jack

Halogen replacement LED bulbs have a driver (optionally dimmable) built into their base. However, in a new build you'll generally be using LED fixtures, which are all-in-one units without a replaceable bulb. You can buy fixtures that come without a driver, so you can choose how you drive them.

I installed an 8-channel 240V DMX Whitewing unit a few years back, to replace some of the highly unreliable cheap dimmers we originally installed. Better dimming quality and they're been rock solid for several years. I also have a similar multi-channel Theben KNX dimmer from a little while before that (KNX is built in to the v1 Loxone miniserver I run). It's also very good and rock solid, although more expensive than the Whitewing unit, and not quite as good at dimming at the low end. It's worth noting that the dimming characteristics of mains dimmers at the low end aren't great. You need a minimum brightness to get the lights to come on. Constant current dimmer drivers are a lot better, but they do limit your choice of fixtures somewhat, especially at the budget end.

We moved in at the end of 2015 and I think I started doing underfloor cooling two or three years later. As I've written elsewhere on BH (and you've experienced yourself), it works insanely well. I suspect one of the biggest factors in how well this works in individual circumstances is floor makeup. We have a polished concrete screed, on top of a nominally 100 mm structural slab with embedded UFH pipes. That's a great combination for storing a lot of coolth and transferring it efficiently. The one carpeted room downstairs is, unsurprisingly, noticeably warmer than the rest of the space. I've tried everything from 14 - 17 °C flow temp over the years and all have worked fine. I'd have to check, but I think I just left it at 15 or 16 °C after the last time I changed it a few years back. In terms of condensation, the only exposed and unsulated pipes in our system are the manifold pipework and connectors. We get a breath of condensation on the metal parts of those, but never enough for it to drip. As @JohnMo says, running the cooling while the sun's out means free cooling if you have PV.

These have been very successful projects by all accounts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Big_Battery Apparently they provide inertia support too.

In ordinary (non-bypass) operation, MVHR tries to maintain any temperature difference between the inside and the outside. On a cold day with the heating on, it recovers most of the heat from the outgoing air. Same in summer when it's cooler inside than out. In both situations, you want summer bypass off. Summer bypass is used when the outside air temperature is closer to the desirable temperature than the inside temperature. For example, if it's 23 deg outside and 28 deg inside, you want summer bypass on so that the 28 deg air is entirely replaced with the 23 deg air from outside. In most MVHR units, summer bypass operates automatically based on the temperature difference between inside and outside. Assuming yours has some form of automated control, check that it's operational. If you can only control it manually, I'd turn summer bypass on as soon as the outside temperature is lower than the inside temperature. In the UK, that's generally late afternoon or early evening, depending on the day and the temp in the house. You can generally leave it on all night and then turn if off when the outside temperature gets higher than the inside temperature. It's also more effective if you boost the fan speed.

I wasn't aware of that model, thanks. Still, my question was why such vehicles weren't selling en masse if there's such massive demand for a vehicle with such capabilities. I know plenty of people with BEVs and a few with more standard PHEVs/HEVs, but I don't know a single person who drives a car with a range extender. That said, I completely agree with the rest of your reasoning. I've been a BEV driver for around five years and wouldn't go back. I can't comprehend the idea of worrying about what will happen in 10 or 20 years. The tech will be unrecognisable within 5 years imo. Good answer!

Sure, that's another option. So why do you think these aren't being produced/sold en masse if (as @ProDave suggests) there's such as big demand for a vehicle that can provide what they offer at the price they can offer it?

Good salespeople are exceptional at telling people what they want to hear. You're plainly an EV skeptic, so even a whiff of that from you during your conversation with them would have had them reflecting your opinion straight back at you. I, too, would like a hybrid with a massive battery-only range. But that essentially means packaging a full BEV into a full ICE vehicle. You'd end up with the full weight and cost of an entire ICE drivetrain and fuel, coupled with the full weight and cost of a long-range BEV drivetrain and batteries, plus whatever's needed to integrate them. Something like that would be extremely heavy, and insanely expensive to buy and maintain. Something has to give, and in the hybrid market today, it's battery-only range. At all times, car companies deliver in the intersection between what people want and what it's practical/commercial to deliver. That overlap has grown continuously since the introduction of EVs, and presumably will continue to grow (as the PHEV and BEV market has done continuously).

Perhaps. I suspect you'd need very good air circulation (i.e., beyond that offered by MVHR).

That extension looks useful. Do you think it would fit a generic pump sprayer? How does it connect? Am I missing something Herb? Those are twice the price (Costco = £40 for 2 x 5L (minimum order), my link £40 for 4 x5L). If you want less, here's 2 x 5L for £28: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017PD1REM Both are concentrates that need diluting 5:1.

