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Our electrician came up with a good lighting design for our house (which has a large open plan kitchen, dining & living area) based on ceiling LEDs (on dimmers), wall lighters, LED strips and lots of switched 5a sockets. Looks good, is flexible and did not cost much. He's equally comfortable installing high end lighting systems (KNX etc) but feels that (aside from colour changing) the same effect can be had at a fraction of the cost using standard fittings and a bit of thought.

Hi. I am a home ventilation specialist and work for BPC ventilation that are leading designers and suppliers of home ventilation and heat recovery systems to builders and self builders throughout The UK, Ireland and most other worldwide locations I will try to answer any questions and explain the facts from the myths Gary

So the plan is this. 3 or 4 IBCs buried under the patio linked together at the bottom with the first tank connected to the downpipes using filtered hoppers and the supply taken from the last in the line to limit the sediment transferring between them. I then plan to put a 5 micron filter and an activated carbon block in the garage before feeding the WCs, washing machine and outside tap with the supply. Question is - should I use a submersible pump or a jet pump...? Both will need some sort of pressure switch to sense a tap opening or a WC flush, but there the similarity ends. My thoughts are that a submersible pump will be cheaper and easier to maintain but by design it will pick up more sediment and that means the filters will need changing more often. Also, it will cut out at a higher water level. A jet pump will sit the clean side of the filters so will not be prone to pulling as much sediment - plan to pick up from just below the water surface with a floating pickup - but for a pump with a switch and a pressure tank it is much more expensive. Other option is to pick up from the IBC outlets and balance across all 3/4 tanks with the jet pump that slightly reduces the cost as the links will be 25mm MDPE. The commercial models tend to do in tank pumps but that means you don't get the full water capacity. They also need a separate flow / pressure switch but not too worried about that. So has anyone else used anything like this and have any thoughts ..??

I thought they used a DC interconnect between countries on different frequencies (50Hz / 60 Hz) I would love to know how they convert the dc back to ac at the far end, that's one F big inverter? Perhaps it also saves countries on the "same" frequency all being phased together? After all you can see the argument as to who is going to be the master to set the phase and frequency.

Set of jump leads, a bit of digging, and violá......off grid with as much free juice as you want .

Up is the new trendy. When you see it on Grand Designs, remember you saw it here first.

Ps well done on the art work don't show heritage England!