MikeSharp01

That is quite some post Terry! I started responding before heading off this morning and kept returning to it in then end here is my penny worth. A few things / questions spring to mind. 1. Is there a schematic of it all somewhere that might make it more accessible to mortals. 2. How much data is being pushed onto the HDD and as you mention headroom how much do you anticipate on a minute by minute basis when it is running flat out. 3. Although you say there is no routing path you seem to have devices that are connected on both networks are these not a potential weakness? 4. The rock looks interesting but I cannot help feeling that you are going to end up with such a wide array of technologies that should anything happening to you, heaven forbid, would render the house control system somewhat impenetrable. 5. Have you looked at the HIVE protocols to see if compatibility might be possible I wonder or one of the commercial, albeit often proprietary, BMS protocols? I need to think this through as I will have the same basic issue but I was going to have all nodes as Web servers with some sort of domain majordomo bringing it altogether as another Web site. Speed I think is not a problem, we won't need Ghz sampling rates. Although I also played with the idea of a distributed intelligence mesh with heuristic / genetic opportunities to devolve processing once a pattern emerges. I almost had this in another life with a bitbus network where each node could see every other and track variables as proxy settings or readings but getting the intelligence to migrate was never a success although the system worked without it. I have better ideas on how to make it work now, with today's technology, by providing a set of high level commands that can be built as programmes on the nodes by themselves to replicate the control regime in the pattern. At the very least I would want them to tune. The other thread on the DS temp sensors is also of interest alongside the challenges of solar gain. I came up with a sensing plan, see attached so I could monitor the slab temp near the pipe and near the surface thus giving me the chance to see Solar gain getting ahead of the UFH and the gradient when heating and or cooling. I would put these on a 1m grid in the front three quarters of the main space (9m x 9m) as the rear portion gets almost no direct solar.

Hi and welcome, sounds interesting - look forward to hearing more.

If you are having the PIR on the inside then I think the VCL should cover the PIR then batten's then plasterboard. The VCL essentially stops water vapour moving through it so you don't want water building up in the PIR although it should dry to the inside. Getting the VCL in the right place seems like a bit of an art. There should be others along shortly who are more knowledgeable than me. I will be interested in the outcome.

Hi. Image is a bit out of focus so struggle to read the item number text to review build up. Ahhh - it works on a large screen can just read it on my 32" monitor but not on tablet. You are right the block that the frame sits on is the cold bridge along with the cavity tray which transfers the heat to the block from the outside.

If you can, wait until Friday as you should find better deals on Black Friday it's not even a week away.

The hardest wear on our thresholds is people traffic not water. I have to sand and re-varnish every 3 years and I use a floor varnish.

TV Aerial for the gas powered TV one presumes. They also have plastic front door and windows!

Just seen this in the online edition of the local rag. Scope for some energy updating and just down the road.

Well lets hope that you are good with a surf board and want to travel downhill.

I tried that by moving the stat dial on the splines about 10 years ago but my son - the blighter, calibrated the stat with the kitchen thermometer and told me it was 4 deg out and that he had drawn an arrow on the dial where 21 was supposed to be.

You are right here. Last week we were running out of GAS (LPG switch over) so I dropped the stat down to 18 from 21 here in millstone manor. The other occupants went crazy but after a day or two they got used to it - we had a delivery today, the stat has gone up to 21 again and I feel sweltering!

