Bancroft

Have a look at the 'Registering a Site with Openreach' thread that I've just put up. Might find some answers there. Note that if an existing system belongs to someone else (eg Virgin Media) my Openreach guy said they wouldn't touch it so beware of falling between two stones.

Thought my experience with Openreach recently might be of use to others who are signing up for a new account and fibre to their new build. Bit of a long post but could be useful. Registering your site. There is no menu system for “individual building own home”. You have to pretend you’re a full-blown developer. Live with it. But, when filling out the details take particular care over the following: • They will require quite a few specific plans of your intended build and site. Keep these as simple as possible. They couldn’t get their heads around the fact that our planning permission only covered part of our overall land. Instead of calling to ask for clarification they just rejected the registration. • Don’t try to use the new name for your property as it probably won’t come up in their database. Use the existing address details if at all possible. • When filling out your name and signature, make sure you use exactly the same details. One of my failed registration attempts was because I put my full first name in the Developer’s Name box but then just put my initial in the signature box. The registration was rejected because they were different… • When you’re asked who you’re ‘signing on behalf of…’ use the same name that you put at the top of the form. Another registration failure I had was because the Openreach form somehow incorrectly picked up the wrong data field and created a developer called ‘On behalf of Developer’. (I’d inputted ‘on behalf of developer’ at the direct request of the Openreach assistant who was filling out the form with me, line by line over the phone, but it was still rejected). • When putting your address in, check and double check. My fourth attempt at registering our site was rejected because I apparently kept putting my own address in incorrectly. The Openreach assistant eventually told me that I had put in our village name rather than the large main town under which our postcode lies so their system rejected the application. • Be aware that they probably won’t tell you your application has been rejected. It will simply say ‘delayed’ on their website, with no amplifying reasons. Use the online contact system to ask why it has been delayed. • When talking with Openreach assistants during this phase be aware that they are simply human forms of ‘computer says no’. They have no autonomy or ability to think for themselves. Once registered When you do finally get registered, they will send you an email telling you how much it’s going to cost you. On ours it said: Just a heads up—according to your Building Regulations, you only need to go for Full Fibre if we can hook you up with an offer under the £2000 cap. Unfortunately, we couldn't do that this time around, but we can still get you Full Fibre for £ 11,278 + VAT. No other explanation of the cost was given – no breakdown of costs, no indication of what work was/was not included. Nothing. The only way to get any more information is to sign the contract. Further down the email they do explain that after signing the contract they will allocate a Field Based Co-ordinator. You will then be able to talk directly to them and have a sensible conversation. You then have 30 days to pay the bill. If you don’t pay, then they will just void the contract. This is a stupid way to go about business but we’re talking Openreach here, so… Talking to a human on site Having gone through that process (nearly 2 weeks in total) and signed the contract I finally got to talk to our FBC today. Absolutely brilliant. He agreed their systems are stupid, took a very pragmatic view about what we were doing and how we’re doing it, and even gave some great advice for how we can make our installation even better. He’s now gone away to find the real cost of what we will have to pay. Wider considerations If you do all this early enough, Openreach will provide you with any ducting you need. The ducting needs to be grey, rigid polypipe, 96mm for the main run, dropping to 54mm for the final connection. Openreach have guidance on their system about this and how to lay it if doing your own. We bought our own simply because I hadn’t registered with them early enough (despite my best efforts) and we want to put the ducting in a trench that’s being filled in tomorrow. Hopefully, things will get easier now that I have a local FBC to talk to. I will update you if anything useful is learnt. Overall thoughts I’ve had similar experiences with Openreach/BT in the past – you need to go through hell on the phone/online but, when an engineer turns up they’re really helpful. Just hang in there while you go through your apprenticeship phase.

To be fair, I think he said it as a way which he thought was showing he was open and flexible, ie 'I don't mind how you contact me'. That was fine but didn't help me in my quest to find a best way of working. We are going to have weekly catch ups, starting tomorrow. This idea is really a way to be able to capture all those bits in between in order to give him a heads up. That way, when he arrives at the weekly catch up he isn't met with a barrage of questions/queries and, hopefully, will already have had time to consider what needs to be done/how to answer the questions.

