Jeremy Harris

My experience was the whole ground floor, including all the internal stud walls, plus most of the flooring on the first floor and a few parts of the first floor walls. I was getting in the way on-site, so I left at around 10:30, when they were still lifting stuff off the lorry with a 100ft jib crane. I came back around 16:30 and all the ground floor external and internal walls were up.

Worth noting that some MVHR units (like ours) use an isolated dry contact boost switch, so must not be connected to one side of a mains switch. IIRC, the dry contact connection on ours is between the internal 0V rail (connected to earth) and a sense supply that's very low current at 24V DC. That DC supply also runs the control unit, which is an ELV bit of kit, so again there is a safety risk if a combined switching system is used, as there needs to be isolation.

I suspect the Samsung may be like the re-badged Carrier unit we have, in that it has an "over-pressure" alarm and shut-down if the flow gets obstructed. As @PeterW says, I'd have though the bypass valve would deal with this problem OK, it does on our installation.

A lab I worked in for years had a small model shop, essentially half a dozen really good craftsmen (all toolmakers) with a workshop full of every tool imaginable. The workshop manager was a jumped-up little prat, who insisted that "staff" were not to use the "workers" toilets, but had to go to his office to collect the key to the "staff toilet". Needless to say this toilet had been called the "Executive Suite" for years.

I've just had another thought. It might be a good idea to start taking loads of photos, even if you do nothing else. Having evidence that the actions of your neighbour now, has caused damage to your property at some later date, might be useful.

This is a tricky one, as once you formally report this to SEPA the law of unintended consequences could easily kick in, with them coming out to investigate and then deciding to place some onerous requirements on all the riparian owners that bear responsibility for the burn. The knock-on effect could be significant, as the chances are that none of the culverts were installed with the proper authority, and SEPA could easily decide to tell all the owners of culverts along the burn to replace them with a solution that meets their requirements. Would it be possible to ask SEPA for formal advice, rather than make a complaint? I'm not sure if they would be helpful, and the outcome might well be the same as making a complaint, but seeking advice might be seen as less adversarial by your neighbour.

I tried to get prices for Polysolar glazing about a year ago, as I want to build a covered walkway at the East end of our house, so we can walk down to the wheelie bin area from the back door without getting wet. I know that we get more sun on that wall than we do anywhere else, as the cladding has weathered far more there than elsewhere, so having translucent solar panels as the roofing seemed a good idea. Sadly, getting a price for a one-off project seemed impossible, as no one seems to sell just the panels. My plan was to use the panels with a standard alloy bar glazing system, similar to the sort of stuff used to make conservatories.

From the data sheet the on state voltage drop for the CKRD2420 is given as 1.6 V peak at 20 A. At 13 A, assuming the on state voltage drop is the same, then the power dissipation would be 20.8 W peak, or a bit under 15 W rms. That tallies pretty well with the way the most heavily loaded SSR I have seems to behave, it's just bolted to the back of a diecast box that's about 120mm wide, 95mm high and 60mm deep. I did run an end mill over the inside base of the box to get a flat mounting surface, and used a bit of thermal grease, but this may have been overkill for switching 3 kW.

The normal DC supplies for these strips aren't dimmable, as they will deliver the same output over a wide input voltage range. You can get dimmable 12V supplies, though, so with one of those the strip should dim a bit. You may well find that the mains powered dimmer doesn't dim LEDs very evenly, and tends to only operate over a part of its range, though. Worth trying out before you fit the lights.

@TerryE, Sorry, I missed this earlier. I used the non-DIN rail mount ones, bolted to the back of a diecast alloy box as a heatsink. The box gets very slightly warm with a load of 3kW, so with the big heatsinks on the DIN units I'm sure they would be OK inside an ordinary DIN rail enclosure.

Pretty much what I did for a lot of them. I did leave some in place, though, as they made things like wash basin taps more controllable, with less splashing.

As I mentioned earlier, B&Q sell brass tube that's 6mm OD and about 5mm ID and a DS18B20 is a nice snug fit inside. The tube is best cut with a pipe cutter, as it has a very thin wall. I can't remember the price, but a 1m length is enough to make sleeves for around 40 sensors. The brass makes for a reasonably good thermal path between the sensor and the outside world, not that this matters too much for the sort of slow temperature changes in a house.