Yes. When they're fully closed, the edges of each slat are in gentle contact with the edges of the slats above and below it. The wind moves the slats and they rattle against each other. There's a tiny bit of noise when the blinds are down but not fully closed, but that's just the ends of the blinds moving in the tracks. The wind has to be very strong for there to be much sound from that.

Have they been standard for a long time? I was looking into this in 2014 when we were planning our build (we completed at the end of 2015). I couldn't find much information about them, and most of what I read involved situations where they'd gone wrong. That said, I've never heard them called a "Canadian well" before. Perhaps if I'd known that term I'd have found more useful info! We're on pretty-much pure sand too (our deeds say the plot was bought from a sand and gravel quarry in the 1950s, and there's a lot of that sort of quarrying around me), so it sounds like it wouldn't have worked for us anyway.

It's been discussed on BuildHub a few times in the past, but I'm not aware of anyone actually doing it. I think there are genuine fears about the health risks. I'm sure someone (possibly me!) posted a few years ago about that house that had serious issues with such an arrangement. They paid no attention to any of the risks though.

@PeterTheCarpenter, I've moved your detailed question out of the Introduce Yourself section and into Waste & Sewerage, which might get you some more responses: If you'd prefer it in a different section (eg, Foundations), let me know by quoting this message or using the @ system to flag my attention.

Silver salts or not, I'd still be reticent to use something like this unless I could be 100% certain standing water could be avoided. A more energy intensive version is a buried brine loop that feeds a heat exchanger. Needs a pump, but at least there's hydraulic separation.

Any of those products are fine. I've used Sika mouldbuster(?) in the past, but this time around I bought this stuff on sale and it worked just as well: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017PD8S3U It appears to have the same ingredients and concentrations as others I looked at. As others have done, I just mix it up and spray it on from a weed sprayer. Bit of a ballache getting to the highest part of the walls, but I only need to do it every couple of years, so not a bit deal. It's like magic - 48 hours after application and the whole thing turns white!

A recent build near me uses the same boards as these. The inner leaf was built several rows ahead of the outer leaf. No snots. Boards installed flat against the inner leaf, with all joints foamed and taped. It's frustrating that this is notable. It should be standard practice.

Others on BuildHub appear to have used Surecav: https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/search/?q=surecav&quick=1

This thread is worth a skim read if you haven't seen it already.

I fixed it. You can only edit posts for 30 mins after paying. After that, you can report your own post and ask the mods to edit.

Yes, we've required a £100 deposit (roughly the cost of the unit, I believe) for two or three years now. Basedon feedback from users, I've been thinking about increasing the hire price a little to cover the cost of getting/keeping it calibrated.

These documents are from the anemometer hire thread that you can't see yet due to not having enough posts: NHBC MVHR Commissioning.pdf Passivhaus MVHR Commissioning Requirements V121.pdf domestic_ventilation_compliance_guide_2010_edition.pdf Vent_Calcs(1).xls MVHR_Sizing(1).xlsx That thread also includes the following additional comments that might be of interest: To calculate the flow from speed, multiply the m/s by the area of the anemometer vane opening and then 3600 to m3/hr To calculate the area of the anemometer vane opening use the formula A = π r2, r being 1/2 of the diameter. There are calculators online where you can enter the radius or diameter and it does the calculation for you. Alternatively, spend a few minutes working out a small range of m3/hr values using the vane opening measurement so you have a ready reckoner to check. As well as a cone, you ideally need a flow straightening section, although this is less important with a vane-type anemometer. With a vane type unit, you ideally need to ensure that most of the airflow goes through the vanes, as long as that doesn't cause too much of an obstruction. For domestic scale measurement a 100mm diameter measurement section is usually OK - it's a reasonable compromise between getting the flow velocity up to a measurable level whilst not impeding the flow enough to significantly change it. Here's a photo of the unit I made up with a 100mm length of duct: This shows the Testo being used, and the reading is in m/s. To convert this to l/s, then take the internal cross sectional area of the measurement point (in this case it happens to be 0.007354m², allowing for the bit blocked by the sensor probe), and use this formula: Flow rate (l/s) = flow velocity (m/s) x 0.007354m² x 1000

It's working - see the rest of the sentence with the link: Having lost two hired anemometers to members who disappeared, we won't hire out the remaining one without at least some evidence of engagement on BuildHub.

Unfortunately, if they aren't selling, the price is probably too high. FB marketplace is often a good way of getting a sale if you price well.

Drawers all the way. The one issue is that they massively increase costs compared to cupboards.