Carrerahill

Plywood, cut in perfectly and neatly and paint. Centre line will not offend if done right. Or learn to skim or even tape and fill.

I do, I bang on about this one all the time and often tell the virtue signallers how they can help the world.

This is ridiculous - was this lifted from a primary school Eco project? There are some very arbitrary facts and figures being thrown about these days and a lot of them don't drill down deep enough to consider all the data. What we must understand, is where the energy comes from to run an ASHP or electric car. We cannot just randomly make statements about emissions if the power you actually use is from a coal fired plant, or a plant burning biomass from the pacific coast of Canada that was felled for no other reason to be burnt 4500miles away...

Generally I would say avoid it, however, if you need to, put in a services channel with a lip formed that you can then put a ply cover on. Alternatively, lay ducts with popups through the slab on big radiused bends.

He is brilliant, recently saw a video where he took a house on twin 30kW boilers down to a single and reconfigured the system, which now comfortably runs on 1 and the second is for backup or DHW only or something. I would be raging if I put in a twin system only to have someone come along and make it work on a single unit! Smart guy - should ditch the tools and become a consultant engineer!

30kW! What is the heat-loss of the area? What is the insulation level like? I helped with a garage conversion for a friend last year and their intention was to have 6kW of electric interior space heating, I did a fag packet calc based on 75W per m³ (rough heating requirement based on a medium insulation level) of area and it came in at about 2.9kW - I talked them into a single 3kW panel with provision for a second and promised them they would never need it. So unless your planning on throwing heat into a totally uninsulated, draughty building, or its a massive garage, I cannot see the heating requirements being anything like even 8kW let along 24 or 30! This is the issue a lot of gas fitters, they just think bigger is better and end up with boilers that modulate to lower output all the time, or in days gone by constant short-cycling. Try a 3kW Willis heater and a pump!

I am sort of doing a similar project, I am taking loads off-grid. When I wired the house I split things up a lot more than normal, so for example, my comm's cupboard is on one radial, other rooms are on radials, fridge is on an essential supply etc. the idea being I can start pulling certain loads or areas off grid by connecting them up via battery/PV inveters. By next summer I hope to be running all the background loads totally off-grid (with grid backup link) and my external and internal lgt. circuits off-grid too. The house will still have its grid tied PV system, which will help whittle down the grid demand, but it will really only then be running variable loads during the day and we will import the remainder. By 2025 I hope to be off-grid albeit with grid backup via the inverters, with a plan to have the electricity disconnected by 2026. I am going 24V system for the small inverters, I will go 48V when I start going to the bigger inverters. I am using Victron Smartsolar chargers and not made a call on the inverters yet.

When it goes down, what can you not do? I am going to assume monitoring and reporting. I assume the unit will do its primary job autonomously?

Is the Luxpower a hybrid islanding inverter? If you set your inverter to some sort of "backup" mode (which I would be interested to know just exactly what it does in this mode) then with the power out, your inverter would be back feeding your house and the rest of the local grid, so it would need to sit between the grid and the house to work. If not, then It would fall flat because your inverter would also be trying to pickup the load of anyone else connected to the same, isolated due to power cut, grid infrastructure as you. That could be a whole village or street in a city. If your inverter just connects to your consumer unit via one of the outgoing MCB's then it cannot work as a hybrid, well at least not safely. How inverters that can allow this off grid operation work is that they have an AC output, and an AC input, on failure of the AC input it still allows the output to work via solar and usually stored power in batteries. But this is designed so that none of the locally generated power can be sent out onto the grid and zap a linesman. All grid-tied inverters sold in the UK must shutdown immediately after they lose grid connection - within about 0.02s which is 1 cycle enough for it to monitor the dropout in one cycle of the AC. It is possible to create a reference voltage within your house when isolated from the grid, to get the inverter to work, I know someone who does this with a generator. He kills the main isolator into his house, fires up a diesel generator which runs his essentials, but it also allows his inverter to restart and the PV and generator will run the house.

Those three appliances certainly get hot, however, not as hot as an oven which we regularly jam into a kitchen cabinet, yes they have over top cooling fans to keep them cooled but they still get pretty hot. If you opened a cupboard and made toast, being such a short period of time involved I would imagine you would make the toast with the door open, I cannot see it being shut when in use. Once made, shut the door on it. I just do not see a significant heat build up or particular risk from any of these as long as sufficient room is left around them all. I would cut about 80% of the top panel out and replace with a 500 x 500mm metal grille or louvre type affair if I was getting heat issues.

