MJNewton

'Weak-current network'? Never heard of the phrase, and Googling suggests it's a very little used term. Personally, I'd ignore him. I wouldn't be without a wired network in the house. Really handy for static items (AV kit, computers, cameras etc) and leaves my wifi free for mobile devices. Cable it cheap, as are sockets etc really but you could always leave them out until as and when you need them. It all depends if *you* want one though. Is the network itemised separately?

The tracking info would indicate the delivery attempt. There's no such thing as free proof of delivery. Are you thinking of proof of postage? (Which as you say is good enough for the courts, but personally I'd want to be confident it actually got to the other end just in case it really had got lost).

It is still very much worth it as at least *you* know it has been delivered.

I don't think you necessarily need to camouflage the entire hatch to succeed here... If the visibility of the hatch is largely down to the gap that allows it to open would decorator's caulk be sufficient at making it reasonably well hidden? Relatively easy to cut out / remove and also to reinstate afterwards. Might need a blob in the keyhole too. I've often found this with cracks etc - it's the colour contrast that makes them stand out. Filler alone, if against a light-coloured wall, seems to go >90% of the way to hiding them completely. I might be extending the theory a bit too far with the hatch suggestion but hopefully some food for thought...

I measured ours in a shop to make sure. Our plates are part of a Villeroy & Boch set so we didn't want to replace them with something different (smaller). You could always take a plate in if you didn't mind risking the funny looks!

Increasingly important these days for peace of mind in my view - I'm sure many a premium brand these days are trading off the back of historical quality. I'm sure there are plenty of cases of people saying 'My last so-and-so from brand X lasted 20 years so I'm definitely getting another', not realising that the only thing in common now is the name and logo - ownership, design and manufacture have completely changed. Of course there are always consumer protection laws to fall back on but I'd much rather just get the manufacturer out with a van full of parts and get any issue sorted out directly without a fight.

Not at all, even when I admit to it being a Blomberg (LDV42244) which is basically Beko’s ‘premium’ arm which in practice means that whilst they share many of the same internal parts (so spares are dirt cheap) it has slightly different styling and comes with a 5yr parts+labour guarantee (10yrs for the pump). It cost a fair bit less than many more premium brands and yet was better in many respects on paper eg all metal cavity unlike the cost-cutting-yet-prone-to-leaking metal-plastic hybrids from the likes of Bosch, an inverter motor and also quieter than most which for our open plan arrangement was critical.

Our dishwasher came with both a cutlery tray and basket so we spent a few months trying each separately, and both at the same for a while! We’ve settled on just using the basket (tray now removed) as it took up less space and was quicker/easier to load/unload. It particularly helped height wise as our largest plates are 29cm diameter and these along with some of our larger trays are much easier to accommodate. We have the upper basket on its highest setting so that impacts space for tall glasses above with the tray in. For what it’s worth we didn’t notice any differences in cleaning/drying performance between the two.

Have you got a combined fridge-freezer @ProDave? If so there’s a good chance it’ll only have a single thermostat and this will be located in the fridge hence it won’t ‘see’ the drop in freezer temperature. It assumes the door is (nearly) always closed and that the freezer temperature will follow that of the fridge (just with a -25C offset or whatever).

You say nightmare but wouldn't that be a good thing? They could manufacture a new frame that properly fits your opening and the glass wouldn't go to waste.

I guess it could be our house! We're in a 2007 Persimmon house (boo hiss!) and so might not have the levels of insulation and detailing that you've got? We've got some large sliders and a roof lantern downstairs - both unshielded from solar gain - and indeed the sliders were open most of the time due to constant child traffic and so we were getting high-20s downstairs at least and as we were only(!) seeing 36°C outside our -5°C of cooling sounds like about the right ballpark for a notional 85% efficiency?

