Carrerahill

I'd run a 10mm 2 core SWA (you can use 3 core if you want and use a core as earth but the armour on a 10mm² cable is of greater cross section than the core will be therefore compliant). That can be put onto a 50A or 63A supply no bother which will let you run more or less anything you want out there. I even have the cable calcs sitting around me somewhere as I ran them for a garden office my parents are building at the moment and they have a 28m run from house consumer unit to new office consumer unit and I based that supply on general small power, electric water and space heating. People can sometimes get carried away with power supplies to garages and things and say you need 80A services and things, however I always point out your whole house will only be on a 100A fuse maybe even 80A in some cases yet they want to export nearly 80% (or 100%) of this to a garage/workshop!

So you know what you must do, stay in the renovating phase for as long as possible and your bills will be cheap!

If you remember!

So you just added submeters onto various circuits? Low tech indeed, I have no objection to that but I would forget, I struggle to submit my meter readings to the utility on time!

What data logging equipment are you using? PV array should be going live in the next week or so and I would like to monitor the rest, I have got some ideas but always keen to get real world, tried and tested reviews.

I always show socket positions either side of the bed and at about 800mm AFFL - in the notes I sometimes put, "Bedside sockets to suit bedside furniture height, min 150mm above table/cabinet top" - but that is generally in hotels or care homes where the spec of the bedside table will be known. In residential jobs I usually just say 800mm unless the bed position is not absolute or there is some other reason. I placed bedside sockets in my own house and stupidly put them at at circa 300mm, so now the bedside cabinets need to sit much further forward than I'd usually like to be able to get in a use them. We don't have table lamps, we have wall lamps with dedicated switches in the spares and in the master we have bedside pendants, so the sockets are only for plugging things like chargers, laptop power supplies etc.

I buy the Avocet ABS ones from Home Secure Shop.

They are in all honesty all correct, however about 1:4 is about the normal mix. 1:3 would be severe environment with 1:8 being passive. I usually go about 1:4.5.

Yup - really good idea and saves exporting your energy for peanuts!

If you are trying to do what I think you are trying to do, then what about this? Solar iBoost? https://www.heatershop.co.uk/solar-iboost-solar-immersion-controller

They have clearly never worked on a commercial project with ducted services in their life. They have created a problem now.

I'd have gone under the footing with it in a duct. I would just have your bricky build over it, lintel it to be on the safe side (although it will be totally unnecessary) then within your property you can take the cable to wherever it needs to go, issue you now have is that the cable is very near the surface on the outside, depends how far up your going to be bringing soft/hard landscaping but I would want coverage over that, if not get it housed in a red uPVC duct and get it down again as quickly as you can.

I would ask to see an example of their technical drawings and warrant drawings and see what detail they produce. Someone who actually understands how buildings go together at all levels is a must at this stage, your architect may well be this person, but they might also be more akin to an interior designer. It really all boils down to money I suppose. Good plans now will save money in the long term and will give you a better more integrated and coordinated building in the end. If the plan details everything from the first concrete foundation to drainage to membrane details then everyone can price something that is firmly stated, as soon as there is interpretation then things can go south. Builder A might use the cheapest of all materials and a high labour cost, builder B might use better materials but a lower labour cost, so you have two similar prices. Then builder C might be the most expensive, so you take a punt on builder A because he was a nice guy and looked more professional. So you end up with, smaller rebar or lower strength concrete and lower service life membranes and cheaper windows and doors and electrical accessories and taps and WC's etc. It is like ordering materials, ask for timber and you will get heck knows what, ask for a piece of treated C24 2x6 4.8m long and then they all have to provide the same product at their price.

Are you sure you then want to enter into the major works phase on a house you have just moved into then?

Agree with all of that. The whole micro-generation sector is just a lot of forms and red tape. This in my eyes just disincentives the whole thing for many and has created an industry of rip off merchants. I know someone who paid just short of 10k for 2.6kW on his roof! - easy install, usual kit. 10k? Why?