Fire sealing around cables is very common, there are different versions but the most common, is fire rated expanding foam. Yes, it will de-rate the cable locally and yes, it could cause problems, however, the chances are, that realistically it wont. Having recently bought some standard expanding foam, I can also state, that according to the can, it can be used on PVC cables. The old plasticiser leaching issues is pretty much a thing of the past unless working with old materials. Give me an example of a couple of the cables you are talking about and I will let you know. Cable type, cross section, MCB/RCBO rating and connected load or typical loads. If it was me, I would put in pieces of 25mm uPVC conduit, foam that in, then run cable(s) though the conduit(s) - you can then use a cable sealing silicone at each end, that means it is also easier to change things around in the future without digging through the foam.

Grade F7-F9 filters. We commonly specify filter packs capable of removing down to PM1.0 (arrestance is not as high as for larger particulate but it works).

An air handling unit of some sort, with relevant filters on the intake. Common on new flatted developments, student accommodation, hotels, etc. etc. particularly in London. You don't need to buy a "system" you could buy a filter chamber on say 125mm duct inlet/outlets. Then couple with an inline fan and duct it out to the rooms, this would, at the most simple level bring in filtered air. The issue here would be that you would pressurise the space and drive out warm air, so you probably want to incorporate heat recovery on an extract system. If the WB smoke is heavy I would be asking why and looking to see if this could be addressed too - properly seasoned wood and properly run WB's should not emit heavy smoke - are you rural?

The thing is, you should not be drinking tank water anyway, your kitchen tap, at least, should be on the rising main, i.e. fresh mains water.

You could do this with a steel support structure(s) that takes the loads the stack currently takes. That in itself will need supported but will let you proceed without taking your house apart. Looking at the joists on the left hand side, I would imagine they could be caught with a steel running approximately where the stack sits, and if suitable, sit on the walls of the room that the stack is on - left hand side. Another steel or part of the same system will then need to pickup that bearer that keys into the stack on the right hand side. Go and find a friendly local structural engineer and set him to work.

I think I would be clearing your site of all top soil, ideally it will land about the height of the bottom of your old strip founds, then a base of hardcore compacted in 100mm rises to get heights then slab, however, SE will need to advise, it is just what I "think" might happen. I cannot see a slab would be going straight on top of that even if the trenches were not there. When we did our slab, we had to clear down to the clay - in our case about 24".

It looks like that stuff is just a hydrocarbon solvent. I'd probably brush it on with a stiff brush and work it in, however, I think you would need a heck of a lot of it given it appears not to be used neat then washed off. Ah, but there was nothing sexist about my post. I said, "yet it appears from observation" and my “generally” comment was based on manoeuvre statistics (Maycock 1995). For something to be sexist I must do one or more of 3 things. I did not stereotype (I made a statistical generalisation), I did not discriminate, and I did not show prejudice, my statement was based on observed situations and stats. The first venture into my, alleged sexism, was a question based on stats. This labelling of people for stating things accurately must stop, people apply labels all too quickly because they don’t really know how to define the label properly. Men are more dangerous drivers, this, from statistics on serious and fatal road traffic incidents, not a sexist comment a statistical generalisation! I cannot use this in my discussion as I cannot provide a reference, however, I believe in What Car magazine, there was a survey of men and women of all ages. It asked things like difficulty found when reverse parking into a bay, hill starts, confidence in motorway merging etc. A majority proportion of women admitted to struggling with hill starts and reverse parking into parking bays.

With the way energy prices are going... he would need a little reactor. Good shout though!

Get her an automatic or driving lessons. I don't get this, but why do women, generally, struggle with hill starts? Most people learn to drive the same way, (I say most as I learnt to drive in a dump-truck and tractor), they go and get lessons with an instructor, usually in a little lightweight diesel car. Both boys and girls are taught how to set off, yet, it appears that from observation, women have the biggest problems with setting off on hills (reversing, parking, getting through tight spaces...). It is said women are more gentle and careful, therefore, you would think careful clutch control would actually come more naturally to them. My mother in law is a terrible driver, actually totally awful, she panics and just goes for it once the panic is set in often doing quite mad things. No finesse, lots of throttle and will just gun it out, that is her coping mechanism, just brute force and ignorance. But seriously, 1 is her issue, 2 is warranted to an extent but why is it slippery? Moss or other vegetation type stuff? Or just the smooth finish? 3, OK - then try to park nose down so the doors will always swing open, should reduce hazard of crush, ensure young kids are helped with getting in and out of car. Could you, have the surface roughed up a bit, I don't know what the material is, but etching it a bit? Could you, break some of them out in strips where the car goes and raise them a little to add a grip zone. Could you break some out and add bands of something else. Cut out 2 tracks and add in something that compliments the paving but gives more traction like a concrete band or some other nicer material. Sorry, just thinking loud here.

