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With PoE you get it all on one cable anyway so if you’ve got to run power then it’s as easy to either run power or Cat5.

https://www.pipelagging.com/ Something for everyone there. Hot and cold pipes should be lagged.

Yes it’s a 4 way shuttle valve on the refrigerant side matched to the temperature requested by the controller which uses a motorised blending valve on the water side to set the flow temperature. I’m aware of the method of how an ASHP works, I’ve had to work on a number of different types over the last few years including Sanyo, Danfoss and Mitsubishi. What you don’t have when you rely on the ASHP controlling water flow is any safety mechanism to stop floor temperature overshoot in the event of something such as a three way valve failure - if it goes to centre position for example then the water temperature for your cylinder (55°C) will hit your slab. There is no fail safe and it’s actually poor design as you should always have pairs of controls - you only need to look at a standard UVC for example to realise there are dual failure mechanisms to stop this. MCS is irrelevant here as they only certify and design to the point of the ASHP providing a DHW and Heating source. The entire premise of MCS is that the ASHP can supply the required heat load in kWh, so the hotter the feed, the less hours required. They are not concerned with the UFH design and there is a common misconception that just dumping water from an ASHP into UFH is “fine” as it will always be below 50°C. That’s an incorrect assumption and some floor coverings have an MST (maximum surface temperature) of less than 30°C - some LVT and engineered wood requires max 28°C MST so even setting your Ecodan to its lowest flow temperature (32°C IIRC from the latest FTC 6 on an Ecodan without checking) means you’re dumping warmer water than the floor requires. Add into the mix that that in low energy houses the heat requirement is so low that you want to be using blending valves to get to 27-28°C flows, and the whole “the ASHP will do it” argument falls apart. Hence the need for a blending valve to ensure that both the floor MST isn’t breached and the heat load is properly managed. This is why systems design is so important and you get failures in heating systems where ASHP are specified without anyone actually understanding what is on the end of the pipe coming out of the zone valve ... and all for the sake of a £50 valve.

please don’t let it, others have said the only problems with ASHP systems are their being designed wrong or installed wrong, I installed my own, designed my own and it works very well (I don’t understand physics either ?). There are many here with an ASHP that are pleased with them. Fridge and freezers work on the same principle (but reversed) and they are simple.

Manthorpe do a range of plasterboard hatches - think they go all the way to 450 square which is plenty large enough to get through ...

I would run a radial for the fridge and freezer so that only the appliance/circuit itself can trip that circuit minimising grief in my life..

This is what we did.

Hi - we have planning approved on a 1 acre plot for a house! Super exciting but having never done this before we’d love any help we can get to achieve the right design. It’s a plot in a village, we are a family of 4 plus dog! I’ve attached our designs. The unmarked ones are the ones that have planning approved but we want to change for the following reasons: - the majority of the garden (south facing) is in front of where the current lounge is situated. We don’t use a lounge much - only really in winter and in the evenings so want the focus to be on the kitchen diner area, which is where we spend the majority of our time - the lounge jutting out into the garden and taking away from the patio doens't make sense to us. - haven’t tried to reconfigure upstairs yet - but want to maintain 5 beds, 3 of which will be en-suite and my husband likes that our room is separate to the kids rooms. would love any critique / ideas TIA Woodland House Plot North and East Elevations OL.P06.pdf Woodland House Plot Site Plan OL.P01.pdf Woodland House Plot Ground Floor Plan OL.P02 4.pdf Woodland House Plot First Floor Plan OL.P03.pdf Woodland_House_Plot_Ground_Floor__Plan_OL.P02_2.pdf

dewalt multitool and a 4ah battery does a good job for me. I would buy a sander if thats what you want to do rather than use the multitool.

Yep agree but a lot of the cameras come with the injector. Can always change to a 4 port PoE switch at a later date.

Just 2 cameras I would be inclined to just use injectors next to the router and be done with it.

Depends on resolution , bits per pixel . MPEG compression, FPS . It could all by fine but you only have so much Wi-Fi available . Also if some Wi-Fi is 5ghz range and some the older 2.4ghz they can run simultaneously with the correct router . Also if you / others are using Wi-Fi for browsing / streaming it all adds up . As @PeterW said you’ve got to get power to the camera anyway so make it poe -then Wi-Fi is ‘free’ for other uses . Need a router that supports poe of course - there are different poe standards aswell ?

