All Activity

It might be possible to take out a few bricks at a time, cutting out the existing membrane and replacing it with a different width, then mortar those bricks back in, then the next few bricks. Don't they do it that way sometimes to insert a missing DPM ?

Would adding some skirting at the bottom help ? Are you tiling the shelf tops too or could you put a trim or counter top in there ? Sometimes a row of a different sized tile giving a horizontal feature can help. It is that dawning realisation that when you position the first tile you are fixing the position of every tile in the room ! uh-oh ! I had to work it out for our bathroom tiled in 1 inch square mosaic tiles once. You are going to need a lot more beer, and a few hours on instagram, pinterest and Houzz.

Take it down and do it properly.

Thanks John and JP for your replies and some very helpful points there JP for finding someone to assess the system. The issues with the system are partly set out in this thread https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/43959-buffer-tank-hot-when-heating-mode-turned-off/ Potted History Builder subcontracted local plumber. Local plumber confirmed that Daikin (through their Sustainable Home Centre which is the local plumbers' merchant) would be designing the system and to obtain the BUS an umbrella MCS company would sign the system off and do the BUS paperwork. Daikin SHC provided a design schematic of the system. Once the system was installed I had some queries (mainly the sizing of the ASHP and why a buffer had been installed when it wasn't on the design) Daikin SHC turned round and said their design drawing was indicative and they weren't the designers (oh great I thought). When pushed further the plumber and Daikin ducked the issue by saying that as the system was signed off by the MCS company then it was all their responsibility and I would have to raise a complaint with MCS. I did that but in the period the complaint was being progressed MCS company has gone into administration and therefore MCS have stopped progressing their investigation. The builder and plumber have said they will put things right if it is needed but at the moment is it me with my limited knowledge arguing with the plumber with their limited knowledge about what is correct/not correct with the installation. The conversation from their side has largely been that I have hot water and heating... so where is the problem. Key Issues No Design - nobody has designed the system so I am not sure what issues there might be in addition to the below. Oversized ASHP - At the time of install Daikin calculated heat loss at just under 6kw but had no 6kw units available so provided a 9kW unit for the same price. I queried this and was shown their calculation/was assured that the 9kW unit was more efficent than the 6kW unit (which I assume had not allowance for cycling within the calc.). I am not convinced they took account of the MVHR correctly in that calculation either. In the last 12 months the flow temperature has not needed to be higher then the minimum setting of 25 degrees and on the coldest night last winter the unit still had periods where it didn't run due to inside room temperatures meeting the set point. Buffer Tank - I query the need for it (as did others on the above post) and note that in the MCS3005 is cautions against their use. Third Party Controls - the only thermostats are third party with no Daikin master, so modulation of the flow temperature isn't possible and cooling mode doesn't work through the thermostats

SWMBO not into the tiles going vertically I'm afraid. Setting it out central to the flush gives me 17cm tile at the top, 13cm at the FFL. The units will cover the majority of this wall but it will be on display elsewhere. HOWEVER, further along at the window this works out pretty much perfectly to the head and reveal. Is this the lesser of 3 (or 4) evils? Carling for scale.

Now added outrun, frogger, rtype, arkanoid,snake. Amazing stuff!

Title says it all pretty much. My sleepy bricky used 100mm wide DPC to the inner block DPC and now there is no apron to attach the DPM to. He’s build about 1.5M high so will be expensive to remove and rebuild. He says apparently he does this on a “a lot” of jobs and it always passes. It did with my BC inspector but not my warranty provider. The DPC is exposed now because I chased out 5mm of the mortar, so it is visible. Is there any retrofit that can be done? BC are useless they done an inspection and passed it, it was the warranty people and architect who picked up on it after inspection. Warranty didn’t say take it down but to provide a detail on how we intend to connect to DPM. Architect is pretty clueless and wants to seek BC advice, I’ve read into using a DPM liquid up the wall to bridge the seal. What are the solutions here, there surely has to be some?

With hindsight I'd have dropped the ceiling a tad more and ended up with full tiles top to bottom.

That's what I did

The SE specified Birtley thermally broken lintels for our build. Maybe I am worrying unnecessarily, but when I looked at the DPC cavity tray that the brickies installed. The DPC is sandwiched really tight between the lintel and the back of the brickwork. The brickies have done the tray correctly. It's the design of the lintel that forced this. Just out of curiosity, how much water does actually flow down the back of the brickwork? If it's a lot, then I suspect the water will literally collect and be forced to the ends of the lintel and out of the final weep vents where the tray is folded up in the perp. This defeats having the weep vents along the lintel. Has anyone else fitted these into a 150mm cavity and what was you observations?

Turn the tiles thro 90 deg and see what they work out when vertical?

Hi all, When planning lighting for a kitchen, do you normally put the ceiling lights, under-cabinet lights and island lighting on separate switches? It seems separate circuits or switching can make the room more practical, especially when you want brighter light for food preparation but a softer setting in the evening. I’m interested in how people usually plan the switching and wiring for these different lighting zones, and whether there are any common things worth considering before the kitchen is fitted. What approach has worked well for you?

So.... I got a bit carried away again and got Claude to add seasonal things and a few visual game mock ups - even an attempt at a cobra mk3 vector line ship! oh and scramble, defender,lunar lander, pacman, doom, tetris, lemmings etc etc etc etc etc......

