Dan F

That's an interesting idea! I started out planning to control everything heating related from Loxone including the temperature of heating circuits etc, but then realised that the Vaillant controller already does all of this and it was a bit silly to reimplement this in Loxone. Circulating UFH without heat is one thing that the Vaillant controller can't do though! It would also probably require some adjustments to our schematic which currenlty has a single circulation pump for UFH and MVHR with two zone valves, without a dedicated UFH pump. Interesting also that you are managing the buffer temperature with Loxone. What ASHP/boiler are you using? Does it's controls not support any of this, or what additonal value do you get from managing buffer temp?

We are implementing the same approach with Salus auto-balancing actactors. Cooling is an issue though as our ASHP apparently doesn't have any way to "call for cooling", although I'll investigate this further once it's installed. In the short-term, until I work out how to interface with the eBus protocol we'll probably just need to leave cooling control to the Vaillant controllers. Couple of comments on your option 4: - Do you really need to control UVC from Loxone. Surely your ASHP/boiler will manage this by itself? Or are you planning some interesting stuff with this? - You can use 23 relay outputs for each actuator (if you really need all the zones), but you'll also need to call for heat too surely? No good opening the actuators if you're not telling ASHP/boiler to turn on (unless you are seperlalty monitoring the temperature of a buffer tank and firing up ASHP/boiler based on this?)

@Thorfun I doubt Enhabit would have said it's not allowed. We're using Vaillant. I thought other people on forun were doing cooling with ecodan ( @joth? ), I might be wrong though. Happy to share our m&e spec with you for comparison.

This might have been the case previously but its not any more.

I know the feeling. We are also using enhabit who did calculations. In our case they specified UFH + Comfopost for cooling. This approach isn't for every build (e.g. if you don't have lots of automated blinds or not very well insulated), but when it's suitable it is nice and simple as no first floor pipes (other than MVHR) at all. They calculated our total cooling load as 335W, with the UFH able to supply 3.6kW (ground floor) and MVHR ComfoPost (first-floor) 1.1kW.

Seems a shame to use AC units in a new build, or is it just me? Are fan coils not an option? Also I seem to remember you had external blinds and were planning to automate them with Loxone? Do you have blinds in the FF rooms you are planning AC for?

Have a look at https://guide.openenergymonitor.org/applications/home-energy/ too.

I don't know if it's availabe yet, but this is an potential alternative to a thermal store: https://tepeo.com/thezeb. It seems there is a bit more concrete information available now then when it was last discussed here on the forum. See: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T1TS-RQhHnBYV5KgPm-dgAaXog0wHl_k/view

Some will sell direct I think, but I'd be easier, if you want to avoid the large markup in UK, to use an Italian reseller. Italian resellers work on lower margins and some may even arrange transport for you too. @Balraj Appadu did this. We used a UK reseller and negotiated price down, primarily as this was fairly soon after brexit and our main contractor didn't want any additional risks.

This is a cheat sheet of mainstream italian manufacturers I put together some time ago. A lot of U.K. resellers rebrand tiles though, so it may not be easy to shop brand-first, good for inspiration though. Fiandre (https://www.granitifiandre.com/) Marazzi (https://www.marazzigroup.it/) Paraneria Group - Cotte D'Este (https://www.cottodeste.it/) - BlueStyle (https://www.blustyle.it/) - Lea (https://www.leaceramiche.it/) Florim (https://www.florim.com/) Imola (https://imola.it/) Fap (https://www.fapceramiche.com/en/) Mutina (https://www.mutina.it/) Gigacer (https://www.gigacer.it/) Atlas (https://www.atlasconcorde.com/)

When I considered Sunamp they only recommended using it with specific heat pumps that had been tested by them. This didn't seem terrible, but when I realised they that they used different ASHP-specific hardware that was a big no for me!