I wouldn’t worry We normally grout each section the following day or even the same day so it can protected from the heavy commercial traffic Nearly every floor we do is spects for Matting now The mil per day is rarely practical on commercial work Though I always get it in writing that the floor is suitable and cured Even if it isn’t I wouldn’t worry about a small amount of screed drying Regarding the heating I normally tell clients Give it a week Then start the heat at 18 and add 1 per day Even with matting you will need expansion joints in every doorway and break up large rooms with a EJ also Minimum 10 mil around skirtings Good luck for Christmas

If it’s not broke and does not smell I would leave it alone. Spend money on the house and access. If your really interested then put some food grade dye through the system and see where it comes out or not as the case may be. I have three old cottages on a remote bit of Scotland and do all my own building and maintenance and have to go by “if it’s not broke don’t fix it” as my list of important jobs is so huge I can’t afford to get distracted.......

Hand tight only, anymore than hand tight and you will compress the o ring too much and it will be squashed / forced out allowing water to leak.

Cut your wall plate corners at 45 to the thickness of your hip. 35/45mm. This will make it work easier in your head. Leave the height above plate the same where the hips meet the 45 corners the same as the height above plate on all your other birdsmouths

Anyone want to drop by with an EV so I can test it ?

I have a friend who is a passive house fanatic and retro fitted insulation in his house. He decided to stay with his mains gas because he uses so little (only needs to be on every 2-3 days)

They use a standard of 3000kWh

I'd happily argue it's an open roof space not a void within the building. I've written to the Gas Safety Register asking their thoughts on the matter and what if any recourse I have to BG.

It's dependant on load, the length of the cable and installation conditions e.g run through / under insulation. Something the sparks usually specs/advises on. Probably 2.5mm2 T&E. You are taking on the responsibility of the designer and could come unstuck to put it bluntly. A book well worth getting is this: https://www.wiringregulations.net/18th-edition-wiring-regulations/building-regulations-part-p?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2LX53Iyg7QIVZIBQBh0gtQxnEAAYASAAEgLDDvD_BwE (The green book, you can download Part P for free).

@Onoff definitely due the gas check fee’s for all the years they passed it when they should not . Will more than make up the cost of installing a hatch . I’d write to them first . Once they BS you - I’d start a ccj . I like ccj’s and high court enforcement procedure . I imagine they will buckle long before that as they effectively have been passing a gas install they should not . As others have said land lord gas safety check ‘ professionals’ range from slack to pedantically anal . Threat of ccj ! Your tenants were at risk . You were worried sick . Potentially you ‘broke’ the law by renting an unsafe property - ummmmm ! The council are on your back aren’t they ? Didn’t you call them ? . Local paper are interested in your ‘Dodgy gas checker’ story etc. etc. Make them f eckibg pay ! ?

Right and wrong. Temperature is not energy. As a simple explanation, for any given heat emitter area (radiator or floor), you can deliver more power (power is not energy) the greater the temperature differences. So yes, you need a bigger area if the difference between the floor area and the room's air is great, or you need a higher temperature. But then it also comes down to how long the power is delivered for. This is the energy (energy does the work, which is heating the air in the room) and is why we use the unit kWh, it is just power multiplied by time. So nothing wrong with a relatively low temperature, but it may need a larger emitter area and need to be on for longer.

I might be being a bit thick here (physics isn't my strong point) but I'm given to understand that water ASHP do supply low temp water and you need giant radiators to compensate if you don't have under floor heating. Could this be partly what's going on? Your experience is putting me off getting the same as I do like simple technology!

Do make sure you speak to the Sparky. The kitchen is covered by Part P in England, and that includes where the wires are run, and how they are protected. If the sparky aint got a clue how you have run them, he might be reluctant to sign it off.

Err yes there is ..! There is no safety mechanism to stop the ASHP putting 55c water into the slab without a blending valve. It’s a simple detail and shouldn’t be overlooked.

I feel so much better having caught up with all the trials and tribulations. Going to hang my washing out in the sun, do a bit of painting and then go out. My life is good.

An email has been sent

I hope someone is going to insulate all the pipes.

My OCD works the opposite way to @Dave Jones. I need to know the isolator is close to the appliance in question. After all, how many of us have had situations like asking our significant other to "turn off the water, QUICKLY" to be asked "Which way does the tap turn?". Still, the world would be extremely weird if we were all the same.

