are injured in a normal day in Ohio vs Hartlepool.

Cookie

Theuniondivvie said:

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

Encouraged a bout of violent 'sightseeing' at the seat of government when he lost?

That is indeed quite worrying, although technically that's something to worry about with Trump losing, and I didn't get the impression the Dems were altogether keen to discourage the considerably bigger anti-government riots which were
going on throughout 2020.

And there'll be a lot of scale-tipping goes on if Trump wins, though I'm not convinced it will be significantly greater than if Harris wins.

My main worry is Trump's commitment to NATO and Ukraine, where Trump has the potential to be very bad news for the west. Or perhaps not. After all, the world was more peaceful during Trump's presidency than that of his predecessor or successor. It's very difficult to disentangle the mad stuff he says from the mad stuff he believes or to predict what he'd do if back in charge.

And Trump doesn't like us much. But nor did Obama, and nor does Biden, and I can't imagine Harris is terribly keen.

I do worry about a Trump presidency. I'd definitely vote Harris if I had a vote, and I'm keener on her than I was on Hilary or Joe. But I don't think a Harris presidency is necessarily the west saved and the good guys winning. The balance of risks seems to me a little less worrying with a Harris presidency - but still quite worrying.

MattW

MarqueeMark said:

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

1. Weaponsing the Department of Justice to go after anyone who has stood up to him and defended democracy.

2. Being a dictator from day one.

3. Project 2025.

You really should pay more attention to the intricacies.

4 - Redefining using 19C legislation the number of federal jobs which are "political" to be higher by a factor of about 10. Political roles can be sacked-and-replaced by the incoming administration. That's one part of Project 2025.

5 - There are also plans (and things done already by SCOTUS) around dismantling the "administrative state". That is equivalent to things in the UK like the Health and Safety Executive.

TOPPING

MarqueeMark said:

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

1. Weaponsing the Department of Justice to go after anyone who has stood up to him and defended democracy.

2. Being a dictator from day one.

3. Project 2025.

You really should pay more attention to the intricacies.

I think this is more your prejudices than reality. "Being a dictator from day one" is equivalent to some of the wilder claims of anti-Brexiters. It is hyperbole.

America remains a democracy and actually decided to vote Trump out last time round and may now decide to vote him back in.

It is the PB/Graun crowd who clutch their pearls at democracy in action that I find objectionable.

Nigelb

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

He's pledged to use the US military to help deport several million immigrants for example. The US hasn't had internment camps on domestic soil since WWII; it will under a second Trump administration.
And note the MSM have barely questioned him on this.

Trump II would be a great deal worse than Trump I. All the old style GOP establishment cabinet members are gone - indeed the vast majority of them refuse to endorse him in this election.
The team around him now are a combination of his own family, other serial grifters like RFK Jnr., and genuine right wing ideologues. It's the latter who are likely to drive policy, as they are the only ones actually interested in using the power of the office for anything other than self aggrandisement.

Eabhal

TOPPING said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

TOPPING said:

As one who doesn't follow the intricacies US elections (tip: one of them is going to win), but doesn't like the PB Guardian-adjacent bien pensant dismissal of Trump supporters, can I ask those who know (ie you lot) what Trump would do in office that would be "frankly very scary" and what he did last time that was "frankly very scary".

The encouragement of the armed insurrection that nearly led to the lynching of his Vice President for starters.

He waited hours to respond.

That’s for starters.

Weak. It wasn't an armed insurrection. It was a bunch of no-hopers (there's a clue in there) protesting against government. Pretty inefficiently and badly managed by the security forces. None of them expected to find themselves indoors that day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010tff is pretty good about it.

Just like Otis Ferry storming the HoC but more American.

What do you mean - they accidentally ended up inside the Capitol?

Funny what kind of behaviour is covered by "protesting" when it's the right doing it. Almost as if there are two-tiers...

nico679

RFK Jnr will remain on the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin .

That could complicate things . But could help Harris .

He’s endorsed Trump but remaining on the ballot there means some voters will think it’s okay to vote for him as he’s with Trump .

There’s still a question mark over North Carolina where over half the counties have printed ballots . A decision there is due later today .