Thorfun

hello all. my thoughts are turning to first fix electrics and I need to decide what cable I'm going to pull through for my Loxone system and networking. Network I've pretty much decided that my network cables will be Cat6 as I don't have any switches capable of 10Gbps and if I eventually do then Cat6 will do 10Gbps under 55m and my longest run in the house will be about 30m so I really don't see the point of installing Cat6a. BUT....and there's always a but somewhere...I remember someone saying that they distributed video via a HDBase-T matrix (I think it was @joth?) and that he recommended Cat6a for that. I AM planning on distributing video via a HDBaseT matrix but I was wondering if maybe some cable like this https://www.fscables.com/products/cat-6-hdbaset.html that are Cat6 and tested/recommended by the HDBaseT alliance would do the job instead of Cat6a? anyone got any comments on this? Loxone every room will have a Tree occupancy sensor and a Touch tree switch but some rooms will also include a standard retractive switch to control lights from another location, e.g his and her side of the beds for the bedroom lights, entrance from utility room to kitchen etc. I was originally going to run a single cable to each device but now I'm thinking that's just crazy and I am thinking of running a single tree cable to the presence sensors throughout the house to make use of that and also tree cable to each Touch switch and then daisy chaining to any other retractive switches in the room. I guess I could also run a single tree cable to each room and daisy chain to each touch/sensor/retractive switch in that room? kind of a halfway house for radial wiring? so, is that a crazy idea and should I simply run a cable to every device or is that the crazy idea!? And if I do the one cable to each room and daisy chain from there should I use tree or cat6 or cat6a? I was originally thinking of running a Cat6 AND a 1.5mm T&E to each Touch switch but then realised that Tree cable (https://www.fscables.com/products/tree-cable-jumper-wire-designed-for-loxone-system.html?name=loxone&type=simple) has the 1.5mm cable as part of the single cable albeit at the cost of 2 pairs of twisted wires. I don't see a problem with losing 2 twisted pairs especially as pretty much everyone on here that has a Loxone system ( @jack, @joth, @Dan F, @Hilldes) have all said that most of the twisted pairs from their Cat6/Cat6A cable aren't used. But, if I'm not using Loxone LED lights I presume I don't need the 1.5mm cables as the Touch switches and presence sensors only use the 2 x twisted pairs, right? arrggghh!! it does my head in trying to figure out what I might eventually need. I sourced my equipment from @Rob99 as it was before Loxone started selling direct again and I'm hoping that someone on here will be able to help out.

yeah, I was very happy with his quote and work! he was a one man band (with an occasional helper/labourer) so it took quite a while but that wasn't an issue for us as we're definitely not a speedy build.

we've discussed water softeners quite a bit in our household. according to Southern Water we have 'Hard' water which according to this website (https://www.aquacure.co.uk/knowledge-base/uk-hard-water-map/) makes us at the lower end of 'moderately hard' water. with that and the fact that our plant room is in the basement and I'll need some form of sump and pump for the water softener discharge we've decided not to bother with a water softener.

just for the record....I'm not digging up my screed, ufh and insulation just to swap the small amount of sand I used for sharp sand! 😉

yeah, I get that. but my house is pretty much a game of two halves! big vaulted entrance hall in the middle and 2 sides to the house. so all of the east side pipes will go off one way and the west side the other way. just seemed logical to split them up. but I'm leaning towards putting east and west together in attempt at unification of the waring factions.

I just used builders sand. You’re just trying to level it off to give a flat base for the insulation to sit on. note: I’m not a builder and often get things wrong! Hopefully someone who knows what they’re talking about will be along soon.

now I've started creating the manifolds I'm thinking about my proposed layout and whether it's the best way of doing it. this is what I was going to do (option 1). have separate manifolds for each 'side' of the house. but I'm wondering if it might be better to do one big manifold for hot and cold and feed the source from both ends, like this (option 2): any preferences or benefits to either way? or is it all pretty much the same? I'm still a bit confused as to how the HRC manifold feeds back in to the hot manifold but I think that's a question for later!

cheers. I've put the recommended amount of Loctite 55 on it and it's pretty darn tight. guess I'll find out when water is connected as to how good it really is! maybe the rubber washer is a new thing from Wavin?

+1 for sand. 'tis what we did in our basement before insulation and screed. was actually recommended by the screed company to 'level' the dips.

got another noddy question. putting together my hep2o brass manifolds and I notice that there's a rubber grommet on the male end. does that mean I don't need any form of tape and do I tighten until the rubber grommet is fully squished? my first attempt I've used some loctite 55 on the male thread and screwed in to the female end and then tightened the nut which has squished the rubber ring as shown below here's the rubber ring at the end of the one I attached waiting for the next manifold to go on.

