-rick-

Should I read this as either: a) The prices are very good for the quality if you order in bulk but there is a premium to standard stuff b) I recommend this supplier but their prices are high What were you paying per board?

Insulation or alternatively if you have power, put a small dehumidifier in each? (drain via pipe to the exterior). Might not work too well if you don't keep the doors mostly closed.

That link includes the text Which matches previous discussion on here about this change. ie, that you have to meet the standards but don't have to be MCS approved as John says.

What @JohnMo said but also if you have a household with many people having long showers, may be well worth your time looking at whether a Waste Water Heat Recovery System might be worth it. They claim they can save up to about 50% of the energy used to heat shower water. Pricey but with your water usage might pay for itself quite quickly and much easier to install if planned in advance. The solution I liked the best when I spent some time looking at this is: https://recoup.co.uk/products/pipe-hex-range/pipe-hex/ Don't have personal experience though.

Not an electricitian but I would say no. Will it work? Maybe (what is your switching voltage?). Is it compliant with regs, no, at least not without building an enclosure for it, etc, etc. @JohnMo asks a good question, there may be alternative options to give you what you want. The existing relay you have is pretty beefy. One option is to look for a smaller relay from the same line as existing (will likely make less noise when switching), otherwise look for a DIN rail mounted SSR but if you want to pass electrical inspections in future then even then need to be careful with the details to be compliant (hopefully an electrician will be along to say more).

To avoid changing a tried and true process. Altering a production line and validation is not cheap. Neon bulbs are cheap enough that LEDs don't win. (Amazon will sell me 100 for £9, so 9p a bulb - I'm sure much cheaper in bulk).

I suspect that in the case of a single mains powered, dim, light, a neon light isn't much difference in power draw to an LED and maybe seen as more reliable. In which case isn't worth a manufacturers time to change to LED. Reasoning: LEDs are low voltage devices and require a certain current to light. Current required by an LED is similar to current required by Neon. If you build circuitry to efficiently convert mains to low voltage then the LED will be much more efficient. But in a cost optimised device with no other active electronics, then the cost of the efficient power supply is cost prohibative so you would just use a resistor to burn off the excess voltage causing a similar overall current draw/power usage to neon. While good LEDs can last a long time, the market has been flooded with poorer quality ones so manufacturers would be taking a risk to switch, for no real benefit.

Looking at the spec for the fancoil looks like its either 15mm or 22mm. Getting the 22mm would be the minimum you'd want if installing in-line with the UFH and that assumes you are running a pretty small heatpump <= 7kw?? (guess). Even then it's pretty small and might be a problem (others have better knowledge here I'm at my limit). Good

Related: Does your fancoil have big enough diameter pipes to flow everything through it? Pipe from heatpump to UFH will be 22mm or 28mm depending Also, when cooling what water temp do you plan to use? If it's above dew point then should be fine, but if you need it below dewpoint for the fancoil to put out enough cool then you may have a problem then feeding on to the UFH. The DT between the in and out of the fancoil will vary depending on load so likely can't be relied on to warm up the water above dewpoint before going into the floor.

I was thinking of things to do when dealing with architects and planners, not once you actually got on site. Doing the excercise then also hopefully gives a outlet for the frustration of dealing with the planning aspects 😛

This might be a bit late for @flanagaj but has anyone got any suggestions on getting fit before starting a build? ie, what to focus on? My guess is focsusing on broad (+core) fitness/stamina, rather than heavy weights or similar but any specific suggestions would be useful.

That sounds right (don't have one myself). A quick google reveals this link that suggests one line is 1/4" and the other 3/8" for a 12k BTU system. So both lines are still much smaller than the 22/28mm+ pipes we see on monoblocs here. https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/165244/lg-line-set-size

Refrigerant lines will be small diameter copper, not large diameter flexible hoses. Fittings are different too.

Airlines don't pay VAT either AFAIK railways do. Fuel is a relatively small part of a railways cost but is a big big part of the cost of the flight. If Airlines did have to pay taxes on fuel their competitiveness would be a lot worse. Indeed Have we knowledge and skills? sure. All of it, absolutely not. Part of the HS2 project was to set up training schemes for new hires and also it was timed to try and keep workers who were working on Crossrail employed in the rail industry. We have a bad habit in this country of training people up to do a job, then employing them for that one job where they make all the mistakes and then we don't have something for them to go on to next, so they end up going abroad where they don't make the same mistakes because they've learned. From what I understand (and I've not been paying anywhere near as much attention as I used to) the actual construction part of HS2 has been relatively smooth. The project has been a disaster because of the planning, environmental and political aspects. Thames Water is in the running! Also, it's always worth pausing and thinking when you see waste: 'Is that waste caused by bad management or is that caused by constraints imposed on management by forces beyond their control?'. I'm sure Network Rail has plenty of poor management, but again the impression I have is a lot of things are done a certain way because of the structure of the industry, DfT orders, etc. I used to read it fairly regularly. Been a while though and I have enough other things going on that I'm unlikely to go back soon.