Setting out for bathroom tiling, what's the general consensus to avoid small tiles top or bottom? Split the difference between the 2, so in my case I'd have a 15cm depth tile top and bottom when the full tile is 25cm? That would be as the laser appears in the attached image I could centre it at the flush to get a 19cm at the top but it's getting slim down at the bottom. If I went full tile at the top I'd be left with like a slither at the floor.

Do tell please. You mean it dips and dives and has ripples?

@SimonD Anything that throbs and vibrates like that is called Housewife's Delight.

Have you managed to switch online to EDF export @13p?? I've tried to apply but only get offered 3p SEG rate. Their customer services reckon there should be the 13p option but there isn't for me!!

!! Well that would pay for the Klik PDQ if that saved that uplift Interesting. Can you provide more colour? How many fittings on the bus? Not checked in depth about how DALI works but wonder if the controller was trying to do smooth dimming on many fittings simultaneously step by step rather than using programmed scenes on the devices and using group messages rather than individual addressing. CCT lights should just have equivalent traffic on the bus to two normal lights. RGBWW would be 5x the load. OTOH I just checked and DALI is only 1200bits/sec though so dog slow compared to modern protocols and not going to do anything fancy with that. You can use matter over ethernet and there are some interesting physical layer ethernets out there 10base-t1s allows 8+ devices daisy chained on over a single twisted pair. How do you deal with these customers? Provide them with the smart stuff connected to something basic like Apple/Google/whatever but ensure everything will work with Home Assistant if they want to switch or just send them away?

As an update, I have at last semi-dry mix screeded the floor, and after watching countless videos I decided to do it like the professionals. So I built banks of screed along the walls and then levelled between them. Not as difficult as I thought it would be. Getting the mix right was much more difficult.

100% agree using wired connection wherever possible / reasonable. DALI is my preferred technology for lighting. I've had some domestic contractor give a massive markup (additional £100 per point!) for DALI but in reality it should if anything be simpler for them: one loop per floor, no need to route cables from switches to lights, max flexibility if things change during 1st/2nd fix. On paper DALI is great for CTT , but in practice I found it clogs the bus a lot (maybe a feature of the specific controller more than the protocol) and actually a bit of a gimmick in most residential settings IMHO. And pushes prices up more. I've never used DALI for sensors (switches nor motion). It seems overkill, heavy gauge wiring for low-power data only connection. I'd keep to KNX or Loxone Tree (on Loxone projects obv) for inputs. I'd love it if Matter came up with a half-reasonable wired alternative to (natural successor to) KNX but won't hold my breath. And it's only after >30 years on market that KNX has really started getting to a sensible price point for non-luxury builds. Hager Klik seems overkill for domestic - I just put some DIN terminal blocks with cross-connects for distro in the lighting control panel. Easily expanded and means the only cable junctions are at the light fittings themselves or in the panel. But if you have the Klik and see a sensible way to use them then why not. Will be interested in how you get on with the Atios Smartcore. I get increasing enquiries from would be customers wanting a Home-Assistant native house, and as a professional installer it's not been something I can stand behind support wise (just too many ways for it to break IME). But in time it will mature and clearly demand is increasing. (Don't get me wrong - with my technie consumer hat on I have Home Assistant everywhere !)

I've mentioned before that I offered ear defenders to someone using a petrol-powered diamond saw to cut stone and he refused them as he "wasn't going to be long". I was being deafened from 10+m away. He was making repeated cuts all day in clouds of dust with no hearing or eye protection. Mental. Also, virtually no trade we had onsite wore steel-capped boots. I couldn't comprehend the lack of self-interest.

Frankly, I greatly dislike the move to wireless everything in smart home. It's obviously easier for retrofit or DIY installs but if you follow the heavy users of wireless devices a very common complaint is that they are flaky and when there are issues they are difficult to diagnose. Matter/Thread is supposed to make this better but there are plenty of complaints out there about that too. Hard wiring is still the most reliable way to go (and much less hackable if that's a concern). DALI is traditionally a much more installer thing but this Smartcore looks much better. DALI drivers seem one of the most easily available hard wired 'smart' lighting drivers so if you want to hard wire and have an easy diy friendly control option then it's well worth looking at.

So I understand Dali-2 is a hardwired lighting control system. It claims reliability as a result of being hard wired. But hard wiring control to every device and having to choose Dali-2 controllable lights seems like quite a constraint. The atios smartcore seems to offer a wireless matter interface. But isn't DALI-2 a bit like using ethernet cabling when the flexibility and cost advantages of wifi are available. Technology on the way out rather than the way in ? Home automation/Smart home used to be a case of paying some specialist installer mega bucks to install systems like Dali, control4 etc And then paying them again every time you wanted them to come back and extend or reprogramme the thing. But Smart Home is breaking out of that mold into ordinary homes and user friendly apps. I don't know that you are wrong because I don't know Dali or your budget, but maybe are you sure ?

I ordered a sample from them - arrived a couple of days later - I have to say I am quite impressed All the advantages of flexi's but with a larger internal bore compared to a std flexi which means my gravity feed taps will like them I will be ordering them for the kitchen replacement as I've been replacing flexis on a regular basis (5 years) since one failed

Just made the jump from Octopus Agile to EDF Go Electric. Have been on Agile for years and it has always worked out cheaper for us but the recent prices have been brutal. Luckily we have solar and battery so only just beginning to use the grid again (haven't used since solar installed in April) and not affected too much. The 7 hour window made the diffrence, will also be switching my export to EDF for 13p vs Octopus 12p....not much but every penny 🤷‍♀️