Thorfun

I need to fit 2 x double sockets in a floor in my wife's studio. they will be under her desk. the problem I have is that the joists are 300mm centres (and the posi-joists are 147mm wide so I have a 153mm gap) and so there isn't enough space for the normal floor box type fixture. so can I simply use standard metal back boxes fixed in place and then put something like this on top? https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/FP9UBCW.html?source=adwords&ad_position=&ad_id=&placement=&kw=&network=x&matchtype=&ad_type=pla&product_id=FP9UBCW&product_partition_id=&campaign=shopping&version=finalurl_v3&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD-6GhmCN-K7_n0EaBtlr027vsR5-&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-d-G8JSdiQMVlZlQBh3iWylpEAQYBCABEgKie_D_BwE wondering if there are any regulations against that.

+1 for this! i spent so many evenings reading this forum and what i learnt i took back to the architect and taught them some things along the way. it seems a real waste/shame to build your own house and just go for the standard spec a builder wants to do.

as above....sounds like general "standard" builder as that's "how they've always done it" 🙄 if the build is to sell on then i get that but if you plan on living there for any length of time then maybe plan to build in a way that makes it a better house. e.g. insulation levels, airtightness, solar pv etc. some people out there call that an "eco-home" but on here we just call it common sense! 😉 personally i wanted to build a house where i didn't want to spend my pension heating it

afaik class Q should be zero rated for VAT so i'd look in to that first as that's a massive saving!

I fitted our EV charger to the old property but running electrics from the new property so I could charge from the solar PV on the new house. I ran 2 x ducts buried in the ground and then fed an SWA cable and a bury-able Cat5e cable. hopefully you can see them coming out of the ducts. eventually those ducts and SWA were supposed to feed a new chicken house but those plans have been knocked on the head so I'll probably just end up burying the ducts and pulling the cables back through for use elsewhere. The Cat5e cable is connected to a CT clamp that tells my charger when enough solar is being exported and then sent the excess to the car. the charger also has a max current limit so that if the total draw of the house and car ever got above a certain amount the charger would throttle the charge to avoid tripping the main fuse. some chargers have wireless CT clamps though so you can get around it but for the cost of a network cable just run one (or two) or a duct so you can pull as many as you need at a later date.

A CT clamp measures the current running through a cable and smart things do stuff with that information. That cable doesn’t really have a cat5 cable as it has only a single twisted pair. Probably good for installers as it reduces the number of cables to run. A Cat5e cable will have 4 twisted pairs so if you only need one pair for comms and one pair for a CT clamp then maybe a single Cat5e cable will be enough. or maybe the "comms" that your charger is talking about is actually just for a CT clamp? I might suggest much more research to decide what you need. But cat5e cable is cheap so might be better to just run separate cables as it could be cheaper than that all-in-one cable. The choice is yours.

Fair enough. We ran ducts and pulled cables through later. Only issue we had is I forgot to remove the draw string that came with the duct and that made it tricky to pull through. I won’t make that mistake again!

You’ll need a cable for a CT clamp as well possibly. Our EV charger monitors energy production and usage in the house via a CT clamp. So I’d run 2 x cat5 cables just in case!

Can you not just run a duct and pull it through when required?

just checked my quote and our slider was around £5k+VAT (front door £2.5k+VAT) so sounds like they're taking you for a ride. shop around. we got quotes from 6 different companies before whittling them down and making a final decision.

Our 5m triple glazed slider came in 2 panes. Don’t remember how much it was but it was nowhere near £27k. All our windows and sliders came from Norrsken.

Yes, straight. So as the come out of the wall I convert to copper so it looks nice and need under sinks etc. but each to their own. @Pocster has Hep2o all the way to the outlet.

ps. it doesn't need to be ugly. but as @Nickfromwales says, I used copper for the most part as it comes out of the wall to the outlet as copper does look better on show. but copper fits straight in to the push fit fittings and so a couple of lengths of 15mm copper pipe is all you really need and zero soldering skills.

All you need to know is that if I can do all my plumbing with Hep2o then anyone can! 😉

batteries installed and 42Ah backup available. I like the reporting capabilities of the Power Supply and Backup on top of the whole 7 x PSUs in one unit. nice bit of kit. expensive, but nice! I'll test the battery backup during the day when the family aren't using their lights. 😉 Current usage is 93W so even if we maintained that in a power cut that would give us over 10hrs of 24V backup lighting. more than enough I think. what the reporting also shows is that we have loads of headroom on the PSUs. the ones with 10A fuses in them can take 240W so I could actually amalgamate some of the lights if I need more than the one spare output I have left.

I bought a FLIR one that plugs in to my iPhone.

Great job! Missing loads of details of your build journey in the show but I read those on Instagram so no big deal. But I guess they’ve only got 45mins to fill and half of that is Kevin prattling on. 😂

sorry but the sump pumps are most definitely essential! if you've read my basement flooding thread you'll know the pain we went through when a pump wasn't working. 😢 the internet is also essential so our flood detectors are able to communicate and alert if required also we've only got 16A max so any heating won't be able to be run (max 3.6kW) and the house is insulated and airtight enough for us to not worry about heat loss too much. food? that's what local takeaways are for.

@Temp fyi https://www.loxone.com/enen/kb/power-supply-backup/

battery backup is 36V. so 3 x 12V in series is the recommended setup.

i have a LuxPower system with 6.4kWh of battery storage with EPS but it's max 16A and only runs 'essentials' like our sump pumps, the MVHR and (eventually) the networking gear. we have a few 13A sockets wired up too which i can run extension leads from if required. so having the Loxone backup battery to run 24V lights is perfect as pretty much every room has an LED strip of some kind and so we can navigate the house in a power cut at night.

had a power cut last night and was without lights. had to run an extension lead from my 230V batteries and plug some table lamps in which wasn't ideal. so while i was waiting for the power to come back on i bought 3 of these https://www.tayna.co.uk/mobility-batteries/yuasa/rec14-12/ should give me 42Ah so we'll see how we get on. we have a scheduled power outage next week so if i can get them installed before then i can do a good test run.

ultimately it comes down to cost (or maybe SE specifications if a specific load bearing is required). i would suggest to start with a target U-value and then work out the most cost effective way of achieving that and then ensure that your structural engineer is ok with what you want.

Don’t forget you only get one claim for your VAT back. It’s not a continuous thing.

I’m on it and use it exactly as a battery tariff! We charge the batteries during the cheap rate and use that power for the rest of the time. Works great for us. What’s even better is also signing up to the 15p/kWh export tariff so we get paid more than it costs us to import. So far in September we’ve run the house and we’re about even. So have run the house for free.