Well I certainly hope they had some sort of heat recovery/air con because I actually commented to my wife 'bloody hell that will be hot in summer'

I though the staircase was a bit OTT. £40,000 for a handmade staircase? More money than sense. The poor boat building guy spent 4 months glueing the thing together and sanding it to within an inch of its life and then they paint it with emulsion!!

If I had spent four months building a staircase and then charged £40 000 for it I would be a lot better paid that I am used to.

Its not the name "art", it was beautiful and if the only way to make it look like that takes 4 months then so be it. Too often in house building cost is a limiting factor so rubbish is put in and too often when it is not, its bling and horrible.

Posted By: biffvernonIt's the getting £40 grand for four months that I can't get my head round.

Sounds about right - he probably only gets one order per year so has to charge at least 2x his "salary" to cover the periods where he isn't making these. I work in the professional services business and we charge roughly 2X salary costs to clients to cover the periods between projects and other overhead.

Paul in Montreal.

Posted By: BowmanI'd rather have seen something similar in stone, lots of thermal mass and a contrast in colour and texture to the all that wood.

On a volume for volume basis, stone and wood have a similar thermal mass.

Paul in Montreal.

The figures I had were specific heat capacity of limestone 0.84 and density 2160 giving 1814kJ/m3/K which is about the same as oak. As with wood, it depends on the "species" of limestone. Granite is 0.71 with density 2700 giving 1917kH/m3/K.

I couldn't find the heat capacity of any of the exotic hardwoods - some of them are around 1000kg/m3 or more so probably have an even higher specific heat capacity per cubic metre than rock.

Paul in Montreal.

Posted By: adwindrumThis weeks "barn for the 21st century" (not sure any of my animals would be welcome in it though!) featured double height spaces. I noticed they had a fan in the ceiling and there was no mention of MVHR, (1) would it work effectivly in that sort of space?

The fan or MVHR? I didn't see the program but I can't see there being a problem with either. Presumably the fan was intended to stir the air so all the heat didn't go into the roof. We have a gallery over our dining room - can't say I've noticed a problem that needs a fan to solve. We have UFH.

I like the idea of this sort of space especially combining it with lots of glazing for solar gain. (2) Would MVHR move so much heat?

MVHR isn't really designed to move heat around a house. The air flow rate isn't high enough in my opinion. If you had a wood burner in one room and wanted to move the heat around I reckon you would need a much higher air flow than is required for ventilation purposes.

There would also be a problem with doors. MVHR normally extracts from bathrooms and kitchens and and feeds into living rooms and bedrooms. The low airflow rate can easily sneak under doors to complete the loop. To transport heat about I recon you would need ducts going to and from the room with the stove/heat source.

Our dining room also has a full height window that's south facing. It wasn't designed for solar gain and I reckon it only really collects heat when the sun is out. I would say that when there is any significant cloud or overcast the window is loosing heat and almost certainly looses heat on average.

Thanks Cwatters. The question was re the ability of MVHR working in a double height space.
I understand your point re the windows losing more heat on average, and it is a complex thing that needs working out (bring in the heating engineer!). I probably need to be able to isolate the space in winter (and hot summer days) with doors, and be able to open it up when it gets too hot. I am just intertested if anyone would have an idea how MVHR would cope with it or if it mattered? I forsee that if it is picking up lots of heat in the summer it will make the cooling system (if fitted for summer use) work harder in the exhanging part of the system. In winter it will cool the air in the trunking down as the glassed area will be cooler than rest of house.
Chuckey - I agree, the theme that was repeated over and over about it being a barn/farmhouse, practical, tough wearing working space etc etc was driving me nuts! Me and the kids enter our house from all angles with muddy boots etc, they had one cramped utility room half full of boilers! It was a farmhouse-themed house, designed by an artist. Lovely detail though on a lot of it.

Posted By: biffvernonThe guy gets £40 000 for four months work and then takes an eight month holiday. He has to charge a lot to pay for his hoilday.

But what you're not considering is that he doesn't know how long the "holiday" will be - maybe the next order will come in during that 8 months, maybe it will be a year. I speak from experience here - when I was an independent consultant the period between contracts was certainly not a holiday - it was time spent finding the next contract.

Paul in Montreal.

My query is a bit open I guess, but I am trying to find out if MHVR can cope with a large space (eg a gymnasium) ie turn over the required volume of air to keep it all fresh without being very noisy or ineffective. Not really distribute it around the house. Also if it is taking air out of a greenhouse for example where the temp fluctuates a lot does it make the system less efficient ie in winter it will cool the air down so reduce the heat exchangers ability to swap heat. In the summer if I get the air cooling version will the hot air from the greenhouse make the system work a lot harder to cool the air?