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It takes about 8TB to store a months worth of recording at mine (11 Cameras). That would start to become a high monthly cost to have that storage on a cloud server, depending on how long you want recordings kept for.

In the cloud? That's some serious upload bandwidth you'd need. Not practical for me.

I've found HikVision to be reliable, and very easy to set up. I have the DS-7716NI-K4 NVR, which is 4 years old now so may well have been replaced, and a range of 4Mb to 8Mb cameras. The 7700 Series NVR has space for 4 internal HDD. I think the 7600 is similar functionality, but only space for 2 HDD. It has an integral PoE Switch that makes the camera setup very plug-n-play. If you have any cameras over 100m from the NVR then you need a PoE Switch local to the camera. There's lots of options for viewing the cameras live and recorded, either directly off the NVR with an attached screen, from PC/laptop via a web browser or phone/tablet via a few different Apps. There's probably too much choice in HikVision cameras, until you start to tune in on their model numbers and what it means. Definitely worth doing a plan view drawing of the property and work out where to best place the cameras, and what focal length lens is best for each position. Get the right camera for each location, even if that means waiting because something is not in stock. I feel the IR distance is a bit optimistic, I suggest always going for the next up for what you think you need, ie go for the 80m if you want 50m of illumination and 50m if you want 30m. Don't expect too much out of movement detection from the outside cameras, shadows from clouds and leaves will constantly give false positives. Much better to put PIRs nearby and use the alarm function on the NVR to then send you images from certain cameras when the PIR gets pinged. I use the same PIRs for cameras an outside flood lights.

Class Q maybe the only option, depending on how relaxed the LPA are with the re-use of redundant agricultural buildings. The ones local to me like to see some good reasons for re-using farm buildings as residential, ie. that they can't be found another use like light industrial or craft, and they want a reason proved for keeping them such as maintaining the typical scene around a farmhouse (especially if the farmhouse is listed), or the historic value. So, PP is an option, if the LPA are open to the change of use conversion, and it may open up better opportunities for a simpler conversion. The LPA's are generally more open to PP if they know you have the Class Q option. If you can go Class Q then they have little input, so are then more open to PP so that have some control over how the conversion is done and what it will look like. Class Q requires the existing owner of the Agricultural Unit to "be onside". You can't define the buildings as part of an Agricultural Unit without them agreeing to this, and as I said before they have to accept the loss of Class B Agricultural PD for 10 years and the fact the conversion of these barns uses up the Sqr meterage allowable under Class Q, so other barns still owned by the Ag unit may not be able to be converted using Class Q. It needs to be profitable and able to sustain a full time worker to be an Ag Unit (or to have previously done).

That's no distance in the bigger scheme of things, so sewage isn't a real problem that needs too much consideration at this stage. Do you know all the rules? have you spoken to a "professional"? It's the "Agricultural Unit" that has the PD for conversion, so not necessarily the Barns if they've already been sold away from a Farm that is still in business. Or, is the whole "Agricultural Unit" for sale, even if it's no longer functioning as a working Farm? The definitions matter with Class Q. If the barns are still part of a working farm and are yet to be parted from the Farm and sold off, the current owner needs to be part of the Class Q Submission, as it has an impact on the working Farm, ie. any further Agricultural PD (Class B) is removed from the Farm for a period of 10 years. Assuming you can meet all the rules of Class Q, you can then convert to Residential within the envelope of the existing structures. (The open front to the barn you have shown would cause an issue with some LPAs, but not with others). Most LPAs are quite strict on not extending beyond the existing envelope, so the corrugated sheeting defines your outer skin (but can obviously be replaced). This makes it difficult to then get the primary structure of the barn inside the thermal envelope, so you need to keep it outside, and build you walls inside of this structure, and dovetail the old and new to maximise internal floor area, while keeping the existing structure outside the thermal envelope. The barn shown is a very lightweight structure so will likely only have pad foundations. Your going to need some foundation structure to sit under the external walls you need to introduce, so again you'll need a new floor structure that can dovetail around the existing pad foundations and provide the support for the new external walls. All doable, but complicates and adds a little cost. A full planning application for a change of use conversion, may open up better value options where you can extend beyond the existing envelope a little and wrap the existing structure inside the thermal envelope. Edited to add: I can see from your reply, added while I was typing mine, that it appears to be the Agricultural Unit that is for sale, so the next thing to check is that these Barns were last used for Agriculture and haven't had a recent use for fixing cars or storing non-agricultural paraphernalia. Edited again to add: You mention "a few acres". Is the existing owner a farmer, farming the land and possibly renting other land, or a contract Farm worker. Oddly, barns used for contract farming aren't included within Class Q, as agricultural contracting falls outside the Agricultural Unit definition.

