joth

Put the ASHP indoor unit (basically, a pre-plumbed cylinder for anyone else unsure) in that space, build a service door in front to square out the room, then park your desert and wine hostess trolley in front. Check if the cylinder has any pipe connections on the sides or back, as they'll be hard to install. In fact, check with the manufacturer how small a nook they advise it is can be installed in The pipes to the outdoor unit can be run underground, under the slab. Where is the UFH manifold going? Are you using a manifold for DHW supply, and need secondary return? That stuff all takes space, but maybe can go under the stairs

Build Vs buy: for us it was all about location. We could get a house the quality we wanted, OR in the location we wanted, but odds of finding both together vanishing close to zero (and the cost would be incredible). Plus we felt build (deep renovation) allows really meeting our specific needs like no purchase would Finally Pulling the trigger: mostly because after 2 years we were tired of talking about it and wanted to move on with our lives. At that point We'd realized a full rebuild would be about the same price but even better quality/choice, but couldn't face another 2 years to reset and replan so pushed us to go on. Still very happy we did, although with retrospect of course the COVID delay meant it went slower than we wanted after all that. Things that can go wrong. For me the underestimation was the energy it requires. Nervous energy. After 14 month build, keeping tabs on contractors and trades (or lack of) almost everyday, my nerves are shot. The financial side was kept in pretty good shape throughout really, but constant feeling of predicting what might go wrong next and putting stuff right when it does is unbelievably tiring. No idea how I could have insured or hedged against this, except quit the day job. (without a doubt the only way I could do a build again is if it was my sole full time focus)

makes it quite oversized Not if it's been sized for DHW reheat time. But, yes... If driving rads you surely want a buffer tank to let it run on a reasonable cycle even if TRVs have shut off most rooms?

Where possible hide the stuff in the ceilings in more utility like areas (cloakrooms, utility rooms, back corridors etc) and use oversized light fittings in those areas https://www.ledkia.com/uk/buy-placas-downlight-led/400-round-24w-ultraslim-led-panel.html https://www.wholesaleledlights.co.uk/600x600-40w-led-panel-light.html If you need to access the stuff in the ceilings there, you can pull the light out and get good access. I've already found the ones in our utility room useful for this on a number of occasions. As a variation, I've nominally thought to retrofit panels like that, or basic access panels, in any locations we do have to do future maintenance in, rather than re-plasterboard the entire ceiling. Warning: those cheap panel LED lights are not safe to connection/disconnection while powered up (at least, mine weren't). I had a pack of 10 of them, and my contractor blew up 7 before realising the issue. (The constant current drivers were over capable, and whack out a really high voltage when disconnected that fries the panel on contact) In fancier areas, I reckon something can be done with dropped coffer/pelmets concealing some access, but we didn't manage to work that in. Ceiling and wall speakers can also provide improvised access hatches. (Nominally my stud wall installed subwoofer doubles as access to the main bathroom soil stack, but I'd have to bust through the back box of the speaker to do that so reluctant to, but would in a pinch. It was only a cheap sub, so it'd double up as an upgrade opportunity)

Well 6 months on we finally got this working! I won't quite say commissioned yet, as we're still running the FTC6 in single zone for fan coil + ufh, but now the plumbing is all complete I can think about getting the control systems properly working. (I say plumbing is complete, there's still a broken flow sensor to replace) Progress has been so slow with our MCS installer I actually got my main contractors plumber to help me debug the fan coil yesterday. The issue was obvious, looking at that photo above the red things in the threaded connectors are bungs. Kinda important you remove those before hooking it up, else no water ain't flowing anywhere. Would have been nice if the MIs has mentioned that! Being in the loft, this is obviously the highest point in the system by quite some way, so bleeding the system has to happen here. It has manual air release vents but it'd be nice to have automatic ones (or a system fill point up there next to it) to allow single person system pressurisation. Anyway, bit of a faff but I think this is really going to pay off come summer. It's amazing how no one at all on our build has ever seen anything like it. Thanks RHI random restrictions. They're so common on the continent. Glad I read about it here. In a pinch a plinth heater would also have worked I think, but for cooling we'd have to DIY build a condensation tray and ensure it doesn't get into the electrics.

Yes I thought I was being a bit obscure. The tip came from loxone-english forum, but I'm now using this for towel rads, UFH mats, outside lights, the 24V PSU for LED strips, and can even thing about powering off the other mains dimmers when not needed. I'm using: The spare channels on one of these https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32840212924.html to drive three of these https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32871053064.html You need to set the DMX outputs to be digital (either fully on or off, no dimming) and then logical output of 1 the 24V dimmer output is driver low which turns the SSR on (it's ideally suited to common cathode driver) Ah no worries, I was meaning more why use a Loxone one at all, any alarm sounder could be used really https://www.alertelectrical.com/alarms-and-cctv/burglar-alarms-systems/alarm-bell-boxes-sounders.html (Besides, I was reluctant to advertise the fact I have Loxone on the outside of my house, but that may just be me) I bought two drums of https://www.edwardes.co.uk/products/1-5mm-3185y-5-core-white-circular-pvc-flexible-cable-100-metre-coil (actually ordered 2x 50m but later realized they sent us 2x 100m !) As well as RGBW strips these proved useful for a load of other use cases. 1.5mm2 totally overkill for most things we used it for, but offers a lot of flexibility and very low voltage loss on those long 24V runs. Had we gone with Dali I'd have used it for that too, of course. Yes, this is the strategy I used, but it's still very congested around those terminal blocks! Mostly because I want to leave "slack" on all the CAT6 pairs in case I need to reassign them in future. Hence the thought to cut the CAT6 as short as possible by terminating into a patch panel, then use patch leads from that into those loxone terminal blocks. If anything changes, easy to throw out the patch lead and replace with a longer one.

