jack

Welcome to BuildHub!

It was a Loxone forum, so more concerned with home automation. It might be that this is an unusual subset of users and is therefore skewing things.

Ah right, sorry. I thought you were talking about just the road crossing.

That surprises me. I'm a member of a home automation forum, and Texecom is widely and repeatedly recommended as the best brand to install.

Nope:

Worse, it looks like the 35mm drops to 25mm after the first house.

Looking at the dogleg in the property line, it looks like it's the currently empty area to the right of the row of houses.

From memory, our are Crosswater Mike Pro in some sort of matt/brushed stainless finish. They all still look like new.

Looks an interesting project. Any reason why ground source? It's a rare situation in which the higher costs of ground source relative to air source stack up.

Agreed. I've just had a look through this paper. While you're right about it using less energy, I think it's more accurate to say that one particular person found it comfortable to live with their kitchen at 15.5-17 deg C, and their bedrooms at a similar temperature range. My teenage sons would be perfectly happy at that temperature, and I would have been too, when I was about 20 years younger! But there's no way in hell my wife would consider that temperature range acceptable. Also, the modelling assumes "informed and well-behaved occupants who ventilate the buildings in the correct and most efficient way". I'd argue that this is an impossible standard to set (and admittedly the authors acknowledge that this is a shortcoming of the modelling). I also disagree that it's as general as there being "no reduction in indoor air quality or comfort". Again, this was solely based on a single individual's subjective impression, based on a survey. Yes, they normalised for size, but they did nothing to take into account the fact that the flats weren't the same size, and that one was a single ground-level storey, while the other was two stories above. Overall, the best that can be said about the numbers is that they show occupant behaviour and desires are critical inputs to how much energy a building will use. All that said, it's an interesting article, and it's worth reading for a different perspective on the question of whether installing an MVHR unit is the right thing for any individual.

Welcome! Lots of members didn't even have a plan when they started, so don't feel too bad. Best thing to do is browse the forums, use the search function, and not be afraid to ask questions.

We have Crosswater throughout our house. Just ticked over 5 years after moving in and not a single drip from any of them.

No, in both cases I just plugged them in. Actually, now I think of it, the Samsung was first used wirelessly because I hadn't yet terminated the CAT6 cable at that location. Once I did that, I just plugged it in and changed the network settings, and it worked fine.

Most? That really, really surprises me. I bought two mid range smart TVs (one Samsung, one Sony) last year, and both have ethernet. I don't recall seeing anything in any of the reviews I read about countless models saying they were wireless only. Sure, you can connect just about everything via WiFi but it's undoubtedly the case that hard wiring is a more robust solution. My experience is that WiFi is sometimes imperfect, and frankly life is too short to be spending any of it sorting out avoidable IT issues.

Interesting. I'm really surprised that building regs allow this, but I guess I've learned something!

Not explicitly, but I use PoE for the access points mentioned above. Definitely need to think about this if you want cameras, too. Consoles would be the obvious one if you or your children use them. I believe Sky boxes can use ethernet too (and I'd want a hard connection if I were streaming UHD), plus if you want a Plex-type box or DVR, that's another connection. I think two is the minimum unless you know you won't use any of these things.

It may be that this particular BCO is giving them a break for whatever reason, but no way would I rely on opening a window for ventilation (and nor would I expect most BCOs to allow it). No in-room ventilation is even more concerning in a properly airtight house.

We have CAT6 all over the house, partly due to home automation, but also for fixed devices. So our TVs, console, my work computer, the hub for our solar panel controller, the printer, two wireless access points and a few other bits and pieces are all hardwired. Wireless is pretty good most of the time, but before I finished the structured wiring, we used to get the odd connection drop-out, especially with the printer and one of the TVs. Always infuriating having to sort it out, even if it just involved a reboot or re-entering a password. I don't think I've ever had a single connection problem with any hardwired device. Personally, I'd run at least two and better yet three CAT6 cables to any place you plan to have a television, one for where you believe you plan to put a printer, and one to any place you think you might like to have a wireless access point (for a large house, having two such points will generally improve everyone's wireless experience). The wire itself is really cheap, and you don't even need to terminate it at first. Just leave it coiled up in the wall, and keep a clear photographic and measured record of where each one is. Install each point as and when you find you need it.

You need to have some sort of penetration through the envelope, whether it's inlet/outlet ducts to the MVHR or ducts between the MVHR and manifold. You may need to insulate more ducting but it depends on layout.

It'll have very little impact on overheating unless you install some sort of cooling coil (driven by an ASHP). It does help slightly when it's very hot, by helping to maintain any temperature difference between inside and out. That can be useful if you're using aircon, in particular.

That surprises me. Is that based on your own experience?

I've lived with MVHR in a well insulated and airtight house in the South of England for 5 years. If I were building again, it would be the first thing in my list of essential things I'd include in a new house. If you haven't lived with the air quality, it's hard to explain. I don't know where people get the idea that you can't open windows, but it seems very common. MVHR is at its best when it's very cold or very hot outside, which is when you probably don't want your windows open anyway (I mean, you can still open windows in that case, but you're going to make it less pleasant inside your house). If you have lots of glass, you really want to think hard about how you're going to keep the house cool. MVHR will help a bit, but really you need to find a way to reduce solar gain, and possibly to cool the house with aircon or the like.

I used it the day before yesterday while on-site at a friend's self-build!

We have an internal meter (SSE installed) but frankly I'd have preferred it outside in a kiosk. We periodically get meter readers dropping by, and we need to bring them through the house and into the plant room to read the meter. I'd much rather be pointing them to an external box.

That search string will work in practice, but for future reference, the full syntax is to add the following to your search term: site:buildhub.co.uk You don't need to add the whole address - Google will limit the search to domains having the string that you specify after "site:". Even site:buildhub is probably accurate enough.