jack

We had a local guy (near Farnborough) knock up some plain steel gates with verticals every 90mm or so. They're about 1100 high, with two leaves about 1800 wide each, and a single leaf about 1000 wide. From memory they were about £1200 bare (no galvanising or painting), so your quote appears comparable given yours are galvanised. Don't underestimate the cost of galvanising - it isn't cheap for large custom items.

Welcome to Buildhub. If you've been plastering for 34 years, I assume you'll either have the shoulders of a god, or they'll be completely knackered!

Yep, I watch his videos now and again. Interesting stuff.

The NZ south island accent has clearly been influenced by its Scottish heritage.

Exactly. Every light in our house except the one in the plant room runs off our home automation system, and I can't remember the last time I used the app to turn a light on. It's the added functionality that I like. For example, each light switch (spring loaded, so momentary hold) can be used to control anything in the house. For example, at the moment, the garage lights are set to come on for an hour when I hit the switch. I could program the system so that if I long hold the switch, it will open a window, say, three seconds long, count the button presses within that period and keep the light on for that number of hours. I have our bedside light switches programmed so that a long press acts as a "night mode" switch. All lights are turned off, any blinds left open are closed, and the garage door is closed if its open. When our gates are installed, I expect them to have them close at this point if they are open too. Most of the blinds open and close automatically, and are programmed to close a certain time after sunset and open at various times in the morning. There are some downsides and risks, for sure, but for the most part the system has been very reliable.

Sure, will do.

- Spacing is application dependent. Insulated slab (rather than thin screed) + excellent insulation = wider spacings aren't a problem. - Can you buy UFH pipe that doesn't? Pex-Al-Pex has a barrier and is a great product. - Nope. No couplers - our loops all max out below 100m, so every loop is a single run. It may be easier and more efficient if you can have all your loops about the same length, even you you run them as a single zone. - MBC doesn't supply pumps, valves or actuators (or a manifold for that matter), so this comment is irrelevant. I used Wunda for my manifold and pump set a couple of years ago. The price was good and installation was pretty straightforward.

Worth a look @jamiehamy?

Yes, it does, although Loxone appears to pre-date Node Red It looks like someone's written a Loxone/Node-Red interface: https://allgeek.de/2017/10/05/node-red-in-verbindung-mit-loxone/

No, my wife wouldn't be able to maintain it. But the system is standardised, and the way the software works means that it's more or less self-documenting, and very easy to understand due to the visual programming language it uses. For example, here's the programming page for the blinds in the study: Inputs are on the left, outputs on the right. FYI, Auto Blinds Up is a memory flag, which can be used to share values and signals between pages. I'd expect a Loxone consultant to be able to come in and get the gist of most of the important stuff in a matter of minutes. As for spares, when we get to the point where there's no longer going to be compatible hardware, I'll buy an additional spare. Also, the way everything is wired means that any of a number of other solutions would be virtually plug and play on the hardware side, and I don't do any crazy stuff that would be a lot of effort to replicate in another system. I also presently don't have my MVHR or ASHP controlled by Loxone. At the moment, the only integration plans are to get the ASHP under Loxone's control, but that will simply be a call for heat signal, so again, pretty standard.

What. The. Actual? You couldn't make this nonsense up.

This is what was designed for ours: The onsite detail was slightly different, in the the channel walls aren't tapered in plan, as shown on this. I'd absolutely include these channels, ensuring falls the full length of each channel and out through each parapet. You don't want any pooling water to sit there, and potentially go through freeze/thaw cycles (something I'm sure was a factor in the leaks we had). One thing we don't have, but will get around to one day, is an emergency overflow pipe set above the outlet level, draining outwards to a highly visible place. If somehow all the gutters get blocked, and water builds up, I'd like visible evidence rather than waiting for problems.

We used (and were happy with) http://www.dovecsl.co.uk/ They're based in Camberley so pretty sure they'd cover Woking. I don't know whether they'd do this sort of demolition, but you could ask.

I suspect it was 50mm drain pipe, something like this: https://www.drainagecentral.co.uk/50mm-Push-Fit-Waste-Pipe-x-3m-W9800 Just to be clear, I'd still use this if I were doing it again. I just wouldn't bother with the strips of insulation and plastic tubing.

Washing in cold water is the norm in Australia. Australians find the idea of washing in hot water a little odd. I think it's partly because the climate is so warm, and the UV (on average) so high, that when clothes are dried outside - which is the case for a lot of the year - they're effectively sterilised.

I guess it's possible, it just seems odd that this is the only example of this sort of behaviour anyone's brought to the forum. Maybe this is the vanguard - I hope not, unless they also intend to behave like this with commercial clients. Interesting theory. It would certainly fit the "model home" approach that they use when they pick a subset of a large development for inspection. Our electrician (Justin, who you met I believe) also chose our house for his audit, but I think that was because he works by himself, so doesn't have a lot of large jobs to show for an audit, and the timing was right.

But what's the commercial driver for him behaving like this? His company can't be happy with what he's doing - it takes far more time than doing it the way most other BCs do things. It's upsetting an existing client who may well pass on bad feedback to others that might consider using them. How can this make commercial sense?

Ha. Nice one! Did Kingspan confirm the 200mm spacing? Sounds like utter bullshit to me.

We did something similar and the numbers just didn't stack up (I believe our water costs are lower than yours, too). Once you get pumps and filters involved, you incur maintenance time and costs as well.

What's the cost of this system and its ongoing maintenance, and how many litres of water do you expect to use per annum? 4000L costs about £5 where I am.

We have an ASHP with flow and return pipes flowing through the EPS underneath it. There are 3 x 100mm layers of EPS under the slab. We cut two channels in the middle layer , deep enough to take polypropylene push fit pipes. Can't remember the size - 60mm? I went with polypropylene because it was cheap and handles high temps pretty well. The highest temp it will see is 55 deg C from an ASHP, which is well within limits. I bent one end up into the plant room on a long radius. We foamed those place, then covered with the top EPS layer. We used (from memory) 28mm Hep2O barrier pipe, to which I stuck strips of thin nitrile insulation - 3mm or something like that, I think it was. Then I threaded that through a length of cheap plastic film tubing. A touch of washing detergent on the outside of that and it pulled through pretty easily. Seems to work well for us, for both UFH and DHW. If you're just using it for UFH, the extra stuff I did is probably overkill. In fact, if I were doing it again I'd consider just pulling the Hep2O pipe straight through without all the extra insulation and tubing. Not sure I follow this. Could you explain a bit more what you're doing?

Every 200mm? That's insane. Do you think he's bluffing? Could you call Kingspan and ask whether they know anything about this? If not, I think it's perfectly reasonable to demand that the BCO/engineer provide a written basis for this requirement.

Yes, yet another mistake on my part. No need to rub it in!

Sharp job!