puntloos

Sorry I somehow don't have a good recent pic of the near-finished bathroom so I used a pic of the kid bath with same tile. Put below an okay-ish pic of this bathroom. Well, you up to drive to Herts? Sold

Seriously though, are most of the prices listed OK, but the 85/sqm for "labour" the one that stands out, or are all these prices on the high side? Basically I'm trying to figure out what i'm missing, which bits are reasonable, which are pricey and are there any true mistakes there... One day of work (as you can see elsewhere) is listed as 250/day for a plumber, let's assume a tiler is the same price, so by that math tiling one bathroom is 3000/8 = 12 days? Weird?

I'm fairly sure it excludes tiles.

Yep that was the 'direction' I was thinking with my 'misting white paint' point. Does anyone know if this is feasible at all? Separately though are there any items listed in the quote unnecessary, or are they outrageously priced, or is "3000 for a bathroom retile" actually not a reasonable rule of thumb anymore nowadays?

The lights are dimmable colour change, but the problem as you say: So turning up the lights might hide the big contrast, but would be too bright for our non-naughty purposes like brushing teeth. Can't tell if you're joking or not

So - for one bathroom we're not happy with the tiles we received. The sample effectively came off the lightest part of the tile, and the overall tile, now that it's installed, is hugely more 'loud' than we expected. Note the circle confirms the same pattern exists so it is the same tile. 1/ Is there something you can do without replacing the tile? If anything I'd love to "mist some white paint" against the tiles and done. 2/ Barring that, the quote we got for retiling is basically 10,000 where the site https://victoriaplum.com/blog/posts/bathroom-tiling-costs-and-installation suggests perhaps 2-5000 GBP. Itemised quote below. Can someone spot what the deal is? FAMILY BATHROOM Disconnections 1 Electrician to disconnect, day rate needs to be paid if only one bathroom is done 1 day £300.00 £300.00 2 Plumber to disconnect, day rate needs to be paid if only one bathroom is done 1 day £250.00 £250.00 3 Remove cabinets, day rate needs to be paid if only one bathroom is done 1 day £160.00 £160.00 Demolition Works 4 Labourer (2nr labourers x 2nr days) 4 days £160.00 £640.00 5 Rubbish removal 1 skip £350.00 £350.00 New Substrate 6 Supply & fit cement backing board 36 m2 £32.00 £1,152.00 7 Bathroom waterproofing (shower & bath), install shower niche & bath boxing 1 item £950.00 Plumbing 8 Re-install 1st & 2nd fix plumbing 4 days £250.00 £1,000.00 Tiling Works 9 Wall tiling 36 m2 £85.00 £3,060.00 10 Bath & access panel tiling 1 item £150.00 11 Supply & fit tile trims 1 item £250.00 12 Cutting holes in porcelain wall tiles 25 nr £15.00 £375.00 Additional Supply for Shower Niches 13 Abacus Bathrooms Elements Waterproof Recessed 2.00 nr £65.00 £130.00 14 Delivery 1 item £30.00 Furniture & Equipment 15 Heated towel rail installation 1 item £125.00 16 Mirror cabinet Installation (electrical connection by electrician) 1 item £100.00 17 Install cabinetry 1 item £400.00 18 Supply & install new window sill 1 item £100.00 19 Install LED in niches, electrical connection to mirror & shaver socket - Subject to reciept of Elec quote 1 item TBA Decoratation 20 Mastic works 1 day £180.00 £180.00 21 Painting 1 day £220.00 £220.00 22 Materials & deliveries 1 item £150.00 23 Builders clean 1 item £180.00 Sub Total £10,252.00

Perhaps I don't quite understand why you built the whole metal construction just to create a conduit box?

That's pretty industrial strength right there. I'm not 100% clear on the rasoning though - sure, if you literally try to drill plugs into insulation material (my walls are very 'fluffy' for that reason) they might start to come out much faster than you'd expect, but why would this additional piece of pipe not suffer the same problem?

https://gardenandlandscapelighting.co.uk/product/aluminium-up-and-down-light-240v/ look pretty good too.. also better IP rating..

Yours seems to only downlight though, we'd prefer 'up' as well, at least in some areas.

Inside, the thing that seems to distinguish internal and external lighting quality is - strangely - the use of custom leds, in particular with cooling. (since the problem with all these standard bulbs is that they are crammed into a small enclosure, no cooling kills them) But I want a simple up-and-down sconce, eg: And even the expensive ones seem to house GU10 bulbs anyway. What do I look for to make sure they are "OK"?

Both, Solax batteries/EPS inverter connected to solar, and a separate UPS for the network center of the house. I bought an online UPS, since there will be no switchover whatsoever which is better for the equipment (you effectively always run off battery, whether or not it's being charged is incidental) I'm not sure I completely follow. Indeed my entire house could run off grid for maybe 8 hours if I take it easy on my antique kettle collection, and once the solar batteries die I am estimating my UPS can carry the torch for minimal brains for a few more hours (obv if I only run the brains off solar I could go for days but that would mean no light/heat etc). Once the UPS runs low it sends that signal to the brains to power down peacefully. Yeah I tried to stick with KNX for the bulk of the backbone of the house (lights, sensors, actuators(shutters)) and loxone for mainly brains/interface

I wonder if there are good and bad batches of fridges, or if eg Samsung have made a conscious choice to drop (or raise?) the build quality at some point. But this samsung fridge's ice maker has been flawless for 4+ years now (with indeed a very occasional cube jam that can be fixed by just shaking up the thing a bit).

