puntloos

Who charges a mobile with 230V?

Huh? Why would it be required to have a power socket in a bathroom?

My point being that my utility room is juuuuuust large enough to locate a socket further than 3m away. Would that make it acceptable?

Why is that though, is it the 3m thing? I could manage 3.168m Super useful stuff. \tx Clearly you've never seen me cook.

As per a previous discussion - Hairdryer in Bathroom - I'm .. somewhat in agreement that a power socket near a water source is not the best idea, although to my understanding modern electrical safety systems (like RCDs) will prevent ... most? badness. But that got me thinking- why are kitchens/utilities different than bathrooms? Plenty of high power devices next to running water. Perhaps not as ... runny.. as a shower or a bath but still. And in particular, at this moment I have a small shower designed into my utility/bike room As you can see currently the only power socket designed is across the room near the bikes (almost, but not quite 3m away from the shower, although I could literally use diagonal placement to stretch it to 3.01m...). Is this current design OK anyway - or will it fail some building requirements? The shed is already somewhat 'power free' and could make it completely socket-free but a few sockets would certainly be helpful..

Fair. Perhaps the cost of a water heater creates so much waste (just by its production) that the overflowing lukewarm water lost occasionally (I don't linger in baths that often anyway) is better for the world. But still, if this is one 25 quid bobbin one puts into a void somewhere..

So.. I am aware ASHPs lose a lot of efficiency above a certain temperature, so I imagine my hot water tank to sit at say say 50C. But here's a use case: if you have a 38C warm bath, and the water starts to cool down, you might want to top up. The most water-saving method of doing this is of course having the top-up water as hot as possible, so 65-ishC would perhaps be ideal while keeping somewhat safe. Are inline 'water heat boosters' (presumably electric) a thing? Something that would on demand take 50C water to 65? And is this a good idea or am I overthinking things?

I'm in the market for a 1800x1800 passivhaus standard skylight, which seems to be on the large side, but prices quoted are 5x what we are discussing here (in late 2020 to be fair). Are there any companies that can do: - 1800x1800 - Passivhaus certified - electric opening - Blinds system (fabric or some type of metal shutters?) - Led lighting The base price is near 5000, blinds 2000, led 1200.. Anyone who could do better?

So.. I've seen all the movies, and clearly in some cases, a hairdryer in a bathroom isn't a great idea. But - I think that it can be done safely in theory, by for example doing this hotel-style (no plug, just a device wired into the wall, and not enough wire to reach the closest water source) and of course making sure there's a good RCD or somesuch behind it. But. Can this be done legally? And even if so, is it advisable?

Not interested in bright colours but i'm sure they have colours for boring people like me too. But i worry about the smell. I assume it was a single (poured?) floor and not some type of 'tile'?

But srsly, how much is 'scary slipperiness' a problem? Clearly, if you have a stainless steel floor, then a drop of water would make you slip, and somehow my previous place's kitchen tiles were fairly bad, they were some sort of oldfashioned porcelain, but certainly some texture too. But my current kitchen seems much better even though the tiles have a more subtle pattern (it feels somewhat akin to chalkboard) Is most of this 'fine' or is there some way to avoid obvious bad tiles? Or?

This is certainly .. slippery. Re-animating this thread for a moment. I'd love to know if there are 'anti-slip' versions of popular tile types - that stays optimally safe while wet? Are there no porcelain tiles that have some pattern/profile that will prevent most slips? Or is LVT/amtico really the way to go if you care most about safety while wet?

Come on guys, surely you can out-luddite each other more!

Ha. "arguably not" Let's count - Monitor - Desktop PC - Laptop charger - Second screen - Video conferencing camera - Speaker system (5 tiny speakers for computer, subwoofer) - Powered steering wheel - VR headset - Desk lamp - Desk lamp 2 - Server - Printer - Charger - Shredder - Google Assistant screen So that's 15. The rest is used on and off for chargers of various devices Clearly I'm somewhat of a computer nerd but I am sure this is not too unusual

Few people think cables are "pretty", so I'm somewhat wondering about a realistic, modern (we have a lot more devices now than we do in the past) approach to minimize visible cables, whilst not losing flexibility. Some questions I'm currently thinking about: - I have some ceiling-level devices (speakers, sensors, lights), so a certain amount of sockets should be near there. Should I put power sockets visible, high up on the wall, or - since I have a ceiling void - place them in the void and have some way to get the cables down where needed? - My computer desk is insane, I'm using about 20 sockets for all my gear, tons of adapters, monitors etc etc. Should I install 20 sockets in the place where I expect my desk to be, or is it better to only provision for expected wattage (none of these devices are super greedy) and use 5-gang splitters or something - Lighting ring, still haven't quite figured out what a 'sensible' approach is. I am going to be *mostly* knx/DALI based so it feels like a solution for a problem I won't have anyway Does anyone have good 'bibles' on modern cable management?

Truly damp is another thing but damp enough to form mould is another...

So, if you have a proper passivhaus bathroom, with MVHR extracting properly, will it still be on the 'damp' side? It used to be wise not to store your towels in a bathroom but at this point, is that still true?

FWIW here's a bit of a 3d sketch of what I have in mind currently:

Do you have a picture of what you created? Definitely not waterproof, shade, yes, but I'm not sure I'd trust a pergola to sufficiently shade my garden room. Absolutely. Hence my basic idea - to have a 'proper' awning setup, with somewhat attached the 'green' add-on awning. Does that make sense? Picturez plz

Trying to wrap my head around how to integrate everything, I'm thinking this one might be optimal: The only challenge is that in my case it's not on a patio but the feet would be "in the grass". I'm not certain if that's a good idea or not. All I know is that a pergola would support wildlife right in front of the window which is nice to look at. I'm primarily wondering on if I can have some awning that won't break down if plants (and birds) are crawling over it. But maybe the solution even is having a 'plant pergola' right before, but disconnected from the sunscreen awning...

Anybody?

So there are 'awning pergolas' on offer from the usual sources, but they're all so... sterile. Here's a default picture of something I had in mind: But what my parents have in their 50 year old house, looks something like this: The difference is twofold: 1/ A IMO cool effect of beams seeming to go through the wall. I'm not sure if this is actually the case but it's fine if it's fake 2/ plants. In particular: places for birds to nest. The pergola in my parents place has draped around it a nice Laburnum ('golden rain') and right next to their window they always have tons of birds flitting around playing with the birdfeeders and nesting stuff. Does anyone have any designs that shield the main room from sun glare but also has some pergola system that would facilitate some birds, some plants etc?

Good lead, thanks. Sadly my contracted cost is slightly above that, so will need to call them but will give that a go! Happy for other insurers to chime in too

That's what I thought, and the contractor has an all risk but my sollicitor has the impression that I need to have that insurance (or at least that the mortgage company is added to the all risk as a noted party of interest). A few of the first hits on google on "construction all risk policy" demand that I'm a company to take this policy out, and I can't apply as an individual. Am I missing something?

Ecology included a special condition in our builder mortgage offer that's giving me a lot of headaches (and I seem to be racking up huge sollicitor costs, since apparently our sollicitor has to determine if the insurance is sufficient). It says: This baffled a bunch of my team, incl the builder and the QS - effectively they _seem_ to want building insurance on a building that doesn't exist. I understand that ecology want to be able to reclaim their loan somehow if everything on my side fails, but they don't seem to be offering any useful advice on what suffices. Instead we're trying to get ecology to be on the noted parties list of the builder's all-risk but it's also somewhat unclear if that will suffice. What have others here done? Did your mortgage include this condition?