That data pretty much mirrors my experience, ST, that if you get "good" sensors then they tend to be consistently "good", but I did receive quite a lot of duff sensors, that quickly showed as being duff by having an excessive temperature offset (greater than +/- 0.5 deg C). I think I used two or three different suppliers from ebay, initially, and I didn't keep a record of which devices came from each supplier. It may well be that all my duff ones came from a single rogue supplier, as that would tally with the percentage of duff ones I had. I can say that the genuine Maxim ones look markedly different from the ones I bought on ebay, with clearer part markings that are in a different font. I'm pretty sure that DS18B20s are being manufactured in quantity by one or more Chinese counterfeiting outfits, simply because I've seen exactly the same thing with power MOSFETs, and the volume of the market for DS18B20s is very large. Like all things, some of the fakes may well be as good as the genuine chips, it's just a bit of a lottery knowing who are the reliable sellers. When I had problems with fake IRFB4110 MOSFETs, I found that the easily tested specs were fine, although the on resistance was at the upper end of the spec. The part markings were definitely fake, as they showed the parts as having been made at an IR fab plant that had never produced this range of devices. I built a brushless motor controller with them and immediately had big explosions, with the FETs letting out loads of magic smoke. It turned out that the fakes had no where near the dV/dT capability of the genuine devices, so failed dramatically when switching a few tens of amps at around 80 V in a uS or two. When rebuilt with genuine IR devices (which were about four times more expensive) the controller worked fine (still does, several years later). FWIW, there are a lot of fake SSRs around, too. I got caught when I bought what were marked as Crydom SSRs, but when they arrived they felt very light when compared to another Crydom that was the same model. I decided to sacrifice one and ripped it apart, only to find that it wasn't potted internally, had inadequate isolation between the LV side and the ELV side and also had very poor thermal coupling between the internal triac and the metal back plate. Clearly this were fakes being sold by a Chinese seller on ebay, described and marked as if they were a well-known and trusted brand name. In the end I bought a job lot of new and genuine Crydom SSRs from a UK seller, that were guaranteed to be genuine devices, and they've been fine. Given the safety risks associated with stuff that's switching 230 VAC and supposedly has an isolated ELV DC control signal, I'd urge a bit of caution when buying these things.

I agree 100% with that, and the long term maintenance and repair issue was one that became more important to me as time went on. I've been putting together a manual for the house systems, with a really basic level of detail, so that, with luck, someone other than me will be able to understand both how everything works and the reason that it was done in the way it was. The biggest challenge for me has been reining in the tendency to make things complex when they don't need to be, just because it's fun!

I guess this must have been for a local authority, I can't imagine anyone other than a council being so pedantic.

I also got the 230 V side signed off with just switched outlets for things like the ASHP, heating controls, MVHR and water heating, so that it was then OK for me to add stuff after the switched outlet without falling foul of Part P. For switching power I've used SSRs pretty much everywhere, rather than relays. The advantage for high current stuff is that they zero volt switch, so there's no hefty switching current or spikes and they are optoisolated and easily driven directly by a microcontroller pin (the ones I used are typically around 10 mA at 5V). I've used 25 A ones in the main, really just to have a bit of headroom. The other advantage of using these is that you get an LED indicator built in, rather than having to add it to a DIN rail relay. I did use relays for the heating controls, but that was only so I could use some simple relay/diode logic, and avoid using a microcontroller, plus it made it easier to control the dry contact operated ASHP. They are the Finder DIN rail ones, with the extra LED module to show which relay is on.

Long tale, but we had a change of building inspector, and LABC brought in a retired inspector, part time, to help out. He was very old school, and started on his first inspection by stating that he wasn't at all happy, because, in his words, the house had no foundations. Bear in mind that he only came in for the completion inspection. He kept failing the build, and like an idiot I kept trying to keep him onside by doing things he pointed out were non-compliant. The last straw was him insisting that we needed a completed water usage certificate. When I asked what evidence he needed, he insisted that it was up to me to prove that every outlet met the flow rates needed to show compliance. In the end we agreed that he would accept photos of me installing flow restrictors on every outlet (no joke, I spent two days crawling around fitting the damned things). As it happens, the senior building inspector decided to come out for the next completion inspection (the fourth.........) and I had all the reams of paper lined up in the kitchen, ready for him. His first words were that he wasn't interested in any of that, that he could see the house was well built and just wanted to check Part M compliance with regard to wheelchair access................. Needless to say I spent the next day or so going around removing half of the flow restrictors, but I left them on some of the taps, as they made them easier to use, with less splashing.