Honestly I'm probably better prepared than most, my smart home + network is on a UPS that should last about 2 hours, but next to that I have full off-grid capable solar, so if it's just grid power that's gone I'll certainly notice. Also, I have a bunch of lonxone'd CO2 sensors, so theoretically my home will know things are awry. Not 100% sure if I have standalone CO2 monitors but I wouldn't be surprised, I'd have to look it up.

I know this sounds weird but I truly feel the outside ice maker (just rock up to fridge, get water, get ice without opening it) is one of the best things in this place I've been in compared to the old ones. Of course ha 'cozy' and 'dry' are needed but those are tablestakes for any house..

I know, clearly you can open windows, but in an "airtight" (not 100% of course) house, is it safe to have a non-working/broken MVHR? Will enough air still come in if you aren't aware the MVHR died? Presumably we have some CO2 meters that might warn us but.. you know?

That's (I think) correct, none of these go fully flush, but I found the 'sticking out part' wasn't bothering me enough to spend 3-4x the price on just addressing that issue.

Sort of - the only one I could find if I recall correctly was a brand called Fisher/Paykel or something in that direction, and they didn't have a french door but they had 2 full height devices side by side. Instead I went for a standard samsung one (not the one you picked, a really middle of the road one) and just accept it's sticking out somewhat.

Small final question: I have the option of putting a ceiling into my cabinet, or have basically a direct shaft above the cabinet that would allow some air to just percolate up into the loft by itself (yes the powered fan extract pipe is really just a specific pipe in that same shaft). Should I: 1/ Leave the ceiling open, so indeed hot air goes up 2/ Close the ceiling and then put both MVHR and fan pipe in that ceiling With #2 I somewhat lose the benefit of the direct riser (it's an additional way of venting heat and means the fan has to work less hard) but maybe there are benefits I haven't thought of?

Perhaps to be clear: - I'm not extracting to the outside world, my extract goes to the loft (inside the thermal envelope, fully insulated), so indeed we're not losing the heat. So if you see the whole house as a "bubble" then indeed we're just moving air around. - We do have air conditioning (including in the loft) so true excess heat can be put outside My main worry was that if I have an MVHR extract and a standard fan extract into the same small space, air would be pulled from the MVHR pipe and 'confuse' the MVHR balancing. But indeed at the house level we're not fighting the MVHR. Maybe the best approach is to just do the simple approach (both MVHR and extract) and should things go terrible some way, either close off MVHR completely, or indeed get some motorized valve...

It's all about how you count of course. Summing peak ratings gets me to 3000W but eg a 1000W subwoofer even when playing loudly very very rarely taps into that wattage hence my 1000W actual estimate. But yes, perhaps 1000W is more fair to work with.. Would you say that 100CFM is sufficient to carry away 1000W? My new problem with that is that at least the fan I suggested currently doesn't easily give off a signal that it's running, so I don't yet know how to tell such a buffer/valve to close up temporarily. One challenge I have is that the network cab is in a lived in room, so noise is a concern. I have one alternative which is that the 3" pipe I intended for extract is used for supply, and I could use the actual shaft as the extract, perhaps by installing a false ceiling and having a fan actually pull the air from cab into "above cab + shaft" ?

The room cabinet contains about 500W (peak) worth of network equipment (a switch powering a decent amount of POE stuff, router, broadband router, small NAS (75W)). But, next to that it houses my home cinema amplifiers. These are rated for 1750W total but that would be for "sine wave blasting continuous on all channels" - realistically I don't think they'll do more than 500W total during the loudest scenes. So 1000W 'continuous' would be my pessimistic-ish guess for a 2-hour (movie) slot. Currently we have perhaps a 100x100 gap still left in a 400x290 shaft MVHR is a zehnder Q350

Indeed that's my worry. Do you agree that I should either permanently cut off, or at least temporarily cut off the MVHR if the fan starts making real wind? Or are there some type of one-way points in air systems that will prevent air being sucked out of a MVHR pipe? Great to know, perhaps I should put down a big grate in that door somehow. Not try to make it sneaky.. - because you're saying it's going to need 50mm gap for 200m3 Hmm tough to do at this point... I do have an aircon unit nearby (dedicated R32 fan coil unit for the room the cabinet is in) but I was advised against using it to pull air from the cupboard, I forget why.

Anyone?

I have a dedicated network cabinet, with a service shaft right above it that goes all the way to the loft, and a dedicated MVHR extract. Normally the electrical gear will use maybe 200W, but it contains amplifiers for home cinema etc, theoretically taking it up to 2000W at full tilt. Your opinion on a few final choices here. (not sure the picture helps, but it's the cab, power sockets, MVHR and shaft above) A/ I have a secondary extract pipe that goes to the loft. I was thinking to attach a temperature controlled AC Infinity fan to it. -> Will a fan disrupt the MVHR by e.g pulling air from the MVHR pipe? How to avoid this, or is it not a problem in practice? B/ The shaft itself also has a decent amount of free space. -> How well will simple convection work? C/ My current plan for letting air into the cabinet is basically removing the bottom bit from the door -> 20x762 gap? 50? 200x762? -> If this gap is too big, worried about noise from cabinet to go into the room. Are there alternatives to consider?