My Barn Conversion

Whilst the Government appears to have listened to the many concerned voices raised in response to the draft document, the continued insistence on easing planning controls to promote growth remains a troubling key theme of reform and increasingly a political plaything.

The National Planning Policy Framework (#NPPF) published today – Mar 27, 2012.

My current main indoor job is painting the door frames & linings that are still in their original state – untreated timber linings and white coated MDF architraves. Here are a couple pictures of them in their ‘before’ state. I suspect there won’t be a great deal of visual difference ‘after’ as all I intendContinue reading Doors before

Climate Change Minister Greg Barker had plenty to say about the Green Deal in his speech at the Ecobuild conference in London yesterday.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the Raspberry Pi for a while now. What’s a Raspberry Pi? The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processingContinue reading Raspberry Pi – Bespoke heating controller project #1

I’ve been rattling on about the barns roof trusses / A-frame a fair bit recently, both on the forum and the roof post in my Anatomy of… series. Well here’s quite a nice photograph of the real thing… For reference, the photograph shows the right hand side of the two furthest trusses that you canContinue reading Roof A-frame exposed!

Looks like recent negative speculation over the Green Deal may be well-founded. We now learn that Climate Change Minister Greg Barker has confirmed that the secondary legislation for the Green Deal will be delayed. The secondary legislation (the instrument through which the government is able to make changes to the law without having to passContinue reading The Green Deal next steps delayed

Fake Arabia meets Carmarthenshire sunshine… a rare and beautiful thing… (Sitting on my newly tiled window sills.)

It looks like the politicians and energy companies are starting to pull at the seams of the Green Deal. The energy companies have delayed implementation of the funding framework that will underpin the Green Deal with its core concept of funding environmentally beneficial home improvements through energy bills. The Department of Energy and Climate ChangeContinue reading The Green Deal – stretching at the seams?

With the Green Deal, due to be launched later this year, I thought that an update was in order since I last mentioned it back in March 2011. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) describe the Green Deal as follows: The Energy Act 2011 includes provisions for the new ‘Green Deal’, which intendsContinue reading The Green Deal – update March 2012