MikeSharp01

IMV meshes are the future as they take the resilience concept underpinning the Internet and make it scalable in micro environments like houses and even cars. They are inherently simpler from a users point of view although rather more demanding in designing for reliability. I wonder if the problem revolves around investment (in previous schema) challenging change.

It works though doesn't it. The weakness, as you have said before, is that it relies a bit too much on you being there to sort it out. What we need is to throw out there an open source home automation protocol (hardware / software / whatever) that we can all develop to and that then forms a community of practice that others can latch (pardon the pun) onto so when those of us who have bespoke systems pass into the land of limitless energy (I assume) where the laws of physics don't apply can be confident that those left behind us won't have to rip it all out and start again as soon a it goes phutt.

Nope - you will mostly only see components EG flooring / furniture / lighting, not finished stuff the ideal home exhibition is better for interior design inspiration I suspect (my Brother and his OH go every year) we are not at that stage yet but might take a trip this year for that exact purpose.

IMO 1 day is more than enough - accept if you do go away after a few hours, bury yourself in your build issues and make a plan to go back the next day and ask all the questions you forgot to ask, then maybe 2 is useful but still a luxury. The OH and I just got there early last year did a morning of looking around separately, had lunch together to compare notes and then went around together looking at each others top picks and asking the questions we had not asked in the morning. Don't forget all the sideshow talks which can consume a lot of time if you are not careful.

but can you?

No, I know that, it has been discussed here before several times - I just want to have as many options as I can for heating / cooling, we have a passive stack system designed in as well an ASHP coolable slab. No south window shading to speak of but will have film and interstitial blinds on the 'rectangular' windows. The one thing I have not found is a passive house qualified Louver system which I would like to put at the bottom of a couple of the north facing walls that can open with the passive stack roof lights and draw the cooler north wall air into the building and pass it out through the roof lights in the cooling season.

Even when you are doing the bulk of it yourselves cost control is very hard / almost impossible. So far we have been hit with (to list the main ones): Asbestos removal. Additional site insurance as we ran out of time. Muck away costs we had not planned for, we had to dig deeper than we expected. Additional type 1 for the sub base going to 150mm from 100mm. Additional Concrete in the slab as we have 150mm thickness not the normal 100mm (Will be good for energy storage but costs a lot) Failed polish on the concrete - so we have to grind it. The £ going south. Some additional labour to help me when I could not do it alone. All of which has eaten well into our contingency, and we are only just out of the ground, so we are now looking at a whole re-budget exercise. It is only us so no 3rd party to blame either. Keep on keeping on, not a lot of choice, and it will be worth it in the end is the way I see it - pragmatism can suppress panic sometimes.

Interest only / over how long?

Why not do it via your MVHR, as is our plan, and put the heating / cooling fan coil unit next to the MVHR unit - I agree this cools everywhere but by working with the MVHR systems distribution boxes you might even be able to control that, by restricting flows to downstairs at night time.

A few of us will know all these part numbers but for the rest: ESP8266 = a micro controller with loads of IO such as embodied on the 'WEMOS' D1 board. SSR = Solid State Relays. DS18B20 (not DD) = Semi intelligent Temperature sensor. SSD = Solid State Disk (give your RPi - Rasberry Pi, some local storage.) Have I got that about right @TerryE

Yep - thanks, found them, looks good but did you also have hold down straps at intervals around the perimeter?

Have you got a link for these?, sound interesting, found this in Oz but not much coming up here. Ah may have found them is it this http://www.timco.co.uk/media/documentation/tds-en.pdf product, if so are there also hold down straps at intervals on the frame as well?

In software or hardware?

Jump on the @TerryE wmos D1 miniPro solution then you can just echo the readings across your wifi or even set up a dedicated network of the little buggers, no wiring required even make a daughter board for the optos - but mind the isolation issue!

Isolation very important so solid state Opto isolators all the way on this one, mechanical relays are all well and good but small high (ish) frequency signals don't make it through very well and shorten the contact life. THIS chip does it as long as you are careful on the board to keep isolation distances, 4K Volts plus isolation if you do, and with a few surrounding components to: a. diode to prevent reverse biased over voltage on the internal LED during the bottom half of the ac cycle, b. a suitable resistor to keep the current across the LED low and c. a capacitor across the output to smooth out the 50% of cycle of the incoming mains (don't suggest doing this on the input side - much safer on the output). The choice of value for the cap will need some thought as it will slow down the off response time by a few, perhaps 10s of, milliseconds.

I think you can do this with a site built design its just about iterating towards a series of local optima and then choosing which one you are going for. In @pdf27's initial post I sense that one dimension is missing, which is part of most mass production design work, and that is the nature of value to the customer in an infinitely customisable product - I agree this is very much taken into account in terms of what the end user wants and would be prepared to pay for. However in self building I feel that we are working towards and infinitely customisable product, as in approaching any number of local optima, the challenge comes in taking the 'cost' as a driver not so much for the design but mostly for the construction optimisation - as @JSHarris points out in respect off kitchen sizes. In a curious way this closes the loop on the production / manufacturing engineering cycle it EG 'now rework the design so we can make it' which is what @pdf27 points out in his modified 3 stage process. - inevitably embodies some aspects of compromise though. If one was looking towards solving the housing crisis as your main objective you would take the manufacturing engineering approach directly and every time. Why can a house be more like a car - which we discussed on the old forum IIRC.

Just out of interest do they offer bulk quantity breaks?

Don't worry 5G will be along shortly.

Mirrors are just glass so you need glass drill bits like These (which I gave used on many occasions) just don't have the hammer action turned on! For bigger holes there are these which come in a variety of sizes they need a guide to hold them in place (I have a set I got from Lidl which work fine on tiles have not tried them on glass.) and they are usually run wet.

If I never see another TV ad for smart meters it will be too soon and I will save a heap of energy and turn my TV off because I don't understand what the advantage of having one is for the householder given that most people don't track or care about their energy usage anyway.

Nope - you are just following up the conversation you had with the PO and formalising the new material - most planners are quite used to people doing things a bit out of sequence, your neighbour is already on their radar as a bit of a problem and they want things sorted so putting in retrospective PP (minor change) is the line of least resistance for everybody.

Nothing to stop you applying for a retrospective change of materials, this may be a minor change - seems like the PO is already happy, so it won't go our for neighbour consultation. You always have the right of appeal anyway. We are using tiles on our build so I hope I can find someone to fix them down for me! (Next door had some done a year or so back, although not jet black, and I have the name of the chap who did it!)

Worth fighting for then.

Ah - you may be in a conservation area or some such where such things can be mandated. Competition law may not apply here as the condition was part of your planning permission and you went ahead anyway, and in doing so accepting the use of the stated material. Naturally that does not preclude you going for a change of material in the normal way of things. However - given how much you have in the bank, what is the cost difference anyway to good natured rich folk like yourselves

Don't forget to max out your premium bond limit.