Hi @Robw85, and welcome. Is there planning in place? If not, what's the route to planning? Class Q PD? or Planning permission for a Change of Use conversion. I assume there's no chance of a knock down a rebuild, it looks very much in a rural setting. Off mains sewage is no issue with a treatment plant, especially if there's a ditch within the site that's downhill from the house. Depending on route to planning could effect the costs. While Class Q maybe the easier to achieve in planning terms, the requirements for not exceeding the existing building envelope can drive to a more expensive solution to insulate and make airtight. Either way costs are north of £2K/m² to do a reasonable job, unless you are doing much of it yourself. Tell us more about the planning route and what your aspirations are for the site. ie. long term house for yourself, low energy losses etc. etc.

My poured resin is straight on to the reinforced concrete slab, although my slab was power-floated. The process for the poured resin is to grind the surface to key it and expose any cracks. Clear out any loose in the cracks and fill with epoxy to stabilise. Roller on an epoxy base coat, and then pour on and trowel out the PU resin and finish with a rolled on lacquer coat. It's 3-4mm thick overall. Even our UV stable resin will show slight differences in colour where rugs are, although that difference fades when uncovered. I feel you need to get rid of the ridges for comfort and the finish will wear quickly on the high spots.

I used Nick Gill at Pebble Energy. https://pebble-energy.com/index.html Get a price commitment for also updating and submitting your as-built SAP, once you're finished. Some seemed to want to treat this as a "start again", but Nick was very reasonable.

Is (1) the vertical timber cladding and (2) the proposed "New box section double-skin insulated vertical cladding"? In the upper area, behind (1), is there any insulation planned between the "C" profile beams.

Not visible to me in the post, but I selected: and the PDF downloaded.

You'd stated that as the volume in your first post. If that's the surface area used then 1.44 * 385 / 434 = ACH @ 50 Pa If he's used the incorrect Surface area, you need him to redo the calcs, it will make a difference, and it does need to include the entire thermal envelope. Why does your SAP say 343.53m³ but in your first post you say its 434m³. Is the loft missed out of the SAP?

The figure you've been given is correct for building regs. In England the max for a new build is 10 m³/m²/hr at 50 Pa. The ACH figure often quoted is what Passivhaus uses. The m² in your figure is the surface area of the building envelope (internal layer of the thermal envelope), including walls, roof and floor. Small detail is ignored ie. window rebates etc. so just use the overall sizes. Have you got the full report where the tester has stated the value used for this? If so, then multiply the 1.44 by the envelope area used and you have the total volume of air loss. As AHC is also measured @ 50 PA, then you can divide the total volume of air loss by the total volume within the thermal envelope, and you have your ACH

Are you getting any help with the detailing of areas like this? Have you or they prepared any sections that help visualise the region. A Section at the eaves, through one of the steel columns and showing the proposed wall and roof build-up would help to ensure the issue is understood and perhaps how a fix can be developed. It may be that 40mm PIR will be sufficient to stop the steels, where they are "internal", dropping below the dew point, but a condensation risk analysis would be required to know for sure. There would still be a sizeable cold bridge though, even if there was little risk of condensation. There may be an issue though with the walls having composite panels outside of the wall build-up you propose. Quite rightly you are positioning a vapour barrier on the inside surface, I believe the effect of placing a further layer on the outside that is also vapour closed (composite insulated panel) will stop any moisture that does get into the wall from being able to get out, and therefore pose a mould risk. These are aspects of my build that I was not confident in making the correct decisions, so I got some help in.

I need to move the long planned IBC array, rainwater collector up the priority list. 750l / day averaged over the year for 5 of us. We're using over 75% more in summer than winter though - the veg patch is using more than I expected.