Ps. We used a 120mm profile for the Siberian larch. The charred was 150mm though.

I paid about £6.5k labour iirc. We bought 4130lm of a mix of charred larch and standard Siberian larch so that’s about £1.57/lm I think! hope that helps. Although I think our chippie has put his daily rate up a bit since he finished our job so might’ve cost us a bit more if we were doing it now.

how well does that work with UFH?

I guess that's a benefit of having a 10.5kWp array! even at this time of year with the storm we had today we generated 16.54kWh. 🙂 also helps that we haven't finished the house yet so pretty much all we generate goes in to the car or battery before exporting. I'm sure once we're in the car won't get as much love.

Hi @NSS. Glad the Zappi is working out well for you. I've recently purchased an EV charger having used a 3-pin plug for the last 3 years! I wanted something that worked with my solar PV and batteries and, obviously, the Zappi was near the top of the list. But.... ...I decided to go with a Hypervolt charger in the end. not as intelligent as the Zappi for solar/battery but it was quite a bit cheaper! since having it installed by my sparky I have mostly used it to charge from solar PV in what Hypervolt (HV) call their super-eco mode in which is requires a minimum of 1.4kW being produced to charge. I have noticed that in this mode it will also sometimes discharge from the battery to charge. I think the logic is that if the house is exporting to the grid then the HV will ramp up the charge to the car. I guess then that if the solar PV generation drops maybe the battery kicks in to cover the shortfall quicker than the HV reduces the charge rate. I'm not really sure but it seems to work! The reporting side of things is poor in comparison to the Zappi but from my battery usage data I can see that it's working. when you consider that there's hardly anything running in the house at the moment, just site lights mostly and so any consumption in the graph below is the car charging. you can see that the battery definitely discharges to help out with the charge and when the car doesn't need power (or there isn't enough power being generated) the car stops charging and the generated electricity goes back in to the batteries. what this basically means is that for the last month since I installed the HV I have been running the EV for free. 🙂 According to the HV app the amount of energy it has put in to the car during October would've cost me £133.06. I think that's a pretty darn good saving in a month.

Thanks. Always good to know why! Means we can go in with eyes open. 👍

Iirc the windows were 60mm back from the outside of the TF.

What is actually the pro with Topps Tiles? Do they make their own tiles and they’re rubbish? Do they sell other manufacturer’s tiles and they’re rubbish? Is if the service? The cost? Is it just a bad experience on your side or do others feel the same?

you'll be lucky to find a new supplier full stop. when I was looking for a new smart meter (3-phase or single phase) I was told by most suppliers that they weren't taking on new customers due to the current market conditions. but if you do find someone offering 3-phase meters please let me know as I could do with one. 🙂

they are very nice. I will also be interested in the response. 🙂

I have a display on my Luxpower so if I can't access the web based monitoring I can simply look at the front of the inverter.

I was told by our window company to ensure the roof was finished before the windows were installed to ensure the roof was fully loaded. So I did that. Our timber cladding came much later. I don’t know with bricks though.

I bought these for our basement. https://www.mad4tools.com/defender-22m-led-fully-enclosed-festoon-lighting-kit-110v-or-240v?utm_source=google_shopping?gclid=Cj0KCQjwnvOaBhDTARIsAJf8eVOhbSluYCTlFdjjIMnGf9-RCw1YLHm0Yv2h08-NFgu9sDS_koMsbnIaAiKeEALw_wcB but also got these for moving around the house depending on where we’re working. https://www.screwfix.com/p/lap-led-mains-portable-work-light-with-tripod-2-x-20w-2-x-2000lm-220-240v/247kf run off extension leads.

so, who would've thought that the toilet choice gets even more complicated! looking at Bernstein toilets as per @Onoff's recommendation and they've some specified as 'washdown' toilets. (https://bernstein-badshop.com/toilets/wall-mounted-wc/a-34070). so a quick google later I now know the difference between syphonic and washdown toilets. sounds like washdown is better and I'm now concerned that if a toilet doesn't specifically state it's flushing mechanism that I might end up with a syphonic WC. e.g. this toilet doesn't state washdown https://bernstein-badshop.com/toilets-00000000000000000000000000000691/wall-mounted-wc/a-13972 am I being paranoid? I did read that most European toilets are washdown and the US use syphonic. so maybe every loo I can buy in Europe is washdown anyway and so nothing to worry about!

Wunda default to serpentine but I asked for spiral and they did that instead no questions asked.