(I have this exact setup ahead of me in near future, so pre-emptive thanks for how to get it solved!)

ahh! Perhaps this was the purpose of the Austrian Poo Shelf all along? Forward thinking folk. Good work on the schematic, I'll try and have a more detailed look but a few things popping (not pooping) out from my exerience: - I decided to keep the miniserver relays for low voltage switching only . I didn't like hainvg 240V that near the other low voltage connections around the central nervous system of the house, and I had plenty of need for low voltage anyway (texecom alarm latch-key to arm, ASHP call for heat and MVHR boost, main water stock cock disconnect) - If you have a lot of channels of 24V dimming (e.g. LED strips) you can also use them to drive zero-crossing SSRs that are quieter and potentially longer lived (no arcing current) that mechanical relays for the 240v loads - don't underestimate the space you'll need to terminate CAT6/7. All the unused cores are a pain to deal with. I almost wish I'd cut them all very short and terminated on IDC blocks and then had thinner jump wire bundles (just for the cores needed) from there to the loxone panel termination blocks. - I didn't bother with the iButton, interested if that's actually useful - Does the alarm siren really need to be Tree? Seems there's plenty of sirens out there you can just trigger with a relay, maybe I'm missing a big benefit of that - I ended up with 2 spare 24V PSUs (10A TDK one and a 20A random aliexpress one) in case they're any use. - I'm in the process of switching all heating to loxone control. it's basically just 2 zones of 'call for heat' to the FTC6 ashp controller, and 2 zones of schluter electric mats in upstairs toilets. The latter came with (expensive) thermostatic wall controllers and thermistors to embed in the tiles: these are really annoying as they're noisy when turned on, and leave a ugly temperature control hanging on the wall outside the bathroom that I don't need. I've reverse engineered the thermistors enough I can connect them to the Loxone analogue input and driver the UFH loop direction from a 240V SSR.

Yeah the few I've ended up using by happenstance are so much better than other fixtures. We even had some fairly fancy/expensive track system lights using 0-10V drivers that should be perfect fade, but nothing compared to what I can get out of them using fairly cheap D4C-L constant current drivers. The kitchen island lights are 4 units each 13W, 15V forward voltage. They currently have individual mains dimmable drivers wired in parallel on 1.5mm2 T&E. With some faff I could pull out the drivers from the ceiling and rewire them in series and use a remote driver (reappropriate the T&E for low voltage circuit). The combined 60V forward voltage would be tricky to drive, but I could do 3 of them (45V) on the T&E L+N pair and the remaining fixture on the L+E pair. This would fit very nicely on my existing 48V power supply. I'll add it to the list of projects to get to in 5 year's time, when absolutely everything else in the house is working and I run out of things to do!!

Overall I'm very happy with Whitewing only thing to bear in mind is the power per channel is quite a bit lower. Only hit issues with this with the line of architectural downlights along the kitchen island. They don't blow a fuse, but powering them up causes all other lights on that dimmer to flicker momentarily. The nominal wattage of them is only 52W so well within spec, I suspect it's the generic drivers supplied with them have a high surge current. Definitely one we should have skipped mains dimming and just used remote constant current drivers on.

Ah, classic double glazing sales techniques. (also used extensively by US car showrooms). Right down to the "surprise" phone call mid consultation from their manager leaking some brand new "today only" discounts if you sign in the next 30 minutes. Also used by the major bedroom fitted wardrobe units, and various snake-oil electric heater sales teams. Small local companies _tend_ to be more genuine and not do this. But introduces new reputation (or lack-of) risks...

https://www.loxonehome.co.uk/ is their current URL, and spiderelectrical@yahoo.co.uk worked last time I tried emailing -- but he was having Brexit import snags so I didn't go ahead with an order. Rob99 came through on the parts I needed most recently ?

There's some recent discussion about Dali on the forum posted above. Loxone's gear is generally pretty good, but often it's much more expensive than other options like Dali or DMX. One snag is the Loxone Dali extension (like their DMX extension) has an unusual / artificially low limit on how many fixtures it can control, and the Dali one in particular is very expensive if you end up needed 2 or three it's running into 4 figures just on those extensions. @Dan F (of both this parish and of loxone-english) has more details on Dali challenges. It's particularly tough if you want tuneable white as that doubles the number of channels needed. (A silly feature of Dali perhaps, as I'd personally only want to drive 1 channel per floor for the current white temperature) I've used DMX in my Loxone install, with http://www.whitewing.co.uk/acdim.html dimmers, and I do occasionally get Dali envy. (e.g. when fading in and different fixtures light up at different times. Much more use of DMX constant current drivers, less mains dimming, would likely have helped avoid this too.)