As is mentioned from time to time here the heat transfer in an MVHR is bidirectional insofar that heat transfer occurs in whatever direction the temperature delta is. Thus, if the outside air is warmer than inside then heat will be transferred from the intake air to the air extracted from the house and in doing so cool the supply. I normally only see a degree or two tops in practice but the recent heatwave gave some more extreme figures producing just shy of 5°C of cooling on occasion: Of course, with the low air volumes and heat capacity it likely didn't make all that much difference but every little helps - even if only psychologically! I think I've hit refresh on my monitoring charts and Met Office forecast app more times in the last two days than the last two years! Also evident from the chart though is that even with the summer bypass activating when appropriate (extract < intake and all relevant thresholds being met) there was still some heat transfer taking place and raising the incoming air by a couple of degrees. In my unit the bypass diverts the extracted air around the side of the heat cell and so I suspect there's still a chance some heat transfer will take place from the close proximity, and not to mention the 40°C loft space that's going to eventually heat the unit up somewhat despite its insulation.

PIRs don't emit any IR (the P = Passive).

I did something similar with a pair of Shelly 1's. In my case it was to connect a wired-only central heating controller and a remote zone valve powering the pump and boiler heat demand input. I had to fit an RC snubber across the 'receiver' Shelly output otherwise it would sometimes reset on triggering. I bought this seperately but I think Allterco sell them alongside the Shelly now.

Do you monitor humidity levels too @Radian? I seem to recall reading somewhere that CO2 levels generally correlate with humidity level and whilst I couldn't quite see why that would necessarily be the case I did wonder if my humidity (only) monitoring might suffice for determining air 'quality'. At £22 I am tempted by that sensor you linked to though.

There's a script running on a Raspberry Pi doing the monitoring which in turn signals a Shelly smart relay to trigger the MVHR's boost input.

For what it's worth I've been using a duct-mounted DHT22 humidity sensor to detect a >5% rate-of-rise in humidity (over five minutes, measured across the whole house extraction) and in the few years we've had it running not observed a single false positive or negative. The 5% was intended just to be a starting point but it's turned out to be perfect. You can see from the graphs how prominent the spikes are (the first three are showers, the fourth a pan of boiling water) and so quite easy to detect without being triggered by more gradual variations:

Oh absolutely. My main driver for going down that route is that most of my cameras don't support PoE. In practice it's still not too bad though as I power all 12 with three PSUs, but yes it's three more than might otherwise be necessary!

Yes, and it's always good to have a forced excuse to exercise the stopcock once in a while.

That's just it - I don't. My 'poor mans PoE' just uses passive components i.e. it's a bog standard switch (Netgear FS116, for what it's worth) into which I plug an injector that allows me to inject power onto the two unused pairs of the cable and at the other end is a splitter that extracts that power to supply the camera and connects the data lines through its network socket. Here's a picture from the web that may illustrate the approach more clearly: Unlike with 'real' PoE there are no standards in place, no voltage/current sensing and negotiation etc. It's basic, but it works.

Thats different to the passive combiner/splitter that I use. That’s an active device that converts ‘real’ 48v PoE down to 5v. You still need a PoE switch at the head end.

I power all my IP cameras using 'poor man's' PoE combiners/splitters like these that are just passive devices that utilise the spare cores of 10/100 Ethernet wiring to transmit power alongside the data: I've had around dozen in use for over 15 years without a single issue. To cut down on the number of PSUs required I double (actually triple or more) multiple cameras from one PSU (making sure to remain well within its current capacity limit of course).

I'm a big fan of MDF, well for skirting at least - hate it for anything else! Straight as anything and so easy to cut, prep, finish and fit. Nick's point about vulnerable corners sounds reasonable, although I've not noticed an issue myself. (I'd get on my hands and knees to inspect some corners were it not for the fact that I'm the only one that does any hoovering around here so I know no one else will have bashed them with it!) I've always bought from MDF Skirting World and found them really competitive price-wise and never had any issues with their free delivery service (they use their own vans which not all do). Have never gone for their pre-primed offerings preferring to paint everything myself.

The main reason I put them on their own circuit (and a dedicated RCBO at that) is to avoid nuisance trips from issues on other circuits. The risk is admittedly near-zero in practice for me (I can't remember the last nuisance trip that wasn't caused by something I was involved in at the time!) and it's not something that keeps me awake at night, and I do tend to be at the worrier end of the spectrum! It feels right though, like lining up faceplate screws on sockets and switches.

I put them on their own circuit, however do try and add on a single light (eg a regularly used understairs cupboard light) that gives a quick and clear indication of circuit failure without waiting for backup batteries to start beeping.