MikeSharp01

Did the VHF test and got my call sign - which I still have, but not the Morse test did a load of moon bounce and had a satellite tracking 4 Yagi setup on my mums house - still have all the rigs and now have an HF set as you now get all bands without the Morse. Don't turn it on much - used be a regular on the crystal palace repeater - not a squeeky and used to be pretty derisive of CB types (ooooops probably offended millions of Buildhubers.) Also still have a box of reel to reel recordings of Hancocks half hour I made in the 70s - I have checked I don;t have any that were lost!

I did that as well It would seem so and yet back in them days (1974) I felt so very alone and now there are people like me everywhere round here.

Yes did several of those: PHPP designer, the software was free excellent training in thinking it all though. I was on he course with a couple of people from a big house builder who were tasked with doing a few PH's although I am not sure they felt they (PH's) had a future in their corner of the market. Did a couple of PH visits with our local AECB (Association for Environment Conscious Building) group, good grounding and very motivating. Did an air tightness day with AECB as well. Swindon was not a thing then but did go the national house building show at NEC (twice - with different Agendas) to gather product details - windows, appliances, clever flooring... On the chocolate front I find it does not stick around in the air long enough to melt - once I see it I eat it!

Yes while at school I made a whole lighting control rig for the school drama productions - about 10 dimmers in a row, worked like a dream nobody died but once the show was over I disposed of it and now only work at 24v and below.That tingle frightens me these days! I am happy doing mains wiring for switches, rings etc but electronics at mains voltages with open circuit boards nope, and would not recommend it.

Having spent time in your home I agree it can be done very well without an architect and I would not suggest using an inexperienced PH Architect unless you were confident in your understanding of PH requirements. I had a year of sabbatical to do all the homework, took the PH planning course, read everything on the predecessor site to this one, and got all the construction details I wanted in my head. We had a conundrum - we spoke to 5 architects 2 with PH experience and the rest not. Sadly it was clear that we could not work with several and we got down to two, one with PH and one without. The one without PH was up for the opportunity to learn, were open to my helping wrangle the design as it evolved - including not charging for rework if aspects were not PH compatible and we really liked their work so we went that way. In the end it is always horses for courses. Mike

Hi and Welcome to the forum, we started our Passive house road about 6 years back and have been building, basically on my own - part time, for the last 4 years. We had to learn lots - day job is semi retired academic, about everything. We have learned loads. Here are our bullet points: The devil is in the detail - in PH building the details really matter. Cheque book build aspects (we have had very few trades on site - the slab pour and the roof slating only so far) still need to meet the detail level so watching like a hawk. Get a good architect aboard, it does not matter if they don't have PH experience provided you like their prior work, you know your stuff and can run the PHPP across the ideas as they have them to keep their design feasible. Ours did a great job, as I stand in it now, but we had to knock it about a lot to keep it feasible as a PH - glazing size / orientation, passive ventilation. Not to mention achievable on our budget. Ensure (easy for you) great integration between SE / architect and build a good relationship with the SE. We let our architect use their chosen SE which worked well for the most part and we have been back to the SE much more that to the architect over the build because of issues here and there. Decide on what you want and stick to it. We have built what the architect drew and the SE made work, +/- a few mm, and made no changes because of the costs / implications of changes. That is not to say we won't change aspects of the internals but once you get going these things get increasingly costly. (2 edged sword for you as you probably do well out of clients changing their minds but once you have the UFH in the slab moving internal walls plays hell with any zoning...) Enjoy it - it won't all be fun and try not to play 'Grand designs bingo' along the way EG Have some children, run out of money, get divorced, have your main contractor go into liquidation....

All these drivers in ceilings strikes me as a maintenance nightmare and a worry in 'parasitic' energy consumption. Not sure why the bulb cannot do all the work and just listen on the mesh, assuming the power is on. Seems obvious that the bulb has all the control, starts in a few hundred milliseconds, when power is applied, at a set brightness, or last brightness, and then gets itself on the mesh and awaits further brightness / colour commands from there.

Is there a DPC under the slab. If so you don't need on under the sole plate as no damp can get there and you risk trapping water in the sole plate which could lead to rot.

Put an old blade in the circular saw, set the depth to just less than the thickness of the beam and cut a line in the wood then chisel the timber out using the cut to get the chisel in.

In answer to you original question - Yes, and this is about the best explanation, I found way back when, as helps you in gently.

We decided the best way forward was a permanent supply to a distribution station on the edge of the site so as we added buildings, in our case only 2, we could just add anything we wanted to this station and we had the gas installed there to and we are having the comms coming there as well and if I was brave I would move the water meter there as well but ee do have our site stop tap there. So we have a permanent building which also has the wheelie bins and bikes and we don't need to call back the DNO. I think @ProDave did the same thing.

Interesting - I am still reading about it. I can see the community is strong. I need to understand the API possibilities. We have a small timber framed build and I was hoping that I would only need one and let the mesh do the rest. Lots to learn but thanks for the reassurance.

@cwrWhy not use a length of 28mm plastic pipe you can just uncoil it, I used wall paper stripper to fill the pipe with steam and straighten it, then you can be sure of no joints at all you cannot get to and you do not need to master soldering or fret about failures.

If the pipe is the property of the sewage company does that mean no easements are needed? Would not all the properties without connection running into the public highway sewer not need easements across all the properties. SO the left most property above will need 4 easements, the next 3 and so on?

Have you a link for your image - my neighbor has a similar issue, as @Mike_scotland, which by the looks of that diagram they don't if you get my drift.

We are reaching the crunch choices around the automation for the house and we have both Z-wave and Zigbee actuators / lighting. So I am casting about for a non cloud based hub I can use that handles both. Hubitat looks like a goer but there is / was also Wink not sure if that is still a thing though. Anybody used the Hubitat elevation hub?

Plenty are, but just because you are paranoid it does not mean they are not out to get you. We have had a smart meter at millstone manor for a year, doesn't work / won't commission, bulb sent a chap from Siemens, he looked at it, said it wasn't commissioned and drove off. We have to send photos of the screen to submit a reading and because we are on a dual tariff and the meter is only reading one tariff we spend inordinate amount of time arguing about how to split the bill. The smart meter on the build works a treat though - looking forward to seeing it going backwards when we get the PV🙄.

You still have one that turns?

Why would it not be allowed - it is and welcome to the forum. PV is all about area, angle and shading. If you can max out a South ish facing slope at about 35 degrees with no shading for the vast majority of the days then you can generate well. You then have the challenge of using it. A battery helps and with associated controls you can then run appliances and if the battery is full perhaps some can go into the immersion heater or, worst case, be exported to the grid. There is loads on here about how much you can expect to generate and that's may be your starting point.

Triangles are everything I was always told.

Very sustainable.

Brilliant work @Ralph good to see what can be achieved despite the privations of the dreaded COVID.

Cannot say really - I just made it as exactly as I could to his (it was a him) specification. He did explain that the racking strength was fine longitudinally (Basically North-South) but limited cross wise so he wanted the cross walls to be really stiff and nailed as stated. We do have a reasonable amount of hold down straps into the passive slab to the upright I-Joists, the sole plate is also held down separately while each I-joist is also fixed to the sole plate with Strong-Tie angle brackets and screws. I will have a look at his calcs and see what the uplift forces might be - not much I suspect given the adjacent dwellings. We do have the 150 spacing on the longitudinal and roof boards. All boards are 15mm OSB 3.

I would still look at doing with the insulation. what is the max level above expected zero, what is the raise area as % of total and what happens above the insulation (build up)?

Much cheaper to shape the insulation than the concrete or just have it screeded.