For an ELV installation like that then there's nothing in the regs that says an EIC is needed, so BC were out of order. Common sense says there is still a fire risk, so over-current protection makes a lot of sense, but how on earth do you provide them with any meaningful test information for a 12V DC system?

Certainly making a cool box with very good insulation would help a lot, but having made a home made cool box using a Peltier heat pump I did find that airtightness was more important that insulation thickness once you get more than around 75mm of PIR all around the box. I found it difficult to make decent seals, and ended up using strips of wet suit neoprene with an over-centre catch on the lid that clamped it down tight to the seal. It doesn't take a lot of power, in theory, to keep a well-sealed cool box at around 4 deg C (approximately fridge temperature). If the box had top, bottom and sides with an internal area of 0.1m² each, insulated with 75mm PIR, and was airtight, then maintaining it at 4 deg C in 20 deg C ambient temperature would mean pumping out around 2.8 W of heat continuously. More heat would need to be pumped out when cooling the box and contents down, but this could be reduced by pre-cooling stuff and using a frozen cold pack. Peltier devices aren't efficient, but they do lend themselves to DIY stuff well, so a suitable Peltier device, operating at around 10% to 15% Carnot efficiency, would need around 25W to 30W. The key to making them work well is to have a large and efficient heatsink on the warm side. The closer the heatsink can be to ambient temperature, the lower the power the Peltier device needs. The cool locker I made on one of my boats used a 3mm stainless plate, around 150mm square, Sikaflexed on to the underside of the hull. The Peltier device was fitted in a hole in the hull behind this plate, and thermally connected by an aluminium block to an aluminium cooling plate in the bottom of the locker, with foam insulation squirted in to insulate it from the hull. This worked well, as the warm side of the Peltier device was kept at sea temperature, so never more than about 15 deg C, even at the end of summer. It might be possible to use a low power water pump and cooling block, like those used by the PC modders to cool over-clocked chips, connected to existing sea cocks. Not sure how they would tolerate salt water, as I've never looked inside one. I think making a well-insulated box or locker should be easy enough, but making the lid seal very well could be challenging. That was certainly the major problem I had, and I found it made a tremendous difference to performance when the lid seal worked properly. I've still got my home made cool box somewhere, I'll see if I can dig it out and take a photo or two. I built it around 18 years ago, but it was still working around 4 years ago, as we've used it on holiday trips lots of times, powered from a car 12V socket.

I can confirm that the Seceuroglide insulated roller door we have (a 3m wide one) shows no light at all, at either the sides or the bottom, when it's closed. The sides run in a channel that's lined with brush seals, the bottom has a very flexible hollow rubber seal. We did make the threshold very flat and smooth, though, using a mould to form a slightly curved edge to the slab with the smooth section projecting in around 100mm or so, to form a seat for the door seal. This moulded in edge also has a slight outward fall on it to ensure water always runs out. The slab itself is just a power floated surface at the moment, and is around 2mm higher than the flat moulded area where the door seats. This wasn't something I specified on the drawings, it was something the guys laying the slab asked me if I wanted, as they had the kit to do this.

With a compressor-driven fridge there is no real difference between that and a freezer, and often fridge-freezers use the same cooling circuit for both. It's simpler and easier to use a small freezer as a fridge than the other way around, but only because the freezer will have a larger cooling arrangement than a fridge, and the temperature can be controlled over a wide range with just a thermostat. Many years ago, a friends old (1950's) yacht had a cool box with an ice compartment. Back then it was easy to buy ice at pretty much any port, so all we did was put ice in the ice chamber and let it keep the cool box cold. Ice would last a fairly long time, maybe three days if the weather wasn't too hot. I'm sure that the phase change cold packs you can get would do a better job, as they start off at around -18 deg C, from having been "charged" in a freezer. You could possibly make a tiny unit for just freezing these cold packs, then use those to keep the cool box cool. Not sure of the best way to do this, but I would think a two stage Peltier cooler, cooling down a small, well-insulated, compartment that was only just big enough to hold a couple of cold packs, could be made to work OK. Whether it would be worth doing is debatable, and depends very much on how long you'll be at sea and away from power. Most of my sailing has been coastal, with lots of trips across the English Channel, and a couple of delivery trips down to the Med. I can't recall being away from port for more than about 48 hours at a stretch, even on the delivery trips.

