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@Square Feet "This is the jump I have taken since my previous blog posts (which have in themselves also been an act of ‘starting the conversation’). " This is progress! I enjoyed our telephone conversation. I have lots of different types of Clients. Some are just starting out and have little experience and you need to adjust to give the best advice that puts them on a sound footing at the start of their journey. Some Clients such as yourself have a wealth of experience and technical knowledge. Here we can skip some steps and more quickly go into technical detail, for example what detailed risk the site may pose all the way up to how you are actually going to build it on site. The conversation can quickly move to a position where can test our ideas against each others knowledge and experience in a free, open and enjoyable manner. That is why conversations take time and are invaluable in all cases. At the end of the day building a house should be fun and rewarding. It should be fun for the Client and for me also as the designer. This is achievable if you plan well, get good advice from folk where you may have weak spots in your experience. If that advice is well presented and informs you then it allows you to make evidenced / risk based decisions. The best news is that the seller has made contact and you have met in person. I’d be gutted if I saw the plot reduced to what I would have paid at some point in the future when I had already committed to a compromise plot I don’t like as much. He was generous enough to not reject it right away but instead to say that he would think about it and talk it over with his partner before getting back to me sometime next week. I can ask no more than that. At this stage there is everything to play for. The key here as you know is to keep the negotiation channel open. You want to buy, the seller sell. I think there is reference to this concept in Adam Smith, 1776: The wealth of nations. Rooting for you!

I'd have thought by suitably placing the PIR (e.g. on the side panel) it will be triggered by the movement of the doors themselves without having any visibility through any crack between the doors. A lot of these things just seem simpler using the smart home approach. Then you can move the wireless battery powered sensor around until it reacts as you wish, and choose whatever logic including delays, conditions etc to control the light. Lots of LED strip controllers available with wireless smart home integration. The following sensors readily available... PIR Contact sensors Tilt sensors vibration Sensor presence sensor lux sensor I always wonder why have the LED strip at the back of the shelf rather than the front. Things under a shelf are illuminated by reflected light incident from the front, and can just get silhouetted when lit from the rear. Unless you are going to open the cupboard in a dark room you could use a lux sensor inside the cupboard to detect the increase in light when you open the cupboard doors.

Lots of ifs and buts on this one. There are only really three practical ways of moving the heat into and out of the building: water, air, refrigerant. Air specific heat capacity is poor so you need lots of volume and flow, refrigerant needs its own specific pipework, qualifications etc. with lots of limitations to things like pipework length. Water is definitely the most effective way to move the heat. The aircon units will probably also need condensate drainage so added complexity there. I don't think the solution is that simple, or not as simple as the Samsung marketing department makes it look. Maybe okay for a new build, but for a retrofit? I'm not so sure. Like with all these things, the complexity lies more in the cooling than in the heating, especially if you want aircon type cold.

Thank you for the heads up! I just checked back a realised I'd got a couple of things confused. The MIs had been specced donkeys ago for a system that was also on the main roof and included the south face of the garage to account for the predicted shadowing over the year! This plan never got anywhere because the solar designer couldn't find a roofing contractor that would touch our roof and standing seam. So, yes, scrub the suggestion of MIs into the inverter.

Talking to a plumber tonight. He is F gas certified. He was explaining the difference with these heat pumps to the standard ones to me. It's all a bit beyond my understanding. Anyway I was asking him if I could have wet UFH on GF then air to air units upstairs to do heating if needed and cooling in summer, also probably 1 or 2 air units downstairs to cool. All off 1 outdoor unit. I think he is more in with Daikin and said they are bringing out something soon, however Samsung appear to do the perfect solution with the TDM plus / climate hub. Outdoor pump, pre plumbed cylinder and air to air units. It looks good, no doubt very costly?! Does anyone have any experience with this set up. Seems simpler to a luddite like me. I suppose cost will be the trade off for simplicity i've no doubt others like @JohnMo can knock something up just as good performance wise for a lot less dough, maybe even have 2 seperate outdoor units. It's just beyond my pay grade though. I wonder what cost would be for this and 5 or 6 indoor air con units and the cylinder. https://samsung-climatesolutions.com/gb/b2c/our-solutions/home/heat-pump-solutions/heating-cooling/tdm-plus.html

Reed switches would work nicely, with the magnets rebated into the tops of the doors and the reed switches into the heads, just off centre of each side of the middle of the opening. https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/magnetic-proximity-switches/5308927 Will need to switch the lighting via a small relay as these can only do 0.5a max, but these can be completely hidden and work for the double door arrangement.

