Thorfun

afaik Loxone can do anything! (i've not started building my Loxone cabinet yet and so my knowledge/research is from quite a while ago) the way i see it Loxone doesn't send the 230V per-se there is a relay in the cabinet that is wired to the mains cable via jumper blocks and so when heat is required the Loxone miniserver sends the signal to the relay in the cabinet (probably on the same DIN rail tbh) and that then turns on the power. that way it's easily configurable to allow that cabinet relay to be rewired to trigger something else in the future. @joth, @Dan F, @Rob99, @jack and others are very much more experts on Loxone than me! but i'm hoping my knowledge will rise dramatically as i get closer to wiring up my cabinet. 😉

resurrecting this thread as i'm currently looking at this. our tiler is installing the electric ufh mats in our FF bathrooms. i'm installing a Loxone system and have run cat6a to our AC units and GF UFH temp sensors for 1-wire control so could easily extend that loop to include the electric ufh temp probes on the first floor. my question is would the power for the electric ufh have to run all the way back to the loxone cabinet? with a standalone thermostat/controller we could run it as a spur of the ring main. or is it possible to put some form of independent relay in the wall that the 1-wire can switch and that the spur is wired in to to keep the power local to the ufh rather than running all the way back to the cabinet?

the only alternative is to sell up and pay the mortgage off and try and find something else. not something we want to do but we have quite a bit of equity in the property so is always a possibility if things do go very wrong.

maybe one cable now....until the next one.....and then the next one. 😉 definitely not rocket science! but, if it is truly a one-off then probably no point. but i always seem to be needing a new length of network cable so having the crimpers has been useful.

if BoE put up the rates by up to .5% as the reports are saying my self-build mortgage will go up to 8.5%! and it's not a small mortgage either. and @Nickfromwales chastises me for not wanting to spend £15 on electrical fittings. 🤣

so i've done a little bit of quick research and i can't justify the cost of these profiles when i could just glue these https://www.ultraleds.co.uk/standard-aluminium-channel-178-in-white-3-metre-length.html to the top of the plasterboard, right? even with the extra £0.44 per meter for the 38mm battens i make that a total of about an extra £18 per room on battens. doesn't even touch the cost of the specialist profiles. i'm not just being tight here, what would the justification be to use those specialist profiles? maybe in an area like they show in their video where you can actually see the edge of the dropped ceiling, e.g. above a kitchen island, but in my scenario where the dropped ceiling will be against a wall no one is ever going to see up there.

thanks for this. it is a nice solution albeit expensive but it does mean that the battens can be reduced to 25mm saving cost and ceiling height reduction and also plasterboard overhang which is something i was concerned about. i will investigate this solution!

Actually these rooms are upstairs so the battens will be attached to attic trusses rather than posis. Sorry for any confusion!! I’ll still run the perpendicular to the trusses though. That just make sense.

loft is not habitable so no issues with fire rating. I like your drawing and was thinking of using 38mm x 50mm battens but was going to use 12.5mm plasterboard at 600mm centres. my only concern was the bit of plasterboard 'overhanging' at the end of the run by the wall. seems a bit flimsy to just have it like that without any support. like someone could just put their hand up and yank it down.

I have a Unify WAP outside under the eaves of the existing bungalow that connects to one in the new house setup temporarily to get wifi in there so my Inverter and batteries can communicate with the world and I can monitor them. I have run cheap cat5a cable slung across a conservatory roof like @Big Jimbo says and has been out there all the last winter and it still works! you can get outdoor rated cable if you want to though. can even get armoured in case you want to reduce the risk of someone cutting it. also, don't buy pre-terminated cable. just buy the connectors and terminate it yourself. 😉

well, we've not finished the house yet but the cladding is done and we love how it looks. it is pretty fragile though so unless your chippie is extremely careful with moving boards etc some of the blackness comes off. that's on the really charred stuff btw. here's a blog I wrote on the subject

sounds like a plan to me! will run it passed the mrs to see what she says but i'm sold on this one.

also, i wouldn't need to board the entire ceiling above the dropped ceiling, right? just the bits around the edge

actually, that's not a bad idea you know as I guess there's nothing stopping me (apart from potential load on the trusses) to just fixing 38mm or 50mm battens to the bottom of the trusses and plaster boarding to those, right?