The move to privatise building control was designed to produce a competitive market for regulators. Sadly, the building industry being what it is, it's turned into a "buy your own compliance chit" market, not one where regulation is enforced. This is a bit odd, as there are other regulatory areas where free market regulation works. A friend is a retired pressure vessel inspector, who worked for a private company inspecting and certifying a wide range of pressure vessels, from power station boilers to industrial gas and compressed air installations. From talking to him I learned that all the companies in that regulatory market take their duty to inspect for compliance above their obligation to give the customer value for money. As another example, from 1997 to 2000 I was a "Notified Body" in EU-speak, as head of Type Approval of all UK maritime radar, radio and navigation aids. I had responsibility for ensuring that any product that entered the UK market was properly tested and approved against both a raft of operational specifications and requirements, plus the EU Low Voltage and Electro Magnetic Compatibility Directives. I worked within a semi-privatised bit of what had once been government, in that before EU regulation this work had been the responsibility of the old Board of Trade. We charged manufacturers to independently test and certify their equipment, and were in open competition with other EU facilities, like TUV. The fact that manufacturers were paying us didn't stop us failing their kit if it was non-compliant. I can well remember the conversations with the larger radar manufacturers when they tried damned hard to buy an approval. We had to charge competitive rates to stay in business, but our USP was that UK approval was seen as having far more weight in the market than approval granted by some of the smaller EU states. In particular, ship owners in the US were very keen to fit UK approved kit, as it made life easier within their own national regulatory regime. So, why is it that the open market for building control has produced such a high rate of non-compliance, amounting in many cases to an apparent total lack of proper inspection? We've seen a large number of well-publicised examples of these failings in new homes, yet no action seems to be taken against building control bodies, why is that? I know that in the maritime environment the regulators are deemed to carry a great deal of responsibility. When giving evidence at a Scottish Fatal Accident Enquiry I well recall the lawyer acting for the families of the victims trying his damnedest to pin some blame on me, for having signed the Type Approval certificate for an EPIRB (Electronic Position Indicating Radio Beacon) that had not sent a signal (via satellite) to the MRCC at Kinloss until several hours after the ship sank. It turned out that the device had become trapped in the nets, and only surfaced sometime afterwards, so it wasn't a certification issue. Shouldn't building control bodies be held to account in a similar way, when they sign off houses that a blind man could see were non-compliant with the regs? BTW, to the OP, I've tried to complete the questionnaire for you, but like Mike, have found it barely applicable to self-builders. I have used the free text boxes to try and make things clearer, but there were several categories where I couldn't give any answer, because of the way the question was phrased, and because there was no "doesn't apply" option.

It also tends to be very slow to fill when you have compliant flow restrictors fitted, and may present a problem if building control ask for water usage compliance to be demonstrated (they did for me).

The commercially available silencers seem to just be large diameter tubes with a sound absorption material lining them, so I would think a home made version using acoustic foam should work as well. The only reason I didn't do this is because I didn't physically have room to fit them, as I only realised the need for them after I'd installed the system.

I'm really sorry to have had to be a bit negative but the risks of continuing to use an installation, or even portable, LV system with no earth and no real protection from electric shock are high. Given that the inverter must have a fake CE approval (it cannot have passed with that outlet fitted, for a start) then I think it's very wise to get it tested. If it were me (accepting that I probably feel a bit more confident about taking stuff apart to examine it than some) then I'd open up the inverter case and examine the internal construction and layout, looking for visible signs that the design pays heed to the need for adequate isolation between the ELV DC input and the LV AC output, together with adequate insulation of high voltage areas from the metal case. I'd also want to see that the earth pin on the socket was properly connected to the metal case. Assuming all was OK internally, then using this as a temporary supply would then be OK, provided that a protective earth was provided, by means of an earth rod connected to the metal case and earth pin on the socket, together with a plug in RCD to provide protection downstream from the unit. I really wish Trading Standards had the resources to stop all the non-compliant, and potentially dangerous, electrical stuff that is sold via Ebay and other on-line sellers. Back when I was investigating and testing LED lights to use in our build I even found some lethal GU10 lights being sold by one of the very well-known DIY stores. To their credit they did withdraw them from sale immediately when presented with the evidence (the LEDs used a capacitive dropper, so weren't isolated from the mains supply, and had bare chips on the front face, with a 50:50 chance that they would be at line potential..............). In this case the seller is clearly in China, selling via a drop-shipping arrangement in the UK, and using a UK address as a mail box. Trading Standards could do nothing more than close down his present seller ID, I think, and I'm certain the seller would just pop-up again within a day or two with a new ID. My experience is that Trading Standard just don't bother chasing things like this, as they know they are wasting their time.