Railways do indeed have a lot of infrastructure and it's not a simple matter to compare them. However, Aviation does have a lot of 'unfair' advantages and indirect subsidies. For example: - aircraft fuel is tax free, railways pay for their fuel - a lot of airports have received significant public funding/tax advantages (more so outside the UK than inside so advantage not as big for domestic flights) - domestic flights are at least somewhat subsidised by long haul carriers in this country (even if you fly a small carrier that doesn't directly benefit, they will likely be able to offer low prices off the back of capacity initially built for the bigger, long-haul carriers. Personal belief with no data to back it up: subsidies are so high because the government over the last 10 years or so have badly managed the railways in a penny-wise, pound foolish way. HS2 is the exception, the problems there are different. HS2 has been a disaster no doubt and a painful lesson. We should learn those lessons and continue investments. Globally there are large numbers of countries successfully deploying rail infrastructure, we are an outlier and I don't think we should throw our hands up and say 'wahh it's tooo haaarrrd, i'm giving up'. Scaling back ambitions to smaller, more easily delivered stuff does make sense though. Part of the problem with HS2 was the attempt to be 'world-beating' which politicians in this country seem obsessed by.

AFAIK Corten is a specific alloy of steel designed to be exposed unprotected. Normal steel will rust and degrade faster than corten.

Cost/performance difference between those size inverters should be negligable. Get the G.98 maximum, can't see any reason to go lower, but obviously not worth going higher. Look at inverter specs for minimum panel voltage/startup voltage. You are wanting to optimise for low light performance so you want an inverter to be able to operate when the panels are only 10%. Choose wrong here and you might get an inverter that doesn't start producing power until the panels are 25% or more. You also want the string voltages at 100% light to be under but closeish to the maximum mppt voltage for the same reason. So decide how you wire things once you have those specs.

Even then they should be insulated. They aren't refridgerant pipes though.

closed-cell

Unless you want strict rationing, overproduction of food is inevitable. The sector is big, complex, with many interlinks with our economy and environment. Sure, there is the possibility of saving a bit here and there without too much effort, but it's going to be small fry compared to other areas and anything more than minor changes risks some large unexpected/undesirable side effects. If you want a focus for consumers 'reduce waste' rather than 'eat less meat' is a much broader and easier to swallow message.

I said it earlier but I'm of the view that food is a difficult problem that directly impacts people in a way that many may feel is negative. The emissions from food are also at least somewhat circular (fertilizer being the main fossil based input). We need to stop burning long sequestered carbon so better to focus on moving transport and industry to electricity. In the process of doing that we would eliminate a lot of the transport emissions from food anyway. Focusing on food means people are distracted from applying pressure in areas that would have bigger overall impacts. In terms of things consumers can do that has a direct impact on fossil fuel burning, focusing on producing less rubbish, moving away from fast fashion, disposable technology, repairing rather than replacing and taking less long haul flights I think are more valuable than saving emissions from food.

It really depends where you live. Most of the population live in more urban areas, these will commonly have three phase in the street. I'm pretty sure the grid know that one size does not fit all, but if there is a solution that is easier for many then it's still useful.

Yes. Putin is outside your control so don't worry about it. It's sensible to plan for the occasional power cut, but beyond that focus your attention on things you can control.

Drifted from SMBS's original question I guess but it's all still about 24v lighting and how to go about it so compared to some of the other threads on here I think we are doing pretty well. You did ask for feedback on your approach

Funnily enough, in a previous life I was involved in sourcing US-UK data connections for my firm and we cared about lowest latency and also reduncancy so I got to see a lot of NDA details about various fibre links coming into the UK. A lot of international links do indeed land in Cornwall, but things are much more diverse these days that you might think. Also, the telcos don't usually break out of the cable in Cornwall as there's not enough demand for it. First real possible connection (at least for the fastest cables) was around Slough (at least when I was involved in this).