Is SEG not the replacement for FIT? Apply for SEG for the new array and see what happens? Or, if it was me, I would not registrar the new array and just export it and get the money on the FIT! There are no solar police! I am an advocate that all this stuff should be abolished, it should be as simple as installing a compliant solar generation system, the meters should be bi-directional - if you use a kW you pay for a kW, if you generate a kW you export a kW and the meter rolls back 1 click. Checks and balances could be added, such as max array size under this scheme, but it would just simplify it all and do away with frankly a lot of total rubbish.

My high level pressure washing experience was for prepping the walls for dry-dashing and cleaning up a roof area at the end of the build and I just used a long hose for the lance, I have a very similar, if not the same, Nilfisk to you and I just used an extension hose on the HP side.

Agreed, planning drawings are basically pretty pictures, often I find of buildings that cannot be physically built! Like a block of flats we are working on where the planning architects included no columns anywhere in the whole building, now people have columns in their living rooms and stacks running through their walls; this is a mid-market development in London! Not all architects are like this, I work with a few small practises where they are great and do know how to build a building and not just sketch it.

It takes us about 2 days to write an electrical spec, 2 days to write the mechanical spec... see where this is going. For the general build I would expect building warrant drawings with enough detail will give them enough to build the building, but not all drawing packages are this good. Normally an architect is not the best for these drawings, they are more about looks and polished things and bits of slate forming openings and glazing and decorative cladding drip edge details around windows. Once you have a drawing that specs, every detail of the building you can then worry about the internal stuff, like plumbing and electrics, with obvious chicken and egg situations such as drainage routes and popups, duct for electrical services etc. If you want a certain level of electrical fitout, mechanical fit out, joinery fit out then you will need to write a spec. I would even spec cable types and manufacturers to stop that cheap Turkish cable I have seen on some sites recently that looks very poor. This is the only way you can get an apples for apples quote and even then there will be exclusions and things not as per spec. For example, drawings might say, plasterboard with full skim quote, yet they will price for taping only. They need to be told the spec is the spec, not a guide, not a suggestion, its the spec.

I personally would remove the ply and relay with new stuff, but that is me and I just have a slight obsession with things being, as intended or without repair if that makes sense. For example I object to holes in walls being made and patched, I want a full sheet of plasterboard put in place!

Gimmick. No tech spec in sight. Don't see this taking off. Bet it costs more than the equal power density installed on the roof out the road which will look better and can be upgraded using off the shelf panels.

Both our posts suggest the same issue and it just confirms my belief about merchants. They just are a bit clueless.

https://www.vpsunderfloorheating.co.uk/product/complete-wet-underfloor-heating-kits-150mm-pipe-spacing/

There are some online retailers who do kits, I would start with some calls to them or if you have patience, unlike me, write up an email of what you need to do, area, heat source type, details of the installation etc. and get them to spec and quote but ask them to spec and quote based on availability. That is what I do for most of my procurement and usually go with the most helpful and fair business. Your plumber wants to plumb, he would rather walk away than source and buy all this. He will go to the usual merchants who will be the usual unhelpful most most likely and will stock 1 type and anything other than bog standard it will be a big deal and a big fuss, so your plumber has run. Not used these guys, but just an example: https://www.vpsunderfloorheating.co.uk/water-underfloor-heating/

Some valid points above and I will make some of my own, but you can do what you want. If you think it will really help, crack on, but be aware, my thoughts are as follows: There will be some benefits to having a single main contractor do all of it. In all honesty they should be fairly quick at demolishing, I assume, a house and can coordinate future requirements with the demo. The benefits are to the onward journey, for example, utility disconnection can be handled now and at reconnection by one, with machines on site demo and found digging can be combined with a single machine on site, certain things can be left and certain things must go. I am making a fair number of assumptions there but I am sure you can see some of the benefits.