Thorfun

I've honestly not started looking at CCTV cameras or NVRs properly yet so not come across Blue Iris yet. but a quick google and a 64 camera license for £75 doesn't seem too bad. but the cost of the recommended PC will certainly add to that! ? Recommended Specs Intel core i7 with QuickSync for hardware decoding 8GB or more RAM Microsoft Windows 10 64 bit nVIDIA graphics adaptor for efficient screen display 7200+ RPM drives and/or SSD drive but the Minimum Specs is easily doable on a Win 10 VM I guess: Min. Requirements Pentium dual-core or equivalent 2GHz processor or better 2GB or more system RAM Microsoft Windows 7 or newer OS (equivalent server OS as well) One or more USB or Network IP cameras, or an analog capture card with DirectShow drivers it's another thing for me to look in to nearer the time. thanks for the tip.

yep. won't argue that. like I said, 'normal' people won't have what I have running! currently have 4 VMs ( 2 x Ubuntu, 1 x OpenSuSe, 1 x Windows 10) on the go running various things segregated on a different VLAN so that if they're compromised my home network and data isn't affected.

if you're wanting to do any VMs then 8GB is not enough! especially if they're Windows VMs as Windows is a memory hog. but, I'm a techie and like playing. I'm sure 'normal' people don't need half the things I have. ?‍♂️

and then... but... ? have fun down the rabbit hole.

I've read that Synology NASs can be 15%-20% more expensive that Qnap. I know you already have a Synology and I fully understand sticking to what you know but if you're not opposed to changing manufacturer then I'd suggest it's worth checking them out. the web is your friend here and this site (https://nascompares.com) seems to have a lot of information on it about this stuff. remember, research is your friend! spend the time to read as much as you can to make sure you're getting what you need. ?

I have 8 x 3TB disks in my NAS (it's a few years old now and larger capacity disks were hugely expensive at the time). I have 3 of them in a Raid 5 configuration for my Documents/Photos/Data etc and the other 5 in a Raid 5 configuration for all of my movies. I honestly can't remember why I did it that way though! was just playing at the time and it stuck. I have also recently added 2 x M.2 500GB SSDs on a PCI slot to give me some SSD caching and also to use for Virtual Machines. over the years as I've started using my NAS more for more than just storing files and media and I'm now running a few VMs on it I'm now running out of memory (it has 16GB) and so when I get my new house (?) I'll be looking to replace it with a rack mounted NAS that can take more memory so I can run more VMs so I'll rethink my disk layout when I get that. But you can split the NAS drives in to whatever configuration you want! so an 8-bay can be 2 x HDDs for CCTV in Raid 0 and then 2 x Raid 5 groups of 3 disks each for other things. or 3 x Raid 1 mirrors. or one big Raid 1+0 group. the choice is yours. whether you want to protect your CCTV footage with redundancy is a choice only you can make. it you're happy to lose the overall space for redundancy then go for it! if you don't want to lose a disk's worth of space then just stripe it and hope nothing fails and, like @joth said, it'd be very bad luck to lose a disk at that point! another option is (assuming Synology can do this, I know Qnap can as I have done it and will do again but my old NAS (another Qnap) is in storage at the moment) is to use real time replication across NASs. so you can use your old NAS to replicate the data to it in real time so you have a live backup of your CCTV footage. anything is possible. Qnap comes with a license for a small number of cameras using their Surveillance Station software (https://www.qnap.com/event/station/en/surveillance-overview-s.php). hope this helps, but I've a feeling it might have confused things and also opened up a can of potentially very expensive worms!

I have a Qnap NAS, never had Synology so can't comment on them but the Qnap is great! I have an 8-bay with HDMI out so it's plugged in to my TV and I use Kodi on it to watch movies from the NAS. Qnap also has it's own CCTV software (although I guess Synology does too) but I also have a UniFi network so when I get round to configuring CCTV I have a choice as to go with UniFi products or something else in to the Qnap. gives me options. ? but if you're using the NAS for media and CCTV why not get an 8 bay NAS and use some of the disks just for CCTV and the others for Media so that the CCTV is never touching the media disks? means you kill 2 birds with one stone and don't need a dedicated NVR but also don't have the CCTV footage hammering the media disks. just a thought.

did you ever get quotes for the foundations without the basement? if not, any idea how much the foundations would've been? therefore the extra cost of the basement would be £X as you would've needed the foundations anyway.