You have about the same calculated heat loss as us. We are using the 7kW arotherm plus, but the 5kW may have been sufficient. Remember that the kW specified is nominal and the output will depend on air and water temperatures and if the AHSP is running in eco/quiet mode, max or somewhere inbetween. There are the specs for 5kW Model - A-2W35: 50%: 3.3kW max: 7.1kW - A-2W55: 50%: 3.1kW max: 6.3kW - 300L UVC reheat time from 10-40C: 1hr 32min And the 7kW Model: - A-2W35: 50%: 4.7kW max: 9.4kW - A-2W55: 50%: 3.9kW max: 8.0kW - 300L UVC reheat time from 10-40C: 1hr 10min

Challenge is you can't tell batteries to export, you are only allowed to export from PV.

Not sure that model is available in the UK. Its looks like the Gaggenau and probably has the same internals, just a cheaper bosch-branded version without all the stainless steel. Fisher and Paykal do some reasonably priced built-in products with both water and ice. But while there is a dispenser for water, the ice is still in a draw i think. We were initially looking at fridges with water dispensers, but in the end went with a zip tap.

If you have the spreadsheet you can make "cooling load" appear by enabling "mechanical cooling" (N29). May not be suitable, but if i) you are building to PH standard ii) have PHPP with cooling load iii) having a heat pump, then worth considering.

Gaggenau do one: https://www.gaggenau.com/gb/products-list/refrigeration/vario-400-series/freezer/RF463304 AFAIK the Miele, Gaggenau, Liebherr are all the same base product. (all made by Liebherr I think?) I can see the external acess being very practical, expecially if it also crushes ice and provides water, it does impact the amount of space left in the freezer though.

I saw you had PHPP done in other thread. What was your "cooling load"? If you have already mitigated the majority of overheating risk using overhangs, blinds etc. and know that your "cooling load" is very low, then you could consider a MVHR heat battery (VEAB or ComfoPost). This doesn't require FCU per-room and all plumbing stays central. In our case, our calculated cooling load was 335W, with the UFH able to supply 3.6kW (ground floor) and MVHR ComfoPost (first-floor) 1.1kW which is clearly plenty.

Also, if you can get them supplied with, and fitted with, your windows it derisks things and ensures they look great and not an add-on too.

It is the logical option for residential property. This is what I used and is default for most people in new builds I think. But, if you want to save money CAT5e would be perfectly fine in this scenario with fairly short runs too, and and you can even get a HDBaseT approved CAT5e for 30p/m (less than half the price of CAT6a). Just make sure you get something decent from a reputable supplier and stear clear of CCA (copper coated alumunium). Over 300m you'd only save £120 though, which probably isn't much in the grand scheme of things.

- In case you want full bandwith e.g. for HDBaseT - Insurance policy in case the the only cable you put in has a screw threw it. - Avoid need for passive switch, given cable is relatively cheap - PoE devices can be powered directly from central switch without local injectors or additional PoE switches.

Our electricians used 5-core 25mm SWA, but in our case the distance was closer to 25m. I asked them about 4-core, but they weren't keen for some reason. We have since moved our supply, from the site kiosk near boundary, into the house. Given the 25m of 5-core SWA wasn't cheap, we plan to resuse it for a slightly overspecced car charging station in an optimum position on the drive to park/charge 2 cars (20m away) , rather than a more standard location near garage. Will handle 2 x 22kW 3-phase chargers easily (if we ever have two EV's that support this!)

It's not about reliability (that's more to do with where you get it from), it's about speed and what you want to use it for: - How long are the runs? - Do you want/need 1Gb or 10Gb? - Will you (or might you in the future) be using it for HDBaseT?

Do you mean 11kW? 17kW would be 25A per phase.

Costs slightly more, but you can isolate them with a solenoid valve which can can then we controlled from home automation (Loxone in my case). If you want to go one step further, with the addition of a basic water meter with a pulse output, you can also do some basic leak detection and automatically turn off supply to branch in question.=.

Maybe not necesaary, but we have taken a 32mm supply direct from meter to plant room, we then two smaller pipes from plant room to i) external taps ii) rainwater harvester. We managed to get 32mm+25mm+20mm all through the same 110mm duct. This means no hidden joins/tees and allows independnat stop-cock (or solenoid valves) if required. It was ground worker that suggested this approach. It's a bit like the the manifold approach to pluming inside ..