Bradstone make quions , cheaper than real thing and you would have to look quite hard to see the difference.

Thanks, yes the stone corners (quions) are made to order from a local limestone quarry. They were expensive but because i got the rest of the stone for free I could justify it. I think that it wouldn't of looked as good without them and I had the quions put into the corner of the house which is rendered too.

Depends on your OCD but i HATE isolators all over the place . Kitchens, bathrooms, utility etc etc i had the sparky wire every single one in the plant room. Added a bit of cost but a much cleaner look.

If they are run in a floor then use Hep2O conduit pipe and foam it into grooves cut into the foam. No joins in the floor and easy to run.

If you have a DP isolator above the worktop then that has a switch built in. No point in having the socket it feeds switched. So unswitched sockets below worktop fed by 20A DP switch above.

Does anyone local have a couple of electric heaters you could temporarily borrow for your lounge/bedroom to get some heat in to make you at least comfortable? Temperature is only going to continue to drop. Whilst that won’t solve your issue, it may take some of the stress away and allow you to be comfortable whilst you fight the problem.

One RING final 32A 2.5mm serving all the kitchen sockets. Double pole isolator above worktop to feed spured socket to each of Dishwasher, Tumble dryer, Fridge freezer and boiler. One lighting circuit 6A 1mm to feed all ceiling and under unit lights. Radial 32A 6mm to hob via above worktop isolator Radial 32A 6mm to oven via above worktop isolator. Check with your chosen electrician that he really is happy for you to pull the cables for him to connect, he will no doubt want to agree cable routing with him and tell you the rules. Don't forget if a new water or gas service entered the extension to include a 10mm earth bonding cable.

Yes I had mine dropped on pallets (very boggy ground) and a board on top.

Ours are called Magic Gliders and we even used them for sliding our 210kg Genvex Combi into position. The nearest thing I could find now was:- https://www.magiglideuk.co.uk/

Unfortunately the BG man is right, they are supposed to inspect the flue and if the flue is inaccessible they can't pass it. the fact they have incorrectly passed it for 7 years won't hold much weight with the refusal now. So you are going to have to cut that hatch I am afraid.

I've used a table saw with extraction to cut 75mm celotex. Works just fine and does minimise the dust, but you need to made some proper infeed/outfeed tables if your doing it on your own. Its quite satisfying when you have cut a perfect fit to go between your new and perfectly parallel floor joists. I do have a insulation saw from toolstation which is practically dust free. It has a wavy blade rather than teeth and feels like it could slice your finger up pretty well. Downside is that it can only cut a max of 75mm, even then it sticks pretty easily. O and its bugger to keep square without a decent guide. +1 to the bandsaw idea. You would get a greater depth of cut and easier and safer than a circular saw. I believe you can get a small Record one for under £300 and it will do up to 120mm.

I use old wood saw the less flexible the better and ground down the teeth with small grinder,so ends up cutting like large bread knife. Easy to keep straight cut and very little dust but very clean cut!!

Grenfell made my mind up that if I ever do ewi it'll be Rockwool.

We almost put in a balcony, but realised we could achieve what we wanted with two large top hung velux windows. Opening it up for the first time, I stood out of the window and felt like king of the castle. It was worth the decade of waiting and saving.

Assume you’re referring to the Vaillant aroTherm Plus that has a pretty good range however they do lay it on a bit with the CO2 impact on losing the refrigerant to the atmosphere ..! Also forget to tell you R290 is highly flammable propane and it has a limited performance range of 0-20°C so can’t get above 60°C when the outside temperature is above 25°C. Vaillant seem to push these through their installer network - I requested the BIM files and got sent a pdf flyer and was called by an Installer instead ...!

What, at 50p/kWh, (expletive deleted) off

+1 for @Onoff's recommendation : takes a lot of getting-in to (for me anyway) But is very helpful. It doesn't explain that you need to buy several diameters of earthing sleeve, though , and why you can't buy less than a mile of it at any one time. Or why the Knipex pliers you bought and that were borrowed by the electrician were to be found - one month after it was fitted - under the new fridge-freezer. I now have two pairs. ? I'm going to use my leftover earthing sleeve to add a bit of zip to the grandchildren's straws........

All of us have a distillery. Its called the gut. Thats why its impossible to have a zero blood / alcohol level.