I look forward to reading peoples responses to this! Following with interest...

thanks for the videos I will watch with glee! no self programming in C4, but they do offer an if/when type user interface to allow basic automation without the need for a dealer. but it is very much a closed system. I think, for me, it'll come down to comparing costs, ease of use, expandability, functionality, aesthetics and reliability. some form of matrix will need to be created to compare.

thanks @Ferdinand. I agree, it is an interesting thread! I agree about the tactic to potentially define the basement as storage space, the same can be done with the studio and just board it out post completion to make it usable and we will consider this moving forward if the other discussions don't bare any fruit. but my point on these things and tactics are that they're a joke. and if it can be done after the fact why not just allow it now?

Cor! That seemed to escalate quicker than the film we just watched (Extraction with Chris Hemsworth On Netflix). ?

thanks @Jeremy Harris. I agree about the basement. if it gets to it maybe I can ask the planning consultant if we can consider adding the basement afterwards but that is the sort of pettiness that I was alluding to in my blog post! I could put in for a smaller house with no annexe or studio or garden room and then build them under PD afterwards (assuming they don't take our PD away that is) or put a new planning application in for extensions but what a bureaucratic farce! just allow it right off the bat to save all the faffing around.

thanks for the suggestion. our planning consultant seems to think that it shouldn't need to go to committee but, yes, it is another option.

it's just a Parish council policy and isn't always enforced by the LA. so isn't an issue in this proposal as the Parish council have no objections to the proposal. the flat roof was more of a note rather than official objection. from the HDC Planning Framework (https://www.horsham.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/60190/Horsham-District-Planning-Framework-2015.pdf): Policy 28, section 2: Replacement dwellings should not be disproportionate to the size of the existing dwelling whilst extensions should also, and in addition, be in keeping with the scale and character of the existing dwelling. The cumulative impact of existing extensions will be taken into account. so this is basically all that is written on the matter. so it leaves 'disproportionate' phrase up to the planning officer. our planning consultant is arguing such things but we are in the hands of the planning officer if we don't want to go for appeal. and, don't worry, if the application is rejected then we'll be appealing as soon after that as is possible!

I appreciate the rant and I know that I'm not alone in our planning woes. our planning consultant has said that appeals at the moment can be at least 9 months long so we're trying to find an amicable solution so we don't have to go down that route but I do know it's a possibility if we have to and will if the compromises we're being asked to make to our dream home are too much. we still have the potential option of going above the planning officer's head to his boss if it seems he's being obstinate about it all. only time will tell what happens and I hope that by mid-June we'll have a happy outcome to this, lockdown will be over and we can crack on building it! ?

Why is it so hard to get planning approval? Such a simple thing is mired in bureaucracy, pettiness (at least perceived), personal interpretations of the planning policy (e.g. the definition of disproportionate to the existing building) and, in some cases, pure incompetence! One such example was from Southern Water who said they couldn't approve the proposal with a sewage treatment plant and we had to apply for connection to an existing sewage system. err....the nearest sewer is about 200m away as the crow flies over roads and fields that aren't owned by us! none of the houses in our hamlet have mains sewage and we even have an existing Klargester which we will simply be replacing with a new version. so why would they say that we need to connect to mains sewage? crazy. fortunately, I got on the phone and a few weeks later I got a call from someone who actually knew what they were doing and eventually got an email saying that using an on-site treatment plant was not an issue. Then we get to the highways agency. we're asking for a new entrance off the road as it's more practical with the way the plot is and where the new house is going to have it rather than use the existing entrance that is shared with our neighbours. We submitted the visibility splays (although the architect forgot this initially and the first letter from the highways agency was asking for them) and the response we got was basically, how can we put a new driveway in when we don't own the (approx. 1') of verge between the adopted highway and our land and also we needed a traffic survey for the road as it's national speed limit (albeit a single track road so no one could get or does get above 40mph). I got our solicitor on the case about the potential ransom strip and he's sorting that out so we pointed this out to the highways agency and also submitted the existing visibility splays and showed that the visibility of the new entrance is better than existing and so the highways agency eventually agreed to the new entrance and had no issues with the application but did stipulate some conditions. This whole thing took so long that we had to grant a 1 month extension to the decision date. It wasn't all bad though, the Parish council didn't have any objections but did raise a concern about the flat roof as there's a policy against flat roofs in our parish apparently and we had no complaints from neighbours as part of the consultation period and even had one lovely neighbour who wrote in support of the application. so, with all the above done and no issues it came to the planning officer being able to view the application in its entirety. We really weren't expecting too much of an issue here as, although the footprint was quite large, we were adding an annexe for my mum and figured that would be considered as a separate entity to the main house for footprint etc. also we have planned a basement but that also shouldn't count to the footprint. we thought we might get pushback from the ridge height as the outlying planning was for a chalet bungalow and we submitted for a 2 storey house with a pitched roof. So we were shellshocked when the architect said he'd heard from the planning officer and said that the gross internal area (GIA) was too much and we'd need to lose the basement, studio (the room above the garage) and the garden room and also shrink the annexe! wtf! we honestly couldn't believe it. Our initial reaction was to comply and then build the garden room and convert the garage loft post completion. but after thinking for a bit I decided not to capitulate and that we would fight it and so hired a planning consultant to fight our corner for us. we have since supplied to the planning officer the potential size the existing bungalow could be if extended under permitted development with an 8m deep rear extension along the entire length of the property and a loft conversion. with these figures it shows that what we intend to build isn't actually as much of an increase as the planning officer officially thought. hopefully common sense will prevail and he'll understand what we're trying to achieve here and that we don't want to have to have buildings in the garden to get the space we need but want it all under one architecturally designed roof that is sympathetic to the surrounding woodland. if it doesn't though and he's still adamant that the property is too big then we have a list of potential reductions that we're willing to do. And that's where we're at with the planning application at the moment. there's another extension in place until the middle of June so hopefully we can come to some sort of agreement to get the house built. fingers crossed!

