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Showing content with the highest reputation on 08/26/16 in all areas

  1. @readiescards, you just need to remember that you will need to comply with the BRegs Part B when dealing with your Building Inspector. You also need to take sensible precautions to satisfy yourself. We've had some other discussions about this on other topics. In my view, the main issue that you need to consider here is compartmentalisation: for example if you have a kitchen fire, you don't want the smoke or fire quickly spreading into the rest of the house through your ducting. Here I am mainly talking about any boxed-in channels where you hide your pipe runs. In England for the most part, a single detached family dwelling can be regarded as a single fire compartment, but you don't want to get into a dispute over the advisory aspects. Take an example in our case. We have a warm roof so three storeys and our manifold plenums in the loft level. We have two double vents in the kitchen/dining room on the ground floor, so there is a duct carrying the 4 pipes from the loft void through our second bedroom down to the kitchen. I don't want this to act as an internal chimney if I have a hob fire. I have deliberately positioned the duct well away from the cooking end, and sealed around the entrance and exit to the duct with fire break packing. My advice is to think about the fire risks and address them sensibly and discuss what you are proposing with you inspector.
    2 points
  2. I find you get much further by phoning than you do with online prices. Lump everything together to make it as big an order as possible, and phone around asking for the lowest price. If you phone for a price check you might get quoted a lower price than if you say you are actually buying. Of course delivery can be a big issue with bulky things like insulation. No connection other than being a customer, but I got most of my insulation from secondsandco, who deal with surplus, rejected, or otherwise discounted insulation. I haven't seen much in the way of EPS on there though.
    1 point
  3. These are what you need https://www.amazon.co.uk/100-x-insulation-plastic-washers/dp/B011ETWAAI I have used thousands of them to fix my wood fibre board to my house. Mine are actually a different make (rawlplug) but look very similar. Search for "insulation washer" and you will find them.
    1 point
  4. You only have to run the numbers to realise there is no merit in having a battery power pack at home yet. Maybe one day it will be viable. Just remember that you can, if you shop around, buy a unit of power for about 13p, and if you are storing power, then on E7 it is less than 9p. So take my house that uses 4000 kWh, with 80% on E7, that is £288/year. If these power packs really can last 10 years, that is £2880 installed to break even. And that is assuming they can survive 3650 charge/discharge cycles and deliver a decent amount of power (say enough to boil a kettle). At the moment my storage is a 29 year old, 200 lt water cylinder on the original element and thermostat. It can hold about 10 kWh of energy, deliver power at 60 kW, has an efficiency of about 75% and would cost less that £300 to replace.
    1 point
  5. Personally I'd knock up a few temporary windows with with CLS (or batons) and 9mm OSB. Cost is going to be circa £5 a sq meter so not much in the grand scheme of things?
    1 point
  6. Shades of solar power companies. Go local. Go with solid people. Get an insurance based warranty if available. Don't go for the absolute cheapest.
    1 point
  7. We manually unwound each roll on floor space then fed through a run pulled to location of manifold left a little slack and cut and fixed to plenum then moved to next hole until roll ran out. All 20 ports on manifold will be used when we get a few more meters of duct.
    1 point
  8. Thanks all 11 hours we have all,plenums in place and most of duct runs in ans oddly we have run out of duct none left at all maybe need another 20meters used up 200 i think the problem was our house is open plan and living in roof space, so a lot had to go through rafters both sides using up more duct than the plans said i think they asumed a normal flat roof. left all ducting near position of manifolds to be connected after the weekend fun day, just got to work out best way of insulating duct in rafters as its stealing my insulation space. l
    1 point
  9. I did a longish post in ebuild on this after my first fix with BPC kit - must go look for it and re post. Agree with everything above. My strategy was to have the coil near where the distribution boxes were and pull it from there to the plenum location - essential that you mount it on something otherwise it will kink and tangle - i put it in a doorway on a length of CLS timber and that worked well enough. If possible, get a mate to help as once the pipe goes round a few bends its impossible to pull from the coil and the coil needs to be slackened off and duct occasionally pushed from that end as well as pulled - i make a lasso from poly rope to help pull the duct and also put slips of cardboard over any ridges where the pipe kept catching to help it slide more easily. Would advise locating all your plenums first (good to liase with your electrician to see if they'll be in line with lights etc) and bring the duct to each one. Use WD40 silicone spray ( a big can with a nozzle) to get the duct into the plenum - it is too tight otherwise when the O ring has been fitted. Then leave a generous amount at the distribution box end because, as Terry says, you'll likely be moving them around a bit to get them to sit flat. Last thing I did was cut the ends to the distribution box - I did have to go back and trim a few inches off each one before plaster boarding as they were pushing the box at an angle. It's not a technically difficult job and you'll soon get the hang of it. +1 on the BPC over supply - I have 4off 2m lenghts of 180mm steel radial ducting as we ended up with the distribution boxes much closer to the unit than originally planned as it was the only place they would fit and accept the multitude of ducts (each one is 14 port, every one used!).
    1 point
  10. BPC seem to be of the opinion that its easier to over supply than to rush some extras out. The duct etc isn't that expensive so id rather be looking at it than looking for it. Again, just a bit of pre-planning on your duct runs and also how you will install the main unit. Think avoiding vibration noise. We installed my brothers on a floating platform hung from chains. Means its not actually in contact with the attic floor.
    1 point
  11. Yep, although the difficult bit may be working out the individual run lengths to start with. There'll be bends, perhaps not of constant radius, plus the map is not the territory and you may find yourself losing/gaining when you actually go to install the stuff. I had real psychological difficulty committing to the first few cuts!
    1 point
  12. Yet another on the bandwagon. Yet more early adopter gambling! My biggest issue is "will the one you choose still be there to honor any warranty?".
    1 point
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