I do not think it is a major problem, as it stands, think of the building that goes on in harsh weather and its fine in the end. My only worry would be letting it dry. If you have wrapped it all up in airtight membranes then therein lies an issue, you have trapped it all. I think I would try and open some of the roof structure/walls up and get heat and air moment in there to let things dry a bit. Even if, as painful as it seems, you need to slice the membrane then tape it back up again later. This airtight stuff is all good and well, but buildings must be able to breath and this indiscriminate use of airtight membranes and insulation and seals and all sorts can cause more issues than good.

Where is local to you? Mode eDIN system is over the top for a house (just left a site snagging walk round and funnily enough had a look at the eDIN system I had specified to see if it was commissioned correctly. No.). Can you post an example of some of the products and manufacturers. Also, with all due respect, and I mean this in the friendliest way, that is not a "lighting design". Yes it shows lighting on a plan and constitutes a plan of lighting, but that is something that an architect would throw on a drawing for building warrant. Has any of the lighting been calculated and lumen outputs and beam angles etc. considered etc. Regardless of the above, if you are happy with that and can pick some decent quality luminaires then go for it. For control, simple option is just light switches in the majority of spaces and a couple of dimmers for the living kitchen area. I would suggest, for the living room, depending on height of the LED strip (i.e. what it is built into) and the pendant tubes beam angle and output, your living room may be a bit under lit in some areas such as the couch, however, you may be like me and never really use the ceiling lights and rely on table lights, floor standers etc. I am not sure what the top 2, on plan, rooms are, downlights might not be best option depending on use.

I would parrot what has been said before and go with an inclusion in the glass, assuming you in fact did not hit anything. I had a glazed partition panel in my office break once, I was sitting in the office, only person in the office, when suddenly it just made a funny cracking noise and I looked up and the whole panel had shattered but still stood in place. It was the oddest thing. As you can imagine I was somewhat perplexed and with engineers hat on started to work out what happened. I noted the cracking appears to have a start point, which was the bottom of the panel about 150mm up from the bottom. The cracking fully radiated out from this point. I called the glazier the next morning who told me it would be an inclusion in the glass and it sometimes happened with toughened glass where a little defect is included in the glass which acts as a weak point. So if you were nowhere near anything when it broke, chances are an inclusion in the glass (debris/air) could have been flexed slightly and the molecular structure of the glass just lets go and twooshh! Hope your floor was not damaged. I found cleaning toughened up off a wooden floor is a very difficult process as you need to lift every piece up with a vacuum to stop scratching, but it fills a vacuum in no time! It is amazing the abuse toughened will take. I deconstructed a sun room when we were doing the extension and I took the 3.2m x 0.6m roof sections out, I was not too careful with them, and at some points they were bowed like a humpback bridge! In the end I broke them all up and made oversite concrete with them - I threw a concrete block down on top of them, it bounced off! I ended up going down and hitting the sides with a hammer which broke each one as a side impact will break it every time.

I assume the bathroom pipework you speak of is just a vent for the soil pipe, that is easy really, just work out where it will be in the bathroom and ping it up to where it needs to be, given you can put 2 no. 45°'s in the loft you could also set it to be about 500mm from where you think it will be, maybe higher on the roof, fit the weatherproofing seal and then connect onto it when you are ready. The WBS is maybe not so easy. If you knew which stove you were going for then you could work out the flue position then find the location by dropping a plumb line down, might need to drill holes though. If you really do not have a clue where it will go then you will just have to leave it and clamber up onto the roof at some point. You could always have a short diagonal section in the finished article, if you really want to get it in now and just guess a location.

Yes, right, I see what you have done. 12-24VDC input drivers/power supplies.

Constant current or constant voltage? If the former, are you taking 24VDC into a little CC driver before feeding the luminaire?