All my steel frame is outside the thermal envelope, with vapour barrier in place to stop warm moist air getting to a cold (sub 14°C Surface). Not at all, I'm sure they are purpose designed and built. If you have the same or similar insulated panels on the sides of a retail park/supermarket building then you have a continuous thermal envelope outside the steel frame and no cold bridging to outside air temp (just the cold bridge to ground). With conversions, planning are not always open to an increase in footprint to allow insulation around the outside of what was previously an agricultural building and had no such insulated panel outside of the steel frame. This was my issue: no opportunity to insulate the steel frame (on the sides) externally, so the condensation risk is not just a theory, it was very much real. The OP is only able to get minimal insulation around the outside of the columns, and the columns are outside of the main wall cavity that will carry the wall insulation.

You may have missed that while the roof portals are under the insulated profile sheets, the columns are outside the thermal envelope, which of course join to the roof portals at the haunches. I didn't take a risk with mine, so had some condensation risk analysis done, which showed that condensation was a certainty. Maybe you can get enough insulation around the outside of your columns to reduce the risk.

I believe that's intentional. Fixing everything that's wrong with the planet in one go might just take longer than we have to fix climate change. I feel we're disagreeing with which is "the wider view" Context. A discussion titled "Heat Pumps & Hydrogen Powered Boilers", is clearly focused on CO2 emissions. Doesn't really matter what any individual believes is "the wider view", the agenda has been set by the Government, and it appears combating climate change by reducing CO2 is the point. It also appears that gas boilers are not one of the selection options, so its rather pointless comparing them for anything other than a baseline day-to-day cost for heating homes. I'm quite sure I am ?

I'm not sure how helpful the analysis and conclusions of this report are to a net zero discussion. The benefit of framing the discussion as net zero is that most people understand it to mean achieving an economy with net zero CO2 emissions by 2050, and what part power generation, and in this particular discussion, domestic heating can play a part. The linked study uses figures from 2010/2011, when renewables made up 5% of electricity generation and coal 28%. Electricity generation was nowhere near net zero at that point in time, and even now we are only at the start of the journey towards net zero electricity generation in 2050. The decisions being made now for technology selection is intended to put building heating at net zero in 2050. It's a bit of an aside, but I'm not sure why the study includes UFH for the ASHP analysis, but chooses to exclude any heat emitters for the gas boiler analysis. It also compares a 10kW ASHP to a 10kW gas combi boiler. I'm not sure that's a useful comparison , I would have thought a gas combi boiler would have needed to have been a higher output to be equivalent. But I haven't read the entire study, so maybe it gives its reasons. The study was funded by a research grant to look into pollutants, so maybe that partially explains how they've framed their analysis. My biggest issue though is they haven't weighted their findings, in terms of environmental damage. Buildings generate 19% of the UKs CO2 emissions, beaten only by transport and equal to "industry". A significant reduction in emissions from heating buildings can therefore have a significant effect on the UKs total emissions. I have no idea where heating systems come in the hierarchy of steel and aluminium usage, but compared to transport, civil engineering etc. I'm sure it barely moves the needle. Emissions reductions v. raw material usage can not therefore be treated as equal. Without any attempt to weight the analysis we are left not knowing what it means. It maybe that an increase in one deleterious attribute is worth a decrease in another, for an overall benefit, but without that analysis we don't know.

I had the same restriction as mine was a Class Q PD Conversion, so no opportunity to insulate around the outside of the columns. If you are only getting a small amount of insulation around yours you need to give this some serious thought. Steel conducts heats 22 times better than concrete, so the equivalent cold bridge, if it were in concrete, would be 22 times the size. With your current plan I don't see how you are going to avoid condensation on the steel frame, and possibly forming within your walls. You can see the base of the columns wrapped on mine, but this just thermally breaks the UFH from the columns so it doesn't pull the heat directly out of the floor to the ground, but it hasn't broken the cold bridge from the column to the ground. As you say this is almost impossible. My internal columns ended up full encased in a sprayed on, closed cell foam insulation to exclude them from the thermal envelope and ensure no moisture could get to them. Here's a before and after.