probably something that also includes a double entendre

afternoon all. I'm now thinking about a different dropped ceiling requirement. in the kids rooms we want to have the LED strips in a dropped ceiling look. e.g. I'm guessing this would be built something like this above the bedrooms is the loft space so there are 600mm centre attic trusses. I'm going to make the assumption that to get the light reflected I would need to board the trusses and then drop the ceiling, right? I'm also thinking that only a 50mm drop would be required? ceiling height is currently 2.4m so don't want to drop it too far really. so a 50mm MF bracket drop, then 9.5mm PB? I guess the other cheaper way to do this is to purchase LED coving profiles? something like this https://www.ultraleds.co.uk/u-shape-polymer-wall-coving.html and attach it 50mm/100mm down from the single skin of 12.5mm plasterboard? anyone have any suggestions/experience on how the best way to do this is? or have used the LED Coving profiles and what the effect is like compared to the dropped ceiling method?

yep. tiler is going to use the Impey water guard system on the floor and lipped up the wall (I believe) and then we talked about him painting the liquid tanking on the walls. he said liquid on the walls is belt and braces and I'm all for that so we're happy.

so.....while I was procrastinating about what to do with the RWH header tank I decided to cut out the chipboard for our en-suite shower former. we decided on and bought the 1850mm x 900mm Impey system. I was very fortunate in that the tray was 39mm away from each wall and the blade on my circular saw, by complete chance, was 39mm from the edge of the guard! I set it to 21mm depth so as to not cut in to the posi-joists and let rip! I couldn't do all of it though and had to use the multi-tool for some, which was really slow. anyway, it's done and the former fits and there's space for the waste between the joists.....just!* lovely. but, as always, I have questions! 1. do I need to fit extra support at the right end (it overhangs the joist by about 40mm) 2. do I need supports along the long edges? our joists are at 300mm centres which leaves about 150mm between edges of joists. I'm thinking that the impey should be fine without extra support but thought I'd double check. 3. our tiler wants the tray to be 6mm proud of the floor so he can put board down to tank and tile on to. he doesn't recommend tiling straight on to the 22mm chipboard. What is the best wood to use to raise the former by 6mm? would it simply be 6mm ply? or is there something better? * I've not actually got the waste out to test yet so that comment is with this caveat. but it 'looks' like it'll fit. 😉

ahh, right. break tank makes sense. I believe that is all handled within the Rain Director message received and understood though. will carry on with 15mm and can add a pump later if we need to. thank you!

sorry Nick. not sure what you mean by a break tank? this is a gravity system. when the header tank is empty the pump in the underground RWH tank kicks in and fills up the header tank in the loft with rainwater (or mains if the RWH tank is empty) and then the toilets/washing machine are run from the header tank. the loft is over 5m above the washing machine so we have sufficient head for that. thanks for the explanation about why the 22mm is specified and it kind of makes sense but the 22mm pipes will need to be reduced to 15mm at the WC/washing machine though, right? so is that not then a bottleneck to the preservation of the pressure/flow? part of me is very tempted to just ditch the header tank and rain director and just take a feed from the basins in the respective bathrooms to fill the toilets and be done with it! much simpler but kind of is a waste of the RWH tank then. 🤦‍♂️

morning all. I actually need some plumbing help so I'm hoping that @Nickfromwales and others are around this morning. I just started to look at plumbing in our RWH header tank to run the toilets from and have just noticed that the supply pipe from the header tank to appliances is shown as being 22mm. my manifold is 15mm and I was planning on running 15mm to the toilets and washing machine. here's the plumbing schematic from the manufacturer. Scan_18062023_103638_000693.pdf so as you can see it's a 22mm pipe from the rain director to the tank and appliances. Can I run a 22mm pipe from the Rain Director (that's the control panel) to the header tank and tee off that near the tank and reduce to 15mm in to my hep2o manifold and then run 15mm from each manifold outlet to appliance? any idea why they've specified 22mm to the appliances? that would have to be reduced at the toilet end anyway as aren't toilet's/washing machines 15mm fittings? I would phone the company I purchased from (rainwaterharvesting.co.uk) but it's a Sunday and I was hoping to get this done today as I'm back to the day job tomorrow. any help would be greatly appreciated. thank you.

Not sure if you’re talking about plumbing or sex anymore! So confused.

I think going straight down feels like the right thing to do. I just can’t figure out why I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about drilling the floor in the loft! I mean, it’s a loft ffs! And if it ever gets converted to bedrooms then I’ll just re-board it. I really need to get over it, right?

Then you married her