Agree, which is why I'm looking for a more passive/structured system that he can look at when it suits him rather than be bothered at random times during the day. This should be possible once his other project(s) start to wind down and he is on site here more often. One other thing I'm looking at is Trello. It looks like it does all I think we need and, after another discussion with the builder, he seems willing to look at other options.

Already emailing and WhatsApping and that works ok but still seems clunky. Email is fine but doesn't tend to get looked at much while on his phone on site during the day. WhatsApp gets seen more often but isn't really conducive to longer messages (in my mind). And with both, although they record everything, you end up scrolling back and forth trying to piece together the invariable mosaic of information. I'm trying to find a system that will keep all information on each topic in the same place, that we can both add to, and that we can also highlight red/amber/green status and when things have been closed off. Yes, it's finding the sweet spot between ease of use and usefulness for the task. A whiteboard would be fine but doesn't work if he's away at another site for a few days. similarly, I've thought about a diary/logbook of some sort but that would mean the builder finding a pen and sitting down to write stuff! I did. His response was 'whatever' which was far from helpful!

We're using a main contractor to do the slab, ICF and roof skeleton of our build. Like many builders he's spread across a few sites at any one time and, Sod's Law, is usually away when something comes to mind that I want to speak to him about. At the moment I'm just noting them down then ambushing him the next time we talk. But I'd like to formalise this a little. Ideally, I'd like to be able to make notes/ask questions and put them into a 'system' that he can see. We can then either discuss them next time we're face to face, or he can answer on the system. By doing that, he will have a heads up of the questions rather than me ambushing him and it will also start to create a history/timeline. Any thoughts on what might be the best system to use? It needs to be a simple system we can both read/write to, ideally not complex to set up, and easy to use for the IT challenged.

I put this question to a UFH guy as it said glycol was needed. He said that they recommend glycol only for the initial fill while the property is being built. This is in case there is a prolonged cold spell before the system has been comissioned. He then said that once the system is ready for commissioning, the glycol should be drained out and water put in. Would be nice if they actually explained that in their information.

How are you supposed to get upstairs? Might be re-defining the term 'botched'!

The Iranian Navy isn't/wasn't a key player. IRGC fast attack craft and mining are. Some estimates have up to 3000 FACs/Speedboats in the Iranian orbat. Just takes a lucky RPG and a tanker is in a world of hurt (and Lloyds make others uninsurable). And I would be very surprised if Iran hasn't been building up mine stocks as that is, potentially, their key weapon in the shipping war. Dhows, fishing boats, FACs can all be used to lay nuisance minefields and the US can do little to stop it. Interestingly, heard on the news this morning that the majority of the very few ships still transiting the Straits are Chinese-owned. Clearly sailing without Lloyds insurance. Soon, the world could be buying our oil stocks from China...

Good that you seem to have a solution for this. Thinking creatively, I wonder if anyone has gone as far as building their own fire hydrant system? Would just need a hose connector at each end and a 4" pipe in between. Fire engine plugs in one end and fire fighter plugs a hose in the other. Granted there would be some cost but probably cheaper in most instances than a sprinkler system.

So how does this work if you have planning conditions that you are required to complete 'before commencement'? For example, one of our 'pre-commencement' conditions was that we had to put protective fencing around a tree root area. So, Heras fencing went up after planning had been granted but months before commencing the build as there were other pre-commencement conditions we had to achieve. You may be right though as I'm applying logic to a joint planning department/HMRC scenario...🤦‍♂️

When Trump visited the UK last year and said a great deal had been done with the UK for AI, what he was really saying was he wants the UK to pay to build new power stations to generate power to supply to US-owned AI projects. Thankfully, I believe that is just another of his 'deals' that has turned to nothing. But, the power requirements for AI are still under the radar and few people have really clued into it - especially government. Similarly, government are lauding AI but not thinking about how increased unemployment will reduce income tax and NI contributions as AI expands, leading to a tax/spending gap. We live in a disconnected world...

If your patio/back garden is big enough, how about an earth tunnel? I was quite keen on trying to incorporate one into our new build but the architect just went into tilt mode whenever I tried to bring the subject up. Just wasn't on his radar so didn't exist in his mind.