When I first started thinking about my own conversion I did think I'd have the primary frame structure visible internally, in some areas and have an industrial look to the interior, but I couldn't mitigate the thermal bridging, so ended up covering it all up internally and fully insulating it from the inside air, including vapour barrier. The sales man is not wrong saying the roof will be thermally efficient, without cold bridges. Assuming you are looking at Kingspan insulated, profile sheeting (or similar), if you go thick enough it can give decent U values and the marketing suggests decent air tightness is possible. It fully wraps the steel structure so the roof beams and purlins are fully within the thermal envelope. You may have an issue though in the detailing of the roof structure to to the columns. The roof has the steel frame within the thermal envelope, but your description of block walls between the columns and a timber stud structure internally to create a cavity suggests the columns will be outside the thermal envelope in places (although not visible from outside). You have a difficult transition at the point the columns move from being outside the thermal envelope to inside in order to meet the roof portals. Since the columns are not visible from outside, if there's enough room to the cladding (or however you are finishing the outside) perhaps you can wrap the columns to well insulate them from outside air temp. But that doesn't resolve the thermal bridge to the ground. Unfortunately the salesman is incorrect regarding the MVHR. In winter it will help reduce the relative humidity of the internal air, but should help to keep it in the 50%-60% range for comfort. But 21°C air with a 60% relative humidity has a dew point of 12.9°C, so any surface it comes into contact with, below this temperature, risks condensation. To add another worry bead, I also have a concern with the insulated profile sheeting. They are very lightweight, and while they have reasonable U Values (if you go thick enough) the insulation type has a very short decrement delay. I'm not sure how they will perform in a domestic setting. I have no experience of them, so for me it is just a concern, but if you haven't done so already I would try and get the views of someone that has used them in a similar way.

With the columns likely bolted straight down on to their original pads and no insulation between the pads and ground, the steel frame is going to act as quite an efficient heat sink. Are the purlins also steel, or timber? Are the columns visible on the outside at all, or will they be insulated from outside air temp so that it's just ground temp they won't be insulated from? I had to have portions of my columns visible from outside, so are effectively at air temp, therefore in winter they can be below freezing. To avoid heat losses through the steel frame, I've put all the original frame outside the thermal envelope, which was tricky for four of the columns that are internal, within the building. If yours are insulated from outside air temp, and only un-insulated from the ground, your issue is not quite as bad, but the columns will still be at around 6°C - 8°C at the point they touch the ground. Any of the steel frame that is below 14°C and exposed to inside air is at risk of condensation. I also wrapped the bottoms of the columns in Celotex, where they came through the floor, to thermally break them from the insulated raft, that includes the UFH.

10m pipe run for a monobloc ASHP. Further for a split system (up to 50m).

I don't believe you need to fire protect the steel structure, in order to protect the property itself, but you do if there are other buildings close by that yours could collapse on. That was the rationale that the Building Regs chap took with ours, so I didn't ask too many more questions.

Hi Dianne, I looked into it a few years ago (before 4G was available) and while the installation costs were expensive, but doable, the per Mb costs were prohibitive. +1 for a 4G home broadband router. If you can get a decent Three signal, for £20 a month I get unlimited 50-90Mb/s download with a very respectable 40Mb/s upload.

The benefit of @SteamyTea asking "Apart from capital cost", is that it separates out the issues that get resolved with either carrot (grants) or stick (legislation) incentives from the Government, from the real practical issues. Even in a "high energy loss" home, if you install large enough heat emitters you'll get the flow temperature down so that an ASHP can heat it with reasonable efficiency, you just need a large capacity ASHP. While theoretically possible, in the majority of cases it seems the wrong thing to do when an investment into the fabric of the building would reduce the energy losses, reducing the required emitter size and the ASHP size, so in turn reduce the day-to-day running costs. There appears to be a yet-to-be-announced/legislated plan from the Government that will push to improve the fabric of existing buildings before any ban on the sale of fossil fuel boilers comes in to place. Resolving the issues you mention above will require investment from the home owner, and where the home owner is not able to afford those changes: grants will be required either directly from the Government, or via the energy suppliers and in some cases will be paid for in part by the energy savings that come from those changes. There are practical issues that some properties will have that will make a standard ASHP, UVC, large heat emitter installation difficult to achieve. ASHPs will not be the solution for all. Larger properties that may require a move to a 3 phase supply from single phase, in some cases could make the change to electric heating impractical, however the more widespread requirement for upgrading the transformers to cover the higher capacity required as houses switch to electric heating you'd hope is covered within the infrastructure planning. If the ban on the sale of fossil fuel boilers comes in soon enough, say 2030, then the majority of ff boilers will have reached their end of life before 2050, so few would be forced to change before their reasonable lifespan is up.