In the end a sensor is just a sensor the processing that goes on with its output is what counts along with the response times of the various processes across the system. I still wonder, although do not dispute that it works, if 0.1deg is fine enough because across a 10 deg range it is a 1% change which feels large. It is the old resolution / accuracy problem along with keeping the sensor in a stable environment, or adopting other technologies, that allows it to measure tiny changes without being affected by other things, such a drafts (not in a passive house). If you were processing this directly you would take a million high resolution samples every second and process them to remove all the unwanted 'noise' you can then programme the hysteresis at whatever level you want, subject to the resolution, and even adjust it for conditions. In the end the trend has to be picked out from the noise and it maybe that the noise is 0.05 deg C so 0.1 is about as good as you might expect. It is somewhat unclear to me how knowing it is going to be a cold night is going to help other than in preparing for heat input or provisioning, in the reverse case, for heat loss. I can see that knowing that it will drop does allow heat input to be made ahead of the curve perhaps based on most effective energy source. So you might lift the slab temperature using the ASHP driven by the PV array in preparation for a cold night and let the decrement delay take the cream off. This might be the place to look at a neural network technology just taking a feed from the met office and able to sense the environmental factors with the caveat that the system itself then has some predictive capacity based on what it senses in real time and it is able to adjust the weightings across the network to improve prediction based on experience. What emissive 'surface' would you point at? One of these might be a good option if a little pricey but the image processing would be great fun. Many years back I built a sun sensor in a pingpong ball it could measure the strength of the sun and took into account the various trignometric factors associated with where it was in relation to the sun and the time of year to the minute. I guess I could dig out the code, I will have it on a 8" floppy somewhere, and use that to help work out how much heat will be acquired from the sun and hence the amount needed to get ahead of the frosty night to come with free energy from the PV array (which itself is a measure of the suns strength but is very directional).

Whatever it is it can connect to or be replaced by any of the standard push fittings HEP20 or John Guest for instance. You just need the diameter of the pipe to get the right bits. Looks like the grey stuff and the copper is 22mm while the white stuff (looks remarkably like John Guest pipe) is 15mm and the ends of the white pipe go into reducers which provide 22mm male to 15mm female connections.

For all its tattiness it is a significant milestone, you can claim the VAT back for a start also, I am sure, someone on here will be happy to design a 'buildhub' completion certificate that you can be proud of after all the adulation of your peers will be much more valuable won't it.

Get a concave mirror and reflect the focused light back into their windows they will soon get the message.

I think you have your answer but if you want my 6 pence worth - is 6 pence still a thing, then you don't need them (it) however nice she is, unless she is very nice in which case you still don't need them cos you will have to sell up when the divorce proceedings commence and so will no longer be the owner of your lovely lighting wiring although presumably, and as long as an even nicer lady (or person of another gender type depending) does not come along trying to sell you the built in hoover, you will have a hot line to some more for the next house you build.

What is the core equation that enables you to work this out, PHPP does something similar, but yours might help people here particularly if the coatings fiddle factors could also be worked up. I also wonder about the internal surfaces / materials and their ability to 'manage' the heat / radiation / convection flows driven by light in all its constituent parts. PS are you back this side of the pond or do they have better comics the other side?

I am sure the @JSHarris discusses the settings for the UFH / room stat in one of his blogs. Hot water circulation is reasonably rare I think so it will be interesting to see how you get on with it.

A bit left field - pardon the pun

Is that a trade name, as looking at some of these that come up they don't look like they will drill into an RSJ or similar, maybe through a sheet folded lintel.

A proper cored / bored soil survey, with lab testing and report, should cost around £1500 (Ours was £1100 in Kent with two 6m bore holes, no significant trees within 30m) and give you all the details provided you specify it correctly - I guess your Architect has done this as above. Just digging won't enable the soil samples and won't give you a report, and associated indemnities, you can rely on if something goes wrong.

It's already been a long haul but you can now see the end even if not quite the bit in between here and the end - where there will be dragons (not Welsh ones though), but you just fight each one as it comes along like you have so far with planning. It will be interesting to see how you link the house and greenhouse heating together as it feels like there should be some great synergies there. Welcome and good luck.

Back fill a 100-150mm before taping or tape twice, once directly on the duct and once 100-150mm up, so you, the next person anyway, get some prewarning of the duct below. Shows this on the stuff @Onoff has pointed you at.

Glad to hear you can have a nice night at the theatre for £80 and that you got a good win on the price match.

Don't neglect the thickness of the doors in working out the gap as on thick doors the radius from hinge centre to inner edge of door is critical to opening clearance unless the hinge centre is behind or in line with the inner edge.