Thanks for that. Were the outflow/return pipes from the ASHP individually insulated within the larger black pipe? Does it impact performance with them being so close together?

@Nickfromwales - can I ask why some of the pipes shown in your first photo above have been clad in additional insulation? Was it just to stop rubbing/interference before entering the manifold, or was it for other reasons?

Looks very nice - congratulations. I think I'm going to have a similar problem...

Broadening out the topic slightly but when do people think screeding is best sequenced in the overall build? I had in my mind that it would be done early in the process once the main structure was watertight. But, I've seen a number of University of Tube videos where ufh pipe and screed has been laid after first fix electrics and after walls had been plastered. I think the instances I saw were for floors screeded with modern liquid screed, as opposed to the more traditional concrete so there may be a difference with regards to moisture levels. Thoughts? Pros/Cons? Pooh traps to be avoided?

Thanks for that - still struggling to get my head around how best to achieve a sensible ufh set up. You mention your previous heat pump didn't modulate well - was that because it was not being 'stretched' in terms of required output because of the efficiency of your build? I presume it's as important to have a heat pump that is not too big as it is to have one not too small but guidance on getting the Goldilocks size seems lacking.

200mm seems to be the 'go to' spacing for ufh - can you explain: why you went for 300mm? does that result in any 'heat striping' across the floor? what impact does it have on the SCOP of your heat pump (I understand higher target temperatures that 300mm would require would heavily impact the SCOP)?

Only going on the experience of others but I have read others say that while dual systems can cool they are never able to get to the cooling temperatures that a 'proper'/dedicated aircon unit would be able to achieve. If that assumption is incorrect, then great because that's what I'm looking for. But, opinions seem to vary and I'm just trying to find ground truth.

How well does this all work in practice? At the moment I'm planning on separate ASHP and aircon systems for two reasons - one, not all eggs in one basket, and two, I've read elsewhere about a setup like yours that, although it does both jobs to an extent, is a compromise overall. Interested to hear about your real life experience with such a system.

Will be interesting to follow the Home Assistant journey so please keep us informed. I've just started playing with HA as an experiment while I wait for our build to start. It's been a useful exercise as it's helping to shape my thinking between 'need/want' and 'necessary/just for the fun of it'. I haven't fully decided on the way forward yet but my thoughts are trending towards the following: Keep lights and other household stuff 'normal' - eg lights/light switches to be mains powered and wall mounted. Yes, having multiple scenes and lighting setups might be sexy but I imagine we will soon tire of them and revert to using the forefinger as the primary method of switching lights on/off. Also, we don't plan on selling the house at any point but having all the lights etc operated in a familiar way will avoid future owners having to learn how to use HA or whatever). Flood the house with Cat 6/Cat 8 ethernet points at appropriate places (ideally Power over Internet). This is to deal with stuff that will benefit from being plugged in to permanent power and benefit from faster speeds (security lights, gate intercom, wifi extenders, etc). Use HA sensors in a secondary manner which doesn't impact the structure of the house. So, temp/humidity/vibration/presence sensors where appropriate but not where they are vital to the basic house functions. Smart plug adaptors can easily be used for floor lamps/side lamps can easily be put on smart wall plugs. It's unlikely that our house will become the poster boy of smart home integration but it should be enough for us.

I'm a long time woodworker and my basic rule is - the more detailed/better/bespoke the finish needs to be, the more expensive tool I go for. You could also say the closer the tool's job is to the final product, the better the quality needed. So, I have a couple of Festool tools (Domino, sander and track saw) but, at the other end of the scale I've got belt sanders that I've got free off Facebook marketplace. I suppose my middle of the road sweet spot is Bosch. They seem to have the right balance of quality, price, capability and - importantly for corded tools - long power leads.

I'm sure 99.9% of builds would be easier without the spousal input!

Your example looks a lot more sparse than ours! Couple of questions: I notice you haven't put any pipe under the gangway between kitchen units and island - does that not create a cold spot for people working in the kitchen? Also, in the bedrooms, you've not put pipe under the bed locations - does than not limit you for switching the room around or altering the layout? I've been playing around and looking at loop sizes for 200mm spacing and managed to get down to 14 loops but I did this using a spreadsheet - how easy is loopcad to use and what other data do you need apart from room sizes/locations?