Don't think you were napping....... MIs were an option til Simon mentioned connecting to an inverter

Happy days. The UFH test kit is simple; connect it to the cold mains and let it rip.

I was sleeping on my feet, and meant to say this earlier….

Just looked at cost of flexible stick down panels - scary prices.

Why do you want PV? I very much suspect that stick on flexible panels will be cost effective.

>>> Was told by last 2 BCO’s to “fill it full of water” Then you time it and take pics of your phone for stop / start times. We did today and everything was good:) I still wouldn’t mind a decent testing kit for UFH etc.

We would like to add an LED lighting strip in a corner profile to the underside of the lower shelf (against the back). I bought a Luxomat PD9-1C-92902 sensor to link up for the lighting. The builders electrician did not complete the job and a new electrician has stepped in. Had a conversation with him about the placement of the sensor, which would preferably at the top underside of the unit, towards to the back edge. We have concerns that it may: 1) not detect movement if too far back or 2) would the sensor detect people through the gaps in the doors when they are closed and turn on and off. Has anyone used one of these in similar situation? I looked at the switches that link to the doors but they wouldn't work as there are two pantry doors and it gets complicated to link up the two. Does anyone have any other ideas? sadly it is a retrofit now. Not a serious issue but would be good to have light here during the darker winter months. Thanks.

It’s really bugging me. Doesn’t help that the houses near us have nice sharp looking dark grey tiles 🫤

There should be clamps designed for every standing seam product, allowing you to use standard solar panels. The downside is you lose sight of your expensive roof.

If you're looking to hook up panels to the inverters second MPPT dont use micro inverters as they push out AC whereas your inverter is needing a DC input. Optimisers is what you want if you're connecting to the MPPT input. I don't know how much Tigo optimisers are but I beleive you can use solaredge optimisers with any inverter if you turn off the safe shutdown function with a Solaredge optimiser Key. You can pick up SE optimisers off eBay very cheaply if youre prepared to wait. Last time I looked the Key is about £80

@SimonD Thanks for the observations. Hadn't thought of utilising ing the "normal" valves. I was thinking of using end feed tees rather than a pre-made unit so the insulation would be less disturbed. Outside gives me access to a convenient hosepipe!

There are some installations where installer will put a tee and ball valve off the flow & return outside. They put them before the heat pump isolation valves so you can isolate the heat pump and flush the system through - there are pros and cons to this approach. Just then make sure all the pipework is properly insulated. If you do a fill and flush setup, if you're using mains rather than a pump flushing machine, just make sure you've got easy access to mains water outlet.

Yes, I dread to think about 1) what it'll take to clean a standing seam roof that's been on for 6 years prior to installation and, 2) what it would take to clean to roof when replacing the panels - at end of life or following premature failure. It just took me 20 minutes to clean the old adhesive off a Festool saw guide rail to put a new splinter guard strip on!

I feel rather tempted to add a few bits to one of the outside pipes from the heat pump to make up a fill & flush function. (28x15x28 tees, 15x3/4 service valves, 28 full bore valve) BUT I haven't seen it on any schematic, they always seem to be indoors, which doesn't seem as convenient. Ok idea? Bad idea? Is it likely to be a problem, particularly freezing? Thanks,

I think you know more about this than the solar people. The sales people have seldom been on a ladder. It's clear you will keep control. Having been working with tyvek lap tape today, I'd suspect it could pull off some plastic coatings OR be impossible to remove at end of life.

I am using Axle VPP. 3 events this month so far.

That's the structure completed now. All that remains is to cut the excess off the top of the supporting posts, and choose then order the roof sheeting.

These look to be the same roof panels that Catnic are using for their solar roof solution (both sites show the same photo so it's either that or one of them is being loose with the truth!). Catnic were, I think, the early adopters of these panels but I'm seeing other suppliers entering the market now. Speaking with reps about this, they can be bonded to the steel panels in the factory or applied afterwards. The roof manufacturer's preference is factory bonded, naturally, and I would have thought that they would be longer lasting in terms of stickiness but if the roof is already thre then options might be limited.

Good point. The hybrid inverter I'm looking at has dual string capability, so I can run the south face on one string and then use MIs for a second string without compromising efficiency. These MIs cost a pretty penny don't they so if I can reduce this it would be good!