yep. agreed! I'm a self employed IT consultant with my own company and I sent an email to Control-4 explaining that I was looking to expand in to home automation alongside my existing networking/server business and wanted to become a C4 installer. This was just so I could do my own system with no real plans to ever do other installs. I never heard back from them! I might try again at some point. you never know, it could be a new way of life for me. I could do a buildhub member discount. ?

as far as I know you don't pay for C4 software upgrades but you do have to pay for the installer to do the work! so, no free lunch at all. also, I think the annual maintenance fee is a dealer option as I'm sure the ones I've spoken to have said that you don't need an annual maintenance plan but can just pay as and when updates/changes are required. again, more research required. ?

I will look in to it all some more, including the KNX switches. I understand what you mean about the annual maintenance fee and also C-4 has a subscription based model for certain features which is a bit galling. but, when it comes down to making a decision I will take all the information I have and the costs involved (including ongoing costs) and make a decision.

yep, I mean the smart switches they do. The cool smart switch I like with Loxone is the one that can go under/in a worktop in the kitchen so you can use it with wet hands. That’s pretty cool! I like the multiple function switches from C-4: https://www.control4.com/help/c4/user/userguide/content/topics/lighting/switches-keypads.htm very simple for anyone to use (no double/triple tapping or combo presses etc) and each button can be etched according to its function. Again, not cheap but definitely wife friendly! i will keep looking in to Loxone though and every self-build show i go to I stop by a stand and have a play.

I'm intending to make our new self-build a smart home. I am an IT professional working on Unix based operating systems and can program and write code, so I'm not at all fazed by having to do the work to get a system to work and integrated. if it was 15 years ago I would cobble together open source systems and equipment and spend hours upon hours getting it all sorted out (as I did when I built my first home theatre PC many moons ago). then I got older and found I didn't have the time to 'play' so much. and I got married and had kids and found that they just want stuff to work and don't want to have to wait while I figure out what the problem with something not working is. or have to click 15 buttons just to get the TV system to work. As such, I've decided that I'm going for an installed and maintained system so the upkeep and programming is someone else's responsibility and we can just sit back and enjoy everything working. I've looked at Loxone but I honestly just don't like their switches. and so I have pretty much decided that I will be going for a Control-4 system. I think their switches and controllers are much better than Loxone (in my opinion obviously) and seem to be a lot more configurable. it definitely won't be cheap but I'm hoping that I can save money elsewhere to allow me to get it installed. even if it's just controlling the lights and blinds/curtains to start with I (or rather the support company) can then add extra functionality like music/movies/heating/cctv etc at a later date. all I need to do is ensure that all the right cabling is installed. And from what I remember from the last time I got a quote (on a previous attempt to self-build (see my blog for details!)) the Control-4 lighting system is substantially cheaper than a Lutron system even though Control-4 can integrate with Lutron if required. anyway, that's just my 2cents and wonder what harm could there be to get a local company in to quote. I'm sure they'd offer the service to just design the cabling with future installation in mind and then you can build it up piecemeal. obviously everyone's budget is different but you might be surprised by the costs and choose to save elsewhere to get it installed.

cool! not far down the A24 then. maybe one day I can visit your site and talk about stuff with you.

around Horsham

was that standard rate near @Russell griffiths's rate or @Tom's? I think this is what this guy has done as his fixed fee works out at just over 7hrs of work at his hourly rate. I don't know how long it'll all take as that depends on the length of the piece of string the planning officer is using but from what @Russell griffiths said his total costs were that's a lot more than 7hrs of work!