Remote access & alerts via their app is (almost certainly) cloud dependent, but so is Texecom. (unless you really want to be setting up dynamic DNS and port forwarding and dealing with possible security vulnerabilities this adds). It's pretty impossible for anything to have remote access without some amount of remote network dependency At a cursory look, I'd say the difference is Ajax appear to care about and take pride in the mobile app experience (even, use it as a leading sales feature), whereas Texecom it was a miserable retrofit job that reeks of frustration and disappointment every time I open it. It's a "Lipstick on a pig" job. The Ajax local sensors and bells are all strictly local, like Texecom using a proprietary wireless mesh. I don't think anyone could use Wifi or remote cloud dependency for the core alarm and achieve EN50131 Grade 2 If Texecom meets your needs and user expectations, I'd definitely stick with that. Much more mature and supported product. I'm just personally a bit underwhelmed by it (Then again, I'm "underwhelmed" by my smoke alarms too. Guess I just have lower expectation of them as i don't interact with them multiple times a day. Nor were they sold as being much more than they really are. )

have Texecom and it works, but (and this maybe a generational thing) I find it very old school and antiquated. Both to setup and use. It's all feels like texting in the 90s when I want my house to be lickably slick like a 2010's smartphone. I've seen some praise of http://ajax.systems/ being a much more modern, future looking, EN50131 Grade 2 compliant. It's wireless first, but supports legacy wired sensors if you have them too. I have no first hand experience of it so take with a grain of salt, but if you're looking for a DIY install / self monitored system that can also expand to support remote monitoring / police call out if needed in future, and designed for the "mobile internet" generation, it's the best contender I've seen,

Elevator. (Always a good future proofing thought for a "forever home") Car chargerS (plural). e.g. young kids may want their own car one day. If there's parking space for >1 car, think about how to charge them all.

A slightly more elaborate option is https://www.brultech.com/greeneye/ 32 channels of monitor, plus 4 pulse counters. put it be the CU and monitor each circuit individually. There's no way the energy savings it enables would payback the cost of buying it, but great for the data obsessed

Yup after it was installed, the delivery guys said the thin exposed edge is the one vulnerable part - don't hit it end on with a heavy le creuset dish, as it can take out a whole chunk, not just a small chip. weight coming down on top of it is fine, so long as not a point-impact. Time will tell.

HAHAHAHA Lockdown has resulted in changes and increased workload for the "day job" for both me and my wife, and has also made our contractors and trades and supply chains very unreliable, so we're now on month 15 of an 8 month renovation... That said, the sapienstone via nerostein.co.uk was impressive: 10 days from placing order to the fabricator in Estonia to installation, they don't seem to be impacted by Lockdown or Brexit (they said snow on the German autobahns is the biggest risk in their timeline)

It arrived today! I do have photos, looks great, but feeling too embarrassed by all the crap surrounding it to post publicly. I'll share some when it's all finished -- ping me again in a decade ?

Just a note on this, it's likely too late anyway, but inverters generate heat, especially in the middle of summer when the house is already hot, and they work a lot better (and last longer) if kept cool. So putting it inside the thermal envelope, in what may(?) already be a fairly warm room, might not be ideal

This maybe the problem, unfortunately this doesn't actually mean anything for UFH. RHI has no minimum requirement for insulation below ground floor, only for loft and cavity walls. Moreover, the worse the EPC, the higher the RHI payments, creating an absurd reverse incentive to insulate as little as legally possible. Which is all well and good until the RHI payments finish and then the customer is left with a needlessly expensive to run system.

Taking a step back, has there been any heat loss calculations for the system design? It looks like all the pipes are being laid on uninsulated bare floor, with a tiny slither of insulation squashed in around them. I assume this is because of limited height to ceilings, and lack of desire to dig out the floor to reduce depths and do the job properly. The result is going to be 50% of your heating bill going into the ground under your house rather than heating the house itself. Unless that's what you really want, you really should think about abandoning this and using something fit for purpose like a wall hung radiator. (IMHO retrofits designed like this should be illegal under building regs)

Not really, this is primarily a self build forum where we discuss all aspects of buildings and renovations. Nobody is going to demonise you for using a gas boiler because that is what works best. I think it was a reference to the sub-forum this is posted in, i.e: "Environmental, Alternative & Green Building Methods >> Renewable Home Energy Generation >> Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHP)" (Yes, each of the categories are called "Forums" . all inside "the" forum, confusing)

I think the main thing to be aware of if powering them off when nothing is calling for heat is ensure they don't get power cycled off/on too frequently as it puts them into recalibration mode. presumably their wiring centre has a power off delay to avoid that, but it's not clear. (It does have 3min hysteresis for the boiler) I was consider doing this just for simplicity in getting them commissioned and proven working, at least initially. Curious if there is any downside, except for the 0.5W wastage per actuator